Monday, July 10, 2006

La Puebla in Oaxaca

I made it to Oaxaca. the boring guy, Duckie, in my guesthouse in San Miguel kept saying - the teachers on strike there, you know. I never asked him what he meant. Now I know. I just walked down to the Zocalo where there are hundreds of middle aged, young, and pretty well dressed people camped out on the streets, three blocks deep around the square.

There is graffiti everywhere and big posters supporting communisim. It´s been a long time since I´ve seen that! Anyway, they are the teachers - camping out to protest the government´s policies about education in Oaxaca state.

There was a violent attack by the police that killed at least two children in June but it appears that the original reason for the strike was for a pay raise. Also, there are signs saying no privatization of the schools. I´ve since done some research on the web and there is a good explanation of what is going on here.

I´m going to wander around and see if I can get one of them to explain to me what is going on. They don´t seem too keen to proselytize to the tourists but perhaps they are tired since it seems to have been going on for over a month. I´m very curious. I must also admit, I love Latin American revolutionary imagery! If only the Africans could get there graffics together, people might get excited about them too (blasphemy, I know).

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