Viva Mexico!

Last week I traveled to San Cristobal de las Casas (SC), Mexico to visit with the Natik team in SC and the surrounding towns as well as run some administrative errands for our upcoming projects. What was supposed to be a long weekend turned into a weeklong adventure due to a transportation strike— I was stuck in the city for three extra days due to blockades on all of the streets exiting the city limits! However, I was able to share the adventure with Anita and her partner Manuel, Anna and her husband John, and my Uncle Marc who came down from his home in Merida to visit with me. Overall it was a very successful trip filled with fun memories and productive work!

I spent last Friday— my first full day in Mexico— busily working on some of the approaching projects that Natik has in store. In the morning, Anita and I visited the Intercultural University of Chiapas and had meetings with several representatives of the university to plan an intercultural exchange program with Edgewood College in Wisconsin.

At the Intercultural University of Chiapas

Natik is collaborating with a university professor who is teaching a course on Chiapas this fall at Edgewood, and we are coordinating so that the US-students can come down to Chiapas during their winter break to work on a development project with university students in Chiapas. Natik is really excited to help facilitate this intercultural exchange and this is something that we hope to encourage in the future as well. I believe that getting young, passionate people involved and working with Natik—both from the US and from Chiapas—is an incredible way to expand our reach and help the local community in a very unique way!

On Friday afternoon, we visited the town of Zinacantan, which is about a 30 minute collectivo ride from SC. Known for their flower gardens, we visited the lovely church there.

Church in Zinacantan

I've never seen so many flowers and candles

After visiting the church, we met up with Xunca and her family at their home. Xunca is a very well established woman in the Zinacantan community, and has been working with a cooperative of 150 women in the area for the last 15 years. Many of the women that work with Xunca have been recipients of Natik’s Veredas Micro-loan Program.

Picking out items at Xunca's shop from the cooperatives in Zinacantan, Mexico

Xunca allows Natik to take some items from her shop on consignment, so we chose several items from her store which we will place on our Etsy store and other online marketplaces that myself and the Natik team is working on. Once the items sell, we pay Xunca for the cost of the product and hopefully sell the item for enough to invest a little bit of money back into the microloan project.

Over the weekend, I spent some time sightseeing with Marc and exploring San Cristobal. The town is colonial with walkable cobblestone streets, numerous gorgeous churches, several interesting museums, and tons of global restaurants and cafes.

Cross in the town center

San Cristobal cathedral, lit up at night

Colonial streets of SC

View of San Cristobal from one of the cathedrals on the hill

View of the city from the cathedral

A highlight of the weekend was our visit to San Juan de Chamula on Sunday. The town is much more indigenous than SC, and the people wear a very unique dress that Marc and I inevitably ended up calling the “hairy skirts” because their attire is made of thick black, fuzzy wool. It was market day so the streets were extremely busy, and the church was truly fascinating. Apparently, the indigenous people of Chamula have very unique religious practices, involving a mix of traditional indigenous beliefs with Catholicism. It is forbidden to take photos in the church so you won’t see photos here, but the entire church was blanketed in pine needles and people worshipped in indigenous tounge amongst thousands of candles. It was a very interesting experience.

Marc and I in San Juan de Chamula

Through the rest of the week, I spent time working in many of the plethora of cafes—my favorite was TierrAdentro, a cultural café owned by Zapatista supporters. Brenda, a young Mexican woman, volunteered to take professional photos of the Just Apparel items that I had brought with me to Mexico, and Anna offered to take the items back with her in her suitcase to the US for shipping to buyers. I’m working now with Roisin to upload all the photos to our e-commerce stores as well as designing the store for the Just Apparel website. I also picked up a computer from Anna and John, which they kindly donated to Dolores. I set up the computer so that she can work on it in Spanish, and I brought across the border for her. Finally, I bought elastic from a store in SC for use on the headbands which will be the next project for the JA women, using the leftover strips of fabric from the handbags and placemats. This week, Dolores and I will visit the homes of the women again to distribute fabric for this next project! Moving forward!