Finally

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It looks as though the photos are at the bottom of the page, so I will have to get busy and add more. I took the easy way today, and a bus to the zocalo. Now I am too tired to write much. Either way home at the end of the day is difficult. I said to a woman sitting in front of her house "Este camino me mata!" ("This hike kills me!") She laughed and said it won't be so bad next week!! She was at least 60 and has no doubt been doing it all her life.
As you get closer to the center of town the graffiti becomes more dense, and as you approach the zocalo the barricades range from a few bags of sand, maybe a broken down car and some wire, to 10 foot tall walls of roofing tin, of course covered with words and images. I have to say that I was a little trepidatious going in, but once inside there is an incredible solidarity. Just people, no cars for blocks. Thousands of people - talking, cooking food, handing it out, eating, playing music, strolling, laughing, going to church. Discussion groups of various sizes under plastic tarps brightly colored. Many women are doing embroidery. Kids doing kid stuff. Then a mass of marchers made up of various groups, one group I recognised were nurses, shouting or singing, moving into the centeral area where a man on a platform gave a rousing speech. In one corner, under an arch, is an altar to one of the men who died with a large sand painting of the risen Christ below his photo.
Pray it remains peaceful.

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