Weekend events

On Saturday I went to Manchester to take part in the NW Feminist anti-rape demo - which went really well and it felt great to get involved. It was great to see so many young people taking us seriously and I only saw one flier on the ground! There was only one person who actually said "fuckin' feminists!" and he was drowned out by the drums! I met some really great people too =) thanks everyone for getting me involved and for the good tips about finding feminists in the West Midlands.

Before the demo I also went to the Society of Friends meeting place to listen to Dominga Vasquez talk about her work as the first female Indigenous Mayor of the Guatemalan city of Solola, and as an activist to promote the rights of women and indigenous people in Guatemala - see the Peace Brigade International website for more details.

It was so inspiring to listen to her (although i'm sure I would have gotten even more out of it if I could understand Spanish, the interpreter did a very good job). She talked about her work as a teacher and how she had to ask permission of the state to stop being a teacher to be Mayor. She also talked about Solola's economy, community rehabilitation of those who commit crimes, and their fight to stop massive corporations from taking over their resources and polluting their waterways.

A little down point of that day was having an argument with a woman on the train home. She went berserk at me because I very quickly used my mobile to call Dee just to let him know I was on my way home in the Quiet Zone of the train. The rest of the train was full of football fans, the train wasn't due to leave for 5 minutes and the zone was full of people talking loudly and also using their phones. I was only talking as loud as if I was talking to the person next to me but this women leaned over the man sitting next to her and was really horrible to me - you just don't talk to someone you don't know like that! She basically accused me of being an ignorant little teenager and she also said that no one of her generation owned a mobile phone! Given that she couldn't have been any older than 50 and I know people in their octogenarians with mobile phones, that was a bit stupid of her to say. I got her point. And if she'd reminded me politely that I shouldn't be using my phone and left it at that after I explained at apologised it would have been fine but she carried on even after I put my earphones in! I moved in the end and sat by some much more agreeable Liverpool fans from Oxford!

Anyway, despite the frustration that ensued, followed by a Sunday morning filled with the previous 2 posts and feeling bad about being compared to the BNP, the weekend was good! We put our christmas tree up - which gave me an idea...