Extinction Rebellion in Jalpan, Querétaro

It is April 15th, 2019, 3pm. Finishing up at work, I grab my bag, march to my apartment, pick up some guavas and the crudely painted-in-a-7am-trance cardboard placards, and then walk down the hill then up the hill to Jalpan’s main plaza. I seat myself in the shade of a kind tree opposite the Presidencia Municipal, and unfurl my signs.

Crap placard-maker available for all your placard needs.

Looking shady in a cap and broken sunglasses, I watch passers-by watching me. Doing my best to force a ‘beam’ across my face (how does one even ‘beam’?) I find myself wondering, not for the first time, whether looking happy is appropriate, given the wording of my placard.

Manifestación global contra la inacción de los gobiernos ante la crisis climática. Global protest against government inaction in the face of the climate crisis.

You’ve always got to make it clear what you’re protesting about, because symbols and catchy chants don’t always get the message across. That’s what I was told in London anyway, by a guy holding a sign that read ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’. I did a few actions with Extinction Rebellion there, and since I couldn’t make the nearest action (in Oaxaca some 500 miles away) today, I’ma go it solo. Instagram hashtags have my back, I’m not crazy.

I’m not, despite what the elderly Jehovah’s Witness who approaches me after about half an hour says. People like me don’t get it, apparently. Didn’t I know? God is going to come and save us all, I’ll see. I ask him when. He says God will do it when the time is right. I ask why god hasn’t done anything yet, when people around the world have already been killed and displaced by climate breakdown. He says God will do it when the time is right. I ask him if god cares about those people, or just certain people. He says God will save us when the time is right, gives me a pamphlet and walks away.

God will save us all, apparently.

After he has opened the floodgates, a little paysana lady asks me if I’m asking for money or what. She can’t read my sign. I say no, the message I’m spreading is free, and I read the sign for her. She is from here and has been seeing the changes I describe; rising heat levels and water scarcity.

A teenage-to-twenties girl is after her, apparently from a local news agency, Mensajero de la Sierra. She asks what I’m about and I say preserving life on Earth. Then she videos me on her phone explaining the dire situation this planet is in. She seems nice and invites me to her village someday.

Finally, a guy in shades sits next to me asking the same shit, which I try to explain. He agrees with me. He used to be passionate about stuff too, until he was kicked out of his home in Texas last year after 28 years of illegal residence since he was 12. Now all he wants is to go back and see his kids, who are five, seven and nine. He calls them every day, but they are forgetting his presence. He can’t bring them to Jalpan, or he won’t be able to provide for them with an average daily wage of about five dollars. He’s considering trying Canada, but that would be just as expensive as hiring a coyote to get him into the US, as he is attempting next week. He’s gonna try the same way his parents did. It’s dangerous as hell, but his kids are his everything.

I consider this for a while, and make the link. Lately my obsessive nature has made me link every problem to climate change. I could probably find a link between climate change and butt sweat (which isn't difficult, if you think about it). But climate change and migration is a legit problem. Yes, Mexicans have been migrating northwards for centuries. But now we hear of "caravans" in increasing numbers, despite the growing dangers of attempting to cross. It seems contradictory, given that the Mexican nation is supposed to be far more rich in natural resources than Texas. Colonialism and neocolonialism have snatched that from them, with the legacy of depressed wages, exploited land, and death-defying border sprints. Mexico’s natural defences that would have best equipped them to weather this planetary crisis have been pillaged over hundreds of years, and now the remnants of this bounty are drying up at an even more accelerated rate. Here in the Sierra Gorda, people can barely grow crops anymore. No wonder this guy is prepared to risk his life to go north.

Oh, and his name is Miguel, and he’s glad I’m doing this, because it’s good to have hope, even though people ruin everything and all hope is essentially pointless. During this time I have forgotten about my sign. I suddenly become conscious of the fact that by chatting with him in English, I have exposed myself as a privileged gringa protesting in a foreign developing country, which I can visit and leave at my own leisure. People are looking at us, I’m out of guavas and the sun is setting. I take his number and make him promise to call me next week when he gets to his kids in Texas.