Chwitxirbal Rural Stay

     Well, our first rural stay is officially over with. Going into it, I definitely did not know what to expect. The community we stayed in is a small very rural community called Chwitxirbal (Twit-city-bal), which sits about 30 minutes up in the mountains above Xela. The whole community of Chwitxirbal consists of about 15 families. As one could imagine our arrival to the community was widely known and anticipated as our group of 15 students and 2 coordinators occupied 9 homes in their community (2 to a home).

       We were welcomed with such open hearts and arms. In retrospect it was just 5 days out of our whole semester, but I could just feel how special it was for the families to have us there, how much it meant. We arrived on Sunday and we were received by the mayor of the town and our families. From there we all dispersed out into our host families. My family was the Victoria family; there was an older lady, her daughter and 3 younger children. As tends to be, the more rural communities are densely indigenous populations. The majority of the families there speak an indigenous language as their primary language and Spanish as their secondary. This surprisingly made communication a bit easier, since from both ends we were trying to speak in a secondary language. Going into this I didn’t think that our families would have running water or electricity, but they did. There was running water to the sink to do dishes and we had a light in our room, they had a latrine and a wood burning stove.

     The food we ate there was so fresh and tasty, the corn to make the tortillas was freshly ground and there queso fresca and milk was straight from the cow fresh. With every meal we had this really wonderful hot drink made from masa (ground corn), it was surprisingly sweat. While we were there we had to opportunity to have a cooking lesson with a local woman. We learned how to make envueltos, a Guatemalan dish. Enveuelto literally translated means to wrap, but basically they are any vegetable dipped in this egg batter and fried. We also had fresh chamomile, mint and lavender tea to go with our meal.

     I think the highlight of being in Chwitxirbal was the different dynamic with our teachers from PLQ. For the four days, they all road a bus up into the community in the morning and we would have our class there. This week was special though, we all were intentional in finishing up all of our graded tests and works so that we could just hang out and have conversations with our teachers. We went on hikes in the mountains, walked around the community and just soaked up the beauty of our surroundings. It was really a beautiful week.  

Good-Bye to Xela

I cannot believe that our time here in Xela is coming to an end. Between PLQ, salsa, yoga and our weekend excursions, our four weeks here flew by!  As all things must come to an end though, it is time to move on to the last phase of Guatemala.  I have had such a wonderful time here and I’ve met such wonderful people. It feels like I just moved in with my family here, I am very sad to say good-bye. I never expected to become so attached to my family and home here, but I am truly sad to have to pack my room up and say good-bye.  I couldn’t have asked for a more welcoming family, at every turn they were there for me with open arms. I truly felt like part of the family.  Xela feels like home; finally I know my way around the city and we are beginning to recognize people as we walk the streets. In the four weeks of studying at PLQ our group developed a close bond with the teachers. It was hard to close that chapter of our trip and say bye to PLQ and our wonderful teachers as well. They were all so kind and patient with our various levels of Spanish. I am happy to note though, that we have all made tremendous strides in our language skills!

For our last week of classes at PLQ we do a home-stay with families in a rural community called Chwitxirbal. There we will be living in pairs in the community for the week. The communities there don’t have running water or electricity. I’m sure it will be a wonderful learning experience, but I have to admit I am a little nervous to say good bye all the comforts of living in a city. 

Lake Atitlan

This weekend was the first free weekend we have had yet; we decided as a group that we wanted to go to Guatemala’s famously gorgeous Lake Atitlan.  Lake Atitlan is actually where I say that I fell in love with Guatemala two years ago on my first trip to Central America. It is this beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes, mountains and beautiful artisan markets.  Because of the lakes beauty, the majority of the property directly surrounding the lake has been bought up by wealthy foreigners. The houses and hostels surrounding the lake are just extravagant mansions.   This weekend we stayed at a very nice hostel  on the lake front, with a sauna, massages and fancy three course meals that all seem very expense in relative to how we have been living in Xela (but still cheap relative to the States).

                The contrast here is hard for me to swallow. While I have undoubtedly had a wonderful relaxing weekend here, it is hard to know that only a few kilometers up the mountains there are communities that are living very impoverished.  Some of these fancy hotels have indigenous people as their staff but I feel like it’s just a front. Look we will hire the locals, even though they only speak Spanish and 95% of our customers do not speak Spanish, or care to because they are simply vacationing here. For example the hostel we are staying at has indigenous women working in the kitchen. As I am sitting here right now writing this the women from the kitchen keep coming out to serve the food to customers, and because they only speak Spanish they have to keep going and getting the rest of the staff who are white foreigners to help  because they cannot read the names on the tickets for the food.            

Something just doesn’t sit well with me. While we sit here and drink our fancy drinks and eat our three course meals, there are people nearby barely surviving. Yesterday we took a boat to a couple towns over and hiked back. We saw more white people than we did locals. I guess whenever a developing county becomes established as a tourist spot, there is always going to be a divide between the locals and the tourist. I am not sure how to reconcile the two.

                

Privileged

 It has been an amazing experience to live with a family here.  I will not lie it was a real challenge in the beginning to live with a family here. Coming into this we really didn’t have a ton of information about the socioeconomic status of our families. The only homes I had ever visited in Guatemala and Central America were one roomed, dirt floored homes where they may or may not have running water; so that was the image I had in my head before we arrived here. When we got here our coordinators told us that the families that we would be living with ranged from lower middle class to upper middle class elites here. With that being said I guess I had a notion in my mind of what my home was going to be like in accordance with a lower to upper middle class home in the US. The first day I moved in I nearly had a panic attack, the house was not as I had expected. The bathrooms do not always have toilet paper and the toilets don’t always work. I had expectation in my head of what a middle class home should look like. Now that we have been here for three weeks, I guess I have digested my initial thoughts. My family seems to be fairly well off. They have a dog, a large fish tank, Rosi my host mother does not make her own tortillas and all of their four children go to school.  In general I think we go into things with expectations and “norms” to be upheld.  As a group one of the things we have challenged ourselves with is the notion of things here being “weird”. Challenging ourselves not to judge, who are we to judge what is “normal” or “not normal”.  

Being in a minority here has also been a new experience; standing out because of my skin color is something I had never experienced before.  While it is a new experience, negative or not, I’m unsure but it is a learning experience.  In the markets (especially last weekend in Chichi) we are especially targeted by the vendors to buy their goods. At times it is truly uncomfortable, having people following me around trying to sell me things. I took a step back, how horrible that I am a white person and seen as having money. What a horrible stigma? For me to feel that way was hard, but people of different racial minorities and majorities face racial stigmas every day of their lives; in the work place, in educational settings and on the streets. 

If anyone is interested in learning more about some of the issues we have been talking about in our group here is a really great article we read: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack http://nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf    it’s kind of long, but it’s really good! 

Chichicastenago

                This morning we left Xela, and made the two hour journey to the town of Chichicastenago. Among many things, Chichicastenago has a very high population of indigenous peoples and is home to one of Central Americas largest Artisan Markets. Guatemala is world famous for their beautiful artisinary goods; purses, blankets, quilts, table runners; all distinct by their beautifully detailed tapestries. Our trip here was partly about going to the market to buy gifts and other goods for ourselves but we also had an opportunity to hear from some very special women.

                As I mentioned before the war here affected and still affects the lives of many. We had the opportunity to meet with 10 women who were left widowed after the war. These women are just 10 of who knows how many others; their stories are distinct because their husbands were all brutally murdered by the Guatemalan “Civil Defense Patrol”.  Just to give a little back ground on the “Civil Defense Patrol”, this was created by the Guatemalan military to protect communities from the guerilla armies.  However, these so called “Civil Defense Patrol” were not always peaceful, it was more along the lines of you are with us or against us, agree or be killed. As one of the women shared with us, her husband refused to join the commission. He was beaten, mutilated with a machete and left nearly dead in the street where she found him. She brought him back to their home where he later died. As it was unsafe for her to have affiliation with people who the patrol saw as threat, she had to put is body back out on the street so her and her children would be safe from further persecution.

                In the wake of the war and the 1970’s earth quake these women all found themselves nearly starving with their children, homeless and widowed. In cooperation with a local Methodist church they decided they were going to do something about this, they learned the art of weaving. They started out with just about a hundred pounds of thread that was donated to them. They women split the thread up and began what is now a coop. 18 years later these women sell their hand made goods in local markets and are supporting themselves and their families.  We had the opportunity to break bread with these amazing women and hear their stories. We heard stories of babies being beaten to death with rocks, against trees and even tossed in the air and shot. Friends and family brutally murdered or simply disappeared, their bodies never to be seen again. The atrocities that these women survived is amazing, they still are able to get up every day and even smile.

                Hearing their stories put me back in reality. Sometimes I get stressed or worry about things in my life, but I have not and hopefully will not ever have to experience the things that they have endured and I am thankful for that. 

Language School and Home Stay

Our first week here in Xela is coming to a close; this week has been a busy one, full of lots of new experiences. As they warned us, the weather in Xela (being that it is very high up in the mountains) is rather cold. Naively I thought it couldn’t possibly be that cold, I’ve lived in IL and PA. In the mornings and nights it is especially cold. Even during the day if the sun is not out it is so cold I had to buy a scarf and a warmer jacket.

Sunday morning myself and the 14 others parted ways and moved into our new homes with our host families. My family is the Pérez family; there are three young boys and a girl ranging in ages between 5 and 15.  They have been wonderfully welcoming and helpful to me.  I have my own room on what I think was once a roof top that was converted into more bedrooms. Though I was sad to say goodbye to my new found friends, it is nice to have my own space and not be living in a hotel out of a duffle bag. Our family’s only real obligation to us is to provide three meals a day and a bedroom. My family is very nice, the boys always want to color with me or play tag.  I suppose after noticing that I am always shivering, my host mother decided yesterday that I needed to go buy a jacket, so she had Andrea (my host sister) take me to buy a couple sweaters! They have all been so wonderfully hospitable and patient with my broken Spanish.

We started language school on Monday morning, as expected it is a real challenge. Each student spends five hours a day one on one with a teacher, working on whatever it may be that needs improving.  There has been a couple days this week that I wondered what the heck I am trying to do here. I just keep reminding myself that mastering a language is no easy feat. At times it is overwhelming to be completely immersed in the language, but it seems to be the most effective way of learning. I have a lot of improving to do!

 I am learning so much more here than just the language of Spanish. The civil war here has been a topic that as a group we have been learning about, it is very interesting to be living alongside people who have such remarkable stories to tell; people who have seen unimaginable things in their lifetime. I have found myself talking with my professor for extended periods of times about the war and the current politics, it is fascinating. This week we heard from a variety of very different speakers; a Guatemalan military officer, a woman ex-guerilla leader and women whose husbands were killed by the military’s “Civil Defense Patrol”. It has been interesting hearing all of the different sides and accounts of what happened here.  As an out-sider looking in it is easy to point fingers and say what one particular group did was better than the other, I am learning that what one person sees as “truth” may not be another’s. I am in no position to make judgments; I cannot and will not ever understand or feel all of the factors that led people to make the decisions that were made.