I know I know, too much to handle for one week, new blog updates, 2 albums of photos on facebook.  This entry won´t be too long because i´m busy looking up thanksgiving recipes.  This week we´re going to bake a big ´ol thanksgiving meal!  I´m sure sarah will take some time to write a post thanksgiving blog because the project is her´s.  Josh and I are just assistants.

Today Sarah and I taught an hour long English class, we had no plans at all, so we deferred to a favorite topic of children: animals.

I learned how to say squirrel, skunk, whale, ostrich, worm, and various other very useful animals.  At first some of the kids were fairly shy, but by the end (and after starting a game), they got into it.  We´re gonna teach them again on thursday and hopefully have some sort of lesson plan!

We got back on Friday night from the Escuela de la Montaña, which is about one and half hours south of Xela(and actually a lower altitude than Xela).  It was a wonderful experience, and we´ll be returning there next week.  Rather than living with host families or in a hostel, the school has dorm-style living.  It´s great to be able to live with your fellow students, and there were only 11 students total there.  There were 2 lovely hammocks on the porch, 3 guard dogs (who were very loving), a very loud cat, lots of mosquitoes and sancudos (look like fruit flies, bite worse than mosquitoes),  and a nice big kitchen table which was great for the few card games we played.

The electricity went out a fair number of times, usually during the morning which was no problem because the sun was really strong.  But, when it did go out at night, there were candles all over the school.  I really wish i had taken a picture, and if happens again next week I definitely will.

Another really valuable and memorable aspect of the mountain school is its emphasis on understanding the surrounding communities.  We heard the story of 2 communities that are close by that are either in a land struggle, or won something from a land struggle.  The treatment of finca (farm), mostly coffee, workers by their owners is horrible.  It got especially bad when the value of coffee went down in the 90s (due to the increased growing in asia, encouraged by the IMF) and the finca owners said they couldn´t pay their workers.  I´ll write up the story of the community of Fatima in a few days.  Fatima is right next to the school and currently has a 70% unemployment rate.  I´ll write more on their community in a few days, however, the community member who came and talked with us was one of the most heartfelt, emotional, and inspiring men i´ve heard speak.  I hope I can convey at least part of his story and emotion from my notes. 

Although you all may think that it is nice and toasty down here in Guatemala while you are all freezing your asses off, I must correct you.  It is real cold here at night, and the only time that it´s warm is if there is sun shining on you.  To be honest, it´s kinda nice to have a little cold, but i don´t know if i´d feel that way if i didn´t have 3 blankets on my bead.

Oh! i almost forgot! we probably have pulgas (bed bugs or fleas, they don´t distinguish in spanish)  which is real exciting.  Our one housemate has been on a quest to get rid of them, but we´re pretty resigned to the fact that we´re going to have bites for the next 3 weeks between the mountain school and xela.

more later!

Becca

San Cristobal

by Josh

(from our week in Chiapas)

Crossing into Mexico made me really consider exactly how underdeveloped Guatemala is (though granted I have yet to visit the tourist areas).

Our bus ride there was somewhat less than ideal. We caught a bus out of the Minerva terminal in Xela, that departed late and packed, then hit construction and decided to detour onto a very narrow cobblestone rural road, then had to backtrack and ask for directions numerous times. Eventually, we got back onto the highway well behind schedule and drove for a while before being stopped by a mudslide covering the entire road. It actually looked like a tractor trailer had gotten blindsided by it, because it was slammed into the boardering trees and the trailer was torn apart. We got off the bus, found our bags, and trecked through the forest around to the other side to catch another bus, whose operator had plastered whinney the pooh stickers with suspiciously double entendre worthy phrases all over the ceiling. The rest of the ride (taxi, bus, bus, taxi) was decidedly less chaotic, although long. The mountains reminded me a lot of Puerto Rico.

We stayed in a ginormous guest house in San Cristobol that vaguely resembled a treehouse crossed with a cave, looked amazing and was dank as… um… things that are dank. Matt ended up pretty sick right at the end, and this probably contributed to that. They had, wonder of all wonders, a water heater which is actually pretty amazing because almost everywhere in Guatemala uses electric shower heads. That means you can choose from a trickle of hot water, or a cold shower.

San Cristobol is possibly the most beautiful town I´ve ever been in, which isn´t really that easy to describe in writing. The weather was amazing, sunny and clear the whole time. It rained a small amount the first day and that was all. We visited two (which were actually one) fair trade stores supporting the Zapatistas, from which Becca and Sarah bought a combined total of probably 100 postcards. They were still writing them at 10pm on the last night.

The art there, which probably reflects the art in general Mexico was pretty amazing to me. I wish I could stay there for a few months and study it, which I guess it partly an excuse for me to live there for a few months, but it was still pretty amazing. Almost as amazing as the food… mabey

There was also a lot of pretty impressive graffiti EVERYWHERE, which Matt said was probably almost all from the basque separatists from Spain.

Which, to say the least was pretty damn good. Almost every restuarant we went to served a fresh bread basket, real butter (dairy is a hot comodity in Guatemala), fresh vegetables, and in the case of Madre Tierra fresh strawberry jam. We went to Madre Tierra about six times because they served really good breakfast and really good everything else. The morning waiter laughed at us because we´d get really exicited every time he brought out the bread, but by the end he and Sarah were pretty good friends.

I think we averaged about five games of dutch blitz a day, probably more. It became habitual to the point where we were practically addicted. Yeup, that was pretty sweet.

Day of the dead was Saturday, and we took a microbus out to San Juan Chimura, a little town just outside San Cristobal. The Saturday festivities were mostly families gathering in the cemetary, eating picnic lunches, decorating and remembering the graves. There were a couple mariachi bands roving around, but the whole ordeal was pretty subdued. It was kindof uplifting so see people treating death without the hushed stigmatism that we do in the US. Apparently the “real” festivities start Sunday, but we spent the day travelling back to Xela. The bus lines were pretty empty, and a couple people from the school who were travelling said later they had trouble even finding busses.

earthquake

The title´s pretty self explanitory. I was having a conversation with my host mother at lunch, and stumbling through attempting to say that middle eastern culture and tradition are very old and that makes the struggle for gender equality different there (she had previously told me a story about her friend marrying an “arab” man and having a less than ideal divorce, which had been prompted by a discussion of customs of women working outside the home, which was prompted by a discussion on why Guatemalan men don´t cook). Anyway, that got forgotten because the floor started “shaking” although I think it was more of a rolling sensation. I thought if felt remarkably close to sitting in a subway car, although other people seem to think differently. That was the high point of the day so far.

Sarah and Becca just left for one of the local cafes, and I´m off to play futbol with other students.

bus to the social forum

by Josh

so, barring use of Becca´s camera there will be no new pictures because as of last Monday, a man in a ski mask with a .44 pistol relieved me of mine. Hopefully, that will not happen again.

The busses to Guatemala city are bumpy (though less so in a coach), somewhat dull, and stop frequently because groups of vendors build roadblocks up in the mountains (often with the use of some pretty ghetto homade spikestrips) and refuse to let the buses through until they´ve climbed on board and peddled their wares to the passengers. We sat for 40+ minutes once at a stop that looked like a bus terminal crossed with a small market. In contrast, the mountains are pretty fuckin beautiful.

About 20 minutes outside of Guatemala City, our driver stopped to let on a man waiting on the side of the road. That turned out to actually be 4 men with ski masks and pistols. They put a gun to the bus driver and ordered him to drive, pulled the window curtains, and then shouted a bunch of stuff in spanish very loud and very fast which roughly translated into “this is a robbery.. yada yad.. valuables.. yada yada.. we´re holding loaded guns don´ t try anything.” It was all pretty sureal at first actually. Partly I think it was because I´ve seen so many guns here (EVERY security guard here carries a pump action shotgun, and the army stands around in the street with machine guns) that it just didn´t register, but mostly it just wasn´t something I was really prepared to comprehend.

Anyway, they went through the bus frisking everyone and checking bags starting with the third row. I´m not sure why they started there, seeing as there were six gringos (us) sitting in the first two rows, but it gave us time to at least try to hide our stuff. Becca managed to save 200$ in Q because the guard got distracted and took the wrong bag, and I had roughly that and my passport tucked behind my knee that the guy somehow missed. He was pretty nervous at that point. They took my camera and memory cards though, which I was bummed about for a while, and Sarah´s ipod. Nobody was hurt though, thankfully.

A lot of people asked how scary it was, but after I realized they were keeping the bus on the highway I was more concerned about my stuff than actual saftety. As opposed to mugging, or armed robbery in the street, or kidnapping, there was definite order to the situation.  They went down the isles searching people one by one, took our stuff, and that was pretty much it. Granted, being male makes being frisked by a man with a gun a lot less frightening. My advice to anyone travelling coach in a similar situation is to put all your valuables in a trash bag (or other worthless looking container) in the overhead where you can keep an eye on it. They didn´t bother checking overhead unless it looked valuable.

After the robbers got off, with the tipical yelling of “eyes down” etc. a lot of the older men got up and apologized to all the obvious foreigners for their country. One of the students we were travelling with remarked later on how shitty that must feel to apologize to a total stranger for your countries actions. It was odd, as someone whose countries CIA invasion put Guatemala into a 36 year civil war, to hear people apologize to me for a robbery, but I think it shows something about the genuine goodness of a lot of people here.

someone will hopefully write about the social forum later.

2 Weeks

This concludes two weeks in Xela.

Friday nights the PLQ hosts a graduation ceremony for everyone leaving that week. Students sing, play instruments, read poems, stories, etc. We eat, sing Bella Chao, and then it basically turns into a large party.
We missed last friday to watch the somewhat less than drama filled presidential debates.

I´ll write more later, well actually I probably won´t since we leave tomorrow for the Social Forum of the Americas, but I´ll write more sometime.

(ps if you click on the pictures they get bigger!)

Rambling

from Josh,

(ps there is another recent entry below)

Thursday nights people from school bus across town to a roofed futbol feild (teachers and students) for some semi casual recreation which was excellent fun last week. Tonight, however, we´re headed up to the parke central to watch the VP debates (and hopefully Palin doing a Stockdale impression) in an American owned bar.

I walked through a pack of wild dogs last night to get home. Literally, a pack of like 10 of them. Xela is like Puerto Rico in that nobody neuters their animals so there´s wild ones running all over.

Today I finished the past tense, which I´m rather pleased with for two weeks in school. Next week we´re heading to Guatemala city for the American Social forum.

Last night the school showed Romero, which I recommend to everyone.

Mostly, I just wanted to put up the below picture

George clooney, as played by Che.
spanish keyboards require three keys to make the @ symbol, but they have one exclusively dedicatied to the html brackets!

another update from rainy xela

Yes, xela is really rainy. From about 2 in the afternoon until 7 or 8 at night it is some variation of rain. The lack of sunshine can get frustrating, but every morning there is a decent amount of it. And this morning it started raining around 11, my teacher said there is a cold front coming in.

But, from what we hear, the rainy season ends around mid october and after than there is little to no rain. Seasons here are a lot different than the US – well, according to how my teacher described it. Winter (or rainy season) lasts from may to october, Fall is just october, Summer lasts from november to april, and spring is april. It´s a bit backwards and different, and the order would make it seem like we were on the opposite side of the equator, but we´re not.

anyway, enough about the weather. The school here is wonderful. At first i wasn´t sure if I was going to enjoy being in class for 5 hours a day, but it´s definitly not a chore and the teachers encourage just sitting and talking.  Of course we learn plenty of grammar rules, but lots of interesting discussions too.  It´s been really intriguing and exciting to learn spanish through discussions on issues, ideologies, and aspects of society, rather than reading a story about how sally went to the bookstore.   Other than classs there are various activities during the week.  Conferences on mostly political issues and ideas (The urban guerilla front during the civil war, racism in guatemala, guatemalan immigration to the united states) later this week is history of political songs during the civil war and different revolutions in latin america, should be exciting!  They also show 2 movies a week and have different trips to places around Xela.

Life in Xela basically consists of going to school, hanging out at school, wandering around the city, and lots and lots of sleep.  I´ve been reading a lot (well more the amount I wish I could read in the US), and the school library is one of the best small libraries i´ve ever seen, lots of books i´m interested in reading.  Good range of political commentary, history, trashy novels, and comedy.  Yesterday we went to a chocolate shop in Xela and had some of the most delicious hot chocolate ever.  We ended up talking to the owner for a little bit (while she ran in and of the store while she was throwing a birthday party for her daughter) and she told us about how she learned how to make chocolate from her mother, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, and so on.

Living with a family has been generally a really great experience, however they´re have been a few rough spots.  Food here is not just rice and beans, as i expected, but rather a big range of basic vegtables, meat, eggs, pasta, cereal, rice, beans, and lots of pico.  In good latin american tradition, I have become regular watcher of the telenovela (soap opera) Frijolito which is always on when I come home for lunch.

and… don´t worry… everyone here is following the demise of the US economy in addition to the presidential elections.

and josh finally took some pictures so here they are!

Becca

Pictures from Josh:

This is the courtyard outside my room.  The dog in the back is tango.  I made the mistake of petting him the first day (I get the feeling he doesn´t get petted very much) without thinking about how unsanitary he probably is, all the dogs roaming the streets etc.  Now he either begs or jumps on me every time I come home.

This is the PLQ (the school).  Each of the tables normally contains a professor and student while classes are in session.

The stairs up to the roof, and below the view from the roof (which is kindof hard to capture with a camera, especially on a cloudy day).

A chicken bus, the main means of transportation in Guatemala.

This is Xela, the second one is the veiw from the landing outside my room.

cause yall other suckas be too lazy to post!

  I finally got the light in my room to work (something that seems pretty simple in retrospect, I just had to throw the switch and wait 2 minutes for the circuits to heat up) so I have an extra four hours despues de la comida (dinner) to read and write.  Previously I just went to bed after dinner because I didn´t feel like sitting in the dark or reading by flashlight.

  My days basically break down by meals with my host family, which usually means meals with my host mother.  I know enough Spanish to understand pretty much anything any of them say (provided they´re talking to me and not each other), but I can´t really talk much so the conversation is pretty sporatic.  Apparently I´m more fluent than the previous students though, we were talking about that over breakfast.

  The school is built out of the old house of some rather afluent individual.  PLQ rents it out (the owners originally lived in one wing, but moved out after the PLQ started gettting bomb threats during the war.  My “class” doesn´t start until 2pm (despues de almuerzo) but I usually go there in the mornings to study in their one room library (which ironically has more books I want to read than any other library I´ve seen).  There´s also a pretty awsome terras in the center of the roof that provides a great view of Xela and a place to talk without disturbing the morning students.  My professor pointed out some of the cities major buildings and the surrounding volcanos from there Tuesday night (it´s not uncommon for professors to wander the premices with students during the 5 hour tutoring sessions).

  Evening tutoring (I switch to morning next week) ends at 7pm, at which point I start the fifteen to twenty minute walk back through the winding Xela streets to my host families house.  Last night I spent about 10 minutes following their tremedously cute 4 year old through the house as he babled incoherently (to me at least) but usually I just eat dinner and go to my room.

  I´ll try and put pictures up here later.  I´m trying not to carry my camera a whole lot because muggings here are relatively common.

- JOSH!

leavin’ the good ol’ USA

Hey Everyone -

We’ll be leaving this saturday, the 20th, for our three month trip to guatemala. Please check bag for super exciting posts!

love,

Becca, Sarah, & Josh