What next?

Erin left for Oaxaca yesterday and, despite the fact I wanted to see Oaxaca again (I went when I was 12 and thought it was amazing), I´ve decided the time it would take travelling there and back can be better spent on other adventures.

When Erin first arrived, it was weird to see someone from my "normal" life in the context of trip to Latin America. But, in hindsight, it seems even weirder how normal it felt to be around her after first meeting up with her. I think the hostels have had something to do with that, meeting random people with whom a dynamic of friendship is instantly initiated.

In anycase, it was sad to see her leave because it´s always sad to say goodbye to a buddy, especially when they´re going somewhere that you really want to go. But last night ended up being really neat. I went to a local showing of a film on the Zapatistas with two other backpackers, a French guy (Julian) and a British girl(Freya), both of whom are really enjoyable. Later, we grabbed some beers on the way back to the hostel where a bonfire was started. More and more people gather around until there were close to a dozen young people hanging out. It was a seriously internatioanl crowd. In total,there was: a spanish couple; four Israelis; a Turkish guy; an Australian guy; Julian; Freya; and myself, the lone American. I could be forgetting some people. We swapped travel stories, opinions on the relevance of the Super Bowl, and theories behind the whole `what´s with everyone staring at fire´ thing. It was a really good time.

The next morning, I logged into Facebook and got a message Nicole telling me that Erin was robbed on her way to Oaxaca. They took her passport, debit card and all her cash, but she reached Oaxaca okay and has managed to get some cash. At the time of me writing this, that´s all I know, but it doesn´t sound too dreadful. Erin, I´m still waiting to hear back from you.

Pelenque and then some.

Erin and I wake up before six to catch the shuttle that arrives a half-hour late. We´re heading to the Mayan ruins of Pelenque, normally over four hours a way, but we´re also stopping at two different waterfalls along the way.

The sun is just rising by the time the shuttle picks everyone up and I´m so friggin´ tired. I have a window seat and, unfortunately, the bald-headed geezer in front of me puts his seat all the way back. Meanwhile the guy next to me uses me as a back rest while he sleeps soundly. Bastards. On the other side of the aisle, Erin has a seat to herself. Bitch. I sit motionless for two hours before we reach Agua Azul, the first waterfall.

Before we reach it, though, we pass a few signs informing us we have entered the territory of the EZLN, Zapatista National Liberation Army. We even pass through a small village that is completely controlled by Zapatista farmers. On the side of a school is a mural of indigenous farmers, Emiliano Zapata, Che and Marcos, the "face" of Zapatismo (Marcos [not his real name] always wears a black balaclava which, itself a symbol of the Zapatistas, symbolizes that Zapatismo has no face, but represents everyone exploited and subjugated by authority). Several miles later, we pass a military checkpoint, but the road signs afterward are spray painted with slogans like "Viva Zapatistas" and "Muerte Sistema Capitalisma."

So we reach Agua Azul and it´s very pretty, but I´m not sure how to tell a story about something being pretty. It just is. I hope you get to see the pictures.

To give description of the next waterfall (name?), I only need to refer to the Gorge in Oregon. Again, may you see the pictures. Although, I don´t know of any waterfalls in the Gorge where you can actually go into a cave with a stream that feeds into the waterfall. That was pretty sweet.

And finally, Pelenque. The ruins are big and numerous and epic, and the coolest one you can go into and it was almost a maze. But I´m not sure if they´re quite as cool as the jungle that surrounded them. Cami, again, I thought of you. And, again, may you all see the pictures. I really, really wanted to go into the jungle, but that simply wasn´t an option. It´s probably for the best because I had visions of rope ladders and tree-houses attached to great, primordial branches. Wooden cities a hundred feet in the sky under a green canopy hundreds of feet higher. Yeah, I probably would have been dissapointed. Or maybe not.

For the ride back to San Cristobal, several passengers on the shuttle get off to stay in hotels near the ruins, so I get a seat to myself. Despite the frequent bumbs and tight turns, I think I manage to get as much as an hour of sleep during the 4+ hour ride back.

Arriving back in San Cristobal around 9:30, Erin and I eat at the first restaurant we found, head back to the hostel, and pass out in our respective rooms.

San Juan Chamula and "Las Grutas"

Mid-morning, Erin and I catch a shuttle to San Juan Chamula, a small town near San Cristobal populated by Tzotzil Mayans who all wear black wool, the men as coats, the women as skirts. There´s nothing very distinctive about the town itself except the church. We have to pay 40 pesos each to enter the church where absolutely no photography is allowed.

The religion here is a cross of Catholicism and the indigenous animistic faith. We enter to the melodically mournful sound of an indigenous band (guitar, accordian and drum)led by a chanting shaman. A fifth person burns musky insense whose thick smoke creates dramatic shafts of light from the two south-facing windows. Another person waits with two live chickens to be sacrificed at the end of the ritual. They all wear the black wool coats. Hundreds and hundreds of candles are lit on the floor, inches from the pine needles placed for the benefit of worshipers´ knees. Ceramic saints in ornate, glass boxes four feet high line the walls. To one side is a saint incased in a ten-foot-high box, at the top of which is a flashing neon star. Inside the boxes, the saints are lit by joyless blue lights and I can´t help but imagine each one of their vivid ceramic faces turning to me in unison. I´m not sure if this is the best or worst place ever to take hallucinagens, but there´s no way in hell I´d ever want to stay the night here alone.

We also check out the local cemetary, but there´s just not much else to explore in the town, so we leave after not much more than an hour.

We grab lunch back in San Cristobal then catch a shuttle to "Las Grutas," a cave system a couple kilometers south of the city (and whose longer name I can´t remember). We´re dropped off at the entrance of a campground similar to any in Oregon. At the far end of the park, we reach the cave entrance and descend. It´s big and dark and moody and epic and I hope you all get to see the pictures. Cami, I was thinking of you while staring up at the stalag...mites? Nope, Wikipedia says stalagtites. As in, they hang from the roof so they have to be stalagTITE. Get it? It goes on for several hundred yards and ends in black oblivion. Apparently, we only get to see a fraction of the cave, the whole of which stretches all the way to under San Cristobal. SO COOL.

Oh, just an update...

To be honest, I´m kinda tired and spacey and don`t feel like I can write with as much detail and creativity as I´m capable of, but the longer I wait to update the less I´ll remember.

I left Xela and Guatemala in general on Teus., Feb. 3rd and arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. Crossing the border was a cheaper, simpler process than I was expecting. You simply go to the immigration office on the Guatemala side and they stamp you out, then you go to the office on the Mexico side and they stamp you in.

Riding through Mexico on the way to San Cristobal, we passed three heavily fortified army bases. For those of you who don´t know, 15 years ago an indigenous army called the Zapatistas (named after Emiliano Zapata, an indigenous leader during the Mexican Revolution from Chiapas) rose up in Chiapas in response to Neo-Liberal policies (specifically NAFTA) that took away land that was gauranteed to them in the Mexican Constitution. They took over a four cities in Chiapas including San Cristobal, but werer driven out after a few days and 150 deaths (mostly Zapatista) my the federal army. However, they still hold a few strongholds in the rural areas of Chiapas, and a lot of general support in the region, as well as internationally. Guess where my support lies.

San Cristobal is absolutely beautiful. It´s by far the prettiest, cleanest, most progressive and bohemian place I´ve been to yet. And, inexplicably, it´s also cheaper than most places in Guatemala, despite the large presence of turists. I´ve more or less fallen in love with this place.

Someone else is waiting to use this communal computer, so more updates to come soon...

Pacajcoj

Wed. 1/28: We meet up at Pop-Wuj around 8am, six of us students plus two older volunteers who did this project last year, as well as Lara, the group leader who, coincidentally, happened to grow up outside of Roseburg. We´re going to a local indigenous village named Pacajcoj (even my instructor had a hard time pronouncing it) to deliver materials for safer, more efficient ovens than the open-air stoves they´ve been using. As my instructor broke it down for me, their current stoves are part of a chain of serious health problems the indigenous communities suffer including lung damage, eye damage, infant burns, death due to houses burning down, as well as local deforestation. The new, closed stoves, on the other hand, release smoke outside through a chimney and only require half the wood to heat the food.

We take a chicken bus on the way out of Xela. It takes two people (always young men) to operate the busses: one to drive; the other to collect fares, guide the driver around tough corners, and to jump on top of the bus for passengers´ luggage. At different stops along the way, vendors come aboard, two, three or four at a time touting their goods whether they be fruit, ice cream, cheap jewelry or other trinkets. They ride with us until satisfied they´ve exploited every potential customer, then get off at the next stop to jump abourd another bus going back the way we came.

Normally, we would actually be building the stoves, but today we´re only gathering and hauling the materials. We pick up the bricks, concrete blocks and cement in the of Momas, more populated and developed than Pacajcoj. On the short ride to Pocajcoj we all ride in the bag of a hauling truck, sitting on top of the materials. During the ride, EVERY local person we pass stares at all the gringos riding precariously in the back of this rickety, packed truck. Most just stare with bewildered faces, but many, especially the kids, laugh heartily. And they don´t stop staring until we´re completely out of sight.

The work is exhausting. We´re in the sun carrying thirty or forty pounds about 100 yards, over and over. After the third house, we brake for the meal a local family has made us - soup with noodles and vegetable and a chunk of either chicken or beef. I give my chunk of beef to my neighbor. Also, they make us a strawberry juice-drink that´s so good.

We do a load for one last house and call it good. We´re not taking the trunk back, but instead take a trail through the forrested hills. Despite the fast food wrappers and other plastic detritus, the scenery is beautiful. Village huts strewn about a hillside forrest that makes think of Oregon. After a half mile we make it to the main road where we wait for the bus.

Patricia, a fellow gringo/student/volunteer has to use the bathroom, so she heads a hundred-or-so yards up the road to what looks like a church. The rest of us wait where we are and, after a few minutes, hear what we think is a local girl laughing hysterically. But the laughing goes on and on and one of asks "is that screaming?" We get unnerved and start wandering towards the ambiguous laughing when Patricia stumbles from the side of the road, half crying/screaming and limping. We run to her side and she says a dog bit her in the leg.

"THERE IT IS!" she cries.

On the other side of the road is a vicious looking mutt, snarling and barking. I bring my foot back ready to kick the shit out of the son of a bitch (´cause he is), but he doesn´t move any closer and eventually wanders off.

Patricia calms down impressively and lets the older, female volunteer look at her wound behind a wall. The older woman says the dog just barely broke the skin and that there´s going to be a nasty bruise. In any case, Patricia´s gonna need rabies shots.

And then the bus arrives.

The kicker for me is that, at lunch, Patricia didn´t eat her meat either because she´s also a VEGETARIAN. What kind of fuck up dog...?

The next morning, I show up at Pop-Wuj and the secretary who only speaks Spanish asks me to take a call for her. It´s Patricia´s mom trying to get information. After I tell her the details and that, no, it´s not possible to find the dog and put it down she tells me Patricia had to be flown to Miami to get the proper shots. The upside, if you can look at it that way, is that she was going to leave for home on Saturday anyway.

My Host Family

My first day at Pop-Wuj, I´m met by the mother of my host family whose... name... I... just can´t friggin´ remember, godammit! And I don´t have the nerve to ask her again. She´s short, plump and has a slightly manic but pleasant manner.

She leads me to her house less than ten minutes from the school where I meet her husband... whose name I also forget. Though he is friendly enough, his demeanor is much less outgoing than his wife´s and he makes no real attempt to be social with me. There are also two sons, Cesar who is roughly 16 and watches Simpsons in his closet-sized room before bed, and the other is a young man I´ve only met once in passing. When I asked her who else lives in the house, the mother said she lived with her husband and two sons, but the older son is never there. From discussion I´ve vaguely overheard, I think I´m using his (tiny, bare) room and he´s been staying in a hotel. I could be wrong.

The house itself is, to say the least, modest. The family is middle-class, but middle-class in Guatemala is the equivalent of a struggling working-class family in the States. There is a decent-sized main room that functions as both living room and office/study room. The laundry is done by hand in the kitchen. Cesar´s closet-sized room I think is technically a closet. My Spanish instructor tells my that many workers in Xela only make 1 American dollar a day, so I realize how signigicant it is that 70$ of the cost of my classes goes to my host family.

The meals are modest but sufficient - eggs, beans and tortillas or a soup with one chunk of chicken at the bottom - and after sleeping in close proximity with four other stinky backpackers on a thin mattress, it´s a great relief to have my own room and soft bed. I only wish I was able to overcome the language barrier and actually get to know these people, but it´s so difficult.

Pop-Wuj

I´ve lucked out again with my Spanish instructor at Pop-Wuj, one of several Spanish schools here that also incorporate volunteer/sociol work into their programs. She is a 38-year-old local woman with three boys and a husband. She is friendly and energetic and, despite how fast she talks, easy to follow. Like Antonio, she´s very concerned with the social/political/economic situation here in Guatemala about which we talk a lot. Somehow the topic of my sister comes up (she manages both her husband from whom she´s separated AND her boyfriend, and they all get along) and my instructor exclaims something along the line of "¡Hooray para feministas!" She tells me that if that situation were to occurr in Guatemala (it wouldn´t) my sister would most likely be killed.

Pop-Wuj in general has a pretty progressive agenda, though not overtly political. They specialize in language courses specifically for medical and social workers. Poster of Che Guevara and bumber stickers proclaim "War is not the answer" and "Give Peace a Chance" are pasted on the wall. I`m proud to be here, but get slightly envious when I here there´s another school here run by a former political radical with a bit more of a political agenda. Oh, well.

By the way, my first night at Pop-Wuj we watched a Spanish movie called Mar Adentro, or The Sea Inside. SO GOOD. Sad, but in a positive sort of way. I highly recommend it.