Today a friend who runs a weaving cooperative which exports material to the US organized a group of women together to go up to Comalapa (incidently home of one of the indigenous teachers I work with.)
Well first was the group of women! I didn't get all the stories, but one has lived here for 20 years, running an excursion agency, with excellent spanish and stories galore of traveling around this country and others, and another is an archaeologist working on a site called Holmul in the Peten. I had naively assumed this area had been thoroughly explored, and was laughed at, in a friendly way, for that assumption. She says the Peten has barely been touched, despite the extensive site at Tikal. The question they are pursuing at Holmul - as I understood it - centers around the early pottery remains there, which are similar to some in both Mexico (the Yucatan?) and Belize, the question being whether they were all produced in one area and traded around, or produced thru various influences in different centers or at any rate what the connection was.
The talk between these two women in the car occupied us all, focused as it was on snake bites in the jungle, especially by a very poisonous viper called something like....Freiants, and their stories of various instances of bites among people they worked with, how to avoid it (wear shoes and pants), and the effects not of Dengue Fever, which I've heard about, but some larvae carried by the mosquitoes which burrow into your head and create enormous itching and electric sorts of buzzes, and how to get the larvae out (squeeze) and how to avoid the mosquitoes.....eat a lot of garlic two weeks before going to the jungle, and some spray called BUGOFF or something like that, but not DEET. Interesting conversation as with two friends from Caliornia, I am planning to go to Tikal in 3 weeks or less. But it was very interesting to listen to these women's long and strenuous/challenging experiences here, as well as their obvious love of and intrigue with the area. The travel guide is also an amateur archaeologist.
I had been told by my Spanish teacher that the sites in Tikal and the Peten had been emigrated TO by the Mayans who left the area we were in (especially Ximche) there in the mountains. This woman set me straight that it was the other way around....from the jungle to the highlands after the Conquest.
At any rate...on we went to Comalapa. Which is a town on a long windey green road up into the mountains....it doesn't differ much from others I've seen...........dusty streets even if concrete, long rows of poor, low, not-very-attractive differently-colored but drab buildings, and this contrast with the incredibly brilliantly-colored clothing of the indigenous people, which in this town are 100%. Another thing which distinguishes this town - besides, we were told, a history of famous painters, one who had had an exhibit in Wash. D.C. as well as Gua City - was an incredible mural, maybe a block long on the wall of the cemetery (on the main street of town, quite unusually). [See photo above.]
Well first was the group of women! I didn't get all the stories, but one has lived here for 20 years, running an excursion agency, with excellent spanish and stories galore of traveling around this country and others, and another is an archaeologist working on a site called Holmul in the Peten. I had naively assumed this area had been thoroughly explored, and was laughed at, in a friendly way, for that assumption. She says the Peten has barely been touched, despite the extensive site at Tikal. The question they are pursuing at Holmul - as I understood it - centers around the early pottery remains there, which are similar to some in both Mexico (the Yucatan?) and Belize, the question being whether they were all produced in one area and traded around, or produced thru various influences in different centers or at any rate what the connection was.
The talk between these two women in the car occupied us all, focused as it was on snake bites in the jungle, especially by a very poisonous viper called something like....Freiants, and their stories of various instances of bites among people they worked with, how to avoid it (wear shoes and pants), and the effects not of Dengue Fever, which I've heard about, but some larvae carried by the mosquitoes which burrow into your head and create enormous itching and electric sorts of buzzes, and how to get the larvae out (squeeze) and how to avoid the mosquitoes.....eat a lot of garlic two weeks before going to the jungle, and some spray called BUGOFF or something like that, but not DEET. Interesting conversation as with two friends from Caliornia, I am planning to go to Tikal in 3 weeks or less. But it was very interesting to listen to these women's long and strenuous/challenging experiences here, as well as their obvious love of and intrigue with the area. The travel guide is also an amateur archaeologist.
I had been told by my Spanish teacher that the sites in Tikal and the Peten had been emigrated TO by the Mayans who left the area we were in (especially Ximche) there in the mountains. This woman set me straight that it was the other way around....from the jungle to the highlands after the Conquest.
At any rate...on we went to Comalapa. Which is a town on a long windey green road up into the mountains....it doesn't differ much from others I've seen...........dusty streets even if concrete, long rows of poor, low, not-very-attractive differently-colored but drab buildings, and this contrast with the incredibly brilliantly-colored clothing of the indigenous people, which in this town are 100%. Another thing which distinguishes this town - besides, we were told, a history of famous painters, one who had had an exhibit in Wash. D.C. as well as Gua City - was an incredible mural, maybe a block long on the wall of the cemetery (on the main street of town, quite unusually). [See photo above.]
The woman we were meeting walked us along the mural and told us about the depictions, a history of the people of this pueblo. This had been initiated by an Italian woman volunteer, here, who got all the kids in school to draw pictures of what they knew of the history of their people. They then collected these, categorized them, and from them got various artists in town to do the sections of this mural
It started with the Mayan Dieties and the colors of the corn and their significance, went thru the period of a religious war, and then the atrocities of the 70s, and finally La Paz (two sections with bright white doves, etc.) and then courting rituals and other ceremonies, and then the present....a mother washing clothing in the pila with a little thought balloon where she sees her daughter studying in school, a man hoeing corn while his son and a computer sit in a thought balloon above his head, and then a man pulling water up from a well, and envisioning running water. I said "sus sueños" (their dreams) and she said, yes but they have become a reality, now. But she talked quite a bit about the importance of embracing progress while not losing the language, so they can speak with their elders, and not losing their culture. There was also a segment of the mural about chopping down a lot of trees, and then the alcalde (mayor) of the town stressing the importance of replanting trees.
So that was all touching and lovely, and the woman's attitude and story sweet.
Then we got out of the encroaching drizzle by driving down a long dirt road to a nearby community (dirt road throughout). The second photo is of the "road" of the house to which we went to meet a weaving "genius" (according to my friend, who employs her). The house was absolutely the poorest I"ve been to, although scrupulously clean....the first I've been in with adobe block walls and dirt floors in every room, the first with a small shed attached to the house which served as the bathroom, with a wooden circular structure over an outhouse hole for the toilet. I was totally amazed at two very large handmade looms, one outside on the patio, [see third photo] and one taking up most of a room. The structure was just like the "overhead" Swedish and other looms I've seen, but every part hand-made, including some of the iron parts. She demonstrated the way it worked and let several of us sit and mess up her weaving, then showed us the big xxx that she winds her warp on, and to satisfy my curiousity, showed us the handmade structure to set the bobbins on (each one purchased cotton thread wound on short bits of cane from the corn), and the way she winds from them onto the xxx. It takes 3 people to set the warp on the loom....instead of being able to stand behind the loom while it's being wound on, as I'm familiar with, the 3rd person has to get under the loom to feed it to the other two attaching it to the loom. SUCH a process.
We then left and went for lunch: caldo, a traditional dish here that I also had in Xenocoq, some distance away, with fresh warm blue tortillas. Essentially caldo is chicken soup, but the chicken, huisquil, carrot and rice are taken out of the broth and served on a plate, and the broth served separately. She explained to us that the white chicken I DON'T buy from the market is 1 month old and comes from Gua City, the "amarillo" chicken I do buy is 2 mos old and grown on the farms, and what they use is a 1 year old chicken grown on their own place. They said this proudly, as if much the best, and the flavor was really good, and it was less fatty, tho I suspect it is a chicken who has been running around for awhile, and thus the meat is redder and a little tougher. But delicious, for sure.
Then we got to watch a woman demonstrate on a backstrap loom, squatting on a pillow on the floor. She has been weaving since she was 12, learned from her mother, of course. She did probably one quarter inch of weaving for the hour we were there talking, asking questions, and looking at some items for sale. I was re-impressed with how incredibly painstaking this patterned weaving is.....everything is set in by hand, not machine-driven, and most of the complex geometric patterns are in their heads, though they have paper patterns for the flowered designs.
Seeing this work and how long it takes made me ashamed of how I usually try to talk people down in price. Seeing how complicated it is was rather mind-blowing, when I've just paid to have the teacher from Comalapa buy me the materials for a backstrap loom, thinking I'd sit down and weave in the evenings.
The drive back was occupied talking about the jungle, and we parted promising emails and all. And then one woman mentioned that she and another do drumming every Saturday morning, together. DRUmming!? I'd just been asking to have that back in my life, BUT it turns out to be handheld, I presume Native American type drums, which is less interesting to me than African jimbe, BUT I will try to go next Saturday to check it out.
It started with the Mayan Dieties and the colors of the corn and their significance, went thru the period of a religious war, and then the atrocities of the 70s, and finally La Paz (two sections with bright white doves, etc.) and then courting rituals and other ceremonies, and then the present....a mother washing clothing in the pila with a little thought balloon where she sees her daughter studying in school, a man hoeing corn while his son and a computer sit in a thought balloon above his head, and then a man pulling water up from a well, and envisioning running water. I said "sus sueños" (their dreams) and she said, yes but they have become a reality, now. But she talked quite a bit about the importance of embracing progress while not losing the language, so they can speak with their elders, and not losing their culture. There was also a segment of the mural about chopping down a lot of trees, and then the alcalde (mayor) of the town stressing the importance of replanting trees.
So that was all touching and lovely, and the woman's attitude and story sweet.
Then we got out of the encroaching drizzle by driving down a long dirt road to a nearby community (dirt road throughout). The second photo is of the "road" of the house to which we went to meet a weaving "genius" (according to my friend, who employs her). The house was absolutely the poorest I"ve been to, although scrupulously clean....the first I've been in with adobe block walls and dirt floors in every room, the first with a small shed attached to the house which served as the bathroom, with a wooden circular structure over an outhouse hole for the toilet. I was totally amazed at two very large handmade looms, one outside on the patio, [see third photo] and one taking up most of a room. The structure was just like the "overhead" Swedish and other looms I've seen, but every part hand-made, including some of the iron parts. She demonstrated the way it worked and let several of us sit and mess up her weaving, then showed us the big xxx that she winds her warp on, and to satisfy my curiousity, showed us the handmade structure to set the bobbins on (each one purchased cotton thread wound on short bits of cane from the corn), and the way she winds from them onto the xxx. It takes 3 people to set the warp on the loom....instead of being able to stand behind the loom while it's being wound on, as I'm familiar with, the 3rd person has to get under the loom to feed it to the other two attaching it to the loom. SUCH a process.
We then left and went for lunch: caldo, a traditional dish here that I also had in Xenocoq, some distance away, with fresh warm blue tortillas. Essentially caldo is chicken soup, but the chicken, huisquil, carrot and rice are taken out of the broth and served on a plate, and the broth served separately. She explained to us that the white chicken I DON'T buy from the market is 1 month old and comes from Gua City, the "amarillo" chicken I do buy is 2 mos old and grown on the farms, and what they use is a 1 year old chicken grown on their own place. They said this proudly, as if much the best, and the flavor was really good, and it was less fatty, tho I suspect it is a chicken who has been running around for awhile, and thus the meat is redder and a little tougher. But delicious, for sure.
Then we got to watch a woman demonstrate on a backstrap loom, squatting on a pillow on the floor. She has been weaving since she was 12, learned from her mother, of course. She did probably one quarter inch of weaving for the hour we were there talking, asking questions, and looking at some items for sale. I was re-impressed with how incredibly painstaking this patterned weaving is.....everything is set in by hand, not machine-driven, and most of the complex geometric patterns are in their heads, though they have paper patterns for the flowered designs.
Seeing this work and how long it takes made me ashamed of how I usually try to talk people down in price. Seeing how complicated it is was rather mind-blowing, when I've just paid to have the teacher from Comalapa buy me the materials for a backstrap loom, thinking I'd sit down and weave in the evenings.
The drive back was occupied talking about the jungle, and we parted promising emails and all. And then one woman mentioned that she and another do drumming every Saturday morning, together. DRUmming!? I'd just been asking to have that back in my life, BUT it turns out to be handheld, I presume Native American type drums, which is less interesting to me than African jimbe, BUT I will try to go next Saturday to check it out.
She also asked, "Do you Journey?" and of course I have, and would be interested to find some women interested in Visioning, and something a little more spiritual than I've so far encountered here. I guess I'm still trying to recreate the women's groups I belonged to in Chico.
Maybe that's not possible................but we'll see what is!
So....all told, another amazing day.
May we always be amazed.
Maybe that's not possible................but we'll see what is!
So....all told, another amazing day.
May we always be amazed.
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