Guatemala Journal
January 30, 2006
Although I have been home from Guatemala for a week, there is a part of me that is still in suspense. What feels natural to my body does not necessarily feel so natural to my soul. Being in my own room, seeing old friends, preparing for classes and reading all the mail that has stacked up since mid-December does feel good and grounds me in the life in which I have been working so long. But the part of me that came to love life in Xela has not been integrated into my American life. It’s the part of me that notes in Spanish how late it is when I wake up and have to hurry to get ready. It’s the part of me that is ready to greet the people I meet on the sidewalk with a smiling “Buenos Dias.” It’s the part of me that doesn’t care how well put together my outfit looks because we are all just wrapping up against the cold and every colorful outfit seems appropriate. It’s the part of me that still forgets that you can flush the toilet paper and brush your teeth in the water from the tap. It’s the part of me that misses the everchanging, always interesting sky of Guatemala, and the constant reminder on the faces of people around me that the world can be a dangerous and difficult place.
I suppose I have been changed by what I learned about life in Guatemala. People are careful there when they talk about politics. Even though the Peace Accords of Jan 1996 ended the bloodbath of the civil war, the rich and powerful still are free to act with impunity, and one must be careful not to offend someone with powerful and influential friends. Corruption is so blatant, the rich so privileged that people are always careful about what they say and do. The damage from Hurricane Stan in October 2005 is largely unrepaired because the money that comes in for aid rarely makes it to the farmers and villagers who have suffered losses. So cornfields are washed out, streams eroded up to the front doors or houses. It is hard to look at. It is not just that I have not forgotten what it looks like. Just knowing how hard life is for so many of the people in the villages that I passed through has changed the way I understand life. It hurts in a place that wasn’t there before I went to Guatemala. The question still remains for me: what will I do with this new understanding? If I feel as if I stand in solidarity with those who struggle for the necessities of life, if I have come to think that Jesus would be organizing the poor of Guatemala and healing their sicknesses, how will this change what I do with my time and my resources? As I reconnect with academic life and the studies that are shaping my skills as a pastor, how will I keep alive this experience of Guatemala and its strong and beautiful people?
Monday, January 30, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
Guatemala Journal
January 15, 2006
In the last ten days, I have seen extremes that make this journey a wonder. The Boca Costa has some of the richest agricultural territory in Guatemala and some of the most grinding poverty. We students had a chance to witness the richness of the land and the warmth of people who live on next to nothing.
CHICHICASTENANGO
When I left, I went back to the highlands via Chichicastenango, a famous market town in the altiplano. Indigenous people come from all over the central highlands to buy, sell, and trade agricultural and artesenal products. I was out in the plaza as soon as I arrived on Saturday afternoon to look at local weaving. I found every kind of blanket, bedspread, and tablecloth. There were bags with leather trim, bags without leather, bags big and small. Women´s traditional blouses and skirts were for sale, as well as weaving and embroidery specifically for the tourist trade. I found a shop on the plaza that had clerical stoles and bought two. I wish I could say I was glad to be back in the thin cold air of the altiplano, but I loved the warmth of the Boca Costa. My trip was rudely interrupted by food poisoning. I had been the only student so far not to experience stomach distress, but I made up for it in one dramatic night of misery. What made me think that ordering chorizo in a country restaurant was a good Idea? As I was making trips back and forth to the bathroom, I could hear trucks and handcarts arriving in the dark, and locals setting up booths all around my plaza hotel location. I finally slept and when I got outside at 11:30 am, the streets were packed with merchants and customers for six blocks in every direction. I think I saw more American tourists in that morning than I had seen in all my time in Xela. I wish I had been able to enjoy the drama of the market. It was a throbbing, colorful whirl in every direction. I have never seen anything like it. Everytime I walked out in to the throng my stomach began to tighten up, and I went back to my room. I just wanted my car to come and take me away.
TIKAL
I returned to my own apartment and private bath in Xela, settling in for another week of study and quiet for my stomach before leaving on Friday afternoon for Antigua, the beginning of a trip to the Mayan ruins in the jungle of Tikal. A 6:00 am flight took us to Flores, from which the hotel bussed us into the ecological park about an hour away. Our guide, Nixon, took us for a four hour hike across ruins that date from as far back as 250 BCE. Tikal comprises the largest area of Mayan ruins in the tropics. Archeologists worked for 30 years to clear vegetation and reconstruct the limestone ruins that have been melting under rain and vegetation since 900 CE. Some of the temples emerge from mounds of vegetation on one side to huge blocks of limestone on the other. Nixon introduced us to local trees, including the cieba, the national tree of Guatemala. The largest example we saw rose hundreds of feet to branches so thickly covered with epiphytic vegetation that they looked like they were wearing fur trim. We climbed up wooden ladders to the top of Templo IV to look out across the acres of flat green forest in every direction. Two other temples rise up out of the forest as if the civilization which created them is still scurrying around below trees. We saw squirrel monkeys chasing each other through the trees, and a squad of coatimundis busily checking every root and crevice for bugs.
This is a perfect time of year to visit the jungle. It is warm, but not too hot, and because it is starting to dry out after the rainy season, the mosquitos are not too bad. Our hotel was a tropical dream with thatch--roofed bungalows and a huge pool.. A bunch of Spanish students from all over the world hung out by the pool, in the dining room, wandered the grounds looking at amazing birds and animals we had seen in books. We had long conversations in English and Spanish, drank beer, lay in the sun. I didn´t want to leave.
I kept trying to remember that only the week before I had been living with some of the poorest people in the world, had been in the thin, bitter chill of the altiplano. But it was hard while my body was so comfortable and relaxed and warm, full of good food and charmed by pleasant company. What a lovely respite. Guatemala is a land of extremes, hot and cold, rich and poor, lush jungle and barren mountain plain, old and new squeezed side by side every minute. It is almost too much to take in. I am eternally grateful to have had the chance to experience so much of it. I makes me wish I had more time to travel and see even more.
January 15, 2006
In the last ten days, I have seen extremes that make this journey a wonder. The Boca Costa has some of the richest agricultural territory in Guatemala and some of the most grinding poverty. We students had a chance to witness the richness of the land and the warmth of people who live on next to nothing.
CHICHICASTENANGO
When I left, I went back to the highlands via Chichicastenango, a famous market town in the altiplano. Indigenous people come from all over the central highlands to buy, sell, and trade agricultural and artesenal products. I was out in the plaza as soon as I arrived on Saturday afternoon to look at local weaving. I found every kind of blanket, bedspread, and tablecloth. There were bags with leather trim, bags without leather, bags big and small. Women´s traditional blouses and skirts were for sale, as well as weaving and embroidery specifically for the tourist trade. I found a shop on the plaza that had clerical stoles and bought two. I wish I could say I was glad to be back in the thin cold air of the altiplano, but I loved the warmth of the Boca Costa. My trip was rudely interrupted by food poisoning. I had been the only student so far not to experience stomach distress, but I made up for it in one dramatic night of misery. What made me think that ordering chorizo in a country restaurant was a good Idea? As I was making trips back and forth to the bathroom, I could hear trucks and handcarts arriving in the dark, and locals setting up booths all around my plaza hotel location. I finally slept and when I got outside at 11:30 am, the streets were packed with merchants and customers for six blocks in every direction. I think I saw more American tourists in that morning than I had seen in all my time in Xela. I wish I had been able to enjoy the drama of the market. It was a throbbing, colorful whirl in every direction. I have never seen anything like it. Everytime I walked out in to the throng my stomach began to tighten up, and I went back to my room. I just wanted my car to come and take me away.
TIKAL
I returned to my own apartment and private bath in Xela, settling in for another week of study and quiet for my stomach before leaving on Friday afternoon for Antigua, the beginning of a trip to the Mayan ruins in the jungle of Tikal. A 6:00 am flight took us to Flores, from which the hotel bussed us into the ecological park about an hour away. Our guide, Nixon, took us for a four hour hike across ruins that date from as far back as 250 BCE. Tikal comprises the largest area of Mayan ruins in the tropics. Archeologists worked for 30 years to clear vegetation and reconstruct the limestone ruins that have been melting under rain and vegetation since 900 CE. Some of the temples emerge from mounds of vegetation on one side to huge blocks of limestone on the other. Nixon introduced us to local trees, including the cieba, the national tree of Guatemala. The largest example we saw rose hundreds of feet to branches so thickly covered with epiphytic vegetation that they looked like they were wearing fur trim. We climbed up wooden ladders to the top of Templo IV to look out across the acres of flat green forest in every direction. Two other temples rise up out of the forest as if the civilization which created them is still scurrying around below trees. We saw squirrel monkeys chasing each other through the trees, and a squad of coatimundis busily checking every root and crevice for bugs.
This is a perfect time of year to visit the jungle. It is warm, but not too hot, and because it is starting to dry out after the rainy season, the mosquitos are not too bad. Our hotel was a tropical dream with thatch--roofed bungalows and a huge pool.. A bunch of Spanish students from all over the world hung out by the pool, in the dining room, wandered the grounds looking at amazing birds and animals we had seen in books. We had long conversations in English and Spanish, drank beer, lay in the sun. I didn´t want to leave.
I kept trying to remember that only the week before I had been living with some of the poorest people in the world, had been in the thin, bitter chill of the altiplano. But it was hard while my body was so comfortable and relaxed and warm, full of good food and charmed by pleasant company. What a lovely respite. Guatemala is a land of extremes, hot and cold, rich and poor, lush jungle and barren mountain plain, old and new squeezed side by side every minute. It is almost too much to take in. I am eternally grateful to have had the chance to experience so much of it. I makes me wish I had more time to travel and see even more.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Guatemala Journal, Jan 10
Guatemala Journal
January 10, 2006
The mountain school is located in one of the most beautiful parts of Guatemala. The Boca-Costa is one of the richest agricultural areas, the home of the coffee plantations. It is a land of deep, green ravines and tall trees. The vegetation along the highway looks familiar, ferns and philodendron just like in people´s living rooms, but the leaves are the size of tabletops and double beds. Volcano Santa Maria dominates the landscape, and I understand that if you get up just before dawn, you can see the glow of the fire in the volcano at the very top. I cannot testify to this phenomenon. The air is so moist that it sticks to the edges of the ravines in white wisps at all times of the day, but in the evening the clouds come down to touch the treetops all around the school, and as the light fades it is often colored rose or coral. I found myself always checking the sky and the clouds, it was a never-ending show.
The school itself was the home of a landowner long-gone. It is a very grand house by any scale, especially Guatemala, and easily houses 12 students 5 shared bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It is a working organic farm with herbs and 100 chickens and the remains of a coffee finca worked by local families who tend, harvest and arrange for roasting of the coffee. There is fresh, real ground coffee all day every day at the mountain school, a real treat after two weeks of Nescafe´in Xela. The teachers conduct their classes in bamboo and grass huts in the basckyard. It is quite exotic. I loved it. The house has a kitchen where everyone gathers for beer or chocolate at night. We always started our conversations diligently in Spanish, but it didn´t take long for them to become a combination of Spanish and English, or all English. I found myself telling a story Maestra Miriam had told me of her trip to San Francisco and Redwood City – quite adequately in Spanish!
We ate all our meals with families in the neighbourhoods that the mountain school has been supporting since it´s arrival in 1997. It has helped to build schools, send students to school beyond primary education, bring in electricity and sanitation, and also teach health and nutrition in the neighborhood. The meals I ate were very basic, mostly beans and tortillas and soup. But I like beans and tortillas and soup, so I was happy. It is a revelation to sit in a block house with no windows, no running water, to share a dinner cooked on a wood-fired stove with a family of five that feels fortunate because their father has a regular job, and they are part of a community that owns the land their house is built on.
The stories of how these communities came to be on that particular mountainside were much the same, and matched the story of the finca across the highway that had just become the property of the workers. The original owner was a good man, treated his workers well, but when he died his children were not such good employers. Here the story varies a bit, but they all involve real hardship, no work, or work for no pay, the church or other organizations feeding families while they organize and try to gain their rights to back pay, etc. It usually takes a few years before anything changes, but the communities of Fatima and Nuevo San Jose, where we were, won enough to gain title to the land on which they currently live. Nuevo San Jose has been there since 1993 and has electricity, running water and septic system. Fatima has only been there for four years and has electricity, but no water yet.
I am very glad that I spent the week in the country, meeting people like Elsa and Juan and their beautiful and boisterous children. Ocsar taught me to play rummy en Español, and Gladis at 13, looks like a goddess on the way down to the local mill with a basket of leached maiz balanced on her head. It is not something I will ever forget. I know I would never have understood their lives in the same way if I had not been welcomed into them with such generosity. But the poverty and difficulty of life wore me out. ¨Los insectos¨ were really annoying, and two of the women in the school became sick with dengue fever from the mosquitos. At the end of the week, I was ready to leave. But as we drove up toward the altiplano again, I watched the clouds touch down on the trees and creep across the ravines. I was sorry that I would not be seeing that soon again. When I told the driver of the car that I thought the sky and the clouds in Guatemala were beautiful, he looked at me like I was crazy.
January 10, 2006
The mountain school is located in one of the most beautiful parts of Guatemala. The Boca-Costa is one of the richest agricultural areas, the home of the coffee plantations. It is a land of deep, green ravines and tall trees. The vegetation along the highway looks familiar, ferns and philodendron just like in people´s living rooms, but the leaves are the size of tabletops and double beds. Volcano Santa Maria dominates the landscape, and I understand that if you get up just before dawn, you can see the glow of the fire in the volcano at the very top. I cannot testify to this phenomenon. The air is so moist that it sticks to the edges of the ravines in white wisps at all times of the day, but in the evening the clouds come down to touch the treetops all around the school, and as the light fades it is often colored rose or coral. I found myself always checking the sky and the clouds, it was a never-ending show.
The school itself was the home of a landowner long-gone. It is a very grand house by any scale, especially Guatemala, and easily houses 12 students 5 shared bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It is a working organic farm with herbs and 100 chickens and the remains of a coffee finca worked by local families who tend, harvest and arrange for roasting of the coffee. There is fresh, real ground coffee all day every day at the mountain school, a real treat after two weeks of Nescafe´in Xela. The teachers conduct their classes in bamboo and grass huts in the basckyard. It is quite exotic. I loved it. The house has a kitchen where everyone gathers for beer or chocolate at night. We always started our conversations diligently in Spanish, but it didn´t take long for them to become a combination of Spanish and English, or all English. I found myself telling a story Maestra Miriam had told me of her trip to San Francisco and Redwood City – quite adequately in Spanish!
We ate all our meals with families in the neighbourhoods that the mountain school has been supporting since it´s arrival in 1997. It has helped to build schools, send students to school beyond primary education, bring in electricity and sanitation, and also teach health and nutrition in the neighborhood. The meals I ate were very basic, mostly beans and tortillas and soup. But I like beans and tortillas and soup, so I was happy. It is a revelation to sit in a block house with no windows, no running water, to share a dinner cooked on a wood-fired stove with a family of five that feels fortunate because their father has a regular job, and they are part of a community that owns the land their house is built on.
The stories of how these communities came to be on that particular mountainside were much the same, and matched the story of the finca across the highway that had just become the property of the workers. The original owner was a good man, treated his workers well, but when he died his children were not such good employers. Here the story varies a bit, but they all involve real hardship, no work, or work for no pay, the church or other organizations feeding families while they organize and try to gain their rights to back pay, etc. It usually takes a few years before anything changes, but the communities of Fatima and Nuevo San Jose, where we were, won enough to gain title to the land on which they currently live. Nuevo San Jose has been there since 1993 and has electricity, running water and septic system. Fatima has only been there for four years and has electricity, but no water yet.
I am very glad that I spent the week in the country, meeting people like Elsa and Juan and their beautiful and boisterous children. Ocsar taught me to play rummy en Español, and Gladis at 13, looks like a goddess on the way down to the local mill with a basket of leached maiz balanced on her head. It is not something I will ever forget. I know I would never have understood their lives in the same way if I had not been welcomed into them with such generosity. But the poverty and difficulty of life wore me out. ¨Los insectos¨ were really annoying, and two of the women in the school became sick with dengue fever from the mosquitos. At the end of the week, I was ready to leave. But as we drove up toward the altiplano again, I watched the clouds touch down on the trees and creep across the ravines. I was sorry that I would not be seeing that soon again. When I told the driver of the car that I thought the sky and the clouds in Guatemala were beautiful, he looked at me like I was crazy.
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