It´s really something just how many indigenas live in Guatemala. Mayans are the majority here, and it is something that you really feel. A large percentage of Mayans, especially in the smaller towns and pueblos, along with the bigger highland cities, wear the traditional traje. The suit is really colorful- for the women, it is a skirt woven by hand with bright colors and an embroidered blouse with brilliant colors and funky themes characteristic of each area. The women also wear a scarf folded on their heads, often with dangling tassles. The men, if they aren´t simply wearing jeans, shirt and cowboy hat, wear bright, striped, hand-woven outfits topped off by a hat you might find on a Venician boat guy. Now that we´re out in the mountains, in the highland farming country, I´ve just been blown away by how much ancient, native culture there is, a culture that is a couple thousand years old. Compare that to Native Americans in the States, where you can still find a few pockets of the old cultures, but they are fenced onto a handful of scattered reservations or buried under casinos. It´s really stunning here. The school we´re studying at is surrounded by coffee fincas, with two villages nearby where we go to eat our meals with indigena families. Partly with the help of the school, and mostly by fighting tooth and nail, people have cement block houses with running water (as of 2 weeks ago- big party, with, I would guess, a shitload of water balloons). Some have electricity. The two families I´ve eaten with have dirt floors and cook over firewood. I´ve seen something like this before, in Kenya, but the cool thing here is that we get to know the townspeople a bit. Instead of just getting an eyeful of grubby children rooting around in their trash-filled yards and thinking ¨what a pity,¨ we get to see the other side, the side where the people are working hard with the tools at hand, raising their families, and having fun to boot. I´m also learning a lot: you don´t eat duck eggs, just chicken eggs and ducks; a machete can be used for anything- lawnmower, axe, harvesting tool, musical instrument, razor for shaving, and chew toy for infants; the word for goat is cabro, not cabrón.
We went to the championship game of Xelaju vs. San Marcos, and sat with the Marquense fans even though our hearts were past the row of cops bristling with machine guns and over the barbed-wire fence with the maximally crazed Xela fans, whose team won 4-1. Also, I will never forget my raincoat again, after enduring about 3 hours of downpour with nothing to keep me warm. We couldn´t even work up a sweat by cheering, since the bums were so far out of the game within the first few minutes. But again, it was an experience. Think Boston after the World Series, even in San Marcos where their team lost.
Time to go, peace out until next time.
2 comments:
Hey guys. It's great you're having an awesome time. Wish we could join you!
Just some clarification:
"...Some have electricity. The two families I´ve eaten with have dirt floors and cook over firewood. I´ve seen something like this before, in Kenya, but the cool thing here is that we get to know the townspeople a bit. Instead of just getting an eyeful of grubby children rooting around in their trash-filled yards and thinking ¨what a pity,¨ we get to see the other side, the side where the people are working hard with the tools at hand, raising their families, and having fun to boot."
Are you saying the thing that you like about your current experience compared to Kenya is that you get to spend more time resulting in your getting to know more of the lives of the people? Like, you wish you could have done that in Kenya. Or, are you saying Kenya's experience is that of pitiful lives and Guatemala is not as dismal?
I'm saying that the relationship with the poorest people is much more long term and personal with the Guatemalans, and therefore more rewarding. In Kenya, we were always just moving through for a day, at most, and it was much more sensational and short term relationships (not that a couple weeks isn't short term, but at least we really got to talk to people and see their routine in Guatemala).
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