Summer 2016: Effects of the road blocks

Flowers at Bela's are in full bloom.

This summer trip finds Sergio with good energy and nice support so that he can complete his local projects.  As usual, on the medicine side, we see the same health problems but different people.  As for the local turmoil, teachers and healthcare professionals are striking and protesting and have control of the flow of traffic in and out of the San Cris.

Ethan and I arrived Tuesday night with a few glitches but we knew everything would work out.  Our taxi driver What'sApp'd us and said he could not pick us up at the airport. So when we arrived in Tuxtla at 630pm it turned out the OCC bus was getting ready to depart to San Cris and unknown to us, we purchased the last 2 seats (the bus was packed). Eleven kilometers outside of San Cris we had to detour via a dirt road to get on the old highway into the city.  Safely we arrived at Bela's around 9pm.

Driving against traffic, these are the lines to get into the gas station, double file.

We had been aware of the recent protesting and violence in Oaxaca and although we did not see any protesting, we definitely experienced the effects. Teachers and health professionals (to my understanding have not been paid) create road blocks which prevent certain items to come in and out of the city. Tourism numbers are low and gasoline is limited. The lines at gas stations are long and they run out quickly. We cannot go out to the communities so we only treat the local patients....keeps us busy enough!