How peaceful it is to take an evening walk along Grand Avenue in Mancos, a little community of fourteen hundred people, nestled in the Mancos Valley of southwest Colorado! The sunset’s glow is reflected off the La Plata Mountains to the east, and shadows begin to shroud Mesa Verde in the west.
Some call this place the Holy Land. Some call it the Middle East, some Israel, others Palestine. At the Qumran archeological site in the West Bank, the chalk cliffs are steep and rugged. Yet the desert light brings out delicate hues – buff, pink, peach. The land shimmers in the heat, very much like the desert land of my home near Tucson, Arizona.
A talk by the Pacific Yearly Meeting observerto the General Meeting of Friends in Mexico 2016 – in English and Spanish.
Saturday morning, I reach the border at Nogales, Arizona. From near and far, the fence rises. From a distance, it appears as a blade that slices apart both the wholeness of the natural world and the wholeness of a human community. Up close, the twenty-foot barrier imprisons and excludes, looming like a nightmare. The huge, vertical, rust-colored metal slats nearly overlap.
Description of the history and current activities of Casa de los Amigos in Mexico, on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary.
An interview with Adriana Jasso by Greg Elliott
Adriana Jasso is the U.S./Mexico Program Coordinator for American Friends Service Committee in San Diego. She was interviewed in November 2015 by Greg Elliott, who is the Friends Relations Associate with the AFSC in Philadelphia. The following text is an edited transcript of portions of that interview.
To Friends Everywhere: September 26th marks the first anniversary of the horrific enforced disappearance of 43 students from the rural Ayotzinapa teaching college in Guerrero, Mexico. We carry a heavy weight, as hopes for justice seem increasingly dim. Yet we continue to raise our voices alongside the parents and classmates in remembrance.
Dear Editor: I was greatly interested in Burton Housman’s article, “Between Two Civilizations” in the Jan/Feb issue. I was one of seven Quakers (four Californians, one each from New York, New Mexico, and Nevada) who attended the first Quaker Social Action in Mexico Learning Tour hosted by the Casa de los Amigos team in Mexico City in January this year. During our nine days there, we learned
On a quiet residential street in the heart of Mexico City, in the former home and studio of the noted muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, your find a modest Quaker institution. To the casual observer, this is a spacious residence, frequented occasionally by young foreigners. It appears at various times to be a home, a guesthouse, or a community center.
“Did you see the letters?” asked the little 7-year-old at my side. I had just returned from a trip overseas and was recounting some of the highlights. Letters?
“You know, while you were on the plane and looked down, could you see the letters? Like the ones on the maps?”
