Reflections...Olga Isabel 2002

I had been living in Chiapas all of 2002, working in a variety of local non-profits and human rights organizations. I had grown accustomed to keeping my base in San Cristobal, the tiny, tourist friendly mountain hamlet, internationally recognized in connection to the Zapatista social movement. The trip’s purpose had been described in haste. I left town as part of a small emergency caravan of human rights observers to a Zapatista community named Olga Isabel. A leader had just been assassinated by what appeared to be members of a para-military group. The community sent out the request for international observers, whose presence is known to fend off, at least temporarily, violence from such groups in times of reorganization and mourning.
We were brought to the site of the murder, deep in a hillside field of milpa, to photography and document the event. The bullets still lying on the freshly upturned soil, we then accompanied the rest of the community who were with the body. As I listened to the rhythmic whaling of the women, I could not help but feel like our outsider presence was intrusive. Of course, we were there for a specific reason I told myself, but I was painfully aware of my inability to relate, to even for that moment, entertain my ‘belonging.’ I didn’t belong there, just as none of what was going on should belong anywhere. How could this moment belong to a human, take a material form as part of anyone’s reality?
The Zapatistas have their own conceptualization of time and planning. It wasn’t until night fall that any of us had any idea of what the next step would be. At last we understood that we would be accompanying them on the funeral procession and to the burial site. This trip entailed passing by a potentially volatile location, a village of para-military sympathizers, so if nothing else, I was more convinced that our presence was greeted. We all divided up equally into the open backed trucks that formed the funeral caravan. Unsure of exactly how we were to organize ourselves, I was startled to find myself all of a sudden, standing next to the wooden coffin in the back of one of the trucks. We were probably over 10 people or so, myself, the other men and women from the community, mostly masked, and a few other observers, Spaniards if memory serves me. At first, my only reaction was, ‘how in the hell did I wind up here?’ which quickly shifted to a sense of complete and honest inadequacy.
My sweat smeared face grew hot and flushed. Shame washed over me, I felt unqualified to ride with them, I felt…for a second, that this was in some way, something a ‘professional’ should be doing. Then the stench hit me. It hit me, violently, and then washed over me, a heavy and oppressive covering that soon would become familiar. I purposely made myself conscious of the smell of a three day old corpse for the entire trip, which must have been almost an hour, to the cemetery. The smell of death; the intimate, undeniable, unavoidable, inescapable sensation it brings, is something that most certainly changes an individual. I quickly got over my absorbed, self-directed thinking and realized why it is that ‘professionals’ were no where to be seen. Death is not attractive. Death is not inspiring. Death feels very far away from progress and development and therefore, has little space inside it. The smell of death cannot be neatly captured in documentation or written up in memo. Death resists bureaucratization.
By haphazardly finding myself in that truck I do not claim any legitimate position to judge, critique or represent anything or anyone. This observation, however I can safely say leaves you with a tiring skepticism, a critical weariness that you might not have even invited. I too buried something that night, maybe something I miss at times. I only hope that something constructive continues to take root in its absence.