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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

New Life - otra vez!

I wrote a short story, not long ago, about a social worker (me, maybe 20 years younger) coming to Guatemala, working with the people I work with, and learning the things I have learned about the economy, the people, their lives, their difficulties. And she falls in love with a Mayan man maybe 10 years younger than she, who lives on the side of the Volcano at Lago Atitlan. I enjoyed playing with the writing of this romance – trying to make it “true” in terms of psychology, cultural differences, and so on – but as I did, I learned I was really writing about MY romance, not with a person but with the natural world, with the sensory world of sounds and smells and sights, in this case his farm…….and her memories of milking goats, forking hay, feeding the chickens on her own farm in the past (my farm.) My feelings about that were so intense, that once again my desire to live more in the country emerged…..to have something more in my life than my sweet view of the banana “trees” and bouganvilla, and the low mountain behind them, out my bedroom window. Some days later I went up to Santa Maria de Jesus (on the side of Volcan Agua) with our teachers, and coming back was just stunned with the view……….not really the beautiful view of the valley and Antigua in the middle of the mountains, but the view of the varied fields around Santa Maria…rich and green. I felt as though I was feeding on the view, as though this is what my soul absolutely needs for sustenance.

 So what a surprise to have a love come into my life at this age…now nearing 73….almost as though I called it into being by imagining it. He is not a Mayan and not much younger than I, however certain aspects of the story are there. However, I suppose it should never be a surprise when someone comes into your life who pushes certain buttons, requiring you to grow as a person, while at the same time pleasing and pleasuring you. So that is a delight for which I am very grateful. But secondly, he lives near Lago Atitlan, and when I visited him there we walked along the lake and I discovered the house that I first saw when visiting San Pedro to be trained in Pedagogia Basica, a year ago, which I fell in love with and said to our young teachers, “That’s MY house!” On 3 subsequent trips I had been unable to find the house again. Well the story would be perfect if I bought the house and lived there forever, but it’s nearly perfect in that it is for rent for the next six months, and so I’m going to uproot myself to “fly” again, this time to live near a lake and near a man I find quite delightful, with whom I’m going to work in the schools there. God works in wondrous ways……….la verdad.

New and Old; a lovely encounter

A good old friend from California is in town and he and I went around looking at things at the artesania place near the mercado. And in a tiny little cubicle we went in to look at some beautiful heavily-embroidered textiles. A young man of about 20 was tending the space and he spoke so knowledgeably about the different types of textiles and what parts of Guatemala they came from that I said, "You know a lot about this!" and he said, "It is my culture." And thus began a long and rather emotional conversation about his desire to know more about it, and his last name (Mayan.) He was interested that I knew the difference between ladinos and Mayans and that the ladinos don’t by-and-large do this textile work as the Mayans do, except in the way that individual Europeans or Americans like me do. He told me that all the languages like Tsutu'jil and Katchikel (I don't know how to spell them correctly) SHOULD be referred to as Maya Tsutu'jil and Maya Katchikel, etc. He showed me in detail how this BEAUTIFUL embroidery about 4 feet wide and tall was first woven and then designs drawn on in pencil, not pen, and then embroidered in silk, which breaks more easily than cotton, he told me, and that it takes about 4 mos. to do it, and his respect for it was so lovely, and he just so lovely. So I said, intending to be flattering, “You should be teaching this in a museum or university.” And he said he was starting to study so that he could go into archaeology or anthropology. He was just so earnest and sweet and had such integrity that I wanted to fund his college education or at least buy his stuff, but the one we were looking at was 4000 Q (or about $320) and even the little ones were very expensive. I guess he must be selling some or he wouldn't be there, but how many people are going to recognize the value of these beautiful things? Even I try to get the prices down. And so many things are being produced now, more mechanically, and more cheaply. And if they are bought, these lovely things will go out of existence.

Guate Earthquakes

Guatemala, like my home state of California, is a land of earthquakes.
A short trip, via USGS, through the history of recent major eruptions names three:
On 4/19/1902 , there was a 7.5 magnitude earthquake with 2000 known fatalities.
This report doesn't mention 1917, but another refers to a big one in that year.
On 2/04/1976, there was another 7.5 with 23,000 fatalities. Both of these were on the Santa Marta fault, located NE of Gua City.
I was just reading a memoir of a woman living in Belize, at that time (country to the East of Guatemala, on the Pacific) whose house rocked with that quake. Our co-worker Carlos' family got trapped inside their house just north of Antigua. It is said that most of the adobe block structures collapsed....and probably initiated the changeover to concrete block houses. That earthquake was said to be 1/16 of the force of the 1905 San Francisco quake. ONE-SIXTEENTH!
I think it was 1979 that California had another major earthquake, centered in Loma Prieta near Watsonville, where my husband rode a bus that, he said, drove side to side over the highway moving under it, and of course in W. Oakland, near where my daughter lives, a freeway collapsed, killing a hundred people or so.

In very recent history, on 6/13/07, when I was here there was a 6.7 magnitude quake whose epicenter was offshore SE of Gua/Antigua. No fatalities. I remember watching the ground move back and forth outside my house. The latest one reported in the USGS report, was Friday 1/11 2008.....70 mi SSE Gua City (again off shore.) I think that was when I just bolted straight outside, to meet my neighbors standing there.
The earth writhes in convulsions once in awhile, letting us know her power. It's not hard to imagine what those convulsions might be about.

This report also mentions the Santa Marta earthquake on July 29, 1773, which "destroyed" Antigua nearly completely. No magnitude was given for that one, or probably recorded.
The deluge of water from Volcan Agua in 9/11/1541 destroyed Ciudad Vieja and killed the pretended governor(ess) as well as 599 other people. I've heard that an earthquake from Fuego triggered the water-"spill." But other reports cite the volume of water building up in the caldera of Volcan Agua. Agua evidently erupted 80,000 times, but the last volcanic activity there was 10,000 years ago.

A short, but active history.

On to Comolapa

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.]

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.

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.

Monterrico

A chance trip to Monterrico! The shuttle there wound through huge commercial sugar cane and corn fields, not jungle as I'd anticipated. The ride was 2 hours or so from Antigua and totally comfortable, in this cooler January weather.

We stayed at one of the cheaper hotels (gorgeously-plaited thatched roof of the terrace looking out to the ocean, seen above) and still could walk out to the beach and have dinner and drinks on the beachside terrace of a slightly more expensive hotel not far away. Most people go to release the baby turtles into the ocean........and since there isn't much else to do, we did that too....or at least my two friends did. I was a little sick from something I had at dinner, and spent the evening, comfortably enough, in my room with the fan on and the windows open.

We took a dawn trip into the river sanctuary. That was a beautiful trip, and included sunrise over the reeds [see photo] and trees, and a close look at their weird fish.....which have two sets of eyes, one for seeing over the top of the water, and "fly" or skip like a skipping stone across the top of the water. Pretty amazing to see.

I loved the town....all laid back and open-aired (unlike Antigua's closed walls on the street, which actually I also love)....and of course, pigs in the street. My favorite thing. [see photo]

The starving dogs in the street were not so cute. Despite my friends' advice, I had to go back to feed one puppy I saw. The cemetary was also unusual, colorful, and beautiful.

I could spend some time there.

Somehow I forgot to post an overnight trip I took with two friends out to the beach at Monterrico. I've heard of this place ever since my first trip here, because everybody goes to Monterrico to release the turtles. Somehow I got the idea it was a long way and over the mountains, so I didn't want to go. Really.

But a Guatemalan friend I work with wanted to get away for two days, and a traveling friend wanted to see the beach before she left Guatemala, so off we went on a weekday.

I loved Monterrico. It's my ideal laid-back place with some consciousness about the environment (on which their economy depends) and with black-sand beaches which otherwise look just like the California coast where I grew up, except the first time the water hit my feet I was shocked with its warmth. How to have everything!

We stayed at one of the cheaper hotels, with a second-story balcony terrace looking out at the ocean, and hammocks to hang out it. Hammocks are a feature of all Monterrico hotels and houses, which I'd never seen in Guate before. Conveys something about the cultural climate. Most houses have rooms on each side, and a central "court" area under the thatched roof where the hammocks hang and where the people eat and hang out most of the time.   Perfect for catching a sea breeze in this hot weather.   I love that.

Payasos in the Parks

These are some of our payasos (clowns) working with young children in the plaza of their pueblo in San Pedro.

The other photo is of one of our teachers working with children in the plazuela at Santa Ana, close to where I live.

The teachers do Brain Gym activities in the schools. The clowns reach younger children in the parks of their pueblos with preschool concepts (colors, numbers, and the Brain Gym activities of Pedagogia Basica) to help these children succeed when they begin to attend school.

Reports have said that 30% of children fail the first grade because of lack of early stimulation. We'll do what we can. To volunteer with us, see www.idealist.org.