Flag Day Celebration at the Maddox Academy

On Friday I had the privilege of going to an annual celebration of the Mexican Flag at the Maddox Academy, a very rich, prestigious catholic school for girls between preschool and high school ages. The girls were dressed very smartly in their school uniforms, overcoats and white gloves and the different classes organized to do their hair a certain way (Jimena, Toño's sister and her class put their hair in a pony and braided the tail into many tiny braids)

(left to right: Daniela, Fernanda, Jimena)

We arrived to the school at 7:30, an ungodly hour that I have been very lucky to not have to experience in many months, the sun hadn't even hit the school campus yet. We had a seat and Jimena ran off to her classroom. We sat, waited and watched girls run around for an hour and a half before the ceremony actually started. Finally and suddenly every door in the school opened at the same time and girls began to pour out in straight, sharp lines.



They marched in time with the military drummers, their arms and legs were in exact sync.


Little blue girls stepped in time for 15 minutes, they came from everywhere, they filled the stairs marching down in the same time.


When they came to corners the "sergeant" yelled YA, the whole row marched around the corner. When they passed the president and the state mayor, the "sergeant" yelled VISTA and the whole row turned their head simultaneously to look at the visitors and in passing, they snapped their head forward. When one class was done marching, they kept moving to the sound, kicking their left leg out and slightly lifting the right, a stationary march.

The governor was given the honors of raising the flag along side the girls who are to graduate this year. These last year students were crying toward the end of their last march.

After the raising of the flag, the school sang the National Anthem, The State Anthem, the flag song and a song in English that was incredibly hard to understand due to hundreds of girls singing with thick accents. For the first time, they didn't sing God Save the Queen (it's a British school).

(national Anthem)

The entire assembly had me stupefied. My breath was stuck in my chest, unable to escape while my heart pounded as if I had just run 10 miles. I didn't know what to think and when Toño's mom asked me if I taught it was pretty I told her it was a little weird for me. We don't even use uniforms in our schools (public schools, obviously) and the only time I've ever seen marching and complete obedience and conformity was when I went to see the Marines graduate in San Diego.

Of course, these things aren't wrong or bad but the horrifying thing about the ceremony was that girls were getting dizzy and being taken out of formation, others were fainting and being carried out. They were all taken into a room behind the bleachers, given fruit and juice and sent back out several minutes later. A few girls were standing too far from the bleachers and were taken to classrooms. One girl began convulsing. These girls are between 7 and 18 years old. The younger ones are completely unable to stand in the blazing sun (I'd guess it's been in the low to mid 90s for the last several weeks) for hours in the middle of the day. I'm sure many of them hadn't eaten breakfast yet and none had pockets to keep candies or small fruits in case of emergency.

Poor little girls.

After the ceremony we got together with Jimena's friends and went to breakfast. Delightful little girls.



I'm not sure I could handle another one of those.


To see more videos click my youtube link to the right

Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca: A camp in Protest

La APPO is a recently formed political organization that claims to breed social resistance to neoliberalism and authoritarianism. They fight for the "rescue/recovery" (the exact sentence reads "La resistencia social crece por muchos rincones del país en contra del neoliberalismo, el autoritarismo y el rescate de la democracia popular". The word rescate is translated to rescue and/or recovery) of democracy. Considering that the PRI was in power for 70 years (a time often referred to as The Perfect Dictatorship because elections were openly and "freely" held every 6 years, PRI always won and no electoral fraud could ever be concretely proven due to the party's extensive authoritarian control) before Fox was elected in 2000 under PAN. It seems hard to believe that APPO believes there is anything to recover democracy from.



This group has marched from Oaxaca to Mexico city (in order to see video of this march, click Galeria Multimedia and then click the video called Marcha Caravana) to camp out in Mexico City. That was in July; today the camp is about half the original size, and the people who remain consist mostly of street vendors and professors who give information for a small donation (we bought a copy of the caravan march for 20 pesos). We took with us a copy of their National Pact for the Popular Sovereignty and the Vigilance of the Constitution and of course armed ourselves with several questions regarding it.



First we were interested to know what they thought Mexico's economic status would be without neoliberalism. To this the professor inconcretely suggested that Mexico could belong to the First World had they no dependencies on the international community. I'm not sure how I feel about this statement and so I won't comment further.

Many leftists in this country are convinced that they are still living under an authoritarian regime. At home we might call these people extremists because let's face it, Democrats are very conservative in every country but the US. Many from the PRD (the extreme leftist party) consider the new government (PAN) to be the same government that's governed for over 70 years so naturally we asked what APPO's definition of authoritarianism is. The answer was predictable.



It seemed important to know where APPO vendors buy their raw products in order to make purses, scarves, bracelets etc. We often forget that even those groups that are in stark moral contrast with neoliberalism have no true, simple alternative. These vendors must buy their good from large, often international companies; their food products come from Walmart, not the Farmer's Market. So it seems to me quite naive to say that neoliberalism is murdering any economy. Even the street markets sell clothing that bare the name of the company (often times stolen or second-hand....but either way, someone bought it and by buying it again, and you have and privilege of paying to advertise for the company) you believe is blurring your clear path to economic sovereignty.



The responses we received were very rehearsed and political. This is not to say that I don't believe much of what I have read and heard about APPO or neoliberalism or economic sovereignty but rather to say that something new needs to be done to combat it. My research is not going to change the fact that Mexico houses 10 of the world's riches people and many, many million more of the world's poorest. We need to first learn the rules of the game before we can play it because no professor in the APPO camp will convince the government to change their economic strategy, cut ties with the world and please, for God's sake stop stealing money from the citizenry. No mega march or caravan march will change the minds of the people who matter, those in office. Something new and effective needs to be developed. A completely new government needs to be in place, a new police force, we need to breed new ideas so that our children can begin to construct clear-minded alternatives. Right now, no one is clear of mind.

How to use a JERGA for Dumbies

A JERGA is a sort of heavy cotton towel that may or may not have a small hole in the center and is used as a mop. The JERGA can be bought at any market place for only a few pesos. It is used in conjunction with a JALADOR which is basically a very long squeegee.

First, one concocts a mixture of floor cleaner (I use lemon scent because the others are WEIRD!) and water in a bucket.

1. Place the JERGA in the bucket of cleaner


2. Pull the JERGA from the bucket and squeeze out extra water


3. grab the JALADOR in one hand and the JERGA in the other


4. Place the JERGA (which has a hole big enough for the pole in the center) on the JALADOR


5. mop.


It's that simple kids. I usually clean the bucket junk after mopping every room, but that's only because I'm neurotic that way. Many times people place the Jerga at the doorway when not in use as a sort of mat....that's optional.