Travelogue #9: Guatemala, land of contrasts
Guatemala -- land of contrasts.
Guatemala: dirt streaked faces on children dressed in rags; heaps of burning garbage souring the air and making one's eyes burn; still more discoveries of mass graves from people murdered by the government sometime between 1960 and 1996; old mufflerless, overcrowded school buses, honking their horns from 4 a.m. until 9 p.m.; anorexic looking roosters crowing all night long; illiteracy; corruption; garbage choked rivers that are more or less open sewers; 200,000 men and women and children murdered or disappeared by the government; pesticide runoff from multi-national agribusiness companies; burning sugar cane fields; dozens of alcohol bottles littering the streets which kids use to sniff glue to get high and to cut their hunger pains; lack of clean water for people to drink; more gang violence reported in the capital city; child labor; rotten corpses of chickens decaying on cobblestone city streets; polluted water, air, soil....
Also Guatemala: smiling content faces; laughter; caring friends; teenagers and adults who make the sign of the cross when passing near a church whether riding on the bus or on the back of a motorcycle; nighttime processions of prayerful, respectful people holding candles and performing the stations of the cross outside, blessing their neighbors houses in Ciudad Vieja; beautiful conical volcanoes and puffs of smoke and/or cloud halos; traveling from rain forest to pine forest to desert within two hours; warm beautiful sunny days; lovely rainy evenings; organic macadamia nut farms with owners who freely distribute macadamia nut trees to indigenous Mayan communities to help; bucolic peacefulness of farmers tilling soil with horses or burros; throngs of people carrying one casket of a dearly beloved friend/family member through city streets stopping all traffic; chanting songs; wonderful smell of roses on shady afternoon patios; three young people helping a woman whose motorcycle is fallen over in the street; carpets of colored sawdust and vegetables which people work on all night long and yet the procession will trample in mere seconds; church ruins with scattered carved rubble; women carrying baskets, bundles, a watermelon, bags of flowers, mangoes, peanuts, whatever on their heads; beautiful purple petals from trees creating lavender carpets of splendor on city sidewalks and highways; poetry, dancing, and free musical events set against the backdrop of a colonial church façade; crystal blue lakes surrounded by volcanoes; buenos dias, buenos tardes, and buenos noches; a little orphan girl at Camino Seguro gives me a balloon; another girl asked me to open my mouth and close my eyes, and then puts a stick of gum in my mouth; a guy overhears my conversation with another Guatemalan about how to change buses in Guatemala City. He later taps me on the shoulder to let me know that this is the bus stop where I need to get off; handmade tortillas still warm from the corner store; the young man who stops for five minutes to listen to the birds with me and to tell me their names, but only in K’ekchí because he doesn't know the Spanish names for them; beautiful waterfalls, fecund rainforests, and all the birds...
I guess it depends upon how you look at it....
Apparently I'm dealing with culture shock. My initial near-euphoria of being back in Guatemala has mostly worn off. I've been struggling with some of the more negative aspects of Guatemalan culture, but have managed to focus on the more positive.
The fact is I can choose to either focus on the garbage, the violence, the pollution, the grinding poverty, the injustice here; or I can still be aware of those more negative elements of life here in Guatemala but instead focus on the beauty around me in the present moment and enjoy the simpler lifestyle.
"It's time to make up your own state of mind..."
-Natalie Merchant
I guess my photographs tell what state of mind I'm in too. Compare the following photos showing where I live in Ciudad Vieja. One looks more like a slum,
and the other emphasizes the beautiful Agua Volcano, at least in my opinion. The yellow arrow is pointing to my bedroom door on the second floor of the green house. Pardon the cliche, but what I'm trying to do is to change my point of view.
The rainy season has begun. Here they call it invierno (winter) and the rain that falls almost continuously is called chipi chipi. The word is probably onomatopoeia because of the sound it makes on tin roofs. Once the rains started a few days ago, zompopos “flying ants” have been crawling all over and literally dropping out of the sky. Yesterday at Camino Seguro, I was helping the cook Maria Luisa in the kitchen by paring vegetables and scrubbing the pots necessary for making dinner for the 44 children and dozens of staff members. While I was working, some of the niños brought in flying ants in a small plastic bottle, and the cook was kind enough to fry the larger ants with some salt and a little lime juice. I'm told they're quite tasty and they are a good source of protein. Are vegetarians allowed to eat insects?
In typical Bill fashion, I've been working on a number of social projects at once. In fact I'm working on four. Occasionally in the evenings I am standing little blocks of wood to make blocks for the kids, I've been going to the Spanish-language school to help them translate their website and volunteer opportunities book into English, on Saturday afternoons I volunteer at a little local library, and five days a week I work with the kids at Safe Passage/Camino Seguro.
I've been trying to help the little library get two very old computers working with educational programs for the kids. I've also gotten to read Spanish-language stories to them and to help them with some of their games and activities.
Here is the translation of La Union language school's volunteer book description of the library:
Biblioteca Comunal Luis de León
The library is located in San Juan del Obispo and was founded in the eighties, but because of the armed conflict the Government closed all the libraries (reading was prohibited). So responsible people took the books from this place to their homes. In 1992 the library was opened again to the public with the current name Biblioteca Comunal Luis de León (named in honor of one of the best writers of the 20th century and who was born in San Juan del Obispo), but there was nobody who could always keep it open. So it was not until 2006 when the group “Probiblioteca” (with a majority of young people), including the writer’s daughter (Mayarí de León González), took on the challenge of keeping the library open on an ongoing basis.
The goal of this library is to give support and education to children and teenagers in painting, music, and lecture; besides rescue the history of the village through the writer’s life.
Presently the project works out of the LIBRARY which is open from Monday to Friday from 7.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. and on Saturday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. They offer a PROGRAMA ESCOLAR for children and teenagers, a MUSEUM which is situated one block from the library and a THEATER GROUP in which 19 people of different ages participate. In the library 7 people work as honorary volunteers and thus the library incurs no costs.
The Biblioteca Comunal Luis de León serves 65 children between 3 and 15 years of age. They offer classes on Saturdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. in which the children can attend various courses (painting, music, handcrafts, etc.), and activities (go to the park, mountain, etc.). Besides, the children receive a reward for good attendance in the classes, for example they earn a trip to the zoo. To lower/reduce the costs the project requests Q5 for every child for every course. The majority (70%) of the children are from poor families, so the project assists family can not pay for it.
As a volunteer you can help organize and maintain the library, help with the lectures for the kids, work as an English or assistant teacher (no experience necessary), or make furniture for the school and the library. Volunteers are asked to stay at least for 3 Saturdays and it’s important that they like to work with kids. To volunteer you need an intermediate Spanish level. If you would like to contribute with a special course or you have an idea, please contact us.
If you wish you can donate educational materials (children’s books, lecture books, art and coloring books, educational pictures, cardboard, sheets of paper, etc.), school implements (crayons, pencils, glue, paper, recycled paper, etc.), any kind of educational game (table games, etc.) for children and teenagers, or any donation. The Biblioteca Comunal Luis de León will be happy to receive your help.
Mom and Dad are arriving next Wednesday, June 6. We'll spend a few days in the capital city, and then they'll come see where I live before we head to El Salvador for ten days. I'm really looking forward to spending some time with them and enjoying some of the wonderful Central American Culture with them.
I hope you are all able to look on the brighter side of your lives too, and I hope you are surrounded by friends and family.
Blessings,
William Straub
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