So the past two weeks have been hectic, but good. I finally feel like I've at least made some kind of quantifiable improvement in my Spanish ability, even if I still have a LOT of practicing to do. For the most part, the time since my last entry has been spent running from errand to school to yoga to homework, with a few opportunities to hang out w/ my friends Laura & Alex. I've also taken two very specific trips out of town, one to Panajachel & one to Guatemala City, both of which were challenging and rewarding in their own special ways...
Let's see, what have been the highlights? Okay, well, in no particular order, here it goes:
- Finally getting my Christmas stuff finished and in the mail! Not easy, but fun in a demented, totally irrational sort of way. Irrational most especially because I kind of don't even believe in the whole "Christmas as an excuse for consumer insanity" phenomenon. But every year it's the same: I tell myself that I'm just going to make a few phone calls on Christmas Day and leave it at that, really simple... but of course, at the last minute, I am always hit by a massive wave of guilt and worry, because I know I've been too absent as a family member as it is, the least I can do is try to show my relatives that I really DO care (cause I DO, it's just hard when I'm away all the time to show it)... so then, a few weeks before Christmas and months after I originally decided not to do anything, I freak out and start trying to brainstorm what to get people, cause if there's one thing I'm really bad at it's giving people presents that they haven't actually asked for. So then I fret and worry and panic and run around like crazy trying to make or do something appropriate that people will actually enjoy, even though in reality nobody really expects anything from me anyway, since I'm usually so bad at this kind of thing... anyway, it's a mess. But then, finally, at the last minute I always manage to basically pull something together and so there we have it, next thing you know I'm taking a bus 5 hours each way to Guatmala City to Fed Ex a bunch of packages out since I didn't do it in time to just mail it normally like everyone else. But such is the impetuous excitement that is my life.
-The trip to Panajachel: while some would not have bothered with the 8-bus, 6 hour round trip journey that is Xela to Pana via chicken bus just to be in Pana for a couple of hours, I was actually quite looking forward to the experience. I had been in Pana in 2001 for a few days and I remembered that even though it is really touristy, they DO have an amazing artisan's market, along w/ vegetarian places to eat and even a tiny health food store. So I had a list of requests from friends in addition to the stuff I was going to get anyway, and I guess since I wasn't in a huge rush or anything it was a lot easier to take all the little inconveniences of the journey in stride. It took me ages to actually figure out what bus to take, because unlike what I was told, I could not find a direct bus anywhere. Instead I got on a bus for Guatemala City, and then, after several hours of not really knowing where we were or whether I was on the right bus, it was time for me to get off and transfer at someplace called "Los Encuentros", which I guess basically translates to "The Crossroads". Then I caught another bus to the town of Solola, which my friend Stella informed me is home to a huge Soy dairy that even has soy ice cream available, but unfortunately I was on a Mission and didn't have time to really stop. The bus from Solola to Pana was only another 30 minutes or so, and by the time we pulled in it was around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The weather was great, not too hot but with the sun shining brightly, and I took a walk down the main strip to first get oriented, then walked back along the shore of Lake Atitlan, which is totally gorgeous. Then I located the health food store, which really only had a few vitamins, not really any food at all, bought the probiotics my friend had requested and then headed across the street to eat at the Bombay Cafe, a cute little vegetarian restaurant that is owned by some old traveller gringo dude. I had previously read a review of the place online that claimed they had tempeh burgers, so that was what originally had lured me in, but as it turns out there is basically NO tempeh anywhere in Guatemala right now, cause believe me ya'll, I've checked. I guess the supplier dried up or something, I don't really know...
Anyway, instead I ate a delicious tofu burger that was served with a whole little Thali-like plate of garnishings and condiments, so I was really happy to be eating something that was both healthy AND delicious, a combination that is somehow exceedingly rare here. After lunch, I cruised through the dizzying array of artisans' markets, on a mission for just a couple of things that I was able to find fairly easily, much to my relief. I negotiated a few decent (but still fair) deals and was on my way back to Xela by 5 o'clock that night. It was great. Upon my arrival back in Xela, I managed to squeeze into my first Collectivo here, a shared taxi service ("microbus" as they say here) that basically packs the absolute maximum amount of people who will fit in it, since the drivers are private and are paid by the person. The two boys hanging off the side of the bus hollering "Parque parque parque!!!" and hustling everyone in and out could not have been more than ten years old, but my maternal instinct has learned to chill out here because not only is it common here to see children working or riding in extremely dangerous situations (like climbing onto the roof of the chicken bus while it's racing along the highway to retrieve a basket of turkeys that someone needs on the next stop), it's expected. These kids are amazingly adept at not getting killed, as is, I suppose, pretty much everyone else who lives here in Guatemala.
Another note about the chicken busses (so called because of the frequent bringing of live animals of all kinds on the bus for the ride to the market): while many tourists complain about the completely irrational driving habits of the chicken bus drivers (they, too, are paid only by how many people they transport), I have to say that in some respects I really appreciate the fact that they are not really willing to wait around for no reason, losing precious time and money. For instance, on the road to Pana, we hit the never-ending traffic jam that is the main highway. As far ahead as the eye could see, traffic in our direction was at a complete standstill, with construction workers half-heartedly picking away the road on either side of us, whilst oncoming traffic was zooming freely by us. Our valient driver did what any logical person who is not afraid of death would do: he swerved violently into the lane for oncoming traffic and gunned it down the highway at top speed, laughing as the trucks and cars coming towards us were forced to squeeze between our bus and the lane of traffic we had just departed. Eventually, we came head to head with a semi truck and as it was impossible for us both to pass, our bus swerved smoothly back into to line of traffic on the correct side of the road, utilizing a space that had somehow magically opened up for us there. It was cool.
Another highlight of that bus trip came a short time later, when, being really and truly unable to move, the women on the bus (who had been holding their bladders for a good 3 hours at this point) rushed to the front and out to a little hill, where all of us, young and old, Maya and gringa (me), peed together and laughed at ourselves while we did so . It was kind of a nice moment, since the last time I just had to get off the bus to pee (on my first trip to Xela) I was the only female-bodied person to do so, and felt a little self-conscious about it. Anyway, it was a fun trip and I feel like I caught a bit of a glimpse of normal life for the indigeneous folks here that I don't usually have as much access to.
- Guatemala City! Okay, so yeah, even though the nightly news would have us all afraid to so much as set foot in this huge, filthy, sprawling city of multiple nightly murders and apparently constant crime and corruption, I have to admit that I actually really enjoyed my one sleepless, crazed night there. Basically, I convinced my Spanish teacher to move our class to the morning on Tuesday, so then I stayed up super late Monday night (after class) arranging and organizing packages, got up at 7am to be in class by 8, raced back home at 1pm to pack up all my stuff and took a cab to the bus station to catch the 2:30pm bus to Guatemala City. Theoretically, it takes about 4 hours to get there, but we hit a massive traffic jam on the way there, which effectively dashed any hopes I had of ever getting there in time to mail stuff that evening. We finally pulled into the city bus terminal at about 8:30pm, and by the time I had sorted out a place to stay (a cheap hotel not far from there) and gotten in the cab there, it was a little after nine pm. I was exhausted, but seeing as the hotel was really close to all the major tourist attractions (the National Palace, etc) I figured it was a perfectly good idea to go for a walk around and try to see if I could spot any photo developing places to try to hit first thing in the morning, since the photos I was printing for my parents were still missing a few crucial moments I had thought I had printed already. Anyway, so I jettisoned everything but a well-hidden 100-quetzal note (about $13 US), my hotel room key and my water bottle, which I figured could maybe double as a weapon if needs be, and headed out, exhausted but curious, into the mellow night air.
As it turns out, there was virtually no one out in the part of town I was staying in, a stark contrast to the Tenderloin-esque street scenes of arguements, open drug use and public urination I had left behind near the bus station, only 5 minutes away via cab. On the contrary, virtually the only people I saw were already asleep, curled up in the middles of sidewalks without so much as a blanket to take the edge off. So it was quiet, and I headed down the street in the direction (according to the map in the guidebook I had consulted before leaving the hotel) of the main tourist stuff. I immediately discovered that the guidebook, in addition to providing what must be the absolutely most useless map of the city that has ever existed, was actually wrong even about the location of my hotel in relation to everything else, but fortunately only by a few blocks. It was weird, though, that the map was wrong even though I actually had first discovered the hotel in the listings there. But whatever, nothing surprises me anymore. I've come to believe that if something so much as even mentions the word "Guatemala," it is basically inaccurate and convoluted, though usually with the best of intentions. I love it here, but omg is nothing easy.
Anyway, I was walking down the street, mentally composing my sarcastic letter of correction to the guidebook author, when I had to stop short and gape in total, blissful amazement at the massive spraypainted graffiti on the wall across the street: it read, in huge red capital letters, "LESBIANAS FEMINISTAS REBELDE!" and then, tacked onto the upper right hand corner, was a spraypainted stencil reading "estamos en todas partes!". I was just like, "no effing WAY. NO WAY is this really here- how amazing!!!" and immediately determined that I really need to spend some time in the Capital and maybe not write it off so quickly. I was on the lookout after that, and soon noticed several spraypainted anarchy symbols and then some more feminist graffiti, this time with the words, "Mujeres con dignidad rebelde!". Then there was the gorgeous wheatpaste art that was basically massive (like 4x6 feet) images of glam 1940's-style femme women (one was Liz Taylor) pasted up in increments of standard 8 1/2" x 11" pages; I saw at least three of those, also in the same neighborhood as my hotel. The next morning, after being basically completely unable to sleep at all despite my insane tiredness, I got back out of bed at 6:20 am and took another walk, this time encountering more street art, including some that simply said ORPA (Organizacion del Pueblo en Armas- one of the main resistance groups in the 80's and 90's), and more stencil art, this time of some really beautifully done faces, I assume of someone famous here but I don't know who. Oh yeah, and there was some nice stencil art under a bridge on the way into the city, too, along with some slogans about the rich and poor that I couldn't quite make out before we had pulled past it. So all that alone makes it worth it for me. Even though the trip was exhausting and expensive, I am totally excited that I got to see all that amazing art and feel like maybe this place isn't as alien to me as it sometimes seems. Plus, and above all, I got my packages mailed and was able to breathe easy once I got back on the bus to Xela. So: Mission Accomplished.
-Although I got to go to yoga every day last week, I haven't gone once this week, mostly due to being so busy or not here, but then today, when I finally had time to go, I woke up feeling super disgusting and ill after overdoing it a bit at the Indian restaurant last night. I have been hearing about this place since I got to Xela, but this was the first time I had gone since I've been really trying not to spend money by just eating at home, which I am, after all, still paying for. But it was my friend Colleen's last night in town, and she gathered up a big posse of us and away we went. Who would've thought that one of the best Indian places I've ever eaten at would be right here in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala?! Totally random, but true. Anyway, we got a little crazy with the ordering and I ended up eating WAY too much, which I spent the rest of the night and all of this morning paying for. It was horrible, but still, I think, worth it. The thing with Indian food is that you really don't realize until you watch someone make it just how much oil is really in there. It's frightening. I remember years ago this crazy Australian girl named Leila was staying at our house in San Francisco, and every night she would make us these awesome, restaurant-quality curries, and I was dying to learn exactly how she did it. But when I saw her dump literally half a bottle of the lowest, nastiest-quality oil ever into the pan, I totally freaked out and realized that the only reason it tastes so much better at restaurants is that they totally do not hold back on the oil, meaning that your food has about 20 times more fat in it than if you had tried to cook it yourself. And this lesson, learned so many years ago, was replaying itself in my mind today as I cursed my bowels and wished for the pain to stop. But whine whine, poor me, such dramas of excess I really don't expect much sympathy for. Anyway, in retrospect, the food was so good that I kind of still think it was worth it;)
Let's see, anything else big this week? Not really I don't think, at least not for me. Lots of news with other people though, including two surgeries, one of which was a totally unexpected quadruple bypass on Marco, my cousin Jen's husband and father of my beloved sobrin@s, on Thursday I think it was... totally scary! He hadn't even realized he had had a heart attack until he went to the doctor for a checkup and the doctor noticed that his heartbeat sounded wrong, so they did some tests and next thing you know he's in surgery. Luckily he's recovering well and he's got lots of amazing family there to support him, but geez. He's only like 36 or something- not old at all so it was a pretty big surprise. Anyway, yeah, so that was a bit intense, though obviously less so for me via email than it must have been for my cousin, who is so rad and strong I can't even tell you. Marco, if you read this, I hope you are doing way better and recover soon!
I also have a wonderful friend who had a surgery this week too, and I don't really think she wants it to be public knowledge but I was super happy that I got to talk to her a few days beforehand cause she, too, is a huge inspiration in her total realness and courage and willingness to just do whatever needs to be done (in all aspects of her life) and keep on moving.
Finally, tonight was my final night/ graduation ceremony at PLQE- it's hard to believe I've been here four weeks already!!! I'm headed to Chiapas on Tuesday to go to the Encuentro of the Mujeres Zapatistas & the Women of the World on the 28th of December, and I'm really excited to learn more about their movement and ongoing defense of their autonomy, and am especially curious to observe how they juggle their attempt to retain their traditional ways while simultaneously serving as international symbols of self-determination/ successful resistance around the world. As I understand it, they are constantly inundated with international visitors, and have developed a very sophisticated system for dealing with us all in a way that is both informative and accessible for all of us while still getting on with their daily lives. So I'm extremely interested in seeing that in action.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on just about long enough. If you're still reading, I'm amazed, but thank you! As always, keep me posted on your happenings and I'll try to write back asap. Huge hugs to all! xoxo, Pike.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Week 3 in Guatemala: Basically me whining
Hi everybody! Well, this week has totally flown by; I've been sooo busy and even a bit stressed out that I can't believe how fast the time is going. I feel frustrated too because even though the time is going so quickly, I don't feel like my spanish is coming along nearly fast enough, and still have trouble with anything more than the most basic conversations. This week I learned about the Irregular past tense (i.e., I was doing the laundry when you called) and the future tense, but I am obviously still having lots of trouble trying to incorporate them into normal conversation. And my progress on my little "holiday packages" I'm trying to get ready is at a crawl; it feels like nothing here works with even the remotest semblance of efficiency. For example: I finally have an idea/ plan of what I want to send someone; it should be fairly simple to then go out and locate that item or, at least the materials required to make that item. But no. The first step is a general interrogation of every shop owner about whether they carry/ can do what I want. Since the answer is invariably No, I then take out my pen and notebook and start making notes of the varying places that each person assures me will, in fact, have what I'm looking for. Step two means going to each of those places, followed by a repeat of step one in which everyone tells me No, they can't actually help me, but they know a place that can. I am then invariably referred first back to the initial place that sent me to them; when I explain that no, actually, that is who sent me here to them, they think a little more and eventually come up with a new list of ideas. Step 3 involves finally finding a place that DEFINITELY has/ can do what I want, but... not right now. Or, in fact, anytime in the next week or so. It is either really far away, doesn't have the proper equipment at this exact moment (but will have it soon, promise!), or both. So I've basically been running around in circles trying to find or make things, wasting more time than I even want to say, and generally accomplishing absolutely nothing. So if you get something from me this Christmas, even if it's something you've never wanted, you better damn well appreciate it! (p.s. due to the circumstances above, I predict that hardly anybody will be getting something from me this year, so please, don't take it personally. It really is just a massive pain and I don't even believe in all this materialism at Christmas anyway! sigh. But I still love you).
Anyway, moving on to other topics... In better news, I have managed to find yoga classes for the unbelievably cheap price of 25Q/ week, which works out to approximately US$3.50 for unlimited access to really good, really intense, challenging yoga. The teacher is the quintessential white guy yoga teacher prototype, with stringy brown hair and a scraggly beard, white shorts and a funny/ creepy t-back tank top, and a voice that is simultaneously menacing and reassuring, as if just under the calm, controlled exterior is a crazy man ready to snap. I wouldn't want to be his roommate, but in terms of yoga he's a good teacher cause he is really intense about making sure you are really, really trying your hardest. Of course, this means I spent the better part of this week unable to walk, sit or lie down normally, but I guess it comes with the territory of "getting in shape". I haven't actually "exercised"- at all- for over 6 months now, so it's pretty intense how much my body is hating what I'm doing to it now. I did my third class this morning and it does feel really good, even though my lack of ability to actually do a lot of the things I used to find easy is nothing short of embarrassing.
Anyway, that's basically the biggest news of late for me. Aside from totally craving things like chocolate, nutritional yeast, and quinoa (who knew that NOBODY here knows about quinoa- it's an epic adventure just trying to find brown rice), I have been pretty much just studying, embarking on the misadventures of the holidays detailed above, and doing yoga or feeling sore from it. Oh, and I bought some knitting needles and yarn and have begun to knit a little too, though the needles I bought are sooo skinny that it has taken me a week to complete the first 6 inches of a scarf. But it will be a very warm scarf when it is done, densely knitted as it is.
Yesterday and today I hung out a bit w/ a couple of friends from school, and that has been really nice- just having some people w/ similar backgrounds and experiences to just talk to and mess around on the computer with is really refreshing sometimes!
And right now I am at a local video cafe (where you can watch a movie anytime you want, or join the nightly viewings at 8pm) awaiting a batch of vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to come out of the oven. I couldn't believe it when I found out that this place, with its cookies, has been here all along and I never even knew- but yesterday I came here, determined to get one, only to be informed that they wouldn't have any more until tomorrow (which is now today). "First thing in the morning", the woman promised my friend Laura and I; so today, bright and early at 2pm, we showed up, ready for cookies- and the place was locked. Like whimpering puppies, we frantically looked around, trying to figure out what was going on, until finally I deciphered the the ancient, faded sign announcing that they actually open at 3 today. Okay, no problem; we can just go use the internet down the street... at 3:30pm, we showed up again, ready for cookies, but.... no dice. So the woman assured us that in one hour, at the most, she would have them, so rather than take my chances I just asked if I could hang out here and wait until they're done. There's free wi-fi and I needed to use it anyway, so I figured Why Not. At least this way they won't be tempted to put it off again, since I'm sure they don't actually want me hanging around here all day, peskering them for cookies. Yeah, so that's my exciting life in Xela right now... how far I've fallen, and how fast.
Again, I would like to take this opportunity to solicit mail, be it letters and postcards to photos or cd's or even some cookies or something (okay, maybe that's not realistic).... but yeah, it's nice to have some remembrances of all you folks I miss at home. And cookies. I tried to bake my own but my host mother wouldn't let me, explaining that the oven uses way too much gas, which is extremely expensive right now. Fair enough, but anyone who knows me will understand that me without an oven is kind of like a fish without water... well, or maybe an amphibious frog, since I'm not actually DYING, just not as great as when I have my special life's necessities (like baked goods). Everyone here seems incredulous that I'm still trying to eat vegan, like it's the craziest thing they've ever heard of. I admit that the food choices aren't exactly exciting, but in a way it's liberating not to be thinking about food all the time (not counting when I'm actually just lamenting the lack of certain things). I did also manage to find one type of chocolate bar (of questionable quality, but still) that doesn't have milk, and dipped in the local, organic peanut butter I tracked down last week it is actually really good. Still. Okay, I feel like I've done nothing but whine throughout this entire entry, so let me try to think of some good stuff:
*the weather has been really beautiful the last two days (I've been wearing a skirt and flipflops instead of the 6 layers of shirts, two pairs of pants and legwarmers I was rocking the rest of the week).
*I listened to Zorro by Isabel Allende, while knitting every night this week to chill out a bit. It's kind of corny but worth it, considering the circumstances. I am really glad I went to the library before I left and put as many audiobooks on my computer as I could find- it pays to be a nerd sometimes! This way I feel a little less guilty about knitting when I should be studying...
*I got to see the fairly interesting process of how they process and dye the thread used to make some of the many intensely- colored local fabrics and textiles in a nearby town called Salcaja, which is also the home of what is supposed to be the oldest Catholic church in Central America (a little creepy, but the church was beautiful).
* I've gotten to hear from a good number of you, dear readers, which has really been great. Please keep me updated on your lives and happenings! I really like to know.
Other than that, I am getting ready for another week of school, and trying to figure out how to attend the 3rd Encuentro of Zapatista Women and the Women of the World, which is happening from the 28th of December to the 1st of January in Chiapas. It's so close to here that I can't imagine a better way to spend my New Years eve, so hopefully I can sort out how to make that work. It's a little unclear from the website what information, exactly, they need, and if I actually have to apply at all or just show up. So that's another one of my missions for this week. Along with figuring out how and when I'm leaving Guatemala to actually head south... it would be really, really easy to just stay here and in Mexico for the next 5 months, but I'm determined to at least set foot in South America, one way or another!!!
Anyway, I hope this finds you all well, as always, and I hope you have a great week! Love to all! xoxo p.
Anyway, moving on to other topics... In better news, I have managed to find yoga classes for the unbelievably cheap price of 25Q/ week, which works out to approximately US$3.50 for unlimited access to really good, really intense, challenging yoga. The teacher is the quintessential white guy yoga teacher prototype, with stringy brown hair and a scraggly beard, white shorts and a funny/ creepy t-back tank top, and a voice that is simultaneously menacing and reassuring, as if just under the calm, controlled exterior is a crazy man ready to snap. I wouldn't want to be his roommate, but in terms of yoga he's a good teacher cause he is really intense about making sure you are really, really trying your hardest. Of course, this means I spent the better part of this week unable to walk, sit or lie down normally, but I guess it comes with the territory of "getting in shape". I haven't actually "exercised"- at all- for over 6 months now, so it's pretty intense how much my body is hating what I'm doing to it now. I did my third class this morning and it does feel really good, even though my lack of ability to actually do a lot of the things I used to find easy is nothing short of embarrassing.
Anyway, that's basically the biggest news of late for me. Aside from totally craving things like chocolate, nutritional yeast, and quinoa (who knew that NOBODY here knows about quinoa- it's an epic adventure just trying to find brown rice), I have been pretty much just studying, embarking on the misadventures of the holidays detailed above, and doing yoga or feeling sore from it. Oh, and I bought some knitting needles and yarn and have begun to knit a little too, though the needles I bought are sooo skinny that it has taken me a week to complete the first 6 inches of a scarf. But it will be a very warm scarf when it is done, densely knitted as it is.
Yesterday and today I hung out a bit w/ a couple of friends from school, and that has been really nice- just having some people w/ similar backgrounds and experiences to just talk to and mess around on the computer with is really refreshing sometimes!
And right now I am at a local video cafe (where you can watch a movie anytime you want, or join the nightly viewings at 8pm) awaiting a batch of vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to come out of the oven. I couldn't believe it when I found out that this place, with its cookies, has been here all along and I never even knew- but yesterday I came here, determined to get one, only to be informed that they wouldn't have any more until tomorrow (which is now today). "First thing in the morning", the woman promised my friend Laura and I; so today, bright and early at 2pm, we showed up, ready for cookies- and the place was locked. Like whimpering puppies, we frantically looked around, trying to figure out what was going on, until finally I deciphered the the ancient, faded sign announcing that they actually open at 3 today. Okay, no problem; we can just go use the internet down the street... at 3:30pm, we showed up again, ready for cookies, but.... no dice. So the woman assured us that in one hour, at the most, she would have them, so rather than take my chances I just asked if I could hang out here and wait until they're done. There's free wi-fi and I needed to use it anyway, so I figured Why Not. At least this way they won't be tempted to put it off again, since I'm sure they don't actually want me hanging around here all day, peskering them for cookies. Yeah, so that's my exciting life in Xela right now... how far I've fallen, and how fast.
Again, I would like to take this opportunity to solicit mail, be it letters and postcards to photos or cd's or even some cookies or something (okay, maybe that's not realistic).... but yeah, it's nice to have some remembrances of all you folks I miss at home. And cookies. I tried to bake my own but my host mother wouldn't let me, explaining that the oven uses way too much gas, which is extremely expensive right now. Fair enough, but anyone who knows me will understand that me without an oven is kind of like a fish without water... well, or maybe an amphibious frog, since I'm not actually DYING, just not as great as when I have my special life's necessities (like baked goods). Everyone here seems incredulous that I'm still trying to eat vegan, like it's the craziest thing they've ever heard of. I admit that the food choices aren't exactly exciting, but in a way it's liberating not to be thinking about food all the time (not counting when I'm actually just lamenting the lack of certain things). I did also manage to find one type of chocolate bar (of questionable quality, but still) that doesn't have milk, and dipped in the local, organic peanut butter I tracked down last week it is actually really good. Still. Okay, I feel like I've done nothing but whine throughout this entire entry, so let me try to think of some good stuff:
*the weather has been really beautiful the last two days (I've been wearing a skirt and flipflops instead of the 6 layers of shirts, two pairs of pants and legwarmers I was rocking the rest of the week).
*I listened to Zorro by Isabel Allende, while knitting every night this week to chill out a bit. It's kind of corny but worth it, considering the circumstances. I am really glad I went to the library before I left and put as many audiobooks on my computer as I could find- it pays to be a nerd sometimes! This way I feel a little less guilty about knitting when I should be studying...
*I got to see the fairly interesting process of how they process and dye the thread used to make some of the many intensely- colored local fabrics and textiles in a nearby town called Salcaja, which is also the home of what is supposed to be the oldest Catholic church in Central America (a little creepy, but the church was beautiful).
* I've gotten to hear from a good number of you, dear readers, which has really been great. Please keep me updated on your lives and happenings! I really like to know.
Other than that, I am getting ready for another week of school, and trying to figure out how to attend the 3rd Encuentro of Zapatista Women and the Women of the World, which is happening from the 28th of December to the 1st of January in Chiapas. It's so close to here that I can't imagine a better way to spend my New Years eve, so hopefully I can sort out how to make that work. It's a little unclear from the website what information, exactly, they need, and if I actually have to apply at all or just show up. So that's another one of my missions for this week. Along with figuring out how and when I'm leaving Guatemala to actually head south... it would be really, really easy to just stay here and in Mexico for the next 5 months, but I'm determined to at least set foot in South America, one way or another!!!
Anyway, I hope this finds you all well, as always, and I hope you have a great week! Love to all! xoxo p.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
First week of school & loving it.
um, okay, sorry this is all underlined. I don't know why it's like this and I can't make it go away! Anyway, here it is....
Hi everybody! Well, here I am, one week after my last blog entry, and I'm not only alive and well but actually really enjoying my time here, minus a few minor inconvieniences (like the fact that my computer seems to be suddenly unable to connect to any sort of wi-fi network, even though it tells me I'm connected...) Anyway, though, like I said, for the most part my time here has been great. I am really enjoying the challenge of being back in school, and even though I still can't hold anything close to a normal conversation in Spanish, I definitely feel like I'm starting to get more confident in trying to speak it, and am starting to remember some of the stuff I had forgotten. Because I'm totally trying to make the most of my time here by doing as many of the school's activities as possible, my schedule has actually been pretty hectic so I have barely had time to check email or do too much that isn't school- related. But I feel like the time's been well-spent: so far, in my first week, I participated in a conference on domestic violence in Guatemala, went on a walk up the mountain overlooking Xela and learned a little about native plants that people here have used as medicine and food for centuries, watched a movie about cocaine trafficking and how U.S. drug laws impact the lives of people in Mexico and the U.S., heard from a woman who lives in an autonomous community of ex-guerillas that is now a fair-trade, organic coffee farm, and yesterday we actually went to the farm and helped pick the coffee for several hours before learning about the processes the coffee goes through to become what we think of as "coffee". It was really great- HARD, hard work though, because basically you have a basket strapped to your front via a belt slung around your back, and by the time the basket is nearly full (which was a lot longer for us newbies than for the families who own the farm) it is so heavy it's difficult to move around! One of the girls in our group joked, "is this what it feels like to be 8 months pregnant?" and another woman said, "pretty much, except I don't feel like puking right now." So there you go- two new experiences for the price of one. The girl who came to our school was also our tour guide, and she talked a lot about the benefits and challenges of running an organic, fair-trade coffee farm as opposed to a conventional one, and basically reinforced my beliefs that organic/ fair trade is really, really important, because not only does it allow the workers to earn enough to live on and work in healthier conditions, but it also provides a greater deal of security because the price for fair trade coffee doesn't fluctuate the way it does with conventional coffee. So for instance, on a normal, massive coffee farm, there are rows and rows of monoculture coffee plants with no natural shade to shelter the workers from the blazing sun; the workers are also completely at the mercy of the market economy, because you can bet that if the company is getting a lot less money for their coffee than they had hoped (like if it's been a really abundant year for coffee harvest and the market is flooded), they don't eat the loss, the workers do- they simply either get paid less or get less work. And the really sad thing is that actually almost, if not all organic/ f.t. farms who go to the trouble and expense of getting certified still only are able to sell a percentage of their coffee at those higher rates, cause there simply isn't enough of a market in the U.S. and other places where people are willing to pay a little extra for the og/ f.t. coffee. So after the farms have sold off as much of their coffee at fair trade prices as possible, they usually have to sell the rest at the same regular market rates as the crappy conventional coffee that is way less expensive to produce. So it's a disincentive to other farms to want to try to start going in the direction of organic & fair trade, all because those of us in rich countries are too cheap to spring for an extra buck or two to make sure our lattes are not screwing over the earth and people who grow it.
At lunch, a few of us ended up talking with one of the teachers who came along on the trip to visit an old friend who lives on the farm, and we discovered that she herself was a pirate radio operator for 9 years of the war, and she told us about how she was 23 when she left university to join the resistance, thinking that the war would be over within 2 or 3 years. But in actuality it lasted nearly 20 during which she was a nurse in addition to running the radio stations, and by the time she went back to school she was 41 and feeling very strange to be the only person over 21 in her university classes. But she stuck it out and wound up getting degrees in psychology, nursing, and teaching, and now works both at our school and at a mental health clinic about an hour and a half outside of Xela. The thing is, she is so beautiful and has such an optimistic way of talking about these really intense things that when she told us she is 51, none of us could believe it. I feel so lucky right now to be surrounded by so many amazing people! The history of Guatemala is so complex and so sad, but it's amazing to me that so many folks are still around and really willing to talk about what it was like and still be actively engaged in trying to make things better here, despite all the trauma they have experienced. So yeah, our day at the coffee farm was definitely great and I'm glad we got to go. I may even go back up there sometime in a few weeks and stay a little longer, but I'd like to go when my Spanish is better.
On a totally different note, last night I went out with a little posse I've found of other rad queer ladies, and we went to check out the gay bar, which just by it's very existence here is something of a miracle. What I discovered is that a) Drag queens are the same everywhere; b) Mainstream gay male culture in Guatemala is just as much of a beauty contest as everywhere else (there was little a "Mister Gay Xela" contest happening), and c) lots of the gay boys here are actually more than happy to try to pick up on the dykes as any straight guy, which was a bit obnoxious. But overall, it was a really fun experience full of glitter and temporary moments of sudden "shushing" as the word "policía!" (police) rippled through the crowd, only to have the music start up again as soon as the danger, real or imagined, had passed.
Other than that, I have been staying with a host family since Monday, and that is going pretty well although the mom is totally not comprehending that I really do need protein in my diet, despite my requests for beans with my meals. She's a good cook though, and it's nice not to have to worry about cooking for myself, even though sometimes I would actually love nothing more. The first day after I arrived, she went out and basically bought every kind of fruit at the market, sort of thinking that was probably the only thing I could eat. So it's been nice to have lots of fresh tropical fruit around, though it leaves me hungry in the morning so I've taken to making some oatmeal as well and eating that. I just now went and bought some beans though, so for lunch I will definitely have some now. But yeah, the family is really nice; there are two boys living at home, one 17 and one 7. The 7-year-old is home a lot more, so we watch cartoons together and attempt conversation pretty often, which is fun. Then there's the 19-year-old daughter, who doesn't live at home anymore but hangs out there a lot; she's really friendly too. And finally there's Walter, their oldest boy, who is 28 and, as they say here (as in the U.S.), is "especial"- meaning he has Down's Syndrome. He lives with his grandmother, and the two of them come over every morning for breakfast and then to go to the market with the mom. The dad doesn't talk a lot but is pretty nice; he kind of just hangs in the background and lets the mom do her thing, because she is a force to be reckoned with. She's super outgoing and vivacious, and overall they seem like a pretty modern, definitely more middle-class family than lots of others here in Guatemala. I even caught the dad doing the dishes, which apparently is still something of a faux-pas here. The local women I've spoken with talk a lot about the construct of "machismo," and basically from what I've gathered it seems like there is definitely still a prevailing culture of extreme machismo and oppression of women, but slowly, especially among the younger generation (and, incidentally, the ex-combatants who fought side by side with many strong women) that is starting to go out of style. So while there are still very few resources available to help women change their stations here (especially the indigenous women), there is a lot of hope and a lot of energy behind trying to push things forward.
Anyway, so that's basically been my first week here. I'm going to stick around a while, and may try to make it to Chiapas for an international women's conference that starts on Dec 13th, since it's only about 8 hours or so away and it seems like a shame not to take advantage of the opportunity to go while I have it. I still plan to go to South America of course- I just don't know when exactly! But that's kind of the magic of travelling, isn't it- not having a plan so carved in stone that you miss the important stuff that crops up along the way. I hope this finds you all well and happy- please keep on writing, and I would LOVE to receive letters or any little packages you may feel like sending me (hint hint!) now that I have an address! Take care and huge hugs!
xoxo, pike.
Hi everybody! Well, here I am, one week after my last blog entry, and I'm not only alive and well but actually really enjoying my time here, minus a few minor inconvieniences (like the fact that my computer seems to be suddenly unable to connect to any sort of wi-fi network, even though it tells me I'm connected...) Anyway, though, like I said, for the most part my time here has been great. I am really enjoying the challenge of being back in school, and even though I still can't hold anything close to a normal conversation in Spanish, I definitely feel like I'm starting to get more confident in trying to speak it, and am starting to remember some of the stuff I had forgotten. Because I'm totally trying to make the most of my time here by doing as many of the school's activities as possible, my schedule has actually been pretty hectic so I have barely had time to check email or do too much that isn't school- related. But I feel like the time's been well-spent: so far, in my first week, I participated in a conference on domestic violence in Guatemala, went on a walk up the mountain overlooking Xela and learned a little about native plants that people here have used as medicine and food for centuries, watched a movie about cocaine trafficking and how U.S. drug laws impact the lives of people in Mexico and the U.S., heard from a woman who lives in an autonomous community of ex-guerillas that is now a fair-trade, organic coffee farm, and yesterday we actually went to the farm and helped pick the coffee for several hours before learning about the processes the coffee goes through to become what we think of as "coffee". It was really great- HARD, hard work though, because basically you have a basket strapped to your front via a belt slung around your back, and by the time the basket is nearly full (which was a lot longer for us newbies than for the families who own the farm) it is so heavy it's difficult to move around! One of the girls in our group joked, "is this what it feels like to be 8 months pregnant?" and another woman said, "pretty much, except I don't feel like puking right now." So there you go- two new experiences for the price of one. The girl who came to our school was also our tour guide, and she talked a lot about the benefits and challenges of running an organic, fair-trade coffee farm as opposed to a conventional one, and basically reinforced my beliefs that organic/ fair trade is really, really important, because not only does it allow the workers to earn enough to live on and work in healthier conditions, but it also provides a greater deal of security because the price for fair trade coffee doesn't fluctuate the way it does with conventional coffee. So for instance, on a normal, massive coffee farm, there are rows and rows of monoculture coffee plants with no natural shade to shelter the workers from the blazing sun; the workers are also completely at the mercy of the market economy, because you can bet that if the company is getting a lot less money for their coffee than they had hoped (like if it's been a really abundant year for coffee harvest and the market is flooded), they don't eat the loss, the workers do- they simply either get paid less or get less work. And the really sad thing is that actually almost, if not all organic/ f.t. farms who go to the trouble and expense of getting certified still only are able to sell a percentage of their coffee at those higher rates, cause there simply isn't enough of a market in the U.S. and other places where people are willing to pay a little extra for the og/ f.t. coffee. So after the farms have sold off as much of their coffee at fair trade prices as possible, they usually have to sell the rest at the same regular market rates as the crappy conventional coffee that is way less expensive to produce. So it's a disincentive to other farms to want to try to start going in the direction of organic & fair trade, all because those of us in rich countries are too cheap to spring for an extra buck or two to make sure our lattes are not screwing over the earth and people who grow it.
At lunch, a few of us ended up talking with one of the teachers who came along on the trip to visit an old friend who lives on the farm, and we discovered that she herself was a pirate radio operator for 9 years of the war, and she told us about how she was 23 when she left university to join the resistance, thinking that the war would be over within 2 or 3 years. But in actuality it lasted nearly 20 during which she was a nurse in addition to running the radio stations, and by the time she went back to school she was 41 and feeling very strange to be the only person over 21 in her university classes. But she stuck it out and wound up getting degrees in psychology, nursing, and teaching, and now works both at our school and at a mental health clinic about an hour and a half outside of Xela. The thing is, she is so beautiful and has such an optimistic way of talking about these really intense things that when she told us she is 51, none of us could believe it. I feel so lucky right now to be surrounded by so many amazing people! The history of Guatemala is so complex and so sad, but it's amazing to me that so many folks are still around and really willing to talk about what it was like and still be actively engaged in trying to make things better here, despite all the trauma they have experienced. So yeah, our day at the coffee farm was definitely great and I'm glad we got to go. I may even go back up there sometime in a few weeks and stay a little longer, but I'd like to go when my Spanish is better.
On a totally different note, last night I went out with a little posse I've found of other rad queer ladies, and we went to check out the gay bar, which just by it's very existence here is something of a miracle. What I discovered is that a) Drag queens are the same everywhere; b) Mainstream gay male culture in Guatemala is just as much of a beauty contest as everywhere else (there was little a "Mister Gay Xela" contest happening), and c) lots of the gay boys here are actually more than happy to try to pick up on the dykes as any straight guy, which was a bit obnoxious. But overall, it was a really fun experience full of glitter and temporary moments of sudden "shushing" as the word "policía!" (police) rippled through the crowd, only to have the music start up again as soon as the danger, real or imagined, had passed.
Other than that, I have been staying with a host family since Monday, and that is going pretty well although the mom is totally not comprehending that I really do need protein in my diet, despite my requests for beans with my meals. She's a good cook though, and it's nice not to have to worry about cooking for myself, even though sometimes I would actually love nothing more. The first day after I arrived, she went out and basically bought every kind of fruit at the market, sort of thinking that was probably the only thing I could eat. So it's been nice to have lots of fresh tropical fruit around, though it leaves me hungry in the morning so I've taken to making some oatmeal as well and eating that. I just now went and bought some beans though, so for lunch I will definitely have some now. But yeah, the family is really nice; there are two boys living at home, one 17 and one 7. The 7-year-old is home a lot more, so we watch cartoons together and attempt conversation pretty often, which is fun. Then there's the 19-year-old daughter, who doesn't live at home anymore but hangs out there a lot; she's really friendly too. And finally there's Walter, their oldest boy, who is 28 and, as they say here (as in the U.S.), is "especial"- meaning he has Down's Syndrome. He lives with his grandmother, and the two of them come over every morning for breakfast and then to go to the market with the mom. The dad doesn't talk a lot but is pretty nice; he kind of just hangs in the background and lets the mom do her thing, because she is a force to be reckoned with. She's super outgoing and vivacious, and overall they seem like a pretty modern, definitely more middle-class family than lots of others here in Guatemala. I even caught the dad doing the dishes, which apparently is still something of a faux-pas here. The local women I've spoken with talk a lot about the construct of "machismo," and basically from what I've gathered it seems like there is definitely still a prevailing culture of extreme machismo and oppression of women, but slowly, especially among the younger generation (and, incidentally, the ex-combatants who fought side by side with many strong women) that is starting to go out of style. So while there are still very few resources available to help women change their stations here (especially the indigenous women), there is a lot of hope and a lot of energy behind trying to push things forward.
Anyway, so that's basically been my first week here. I'm going to stick around a while, and may try to make it to Chiapas for an international women's conference that starts on Dec 13th, since it's only about 8 hours or so away and it seems like a shame not to take advantage of the opportunity to go while I have it. I still plan to go to South America of course- I just don't know when exactly! But that's kind of the magic of travelling, isn't it- not having a plan so carved in stone that you miss the important stuff that crops up along the way. I hope this finds you all well and happy- please keep on writing, and I would LOVE to receive letters or any little packages you may feel like sending me (hint hint!) now that I have an address! Take care and huge hugs!
xoxo, pike.
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