Yucatan Diary Day 10
Merida- Cancun-Merida
by Ben White
posted 01/19/05
Maurice Ewing still frozen, rocking and rolling from noreaster. Issue goes to Mexican Senate. Our side holds little demonstration in Merida center. Brer Fox? He lays low.
Not all of the picturesque characters down here are Mexicans. I haven´t even touched on the eternal primary source of amusement for many Mexicans- the bony kneed, short wearing, oblivious, heavily drinking, money disgorging gringos from the North.
The other day this guy came roaring across the flat cobblestones of downtown Merida, frightening tiny horses with blinders pulling carts wrapped with pastel plastic flowers and dispersing flocks of children from Chiapas selling crafts: He was an old geezer gringo riding an vintage easy-rider type chopped Harley trike with the front forks raked way out in front, long white hair and beard, the latter streaked with chewing tobacco juice. Sunglasses, big round belly. But behind him his family, a lovely Mexicana and two little ones, rode in cushy comfort under a very cool curved metal canopy that sprouted from the frame and stretched above and in front of their heads like a jack-in-the-pulpit flower. He advanced with thunder, the lord of his domain.
Julia and I just rented a jeep and drove the four hours to Cancun and back in order to be filled with optimism by my friend the Mayan shaman Araceli Rodriguez. I came away as if I had feasted.
When I asked her about what she understood to be happening with the Ewing, she told me that the port captain, (whose email address I may have accidentally-on-purpose inserted into an earlier diary entry) had not yet given permission to the Ewing and did not plan to do so until he was sure it was safe for them to operate. Therefore, although the ship can move around (and is now reported to be about 50 miles north of Telchac, just to the east of Progreso) it still does not have permission to begin. They are still, so to speak, frozen.
For what its worth, it turns out that a bunch of Mayan practitioners of hocus pocus may be responsible for keeping the Ewing frozen. This was accomplished by taking pictures of the Ewing from the paper and putting them in their icebox. But they didn´t want the people on board to suffer, they wanted their experience, even though their work is frozen, to be "sweet." So they put some honey in with the picture. I am not kidding.
Aracelli gave me an old Mayan frog whistle to blow for help, an owl feather for seeing through things, and a piece of paper with a picture of the Angel of Beauty to show me a way through. She gave me a primer on how to listen beyond all of the static and attention and fear to my heart.
OK now boys and girls, we are going to try our own magic. A noreaster is now battering the northern Yucatan coast and is expected to continue for a couple of days. Meanwhile, hopefully, the Ewing can not let out their airgun arrays in the heavy seas. The weather coming here comes from western north America. But regardless of where you live, I need you to go outside, face the Yucatan peninsula and blow. Nice long breaths, how about ten of them. Imagine them rolling on down here, through the Texas scrub, across the palmetto, over the heads of the dolphins (who are in the loop) until it arrives to the Caribbean coast of Mexico where it disappears like a zephyr, except for keeping the Maurice Ewing in a gentle state of rock and roll- just a little too much to work in.
Tomorrow I will take all of the details I have learned about this study of the Chicxulub Crater and attempt to meet with port commissioner and Navy Captain Luis Isauro Contreras Garcia in Progreso. Plus all of the studies I have accumulated which document the problem with intense underwater sound and living creatures. I ask for all of whales, dolphins, fish, turtles and eels that could be affected by this blasting to speak through me to this man. You be my muse and I will translate into Spanish.
The whole fight has now taken on more twists and turns than a DNA molecule. Greenpeace and Defenders of Wildlife in Mexico City came out last week saying that the real purpose of this experiment is to look for oil. When asked about whether the information obtained from this study could be used for that purpose, apparently the UNAM (University of Mexico) head of the project, replied, ¨Pues, si.¨ (¨Well, yes.¨) Personally, I just don´t know.
It appears that Greenpeace and Defenders had more than a simple reason for bringing this up. Part of the Mexican Constitution (article 27?) says that Mexican citizens are the owners of all Mexican resources. If the Ewing, a US flagged vessel, is secretively looking for oil, it is a contravention of Mexican law. Today´s Tribuna de Yucatan carries a story that Senator Orlando Parades Lara is denouncing the presence of the Maurice Ewing in the National Senate of Mexico and will in the next few days present a notice of nonconformance concerning the vessel because of the strenuous objections of the citizens of Yucatan to the presence of the ship. This movement is in addition to a similar one within the Yucatan Council of Deputies, where five have now taken up this cause.
Rosario and her group- Yucatecans for Animal Rights and their Habitats, held a rally in downtown Merida this morning. When I asked her if she wanted me to speak, she said no, I had better not. More noise is flying around about the possibility of my being deported, and I couldn´t be seen doing anything that might be interpreted as political. So, I was holed up in an internet cafe nearby, getting ready to write this, when she buzzed my (much hated, infernal, brain irradiating) cell phone. Come over quick, OK?
The press was hungry and wanted new meat. Rosario warned me first to be careful and not say anything about us protesting or about my plans to jump in front of the Ewing to force them to turn off their sound because I would then come across as a radical or a terrorist. Boy, we have really fallen into the bottomless pit of newspeak if that T word has now been stretched to include unarmed human shields trying to stop the use of tools of unimaginable violence. And I don´t even use the word protest anymore even in the states. I am never protesting. I am affirming. Life. Personal responsibility.
So when one of the heads looking out from the mass of arms and tape recorders and cameras asked me what I was going to do now to stop the boat I said that I had great faith in the leaders of the people of Yucatan that they will do the right thing, stop the boat and protect their people and waters. And that the purpose of my coming down to Mexico was to work with the people here to stop the ship. I have no particular necessity for going swimming if the ship can be stopped in other ways.
This whole project has been jammed down the throat of the Mexican government and I think they would be happy to find a reason to cancel it. For a country of such size, importance and pride, Mexico has been treated poorly almost automatically by a succession of US administrations. This seems more of the same. We are coming. We want. Step Aside. Thanks (or not). See ya.
Julia and I went swimming yesterday in a cenote halfway back from Merida, just outside Valladolid. Our little guide led us into a dried out cave, the formations long since deprived of their lifewater. But then he turned a corner and the big blue lake lay before us. The original cathedral, the original kiva. Huge domed ceiling arching to the five foot diameter hole in the center, softened with ferns. Tree roots started at the ceiling small and then branched and branched until they became a big root mass club right at the water, hanging down a good 50 feet. The stalactites taper the other way, fat at the top and skinny at their blunt bottoms, looking exactly like the suspended arches in the Canterbury Cathedral ending in the incongruous pagan greenman faces looking down at the faithful. The cenote is, of course, sacred, but it had the atmosphere of a neighborhood pool with the local folks cooling off in the clean sweet water.
Questions from the peanut gallery:
This weeks winner of a genuine magic AWI decoder ring is Mark Palmer from California for his question concerning the use of crosses made of hueso (thatch palm) and sticks, blessed with holy water to keep the mischievous little Aluxes mud men from causing havoc with your neighborhood. Ever the perceptive smart alleck, Mark asks whether the same can be used to protect neighborhoods from Republicans. I certainly understand the need and desire, but my understanding is that the specific remedy for such a plague is different: Dreamcatchers soaked in patouli.
Folks, I never would have believed how this campaign would have taken root with the Yucatecan people or how this diary would resonate with anyone. Maybe its easier for me to open my heart to all of you because I don´t see you. But I sure do feel you. And I believe that one way or another, we shall prevail. Please keep all of that good energy flowing.
A special hello to Susanna and all of her students and ten year old Stephen.
All right now, everyone go outside, face Mexico, and bloooow.
Love and Revolution,
Ben
Yucatan Diary Day 11
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