So it begins! We're on our way to Q.

This morning we woke up at 7am and packed everything and waited outside for Fernando, who we had planned weeks ago to meet at 8am. We waited until about 12pm, when he finally came. In the meantime, we made ourselves useful by cleaning our equipment and talking to Antonia, an employee at Junax who cleans the rooms. She is from Tenjapa, a Tzeltal village outside of San Cristobal. Antonia was born in Tenjapa and was raised by her grandparents. She came to San Cristobal at the age of 11 by herself to find work, and started cleaning houses. She was only able to finish fourth grade. She is a single mother of three children.

Antonia is part of a group of 15 women who work cleaning houses. They are organizing themselves to lobby for better treatment (they are sometimes treated poorly by employers) and fair wages. She attributes some of this maltreatment to the fact that she is a migrant worker. Not only is it difficult to work in San Cristobal as a migrant, but it's also hard to travel back to Tenjapa because it is costly ($3.50USD each way).

It was really interesting to meet Antonia. She has worked for EAPSEC for 13 years, which was exciting because they are a health promoter organization we are hoping to meet with while we're here. Since we're all thinking about social justice right now, it was also interesting that Antonia said she sometimes thinks of going back to Tenjapa, but because she is a woman, she cannot own land. So she has nowhere to go.

We're waiting for Fernando to come back with the taxis that will take us to Quexalhukum. We have no idea what to expect but we're just anxious to finally get there!

estamos en chiapas!

Greetings from Chiapas.

We arrived yesterday safe and sound, and completely exhausted. We have since had an extremely busy few days. Yesterday, after ariving, we met with Rodolfo from HELPS (who makes the ONIL stove), Will, a doctor who is a friend of a friend of mine, and who works in La Universidad de la Tierra, a university which trains indigenous peope in medicine and health.

Today we spent the day in Zinacantan, a town close to SCLC, in which the Sedesol-Federal (the federal government social development agency) is instaling 100 ONIL stoves. We learned how to install the stoves, and even learned a few words of Tzotzil. The day was much longer than expected, though, and in the evening we rushed, in pouring rain, to meet Diane Livingston, a woman who works with stoves here, to pick up our equipment.

We have so much to think about that we can't keep it all straight.

Tomorrow morning at 8 we meet Fernando. Mexico definitely functions at all hours of day and nights.

We will write again in a week when we return to SCLC from Quexalhukum. Hopefully then we will have more time, and will have been able to process our thoughts more thoroughly.

Leaving for the airport tonight! Pre-flight thoughts.

It's 9pm and we're all getting ready to meet at Anna's in an hour to do last-minute packing and drive to LAX. Today has been a little less stressful in terms of running around getting things done, so at least for me, it's been good to just let what is about to happen sink in.

And there's a lot to think about. Today John Rose presented us with a more comprehensive history of the social justice movement in Chiapas, and how it relates to 16th century colonialism, modern globalization, indigenous rights, and health promotion. Maybe it's because our departure is so imminent that everything seems more palpable right now, but the gravity of what we are trying to do with this project is really finally sinking in. I don't just mean the stove intervention study, but the fact that we are taking ourselves from OC, inserting ourselves into this community with this rich history of structural violence, and trying to "do some good".

On the other hand, I do believe in our study. I didn't know that John Rose had approached Fernando (a member of the group Las Abejas-more on this later-and a key health promotor contact in the first Chiapan community UCI partnered with) three years ago asking if stoves would be something his people would need and/or want. The fact that we are responding to community-driven needs/wants is encouraging.

The cultural differences are going to be challenging. Aside from getting shigellosis, that's probably next on my worry list. It's not like we're tourists in Cancun, where people tell you "the Mexicans are friendly". This is a very different atmosphere, and we are playing a very different role. These are communities that have been massacred (eg, the Acteal massacre of 1997), sterilized (a 2005 government mandate was proposed to sterilize indigenous women), and severely marginalized in the global market. We don't realize that the shifting demand from wheat to meat means that farm workers in Chiapas are out of jobs. Or that when they switch to working on coffee plantations in response to this first devastation, the falling price of coffee due to global competition results in yet more economic violence. We don't realize because it doesn't affect us the way it affects them. Not realizing doesn't make us any less responsible.

Anyway, this is what's running through my head right now. So many people have tried to prepare us for what our experience in Quexalhukum will be like. I don't usually think too much before I end up where I'm going. When I get there, I just figure it out as I go. But today's talk with John Rose about the history of Las Abejas and the state of Chiapas was a welcome reminder of the bigger picture and where we and the community we plan to work with fit in.

I think the next time we update will be from Chiapas!

Greetings from the balance room

This was drafted two hours ago, but couldn't be posted de to technical difficlties:

Welcome to the first post on our blog.

Jackie and I (Anna) are about 5.25 hours in to a hopefully 6.25 hour stint in the balance room. We have weighed 35 filters so far, and have 48 to weigh in total.

What are filters? Why are we weighing them? Why does it take so long?

These are questions you may be asking yourself, and they are good ones. As part of our project, we are measuring improvements in indoor air pollution as a result of using the ONIL stove. The way we are measuring indoor air pollution is by measuring particulate matter (PM). We assess particulate matter by placing a filter in a contraption called a cyclone and sucking air through it with a pump for 24 hours inside the home. In order to figure out how much particulate matter was collected in the filter, we need to weigh it before and after.

In order to prepare the filters, we had to set them out in petri dishes over the weekend. Now we are weighing them, which sounds easy and fast, but is actually extremely TEDIOUS. We have to calibrate the scale, pass the filter through a strange de-static contraption, put the filter on the balance, wait for it to settle on on a number, record it, take it out, and then start the whole process again. TEDIOUS.

It is also very cold (20 degrees C), and I'm waring gloves on my feet to keep them warm. Jackie is much faster and more accurate at this than I am. This should not come as a surprise to any of my old chemistry lab partners.

In other news. . .

• Today we learned how to use the spirometer!
• We are gathering equipment, supplies, etc slowly but surely.
• Our IRB was approved on Friday.
• We leave on Wed in the middle of the night.