I spent ten days in Chiapas in January with Rachel Neumann, a friend and colleague. We met up in San Cristobal, the colonial city of 35,000 people where the armed takeover of the town hall building on january 1, 1994, signaled the start of the Zapatista uprising. During our two days there, we were scrutinized, briefed, and credentialed by the non-governmental organization (NCO) that was sending us to do human-rights observation in a Zapatista indigenous community, and we met with several people

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... to get a sense of the current political situation. Then we hiked up to the rnercado early on a Saturday with our bags full of potatoes, pasta, peanuts, Gatorade, and water purification drops and left for the mountains in a colectivo. We drove into the clouds, passing towns I'd been reading about in EZLN communiques. We played simple word games in Spanish, which eventually transformed into gasps and squeaks, with the two small boys in front of us. After an hour of rolling through towns with pro-EZLN graffiti alternating with pro-PRJ (Institutional Revolutionary Party) propaganda, we sawthe sign covered in paintings of people in black ski masks announcing the community to which we were assigned. Stepping off the van, we found ourselves in front of about forty members of the community. Twenty or so men were doing security at the entrance to the village, and almost twenty women were embroidering in the shade of a tin roof while their children chased marbles in the dirt and three men played sweet music on their guitars. Rachel asked around to find out whom we should talk to and after a few minutes, a man named Vicente asked for Vicki Larson works with MADRE, an international women's human rights organization; is active in the movements against corporate globalization and in solidarity with the Zapatistas; counsels in an abortion clinic; and lives in Brooklyn.