A Healthy Oasis of Peace and Tolerance in Yucatan Luisa Fernanda Lopez - RNW
go to original June 13, 2013

In the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, there’s a place which welcomes gay Indians who have AIDS. It’s an oasis of tranquility in an atmosphere of discrimination and intolerance.
 
The stories recounted by Alejandro Cárdenas in his documentary OASIS are tales that stir the soul. The images, sounds, music and words reflect enormous pain, anger, sadness, love and a lot of dignity. Three characters who share a sexual preference, a disease and a daily battle to survive amidst prejudice and machismo.
 
Cárdenas arrived seven years ago in the Peninsula to cover a story about the Zapatistas. He discovered the Oasis Hostel in San Juan de Dios. It offers shelter to people with AIDS, many of whom are in the final stages of the disease. It’s located an hour from Mérida, the capital of Yucatán, and as the documentary-maker puts it “there’s a lack of everything. There are no left-overs. There aren’t any doctors or nurses. The patient who is the least ill takes care of the others.”

He’s visited the hostel on a number of occasions, and he’s seen “at least six people die in very poor conditions”. Over 300 people have died in deplorable conditions over the past decade, says the hostel director Carlos Méndez. “Death is always on our doorstep.”

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