It was an intense but fun day today.  I started with a morning walk around town which brought me to a square in Cántaro Azul’s neighborhood that I didn’t remember seeing before [I later realized I had been there, but the church used to be painted white and blue].  The neighborhood is called Cuxtitali, which is ubiquitously translated online as red soil and it is a Nahuatl name, which I find puzzling because San Cris is in a Tzotzil and Tzeltal-speaking area [see note at the end of the post].  A quick internet search also revealed that Cuxtitali really means yellow soil, at least according to Prudencio Moscoso Pastrana in his book Rebeliones indígenas en Los Altos de Chiapas (UNAM, 1992):

But let’s get back to the walk before I get deeper into the rabbit hole.  I really enjoy walking in the cool morning air in San Cris, it is in the low fifties (~10C), a very welcome contrast to the last couple of weeks on Buffalo Bayou, which is already feeling like proper Houston summer.  One of the advantages of being at 7,000+ ft (~2,200 m) over sea level, I guess.

After breakfast, I headed to Cántaro Azul, where the Loewenstern team and I were welcomed by part of the staff–they have over 100 people working there now!  It was great to meet in person with some of the people we had been talking through email and Zoom for the last few months.

Iris and Wendy, from Formación and Gestión del Conocimiento respectively, introduced us to Cántaro and gave us a brief history of Cantaro’s 16 years of operation since it was founded on June 5th, 2006.  The Loewenstern team learned that they get to take part in Cántaro’s 16th anniversary festivities–I’m jealous!

We also heard from Héctor, Pablo and Julio about all the different projects that the Loewenstern team can be involved in.  They ranged from water treatment to growing wetland plants.  We will learn more about these tomorrow, when we visit El Encuentro and La Casa del Agua, where Cántaro develops water treatment technologies for rural communities in Chiapas, and where the Loewenstern team will be spending most of their summer.

After a full morning, the Loewenstern team and I were ready for lunch and headed into town to one of my favorite restaurants in San Cris, Taniperla, which was introduced to me a few years ago by the first Loewenstern intern in Chiapas, Talia Kramer.  On our walk, I found evidence of Chilangos not being the most popular people here 😉

It was a great lunch and better conversation.  I learned a lot about the team members, and some things about Rice too!  They also made me share some of my TV-watching habits, which I will not advertise here…

Can’t wait to spend more time with the team and to be back in El Encuentro, it sounds like it has changed a lot since I was last there in 2019.

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June 7, 2022: According to Ramos Castillo (2011), Cuxtitali was settled starting around 1528 by different indigenous groups who were enslaved and brought to San Cristóbal by the Spaniards.  These groups included Nahuatl-speaking people–could this be the reason behind the name of the barrio being of Nahuatl origin?

Ref.: Ramos Castillo, A. (2011): Nourishing Diversity in Water Governance: The Case of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico in Johnston, B.R. et al. (eds.): Water, Cultural Diversity, and Global Environmental Change: Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-1774-9_13, UNESCO, 2012. p. 171-184