Xoyeb is a village halfway between Polho and Yabteclum, next to a shady pitch-pine, in a valley between hills. There are 13 family homes - boards and zinc roofs- among maize fields and banana trees. All have opened their doors and their poverty to share the little they have with the wave of recent arrivals, their neighbors.
These - 488, counting two new borns- are from Yibeljoj and are in two "camps", that are nothing more than roof made of banana leaves. Those who are most sick are placed inside the houses or under the few plastics that are available, because it is winter and it constantly rains.
Displaced, internal refugees, expelled form their ancestral land, it has now been two months in this place. A diagnosis by the health promoter estimates that 80 per cent of the children and 60 per cent of the adults have a fever. There is dysentery, respiratory and gastric ailments, typhoid, and high risk of cholera.
In one these minuscule coverings is Zenaida. She is 16 years old. Her first son, with sleepy eyes caused by the fever and stomach inflammation caused by insects, crawls on the mud floor. He still cannot eat tortilla and wants to be breast fed. But his mother looks at him without seeing, she hugs her knees, she complains: her womb also hurts and her blue skirt is soaked in blood. Her second son will not be born. There are no more antibiotics, not even an aspirin, to help withstand the consequences of the abortion. Her aunt, kneeling by her side, speaks quickly in Tzotzil. Her husband remains silent. He can do nothing for Zenaida. Not even tea.
When the sun rises in the camps, no women can be found under the palapas. Smoke comes out of all the chimneys. Every house is a collective kitchen. There are hundreds of hands that cooperate to stir up the fire in the hearths, chop wood, cook maize, grind it, and make tortillas. Two or three for each person. For the entire day until tomorrow.
At midday everyone has finished a task. Taking advantage of the bit of sun the men hang their wet shirts. The women dry their Huipiles on their body. They mutually take lice from their hair and talk. And the children, in the middle of the drama, laugh.
The heads of the families of Yibeljoj place themselves in a semi-circle to tell, also in a collective, their story and reflections. Lorenzo Vazquez interprets from Tzotzil to Spanish, the host of Xoyeb.
- In a neighborhood of Los Chorros there is a group of PriÌstas with weapons. I believe about 60 weapons, only cuerno de chivo (AK 47). They came to our community to demand 330 pesos from every family to buy more weapons, with threats of being shot. For those who did not have enough to pay, they lowered their white flags with bullets.
- We as Chiapanecos are civil society and as a religion Las Abejas. The neighborhood of Los Chorros is against civil society. We are also a Zapatista support base but we do not want war. What we do not support is the government because it does not give justice, it does not give peace. We no longer ask the government for anything, they donít give anything anyway.
-The PriÌstas asked the people for cooperation in buying weapons. And those who did not give support, were persecuted. They said it was cooperation for the solution of the problem.
-Before we were tied to our town of Chenalho. All together in a government, all together in the PRI party. But the government always says that its people are calm, happy, that they lack nothing because the government provides everything. But it is not true. They were lying because there is need and suffering. They said we had housing, drainage, food. They said all of this to be able to borrow money from other governments. We found out about these lies. That is why we became civil society, organizing with the diocese, group by group.
-Now our town of Chenalho is divided in three. One is the Zapatista who is fighting to say directly that the people are not happy, they are dying of hunger and diseases. Also divided into Priistas among the priistas divided into civil society.
-Once our town Chenalho was divided the PriÌsta party did not want it divided, it wanted unity even if by force. They say the EZLN is crazy. They say: it is better to be together as before. But we no longer want that.
-No, we donít want it because civil society has been born. We do not want weapons in order to kill.
-We are civil society organizing in a group but not part of the Zapatista Army. They are in one struggle, but we see that we are on the same path.
-We want to return to Yibeljoj. A place is not left just like that. But we want to continue apart from the PRI. And so, in order to find a solution they need to take the weapons away from the Priistas. With weapons there is fear, there is threat. The PRI together with the security police stole our horses, the animals, the maize, and the coffee, everything.
-When they take the weapons from the PriÌstas we can live together. We are brothers. We are relatives.
-We have fear and we do not have weapons. If danger returns we have to defend ourselves because there is no place left for our families to go. I can not find another road.
Lorenzo the interpreter, finishes the narration of the many voices overwhelmed by so much suffering. "Come and see our well", he suggests.
It is a small hole of turbid water a few meters from the latrine. There is no way of boiling water. There are no containers to put the water in. There are not very many chlorine tablets anyway. There the people of Xoyeb and Yibeljoj share destiny and risk of cholera. Lorenzo looks inside the well and concludes: "Our only weapon is God".
In the afternoon the youth come down from another hill. They come with tree trunks. They are chapeando a place. At the foot of the hill, the displaced rebuild their homes, to rebuild themselves in them, to continue their lives.