Ephemerica

It’s a good sign that each of us has left our language school experience wishing we had time for more. Our first week at Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco in Xela was great. Although the 5 hours of individual instruction was frustrating and exhausting at times, both of us made lots of progress in our Spanish during this week. This school is particularly well known not just for its Spanish programs, but for their community activism as well. The school puts together talks and activities during the week to give students exposure to the sights and realities of living in Guatemala. The most interesting talk we saw was from a man from Cuba, who talked about his perspective on the Cuban revolution and their project starting a medical school strictly for Central Americans. This project began in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in the late 1990′s, when it became clear that there was a shortage of medical doctors in the region. The medical school in Cuba trains doctors from Central America free of charge; in return, doctors sign a contract to practice medicine for 6 years in rural communities in their home country. To listen to this guy tell the story of post-revolution Cuba, it is a utopian paradise. I realize that this obviously isn’t the case—however, their system of socialism has improved the lives of many (or at least leveled the playing field), and it is difficult to find fault with a philosophy that believes that they have the obligation to provide free schooling to their fellow Latinos out of a sense of solidarity.

One of our trips was to Laguna Chicobal, a lake inside the crater of a volcano outside of Xela. We started out leaving town early (6:15 AM) because morning is the time of best visibility (more on the weather later on). We drove to the base of the volcano and walked the rest of the way up over the lip of the crater, climbing a steep road that more or less went straight up the mountain. Once inside, we were treated to beautiful views of a lake that is used by the Maya here for rituals because it is believed to have mystical powers (personally, I didn’t feel anything, but I’m just like that). Down by the lakeside, there was a group of Maya having a ceremony which presented a bizarre sight—women in traditional Mayan clothing wearing the US flag over their shoulders. Our guide (one of the school’s teachers) told us that sometimes these lakeside rituals are to give blessings to families who are about to send loved ones off to the US in search of work. We enjoyed sitting by the lake for an hour or so, and then within a matter of 10 min, the entire lake became enshrouded by fog. Such is the suddenness of weather changes here, and we left at this point to return to town.

We spent our second week of classes at a school associated with PLQ called the Mountain School, because it is in the mountains about a two-hour bus ride from Xela. It was interesting to be able to attend both schools, because there is definitely a contrast in the experiences. First of all, at PLQ we ate and slept with our host families. At the Mountain School, the families are much poorer (there was a large celebration the day before we got there because one of the communities there had finally gotten running water), and can’t really accomodate students in their homes, so we slept in the school and then made the short walk to our family’s houses at meal time. The meals were much smaller, simpler, and at times difficult to choke down—although the school assured us that all the families had been trained in how to properly prepare food that wouldn’t make us sick. The classes were only 4 hours at the Mountain School, but I’m pretty sure I received 3x the homework I received in Xela. Which was fine, because besides class, there wasn’t much to do out there other than study Spanish. The number of students at the Mountain School was smaller, which made for a more intimate group. The nearest town, Columba, was a 30 min bus ride away. One of the presentations we had there was the story of the origin of Nuevo San Jose, one of the three communities near the school. To make a long story short, Nuevo San Jose was formed by former coffee finca (plantation) workers who, after struggling with their finca owner for back wages over a period of one and a half YEARS, and after finally getting what they were owed, struck out in order to establish a home for themselves in the country. The Catholic Church helped by providing some of the money for the people to buy land and build homes.  This finca incident was the beginning of the end of the “old way” of running a finca, where the workers lived on the land and had a relationship with the owner. Now everyday, trucks come into the nearby towns and pick up workers at the beginning of each day, only hiring the hands they need for that day. Since the early bird gets the worm, buses drive past the school at 4-5 AM, horns blaring, picking up people to drive into town to try to find work for the day. Not everybody gets work everyday, which means that some end the day having earned nothing and having spent money on bus fares in each direction. And in hearing stories from the students and each of their host families, you can tell that times are really tough for the people here—one reason they appreciate the extra income they can get by feeding a student for a week.

One trip we made from the Mountain School was to a nearby community called Santa Anita. This is one of the few success stories from the area. The community was started by a group of ex-guerillas after the signing of the peace accords here. They wanted to return to farming, so they took out a loan, purchased some land, and made a cooperative community. They mostly raise coffee on the finca, but grow bananas and a couple of other things too. The group, as a whole, decided to train themselves as businessmen/women so that they could cut out some of the middlemen from the selling process. They grow organic, shade-grown coffee, and also made the decision to be fair trade certified, which meant that they would not only recieve a higher price for their coffee, but that the price would remain more stable as well. They have a relationship now with a distributor of fair trade coffee, and most of their coffee goes to the US (there is one place in Seattle on their list, but we had never heard of it and have since forgotten the name). They roast and bag beans on-site, and we were able to buy a bag to start our Latin America coffee collection!

Upon returning to Xela last weekend, we decided to take a bus to the famous nearby market in Chichicastenango. Well, it’s not THAT nearby…it was about 3 hrs bus ride in each direction. The bus ride there was fine because we had seats. On the way back we were packed into overcrowded buses where we had to stand almost the entire time (my theory is that the phrase “chicken bus” really means that they pack the people in like chickens). The market was everything it was supposed to be; beautiful woven fabrics and indigenous clothing, various other handicrafts, and tons of gringos We’ve heard complaints here that the gringos are so bad at bargaining that the prices of the indigenous clothing have skyrocketed to the point where locals can barely afford to buy them. So we did our best to drive hard bargains on the few things we bought. The large markets here (and in Mexico) are all very maze-like. It always seems to me that some enterprising person could get rich selling maps of the markets to tourists…

Quick Note I: The weather here is CRAZY! We are just getting into the wet season here. Thankfully the rain is somewhat predictable in timing (late afternoon and evening), but seems to come from nowhere. And it rains harder here than any other place I’ve seen. Although everybody here has aluminum roofing, which makes a god-awful noise during the rain—this may be why it seems like it rains so hard here… Anyway, we’re going to have to go back to getting up at dawn and getting as far as we can before the rain starts so we don’t have to deal with wet and dangerous roads.

Quick Note II: After taking anti-amoeba medicine for a week, my abdominal troubles still aren’t better. Went back to the doctor today, and had another lab exam, this time including a urine sample. If I’m reading the test correctly, I have some kind of urinary infection. I’m hoping the doctor concurs tomorrow and that some antibiotics can clear it up fast. The pain and discomfort are enough that we decided to delay leaving Xela for a few days, which will put us behind schedule a bit. Hopefully once I’m feeling better, we can make up the time without too many problems.

Posted by Matthew on May 21st, 2007 | Filed under: Guatemala