Tuesday, July 07, 2009



San Pedro la Laguna is finishing it's last day of feria--a two week period of carnival rides, video game and food booths, and constant activities, parades, etc. The men in the photo at the right dance all day and evening for six days straight! (The photo to the left is similar costumes in a parade in Antigua from 2 years ago.) It seems impossible; I asked a local friend if different people wear the same costume at different times of the day, and he said no, it's the same person. I asked "How can that be?" and he said, "It's like a sport." But of course it's also a time-honored custom in Guatemala--a depiction of the conquistadores, from several centuries ago.
There are three sets of masks, usually lots of young white faces (they also wear white stockings) depicting regular soldiers, two or more who look like the officals or high-ranking "officers," and then the bulls, who often play a comedic role. One of the bulls, this time, looked to be about 5 years old, but my camera batteries quit before I could get a shot of him.
Other parades were of the princesses of each school, and then the princess of San Pedro.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Crisis in Honduras

A military coup d'etat (or golpe de estado) took place this morning in Honduras. Evidently the background is a referendum called for by the president, Manuel Zelaya, in order to change the constitution. He asked for the military to protect the people as they went to vote. This somehow resulted in his asking the leader of the military to step down, and other military leaders did so voluntarily. Leading to the coup.
Excellent background article.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/27/honduras-crisis-over-controversial-referendum/

Quoted in this article are several bloggers from Honduras, and latin-americans writing from the U.S. which show the opposing views on the call for referendum. Worth reading.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

El dia de feria en San Pedro la Laguna




Wild, wild days. Rain all afternoon yesterday, the streets running with small rivers, people picking their way around them to get to the booths that line every street--full of roasted meat or corn, muchissimas hard bagel-looking things, video games galore, shooting galleries, plastic toys for kids, sports shoes, etc etc. We went to see the Queen of San Pedro crowned, when it was reputed that queens from all the other pueblos would come dressed in the tipica clothing indigenous to their pueblo. But of course it was raining, so feet and the hem of my long skirt soaked, I headed for home....only to learn this morning that of course the rain stopped just in time for the event, which I missed.
This morning I headed out to see the procession of "queens of sport" (reina de deportes) from each school in town. Really adorable marching bands in full uniform (a month's wages for some daddies,) and a decorated floats for each of the queens. All the girls were in traje (traditional clothing) and each float had it's own theme---one young girl throwing candy at the crowd from the middle of a huge paper flower, another with Respect the Environment blazoned on the front of the truck, another with "Let's avoid using plastic." I loved both of those. In the left photo, above, is a little sports queen next to two boys in tipical male clothing, playing a marimba. The back part of her float had been ingeniously set up to depict something you often see at fairs, but the announcer was saying not here in San Pedro-- a tall pole which rotates to swing men--or in the case boys--dressed up a monkeys (serves sort of the Coyote function in Guatemalan tradition) at the end of long poles. In the photo on the right you can see the boys in red fluffy suits, hanging---but they are actually having fun. The man sitting at the top of the pole is rotating the pole. Click on the photos to see the details.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

A local, indigenous friend of mine drew a parallel between current Guatemalan politics and what is and has been going on in Boliva, Brazil, Venezuela--the new liberal trend. As a long-time liberal, I am of course delighted that the needs of the poor are being listened to, that education and health care are being funded, etc. But as a person slightly more jaded than I, he says, sure....they see that a more stable political base is the huge number of poor rather than the much fewer ricos! A redefinition of power. And according to him, each of these persons is using the poor as a stepping stone to personal power. Lasting personal power.; in each of these cases, the president is taking steps to ensure his own succession.
I can see the logic in this. This same person says that the current accusations against the president are just the rich trying to stop him. Maybe this is true too (it's a little hard not to believe the written and video evidence.) I think a little light is leaking into my ivory tower.

Published!

I am delighted to finish a two-year work and publish it on Lulu.com. This novel essentially is my story of volunteering in education and social work near Antigua, then moving to San Pedro to volunteer in education again. But by a stroke of inspiration, I threw in a lovely romance, and the slow uncovering of ancient and modern history in my new village. How that history affects the couple is the crux of this story. Many details of Guatemalan/Mayan customs and traditions, and this enchanting landscape.

Preview it on www.lulu.com/preview/paperback-book/heart-of-the-sky/7239260.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Guatemalan Debacle

Early this week Guatemalans were stunned to learn of accusations against their current president, Alvaro Colom, his wife and an aide by a lawyer who made a video saying he expected to be assassinated and that they would be responsible for his death, as well as that of another lawyer and his adult daughter who had been murdered the week before. The second lawyer was found dead, shot while bicycling two or three days after making the video, and a friend made sure the video reached CNN and other news venues.
The story behind this staggering story is that Colom, et al, were accused of using public money to launch private ventures through Banrural, the biggest bank in Guate. The first lawyer refused to have anything to do with this but gave documents proving the ventures to the second lawyer. Both were subsequently killed to prevent the information getting out, so the accusations go, but it emerged anyway, thanks to rather brave friends.
This is of course huge.
It is sad for me, because I had many hopes for Colom's presidency--the first liberal in many years. It is sad for many because some good things have been happening in education and health during his tenure. It is also terrible because this poor country can not get going without one thing or another providing a huge disruption. And now of course this president has to attend to his defense rather than the huge efforts that this country needs.
And should there be a coup by the army or the civil sector, it would be a devastating upheaval.
There are many calling for him to step down, but he of course refuses and denies all charges. Wisely he has asked for the UN and the FBI to come in to investigate the charges.
Many were afraid of a coup, which has happened so many times in the past.
I felt it would be a test of Guatemala's maturity at this point -- could they pursue and resolve these accusations and a change of government (there is a named vice-president) if needed, without upheaval??
So far, that is happening. The investigation is supposedly underway. There have been huge protests in the capital, but orderly protest (and shows of support -- held in two different plazas.)
Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The Death of a Culture


I have been feeling lately that I am witnessing the Death of Culture, here.....mainly because the little girls are not always wearing the traditional clothing any more, but wearing sports clothes, instead. And today at a lovely celebration of Las Abuelitas (the little grandmothers) in San Juan, where we were testing reading in the public school, the school boys were playing around, ignoring the ceremonies and being interruptive. Which is just boys, of course, but usually in Guate I've seen them being very respectful.....kissing the hands of the older men as they pass them, for instance. That has always touched me.


So today I was watching the Dia de las Abuelitas ceremony, during a break. There were probably 50 older women in full traditional dress (traje) sitting on one side of the audience and 40 or so men sitting on the other side, all the men wearing the usual sort of man's hat, but white straw with a black band, and maybe 18 or so wearing full traje (see inset photo of girl and boy in local traje like their elders'....however this is a San Pablo foto, and the style is different. I'll find the one I want one of these days!)

The six older women being honored that day danced with their spouses (presumably) up to the stage in the usual 1-2-3, 1-2-3 step to marimba music and the men then tipped their hats and bowed to the women sitting on the stage and left each woman in her seat of honor. The women gave speeches in Tz'utujil in which "maktiosh" (thank you) appeared prominently.

Then some of the women danced together with the same step in couple posture.

It all seemed incredibly sweet to me.


But I can imagine how it might look to the young kids, who aren't interested in laboring in the fields or over a backstrap loom, as their grandparents and parents did or still do; who look to tv (what little they may see) to define the world for them: "Those old people, who no longer have wisdom to offer us, who wear those silly clothes...."


Sometimes I fantasize that the presence of us Americans, who like to wear the traje (I just happened to have a venerated huipile from San Juan on today with a local textile skirt,) and who love to work in the garden, if not the field, might be a different example...at least for those few who revere the old ways, and there will always be a few - like me - who revere honest physical labor, who love weaving, and a relationship with the soil and plant life and the weather.


But of course culture is ever-changing, and has been "dying," here, since before La Violencia. One anthropologist dates it to the time when the younger men didn't want to "spend" their money, hard-earned on the distant fincas or in the city, in the traditional way--by throwing big fiestas for todo el pueblo which cost everything they had--the ancient culture's way of levelling the playing field, establishing non-material status, and avoiding jealousy over material goods.

(See the wonderful book, Violent Memories by Judith Zur, which is about so much more than the war years.)


Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mothers Day

2:30 am Mother's Day. Of course! it's time for firecrackers and long lines of youth singing and laughing in the streets in front of my house. My dog is alarmed and won't stop barking. I consider getting dressed and going out to the street to see what is up, but......nyah. I return to sleep to be awakened again as the group returns and walks down the path next to my house, sets off firecrackers at the house at the bottom and after a bit returns.
I'm not CERTAIN that all this is in honor of Mothers Day, although they do take the day seriously, here. But I remember when I lived in Santa Ana, in the house next to the cancha de futbol and church plaza, there were drunken musicians at 3 a.m. on Mothers Day And then about 5:30 or 6 the women, in traditional dress, lined up on chairs outside the church.
Will I walk up to the central plaza today to see if the mothers line up, here? Maybe.

I am more excited to stay home because my friend went to Pana in the boat yesterday and will bring me back some vegetable seeds for the garden--nothing unusual: broccoli, zucchini, watermelon, green beans, carrots, and the like. There are only two vegetables here that I like that I wasn't previously familiar with--huisquil (a vine with green, squash-like "fruit") and some leafy green they use in soups.
I can't remember if I said I rented the little plot ("terreno") below my house, paid my favorite gardener to fence it with corn cane, get all the huge rocks sorted out of the planting spot, and burn the "montes" (weeds.) I helped a bit with putting the cane on the gate frame, but then he came along and redid it all, tightening the baling wire they weave it together with. (And I thought I'd done a good job!)
This house is too enclosed, except at my writing desk--where there is a window across the front of my bedroom. I like being outside, with the sky over my head.
I have been researching medicinal plants and want to put some in the garden. Some will be easy: there's already a lime tree; I planted a weed I brought from Lago Izabal whose leaves taste like cilantro and it turns out to be good for "women's troubles," my gardener says. Also the lemon grass which I planted to enhance my attempts at Thai food is supposed to be good for "colds coughs diarrhea fever flatulence flu and stomach pain." By chance I have a papaya tree, which is good for urethitis. Avocado, coconut, mango, coffee, orange leaves, banana, basil.....all are good foods (though I don't have most of them in the garden they are available in the market) and medicinal, as well. Of course.

The days are full of rain but at least yesterday morning, and I suspect this one, much sun as well. Happy garden. Happy gardener.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Cultural quirks


[Photos are of me giving a talk to the parents and working with a child in the classroom I support.)

Although I am clearly living in another culture, at least Antigua and San Pedro are so modern that the differences don't seem marked. But today I ran into something a little different.
There are many times when we go to a school to work that we learn we can't work that day because: it's a fiesta day for that community, the teachers have a training to go to, it was fiesta the night before and everyone's staying home that day, the children are excused for a(nother) special activity, etc. [It's no wonder that 60% of the children in 2nd -4th grade that we test are unable to read well enough to follow the instructions.]
But today we were given an unusual reason: we could not go to the school because 40 or so children in San Marcos had somehow come in contact with some old human bones and were bewitched. Many psychologists and so forth have been called in (for some reason I didn't hear that a shaman was called, though it seems more appropriate.) All agreed (so my informant said) that the children were "possessed." The bones wanted to be buried together not in jumbles, and the spirits of their human beings were possessing the children.
Although I am aware of hysterical reactions, especially of children and especially in groups (think of our Witch Hunts in the 1800s in the US, many of them sparked by "possessed" children), it seems to me perfectly possible that these children, individually and culturally, may be sensitive enough to receive the "vibrations," if you will, of these bones--whether we gringos are able to or not. They could easily be the bones of the "disappeared" during the "violencia" here, which would be crying for recognition and return.

[I have been reading a lot about this period of violence in Guate...currently "Violent Memories" by Judith Zur. So much to understand about Guate, and about human behavior.]

On another note, I have just returned from another happy and successful visit to my home town and find myself having a harder time adjusting than usual. More usual is to be there when I'm there; and here when I'm here. ..I'm more "in between," this time. On the shuttle-ride here, Guatemala looked more different from California to me than usual, too....scruffier and dirtier, though always more interesting. And it's suddenly the rainy season, here.
And on we go.


Friday, April 10, 2009

Photos near Nebaj, Guate







I wanted to be sure to get in some photos of the sweet communities near Nebaj...Xexocom, and Xexuxcap. This area is in the high country; it was maybe 50 degrees at night, so sitting around the stone cookstoves was a must. But during the day it's probably only 62 degrees, despite the bright sun. I loved this area; the sheep, the slow way things get when there are no cars, the hillside villages, striped baby pigs at the house of the woman in the photo--sister of our young guide; tumbling streams (you don't see much water in Guate at the end of this dry season). I could live there quite happily if it weren't so cold.
This is near the area of the worst atrocities during the war (mostly in the 80's). The guide told me his parents had to leave Xexocom during the day to avoid the soldiers; they would run to the higher mountains and hide for the day. They had no water and nothing to eat; they couldn't tend their fields because the soldiers were watching. A time of hardship and terror.
The Peace Accords were finally written in '96.
There were mostly adobe homes in these two villages, but some new homes were also being built. Francisco told us that almost every family has a member living and working in the U.S., mostly in Minnesota if I remember correctly. They depend on the money sent to them for any progress in their lives.
The languages spoken in ths area is Ixil, but I noticed they still use "Mak'tiosh" (spelling questionable) for Thank You, as they do in Tz'utujil. Our guide told me that Ixil is the one Mayan language that is not from the original root, but of course every area has a story about how their place is special.

Semana Santa - San Pedro




For some reason, I wasn't impressed with last night's procession in San Pedro, although it was very nice to view the three Andas carried by men (Jesus), men (the cross) and women (Mary,) in this more intimate setting. Fortuitously, we parked ourselves in the spot where the first change of carriers took place, so we got to watch the routine. Instead of men in pilgrim costumes—the deep purple color of penitence--as in Antigua, these various groups of men were wearing matching t-shirts, all striped, but in different colors for each group.
The women all wore the traditional traje and checked shawl of San Pedro. Young women wore short bridal veils. They carried the smaller anda bearing the cross in one section, but I noticed that coming down the steps of the church and going around the corners, the men took over for the women, briefly. As usual it was difficult to get these tall figures underneath the wires and the beautiful decorations of folded banana leaves, fruit and flowers on each significant corner, so more machinations (bending, shifting to the arms instead of shoulders) took place there. All the andas were lit by light bulbs; long wires trailed out for blocks behind to where the generator came, pulled by a couple of men on a wagon. There was a small but rather good band, with just one repetitious but rather lovely song; among the members were two women on trumpet and saxophone. The job I didn't envy was that of the drum carrier....this enormous thing on his back, secured by the tumpline on his forehead.
This morning's procession (this is after all "Good" Friday) was altogether different. We walked up through the stone streets at 7 am to see the carpets. Instead of being laid on different streets all over, as in Antigua, they were one after the other, touching, for all the blocks that surround the central plaza...maybe 10 blocks, in total. These alfombras were AMAZING....much more beautiful and creative than those I remember in Antigua.....more fruit and vegetables, several with designs from the textiles here and (I think I recognize) in Nabaj done in colored popsickle sticks (one) and chrysanthemum petals (the other.) The use of flower parts and flower/fruit combos was extremely varied and creative; one was entirely of different sizes, shapes and shades of green leaves all placed strategically. There must have been 60-70 carpets. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera. Que lastima! I hope to include a few from Antigua from last year.
The most beautiful vistas were from the steps up to the church looking up at the Christ figure as he first emerged from the church portal, long lines of shawl-covered women in front of him, singing a high-pitched dirge. And then looking down on the same anda after it passed to the steps below onto the street and onto the first carpet. For of course they proceed over these beautiful carpets. One person told me, “but of course; that is the sacrifice.”
The anda stopped at that point, carried by the slightly-straining men (11 to a side) and some priest I couldn't see gave a long prayer in Tz’utujil, the local language. When he began, a whole group of men in apricot-striped t-shirts knelt all along the beautiful carpet, and the women in the row above them quickly covered their heads. Then all the people repeated their part in the prayer. All of it in Tz'utujil.
Then they started up again and proceeded up through the first carpet, trampling large fan-shaped leaves decorated along their lines with fruit and flowers, abundant fresh-smelling pine needles, large arrays of flowers in a basket made of criss-crossed sticks....and on and on. Quite stunning. And always Maria Dolorosa follows her son to the cross, many more women covered in shawls following her and singing (including the one French woman who lives here, who speaks Tz'tujil perfectly and wears traje, or typical dress.).
But how lovely. I saw several people I know from here....one woman said they made the sawdust Mariposa carpet that was the last before re-entering the church. It was lovely, but sort of too-perfect. I preferred the hokier ones with more varied texture.

We have said we will go to San Juan this afternoon to see the beautiful carpets there.
Tomorrow the procession is "de la Virgen de la Soledad, cargado (carried) por las Madres de Familia e Hijas de Maria".........And Sunday es "solemne procesion del Senor Resucitado" at 8 am...Christ’s resurrection. I hope that turns out to be well-attended; in Antigua all the focus seems to be on the death, not the re-birth..
Interesting. And there are no stations of the cross here, as in Antigua.
I wanted to post photos from San Pedro, but failed to take my camera with me. So the photos above are from Antigua, last year.

Anyway. Lovely, lovely.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Continuing journey




Well my idea here was to show you the colorful desks in the classroom (of 300 in 10 classrooms) that we painted this winter, and the adorable bookshelves we hired a local carpenter to construct, and then filled with books and books.
and of course it would be wonderful to introduce you to this carpenter - as round as he is tall, with a sort of pointed head, and the most welcoming smile you can imagine.
But I can't get Kodak Easy Share to share these photographs easily, here. So instead we have two views from my favorite restaurant on the lake - La Puerta - run by two great friends, Blake and Santos (cook extraordinare.) The one on the left looks across the lake at Panajachel. The one on the right looks past the foot of Volcan San Pedro, toward Toliman. The barco in the front is wooden; what the local fishermen take out onto the lake every morning.
Beautiful - this lake is BEAUTIFUL, moody, ever-changing - but they aren't my beautiful yellow red and blue desks for the little kids, to cheer up their rather dingy classrooms.
Que lastima.
I would also love to share the photos from my latest trip to new parts of Guate (for me) - to Nebaj and some small villages above there, where it was very cold, but where we walked for hours in the countryside past tumbling streams, children herding goats and sheep, men and children on horseback on this dirt road, to stay in a small hostel overnight, eat with a neighboring family, and return to Nebaj the next day. Then to plummet down the side of the mountain (a worse fear for me than even the boats on the lake on a windy day) to go to Tactic, where we rode for 3 hours to visit the farm of a friend from San Marcos, where he is going to be reforesting with teak and rubber.
But until I can get Kodak to behave itself. these photos will have to do.

More adventures

Most of my adventures are pretty sedate, at this point. With the Pedagogia Basica folks (see letsbeready.org) I worked in Antigua for a year-and-a-half; now I've been working with the originator of PB here at the lake for about 8 months.

The "adventure" part of this is what began in Antigua: just allowing myself to be let where Life (or God, to use the name I give it) wants me to go. Lo and behold, I'm in San Pedro, not Antigua; made contact with the wonderful director of the San Pablo school, and now am sponsoring a 4th grade classroom and have been providing materials for all of the preschool and first grade classrooms, and their beleagured teachers, who previously had been providing most school materials out of their small salaries. This with a lot of help from friends and family back in the U.S.

Some photos of the work we've done (hiring local painters to paint 300 desks to make the classrooms a little more cheerful, hiring a local carpenter to make bookracks and filling them with books, buying locally-made petates for the preschool class to sit on for circle time, buying lots and lots of scissors, crayons, paper, construction paper, paints, etc.) My favorite is the easel in the preschool classroom: the first time these children have ever painted!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Fantasy and Reality

Well so not ALL dreams come true. I lived for seven months in the house of my dreams (photos at left). In the evenings and early mornings I sat on the circular balcony of my bedrom, watching sunrise and sunset, watching the tiny fishing boats out for their daily catch - the fishermen standing in the boat no matter how rocky the waves, throwing out nets or getting their catch with a pole - and listening to the myriad of birds in the 100 trees in my yard. All this was worth the difficulty of living a mile or more outside of town, walking the road thick with mud or dust, getting tuktuk's to drive me or taking the local pikop home with piles of groceries, training my German Shepherd pup to ride there with me, and living without tv or - worse yet- internet. But I did all that and would still be doing it, except that the landlords came home from Italy this first month of the new year. So now I have moved into the house - closer to town, and with internet - of the man I became involved with in the last post, who has simply become a good friend, and my jefe in the project I am working with here, from whom I am learning many things about helping children with learning problems. 
Since I have been here I've developed something of an obsession for learning about the period of the war here in Guate, especially as it affected people right here in my chosen village. While the brunt of the violence took place in the Ixel Triangle, North of here, a reign of terror existed for many years in most of the indigenous villages - of which San Pedro was and is one - perpetrated by members of the community for personal as well as ideological reasons. It is a story that has been repeated in one way or another over time, in Africa, in Germany, Bosnia and other countries....where old grudges, power struggles, and ideological differences can erupt into violence, or can be used to manipulate people to turn against one another. I have spent much of my life trying to understand "man's inhumanity to man," so I continue to pursue that interest here.....to see how this could have taken place in this small pueblo in the fairly recent past. And I continue to meet really remarkable people who are part of that story.