I spent ten days in Chiapas in January with Rachel Neumann, a friend and colleague. We met up in San Cristóbal, 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 (NGO) that was sending us to do human-rights observation in a Zapatista indigenous community, and we met with several people to get a sense of the current political situation. Then we hiked up to the mercado 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 | more…