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.