Moments

My volunteer friend Winfrey sometimes describes certain events and happenings in his rural village as "National Geographic moments."  All PCV's have these; those moments that despite how accustomed you've become to the local language, food, way of life, etc., still make you stop and think "Where am I?"  Those moments that if you stopped and snapped a picture, that picture could headline an article entitled something to the effect of "Guatemalan Indigenous Cultures Impervious to Globalization."   Those moments in which I'm sitting in a tin shack full of indigenous monolingual Q'eqchi' people praising God, or sitting on a cramped microbus holding a stranger's baby that was passed off to me like a football.  Or sitting at a small table in a dirt-floor hut eating chicken soup with my hands whilst a live chicken pecks bits of food out of my mud-encrusted hiking boots.   To me, these moments are some of the most humbling, the most entertaining and the most inspiring, and are the moments that really bring me back to how lucky I am to be here.  They make me step back and wonder if our shrinking planet is perhaps bigger than we like to think.  There's so much culture, so much beauty that goes unacknowledged; so many worlds to discover within our own.  I fear that I'll have trouble being stimulated by a life free of these kinds of moments. 

And then there are the even rarer moments that I feel perfectly at home, despite the fact that I'm worlds away.  The moment when I'm standing in the smoke-filled kitchen shack with six Q'eqchi' women, helping them make tortillas, and they're treating me not like a Kaxlan (outsider), but like a friend.  The moment I soon ruin by asking about the small bits of chicken meat being fried up into Chicharones.  "What part of the chicken is that?" I ask.  "It's, you know, their parts," says Estela, pointing down towards her "lady bits."  The room, me included, bursts into laughter and the women poke fun at me for the rest of the afternoon. 

And then there were the events of Thursday.  I'm still not sure quite where to file these away to.  I'm not sure I can file them away at all.  Moments of human suffering that pull you so rapidly back down to earth, that turn previous priorities into frivolities--those moments are hard to forget.  Those moments when things get really real all of a sudden.

I went up to Tzibal on Thursday morning to check on the women's group's progress on the pila drains.  After the meeting one of the women, Carolina, approached me.  I immediately noticed that she wasn't carrying her son.  When I first starting making visits to Tzibal, Carolina's son was one of the first things I asked about.  He was over two years old but still unable to even hold his head up on his own.  He was roughly the size of a 6-month old infant.  He had what appeared to be severe malnutrition, and so I asked Carolina if she had taken him to the health center.  She quickly explained that she'd been to many doctors, even traveling as far as the capital, to no avail.  Nobody could tell her what was wrong with her son, why he wasn't flourishing as he should.  Over the months she missed many women's group meetings for being in the hospital with her son.  And he never seemed to get much better.  So when I saw her walk up to me, without her son, I knew.  She told me, breaking into tears, that he had passed away two weeks earlier.  "He was going to be four years old," she told me in her broken Spanish.  I wanted to hug her but didn't know if I should.  I grabbed her hand, told her how sorry I was.  She thanked me, collected herself and left.  Estela then pulled me aside and asked that I go visit two families with her; families of women who aren't in the women's group.  She explained that these families were both particularly needy and desperate and that maybe I'd be able to find an organization to help them financially.  She thought it important that I meet these families, pay them a visit, even if I can't help them.  I agreed, still in a haze from Carolina's news.

The first house we stopped at was Maria's house, a young mother who was recently abandoned by her husband.  Upon entering Maria's modest wooden home, she immediately handed me her two-week old baby girl, beaming with pride.  She left to tend to something in the kitchen, leaving me standing in her living room with the most beautiful baby I've ever seen (I'd never before held such a recent newborn).  This little girl, who Maria had not yet named, weighed about as much as a bag of cottonballs, and immediately dozed off in my arms.  Maria, who looked to be about 15 years old, returned and told me, via Estela, that her husband had run off with another woman, abandoning her with the baby and leaving her with almost nothing and no real way to make money.  Meanwhile my gaze was permanently affixed to this tiny thing in my arms, this tiny life with what already looked like a very difficult future, and I couldn't help but tear up.  Estela thought it time to go, so I reluctantly handed the baby back to her mother and on we went to the next house.  On the way a few other women from the women's group met up with us in the road, toting bags of sugar and cans of juice.  We left the road and climbed the steep muddy embankment that led us to the modest shack of Margarita and her family.  I was led into a small room in the back of the house where Margarita lay on her deathbed, a wooden bed frame with only a small straw mat as a mattress.  Hanging from a ceiling beam was a makeshift IV delivering her fluids through a vein in her wrist.  She was covered in a few ratty blankets, with an old shirt covering her face.  Only her arm with the IV was exposed.  Lining the walls of the small room sat several women from the community.  Nobody spoke.  Margarita's brother approached me to tell me her story.  Eight years ago she had a small bump form under her eye.  Over time the bump grew larger and larger until the entire side of her face was swollen.  She sought medical care and was sent to Antigua and diagnosed with cancer.  The doctors said that they would operate and remove the tumor, but only after she received seven treatments of chemotherapy, each which would cost her Q800.  Unable to pay for the chemotherapy, she returned home untreated.  The tumor progressed and now covers both sides of her face, making it nearly impossible for her to see, speak, eat, or drink.  She's ashamed of how she looks so she stays in, covers her face when visitors call.  With nothing else to do, the family much watch her slowly deteriorate.  She is 45 years old, with two young daughters.  Her husband later told me that they've spent thousands of quetzales on doctors' visits and traditional healers.  Neither daughter will attend school this year due to lack of money.  The women who accompanied Estela and I gave their bags of sugar and juice to Margarita's husband as offerings to the family.  A prayer was said, and we left.

I was in a daze after those visits.  It was around noon when I walked the half hour down to my house, and I immediately got in bed and slept for two hours.  I woke up feeling helpless, sad, and emotionally drained.  These moments weren't National Geographic Moments at all.  On the contrary.  Instead of painting a pretty picture of a far-off place with far-off customs and far-off problems, these people's hardships highlighted how their lives are indelibly linked to my own.  They made me stare the bleak, ugly reality of suffering--a suffering that is commonplace here--in the face.  Their problems are real, and their problems are now, and their problems are a direct result of their situations.  What if Margarita could have paid for her chemo treatments?  And Carolina could have found doctors to properly diagnose and care for her son?  And Maria could have stayed in school, learned a skill, and had children later in life?  I'm not sure what I can do to help Carolina, Maria and Margarita's families.  I'm not here to give hand-outs, after all.  I'm left feeling helpless and disheartened, ashamed that just yesterday I was complaining about a meeting being rescheduled, about the rainy weather.  These are the perspective-giving moments that really challenge me to maintain optimism and conviction in what we're doing here, wonder if it's enough, if it's enough to simply have shared these moments with these people, even if I can't work miracles.

El Salvador

It's 2012.  Can't really say that I know where the time has gone, but here we are, me with a mere six months left in my PC service, and only one month left in my 24th year.

For New Year's I traveled to El Salvador with four fellow PCV's, two of whom are my neighbors down in Baja Verapaz.  The trip was graciously planned by one of the girls in the group, so I was happily along for the ride, and of course, the papusas.  Some journal entries from the trip:

December 28, Antigua, Guatemala:
Tonight we had dinner with Bethany, an RPCV from South Africa who is traveling through Guatemala with her husband, Mykel.  They were great, but most refreshing of all was her ongoing zeal and enthusiasm about her experiences as a PCV.  We all exchanged PC stories of crazy bus rides, cross-cultural mishaps and admin frustrations over a 2-for-1 sushi dinner.  At one point in the night--and this stuck with me--while Bethany was in the bathroom, one of us apologized to Mykel, saying that he must be bored stiff from hearing about Peace Corps all night long.  He replied, chuckling, "When we first met it was all she talked about for, like, six months. But it's been a while since, and it's really great to see her get talking about it again with you guys. I haven't seen her glow like this in a while."  This got me thinking, in spite of all the PC problems happening here in Central America, that my time here--the things that are right now my life, my work, my ups and downs, will soon enough become stories that I'll be telling for the rest of my life. 

December 29, Tacuba, El Salvador:

The last waterfall was around 60 meters tall. 

(We jumped from the small cliff on the right.)  

The waterfall trek today was such a rush.  Recap of the morning: We wake up early, pile into a rickety pickup that drives us to the beginning of this so-called waterfall hike.  (From the information we gathered yesterday from other travelers, we will both hike to and then jump down seven waterfalls, each one higher than the last.  The guide brings repelling equipment for those who don't want to jump the higher falls.)  The road is rough on the way out, and when we finally pull to a stop on the side of the rocky dirt road, I'm relieved to stand up and get moving.  We hike down about 40 minutes to the first falls, and all of a sudden there we were, stripping off our clothes to pack into the dry sack, and standing on the rough cliff overlooking a beautiful waterfall, preparing to jump into the deep, icy cold water.  The guide made the males in our group jump first; at first I was irked by his machismo of electing the "big strong men" to go first, but in the end I was a bit relieved that I wasn't the test dummy.  At each cliff, the guide would show us where to place our feet, then with a toss of a small stone, demonstrate the desired trajectory we would need to accomplish with our bodies as not to fall to our deaths on the jagged rocks directly below the cliff.  Somehow between my worrying so much about launching my body far enough out into the water and fighting off the icy cold that was racing through my veins, I seemed to completely forget about the fact that I was hurling myself off a 20-40ft cliff into dark waters.  The height never got to me.  It was a pure rush, and such a blast. 

December 31, San Salvador 

Out for Mexican near our hostel.

Today we took a tour of the city, as best we could on limited time and a national holiday.  We hit the central market which was by far the largest market I've seen in Central America.  It was an attack on the senses to say the least--so many sights and smells, so many vendors yelling our their vegetable prices, and so many shoppers.  El Salvador uses the US Dollar, and it took me a good while to figure out that "A KWAA-TUH" meant 25 cents, or, "a quarter."  We didn't last long at the market (I had just enough time to find out that a pound of tomatoes costs 25 cents), and after ducking into a few of the cathedrals around the center, hopped a cab to the Zona Rosa, one of the more developed, wealthier parts of the city.  And wealthy it was, complete with Nine West, Longchamp, and a Hilton.  It was all very Florida to me. 

Some modern art at the MARTE.

We avoided the stores and went to MARTE instead, the Museo del Arte Salvadoreño.  It was amazing to wander through an art museum again--felt like I was back at home, back in Europe even.  Definitely worth the $1.50 entrance fee.

January 1, El Tunco
After a hellishly long and sweaty chicken bus ride, we arrived at the surfer beach town of El Tunco, located right outside of Puerto La Libertad, just in time to watch the sunset on the beach.  The beach was just what I needed to pull myself out of the citified daze I'd fallen into in San Salvador.  The shopping malls, fancy night clubs, taxi rides--all the excess--it was quite overwhelming for me.  I suppose this is what I should expect upon my imminent return to the U.S.  The consumerism, the wealth, the excess, and the resulting guilt--it all just became too much.  But whatever the city did to me, the beach soon reversed as I sat on the beautiful black sand beach watching the equally beautiful surfers ride the ocean waves.  I really do love everything about the beach--the hot hot heat, the smell of the fishy salty waters, the laid-back vibe of everyone and everything.  I could have stayed in El Tunco for a long, long while.

Resolutions

What is it about a new year that makes people yearn for change, to turn over a new leaf?  It's just a bigger number on the calendar, after all, another 365-day cycle that's now in the past.  I'm not sure if it's just western culture that's so drawn to the concept of starting fresh, with a blank slate, but I think that has a lot to do with the appeal of a new year.  Erase the past and start fresh.  Lose those pesky pounds, give more to charity, floss--become a new and improved you.  It's a lovely idea, and I must say, unwrapping my blank 2012 day-planner was a beautiful experience.  But as I've grown up I've become less inclined to make myself big promises, less inclined to "start fresh."  The past is there to stay, after all; without it we would just make the same mistakes over and over and over again.  I am who I am and that's not going to change.  All I can hope to do is to continue to learn and grow and become a better, wiser version of myself.  Because I'll be the first to admit that I have a long way to go.

One of the beauties of Peace Corps has been the experience of watching myself change.  And I can't say whether I can attribute this change fully to the "PC experience," or if PC also happened to occur at a pivotal point in my adulthood when I'm really starting to see my life unfold, see myself as a "grown-up" (I'm not a grown-up yet. Like I said before, I have many things to learn. Like how to do my taxes, for example.)  But in these past 21 months of this Montaña Rusa Guatemalteca I've learned a lot about myself.  I've spent more time with myself than ever before.  And in so doing, I actually saw myself change. 

I'm not going to share all my New Years Resolutions because, well, they're personal. 

• Remember that it's okay to slow down, and live accordingly.
• Learn to play the Ukelele.
• Learn French.
• Keep making time to read books.
• Be happy with what I already have. Also, if it's not broken, don't fix it.  
• Focus.
• Continue to surround myself with positive people who make me happy and who share my passions.

Sa il ch’oolejil ch’oq awe sa’ ralankil! (Merry Christmas!)

'Tis the holiday season in the village of Campur.  All week long Christmas pigs were being slaughtered, fireworks tested, women and men gift vendors knocking on my door hawking traditional dress, radios, plastic children's toys, and Avon.  Those who have electricity have twinkle lights hanging, some even have a tree.

I'll admit it; I can be a bit of a Grinch back home when it comes to Christmas.  I just feel like it's become such a poisoned holiday, such a circus, that I find myself waiting impatiently for the day to come so it can be over and we can all resume our lives, free of gems like "Santa Baby."  Don't get me wrong, I do love my family's traditions--Chinese food and midnight church on the 24th, gifts at midnight, a relaxed lasagna lunch with the whole family on the 25th.  And no matter where in the world I am, I usually end up mimicking these very traditions--I enjoyed a lovely Chinese food dinner with some PCV friends in the city, and am planning a post-New Years lasagna feast for the local family who was kind and generous enough to share their Christmas Eve with me.  

On Wednesday I took Dilan and his three-year old cousin Cristien to the market to see Santa.  It was horribly crowded but we managed to make our way towards the front of the crowd.  And there danced Santa, inside the pharmacy, in all his cheesy red-suited glory.  Dilan and Cristien were pretty unfazed by the whole thing and seemed more interested in the ice cream cones I had bought them than Guatemalan pharmacy Santa.  I've always wondered how and if Santa Claus works his way into places such as rural Guatemala.  Dilan helped me solve this mystery.  He asked me that day if Santa had ever visited me.  I told him that yes, when I was a little girl, Santa would come and leave my sister and I presents.  He seemed excited about this.  "Santa's never come to our house but my mom says that's because he lives too far away.  But once the Catholic nuns brought in Santa and he walked around giving all the kids bags of candy."  So there's my answer.  Santa exists to Guatemalan kids, although in a more far-off way.  Rural Guatemala is a bit too far away for Santa and his sleigh, and there are no chimneys for him to magically shimmy down.  Dilan will still receive a Christmas present or two--his mother got him some new clothes for when he starts school in January, and I got him and his brothers some new school supplies (thanks to some great care packages from people back home!)  But that's not what Christmas is about here.  It's not about a stupid fat white man in a red suit or iPhone 5's.  It's about family, good food, and, of course, fireworks.

For the 23rd Zurma, an eight-year old neighbor girl who comes over almost daily to do workout videos with me, invited me to come see her perform in the Chrismas pageant at the local church.  So I went to the church where I sat through a four-hour long Christmas service led mostly by the children of the congregation.  It was actually pretty entertaining, and I got a Christmas tamale out of the deal (although not until 11:30pm when the service ended).  During the closing prayer, which I noticed  Pastor Isabel did in Spanish, she asked everybody present to pray for me and my family far away in the United States.  All around me I heard murmured Q'eqchi' blessings for "Qana Jana ut li junkaba'al," and I was truly touched.  All week long people have been inviting me to spend the holiday with their families, to come watch the pig be slaughtered and to learn how the famous Christmas tamales are made.  Locals have always been concerned that I live out here alone, without my family, or a husband, or anybody else to take care of me.  But this Christmas they've all been especially concerned that I have a family to spend Christmas with, that I eat many tamales, and that I talk to my family back home.  Nothing and nobody can replace my family back home, but these folks sure do a pretty good job at taking care of me and making me feel loved.

The kids singing a song on the 23rd. Cristien and Dilan were the "U" and "C."

I decided to spend Christmas Eve with Naomi's family (her mother is Pastor Isabel of the Evangelical church).  I spent the morning making Cheesecake brownies and Rice Krispie Treats, enjoyed a nice hot bucket bath, and walked over to their house in the early afternoon.  I like spending time with Naomi's family because they treat me as an equal; they're used to Gringos (they've been hosting groups of American missionaries for years) so they're not as fazed by me as some other local families.  (You'd think after all this time people wouldn't fawn over me so much, but my Gringa-ness just never gets old for most people around here.)  I spent the afternoon playing Uno and Huicha (a Guatemalan game reminiscent of Parcheesi) with Naomi's brothers.  Around dusk I helped Doña Isabel wrap up 80 Christmas tamales out back by the chicken coop.  I'm awful at tamale-making but she put me to work tying the banana leaves up with raffia.  Pastor Isabel is a licensed social worker and has spent time in the States doing church work so she's uncharacteristically open about different religions, cultures and philosophies.  And she loves to talk.  We had a grand ole time folding tamales in the dark, chatting about social work and life in the States.  She couldn't stop talking about how fast Americans walk.  I told her that it still pains me how slowly Guatemalans walk.  After all the tamales were made and steaming over the fire, we played some more Uno while everybody got dressed up and ready for dinner.  Around 10:30pm we sat down, unveiled the steaming tamales, and gave thanks for a wonderful Christmas.  Right before midnight we all bundled up (despite it being 60+ degrees outside) and went outside to await the show.  Campur at midnight sounded like it was under an air-raid attack; everybody outside in the roads, all setting off fireworks at once, hooting and hollering all the way.  It was actually kind of nice, and perhaps the first time I've ever enjoy fireworks here.  I still miss the comfort of home, but I couldn't have asked for a better holiday here.  Wednesday I'm off for El Salvador where I'll be bringing in the New Year with four fellow PCVs.  It's been a great year.

The Christmas Eve feast: tamales, fruit, bread, tostadas, and ponche (basically hot fruit coctail).

Naomi and her brothers ready for the feast!

A good ride

Riding home on the Campur bus after dark.  I could count on one hand how many times this has happened over the past twenty months, mostly because I tend to travel early in the day.  But every once in a very long while, it works out that I end up on the bus that doesn't leave the city until right before dusk.  It's perhaps equally as rare that I end up in the passenger seat of the microbus. 

Some observations on the microbus passenger seat: it's seemingly the most prized seat, the best/most comfortable seat on the bus and is therefore one of the first to be claimed.  However, the bus driver/ayudante will often informally reserve this seat for someone special (usually a woman).  A woman they know, either from their family, or professionally, or a woman whom they know is respected.  I've seen drivers kick others out of the passenger seat to give it to more passenger-seat deserving women such as the head nurse from the village health center, the female director of one of my schools, or, of course, me (in these cases I've always denied their offer and taken a seat in the back--I'm not about to boot anybody out just because I'm the village Gringa--can't say I haven't been tempted, though).  So that's another thing about the passenger seat--even if you get there first while it's still unoccupied, you can't just sit there.  This is what you do instead: As the microbus sits in the lot waiting to fill up and leave, there's a certain dance that one must go through to get on the bus.  There is typically only one bus leaving for each village at a time.  Each of these microbuses are clearly marked with the name of their origin and the name of their destination in block adhesive lettering on the windshield (so even if I didn't recognize the driver as one of the Campur bus drivers, which by now I always do, I could just get on the bus with the giant "CAMPUR" stamped on its windshield).  Despite this fact, upon approaching your chosen bus, the ayudante (literally "helper," he is the bus driver's assistant who handles the fares, the passengers' cargo, etc.) will surely ask "B'ar yookat?" ("Where are you going?") to which I reply, "Q'anpur" ("to Campur").  This interaction happens even with ayudantes who have known me for a while, who know where I'm going before they even ask me.  The ayudante, satisfied with my response, tells me "hay lugares atrás" ("there are spaces in the back") and takes any large bags I might have and ties them to the cargo rack on the micro's roof.  This gives me free reign on any of the unoccupied seats on the bus.  Except, of course, the passenger seat.  To get the passenger seat, the ayudante (oftentimes via the driver) will instead state "pase adelante Seño" ("go up front Miss") and unlock and open the front passenger side door before loading my cargo on the roof.  Or, if I'm feeling bold and see that the passenger seat is vacant, I can ask if I can "pasar adelante," and they'll either tell me it's reserved or let me have it. 

Why do I like the passenger seat?  One: window control.  I can roll up and down my window as I please to control the air flow.  Two: a seat belt.  It's the only seat on the bus with one, and my Gringa self likes the (false?) security.  Three: the view.  The view through the front windshield is undoubtably the best one, and makes it the easiest to avoid carsickness on those endlessly windy mountain roads.  And four: roominess.  I have watched in wonder/horror as ayudantes pack four more people and a baby into a microbus that was already overcapactiy to begin with.  In the back of the micro, chaos reigns.  More passengers mean more bus fares, so the ayudante will literally cram it full until people are three to a seat, with another standing over them, using the ceiling for support and balance.  In the front, however, there are limits.  Microbus drivers take their job seriously (as they should), and won't risk compromising their driving ability by having some passenger sitting in their lap.  So the most I've ever seen sit in the front is four: the driver and three passengers (which due to the little booster seat in the front center four really isn't as crowded as it seems). 

So tonight I won the microbus lottery.  Not only did my bus leave after 5:30pm, but I was elected to sit in the passenger throne (this particular bus driver knows me well and always gives me passenger seat dibs).  Cruising at dusk with the road stretched out in front of me, Fleet Foxes playing through my earbuds; it was the most pleasant ride I've taken in a long, long while.  There's just something about riding along at night that's so peaceful, so cozy.  As the daughter of two musicians I used to love nothing more than the long car rides back from my parents' evening gigs in the city.  The interstate was so smooth and hypnotizing the way the streetlamps would go by at even intervals, the car not slowing down or speeding up but gliding along at a constant, unfaltering speed.  I don't know why, but those car rides made me feel so safe.  Like we could glide along like that forever.  I used to always wake up at the off-ramp to our neighborhood and be sad that we were almost home.

There's something similarly calming and comforting about traveling the Campur road at night.  The warm humid breeze hitting my face, the street unfolding only as far as the headlights illuminate it, the eclectic mix of pine and palm trees passing on the roadside.  Watching the roadside tiendas pass, each with only a small candle lighting it's interior, or for the few that have electricity, a single bare bulb.  Smelling the smokey smell of the comales heating up over the wood fires, watching small groups of people hurry home on the roadside.  And once off the main road, becoming completely enveloped by the darkness, amazed how this automobile can maneuver the dirt road, working it's way through the jungle like a familiar stranger until finally, I'm home. 

Day of the Devil and Aguacatan

On my way back from Mexico I spent two lovely nights in Aguacatan, Huehuetenango, where my volunteer friend Callie lives and works.  Aguacatan is a larger pueblo situated in a nice sunny valley of Huehue, equipped with a central park, market, countless tiendas, a pool, and much more.  I was immediately jealous of Callie when I discovered that she can buy fresh whole wheat bread in her site, something unimaginable to me in my bakeryless village.  But while she may have easy access to whole grain products, her daily commutes to her schools are like nothing I've experienced here.  On the second day of my visit we headed up to one of her schools where she had scheduled a cooking class with some of her students and members of the community.  We had to leave her house at 6:30am to arrive at the school by 9am.  Two bus rides, a road-block, an hour-long walk and finally a ride in the back of a pickup later, we arrive at her school, dusty and tired but ready to start cooking.  The class was so much fun and her students were great, although extremely shy.  Luckily we were able to catch a direct bus back at noon, and were back at her house before 1pm.  I can't imagine facing such a complicated commute everyday, especially in the rainy season, and have a new-found respect for Callie's work in her schools.  I'm lucky enough that three of my four schools are within walking distance (the furthest only a 45-minute walk), and only one is a bit complicated depending on if I can find a ride or not.  But I guess in Peace Corps you win some and lose some--I love my site in so many ways, but sometimes it's frustrating that I have to go two hours into the city to buy things like olive oil and skim milk and wheat bread.  On the other hand, however, I don't have to take two bus rides up a mountainside to get to work.

On my second night in Aguacatan we got to bear witness to the wonderful Day of the Devil festivities, which happen every year on December 7th.  Day of the Devil (Dia del diablo) is a Guatemalan festivo in which they construct or buy papier-mache Devils, stuff them full of cheap fireworks, set them in the middle of the road in front of their homes, and come dusk, set the whole thing on fire.  It's also traditional for families to spring-clean their houses, dragging whatever they deem as garbage into the street and burning that, as well.  Dia del diablo is a chance for people to literally clean out and burn up the demons that have been hiding away in the nooks and crannies of their homes, in preparation for the new year.  It's always best to start the new year off demon-free. 

Devil burning (photo courtesy of Kevin W's blog)

While the concept behind Day of the Devil has its appeal (I'm a big supporter of spring-cleaning and ridding oneself of worthless junk once a year), its result is less appealing.  Come dusk, all throughout the pueblo the streets are filled with things on fire.  God forbid a windy night come through (this is the peak of dry season, after all) and who knows what else might end up in ashes along with the demons and old mattresses.  And if the fire-littered streets weren't enough, as each Devil burns up, the nice little stockpile of firecrackers hidden in its papier mache breadbasket ignite all at once, creating a cacophony of loud and violent pyrotechnics.  Callie and I lasted about two minutes in the street in front of her house before we retreated once again to the fire-free confines of her kitchen.  The fire, smoke, and ear-piercing fireworks were a little too much for us Gringas.  (Although in my lovely home of Alta Verapaz, in San Cristobal, they take Dia del Diablo to an entirely different level.  In San Cris they do something called "Balls of Fire" (Bolos de Gas) where they soak soccer balls in gasoline, ignite them, and then kick them around at each other, throwing people in the public pila in the event that they should catch on fire, as well.)

Its always been a big mystery to me why, in a country that was overrun with civil war violence and genocide not 15 years ago why the locals seem to love so fondly the violent, noisy, and jolting experience of setting off fireworks at all hours of the day and night.  I just don't get it.

Mexico and things

December is flying.  After a Gender and Development committee meeting in Xela on the 2nd, I took off for Chiapas, Mexico with two of my fellow GAD ladies for a four-night stint in San Cristobal de las Casas.  I'll quote some of my journal notes on the trip:

Xela/Huehuetenango.
Only a day after plunging head-first (via two terribly long and tiring bus rides) into the heart of the Western highlands, my head still hurts from the altitude and the skin on my face and lips is chapped and cracked from the total lack of moisture in the air.  After not leaving the humid and eternally rainy Alta Verapaz for a while I tend to forget that the rest of the country is in the peak of the dry season.  Dry season is nice since you never have to plan for rain, and it gives the Guatemalans the perfect chance to sun-dry their corn harvest of the season, which you see spread across corrugated tin roofs for miles and miles, hanging from its own papery husks from clotheslines and makeshift racks.  But it's hard to acclimate to this dryness, especially with the dust.  At the end of a day, I'm literally covered in a thin layer of brownish dust that, after being kicked up off the roads by buses and people, settles on whatever surface it chooses.

The road through Huehuetenango to the Mexican border is a beautiful ride, although I often have to pry my attention away from the chicken bus window to entertain the infant whose mother is seated next to me, who I've found will stop crying if I wave my braid in her face until she grabs it with her little sticky baby hands.  The mother seems relieved that the Gringa has found such an effective tear-stopping tactic, and continues babbling away in Quiche or whatever Mayan language she's speaking to her friend across the aisle.  My legs ache from bracing against the turns, and I wonder how one could possibly manage chicken bus travel with an infant in tow.  It's hard enough keeping track of myself and my backpack.  As we near the border, I look around the bus and wonder if any of my fellow passengers are Guatemalans on their way to the States.  I hear it everyday from people around my village; "I'm going to go to the U.S. soon to make some money" as if they had just decided to wash a load of laundry.  Risking their lives to cross the borders is a risk that a lot of people here feel forced to take.

San Cristobal de las Casas.

A very small Mexican banana

Carrie keeps joking that after living in Guatemala for so long, Mexico is going to seem like the land of milk and honey to us.  But in a lot of ways, it really has.  The landscapes, architecture, and people don't look much different at all here than in a city in Guatemala.  But there is something different in the way people are talking and carrying themselves, a different vibe in the air, that is completely new and intriguing.

A door I liked in San Cris

Walking through the city center on the way to our hostel that first night I stared in awe and all the European-style sidewalk cafes and the people seated at tables, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, without a care in the world.  On our last night we stopped into a bar/cafe where a hipstered-out Mexican guy was playing excellently-executed coffeehouse acoustic versions of Pearl Jam, DMB, Nirvana--my high school playlist more or less.  I found myself utterly captivated, sitting there with a big stupid smile on my face, all for some silly live coffeehouse music.  But that's the thing--I haven't seen or even come near to anything so close to home the entire time I've been in Guatemala.  There are no coffeehouses where I live; no hipster musicians plugging out Eddie Vedder covers while sipping a Corona.  Because that's the thing--I don't really miss technology, cable TV, fast food.  I can do without hot water and dishwashers, albeit begrudgingly.  The things I miss most are live music, coffeehouses where I can sit all day long, cozy bookstores, sidewalk cafes and restaurants, yoga classes, talking with informed people about informed things--that's what feels most like home to me.

Parade in San Cris

San Cris, in some ways, reminds me a lot of Barcelona.  The people have that same relaxed vibe--but maybe it's because most people we meet are Mexicans on vacation from other parts of the country.  What are the San Cris locals like, I wonder?  Chiapas is the center of the Zapatista/EZLN movement, and I was hoping to be able to meet some of these Zapatistas.  But after asking around, we decided against it; you have to obtain special permission to enter the Zapatista communities and, as I heard later from a traveler who had gone himself, they blindfold you on the last leg of the bus trip so that you don't know the exact location of their community.  They wear black face masks when in the public eye to protect their identity, and from pictures I've seen, are armed to the teeth.  So needless to say I think it's best we stayed in San Cris.

San Cris street art (reads "Monsanto is not a saint")

But we did have a chance to meet some of the women in TierraAdentro, a cafe/restaurant that identifies itself with the movement and is the home of several shops owned by Zapatista women artisans.  It was really fascinating, on many levels, to see indigenous women so empowered and so involved in a political movement.  That revolutionary vibe, in fact, seems to be spread throughout the city.   The street art is all pro-anarchy and anti-corporation.  Lots of the people we see and have met are free-spirits, hippies talking of chakras and inner-warriors and such.  But then a parade passes by and I'm pulled back to the Central American culture I know so well, full of parades, religion, and procedure.

Palenque/Misol Ha.
Mexico is familiar and amazingly different all at once.  Because once you leave the city and drive for about 5 hours, you get to Palenque, the Mayan ruins of Chiapas.

Mayan ruins at Palenque

The ruins were beautiful, and we made it a point to climb up all the biggest temples (we had opted out of a guide because who really wants to hear where the ancient Mayans might have eaten breakfast?) and enjoy the beautiful weather.  The bus ride was long and exhausting, but it was great to see all that we did in one short day.  A few of the pretentious hippies running our hostel told us "you can only see maybe 2% of the ruins in one short visit, it's not worth it."  But I'm no archeologist, and while the ruins are amazingly majestic and beautiful, after a while they all start to look the same.  One day of Mayan ruins was plenty for me, thanks.  Four days of Mexico, however, wasn't nearly enough.