Mexico City

Pilgrims praying at the Church of Guadelope

I have been in Mexico City for three days now and appreciating every moment! My time has been filled with good discussions, inspirational people, eating home made corn tortillas and visiting the Frida Kahlo Museum and Our Lady of Guadelope Church. I have been actively learning about the effects climate change is having on indigenous communities, specifically in Mexico.

The inspirational kitchen of Fridha. Maybe one day I too will have a beautiful kitchen!

Yesterday I took part in the first forum for communities affected by climate change, hosted by GCAP and Feminist Task Force. Indigenous women from Oaxaca talked about how the changing environment is affecting their villages. The women have been dealing with a rapidly rising river, some thing no one has experienced  in over a hundred years. As result of the river rising there has been severe landslides, ruined crops and disruptions to basic community life and  family structures. Issues such as domestic violence became even more exaggerated due to the stress of the changing climate. Domestic violence is something that over 93% of women experience in th Chiapas. Because the crops were ruined the community had to become dependent on government food and were unable to be self-sustainable. To deal with the river, women had to build a series of trenches on the river bank to trap water so it was diverted away from the village and crops.This is a solution women came up on by themselves, with out any help from the government. A government that ignored their calls for help, when villagers were trapped and dying from the landslides.  

Now I am off to take part  in a protest with La Via Campesina, caravan participants and workers unions from around Mexico City. This march is to show our support for just climate negations to take place in Cancun. Specifically to  demand the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change adopt the resolutions of the World Conference of the People on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia. This is one of the best documents I have read,seriously, http://pwccc.wordpress.com/support/ .

Tomorrow morning I leave Mexico City and take part in the Caravan to Cancun.Approximately 120 people will depart from Mexico City on December 1st and make stops in:

o Puebla, Puebla
o Puerto de Veracruz, Veracruz 
o Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz 
o Merida, Yucatan
o Chichen Itza, Quintana Roo, and
o Cancún, Quintana Roo.

The issues that will be highlighted will be:
o Community resistance against expropriation of lands for development and industrial contamination
o Community struggles against damns and control of water, and
o Indigenous struggles against land expropriation, soil depletion and contamination by industrial agriculture.