(no subject)
beginning drafts of a Maya Pedal zine. Just getting to type it all up for the first time. mostly for personal use, but critiques welcome.
It's a Monday morning in San Andres Itzapa. I wake in my hammock, slung beneath beams of hanging bicycle frames, guarded from a Guatemalan invierno sky by just a thin tin roof. The walls of bicycle wheels leave plenty of room between the rims and spokes to peek at the world beyond: neighbors' wandering chickens and pigs; women and children hanging out brightly handwoven huipiles on clotheslines in their yards; the morning traffic of cattle, skinny horses, and men with machetes on the street below. The distant view of the mountains and the milpa that surround town is clouded by the soft morning mist. Early hours remain slow, shapeless here, but the sun will be shining by late morning. I'll wash some clothes in the pila, hastening to let my clothes catch the few hours of sunlight we get here in the winter. Another volunteer will prepare desayunos tipicos: our everyday breakfast of eggs, beans, fresh cheese (packaged that morning in a banana leaf) and tortillas bought from a neighbor. We might all take a morning stroll together down to market, where on the pavement in front of the church sit dozens of brightly dressed indigenous women with displays of beets, broccoli, bananas and mangoes, varieties of squash and local wild greens, all ready for the bargaining. We'll fumble over prices: Weren't mangoes only two Quetzales last week? If anyone is feeling ill, I'll ask around about herbs until i come across bunches of manzanilla, yerba buena, and albahaca for sale, cut fresh that day. Back at the house we'll hear the familiar sound of the front doors screeching open by nine am, the Guatemalan pop music will be turned on, and a cheerful round of "buenos dias!" will echo around the shop. ANother day at Maya Pedal will have begun.
This is where I live right now. Since April I've been based in this village, living life alongside the twenty thousand mostly Mayan residents. My lifestyle may be different than theirs, but there's nothing foreign to me anymore about hopping on a bus and sharing a kindergarten sized seat with four Mayan women and occasionally their chickens, too; purchasing everything I eat at an outdoor market down the street, or saying buenas taaaardes about sixty times on my walk back up the hill. It doesn't seem strange that my commute into the city is through cornfields, down a gorgeous hill with panoramic view of lush green mountains and volcanoes, then darting through the obstacle course of black clouds of chickens bus fumes, crazy drivers and tumulos, horse traffic and eventually, Antigua's cobblestone streets full of tourists. It's just a regular afternoon ride, now.
It seems totally normal to have a bicycle mechanic shop as my living room, to make licuados for breakfast in the bicilicuadora and wash my clothes in the bicilavadora every week, and then curl up in a hammock while the used Huffys against the volcanic mountains of highland Guatemala watch over me.
And so I find that it's my favorite phrase; I repeat it to myself and others daily: this is where I live! I say it in part just to hear it, to know that it's true, I say it to wake up, to not get so caught up in bliss that I negate to recognize my luck. It works: I still feel utter disbelief and overwhelming gratitude when the words escape my mouth. When the sun sets beautifully behind distant volcanoes, when the rains come on strong and halt all activity with their power, when I take a wrong turn on my bike and discover overlapping patchwork quilted hillsides, green squares of anciently sacred crops. This is where i live.
We spend a lot of time on the rooftop in the sunshine. I won't deny it: volunteer life here is pretty easy livin'. We choose our own tasks based on skills and interests, and work whiever hours we wish. Maya Pedal provides bedrooms and kitchen that exceeds Guatemalan standards of luxury: electricity and a propane stove, dishes and a pressure cooker, a table and chairs.... They ask thath we put in twenty to thirty hours of work in exchange, but to be honest, I've never known anyone to keep track. Whether I'm building up an old Schwinn from just a frame and scavenged parts, or being shown how Carlos makes the welds for the bicibomba, or getting up at four am to load sixteen bicycles into the pickup and go to a distant indigenous market to practice my sales and bargaining skills... working here is fun, it's inspiring, and every day arrives with lessons I may have never otherwise had the opportunity to learn. When nature gave us a week long mini-verano, a break from the winter rains, Shane and I brought workstands up to the roof to bask in the rare sunshine while doing repairs against the backdrop of the glowing mountains. When Cory and I were preparing to give a presentation on Maya Pedal to tourists in Antigua, we were given a day-long tour of Itzapa's local cooperatives that use bicimaquinas, and respected elders of the community invited us into their homes, taking the time to tell us about their cooperative work, teach us the local medicinal plants and their uses in permaculture farming, and give us tortillas making lessons. They call is work, but really it's an honor to be given a place in this community so unlike anything in my culture.
Cornbread and Quiche in a Pressure Cooker?!
When there are lots of volunteers here it can be a great exercise in communial living. We had a great family going at one point: four strangers all showed up really excited and high on life, and everything clicked perfectly into place. My relationship with food rubbed off on folks, and we were having three gourmet meals a day made entirely of local produce, served up on the roof where we could see the cropfields. My newfound friends started challenging me with meal requests, and we all learned a bit more of a skill that is very rooted in the language of Guatemala: Aprovechar, making best use of what you have. Who knew you could bake bread in a pressure cooker, or make Vermont style squash soup with Guatemalan vegetables and bicycle blender? Dawn's totally radical unschooler worldview had everyone's brains stirring with her thought-provoking questions every evening. (How do we know when we have enough? What skill sets do you want to acquire in the coming year? And by the way, Laura, what was your favorite smell today?) Shane brought with him an aspect that perhaps we had all been too afraid to introduce: giving reverence. Recognizing what is sacred. We started giving thanks before meals, spending more time talking at night by candlelight, not being ashamed to get excited about how blue the sky was that day and reognizing how precious it was when we could see the stars, a rare treat in winter here. We took a lot of group field trips and encouraged each other through bike rides. Without a fellow adventure-crazed bike geek, it would have never seemed feasible to bike 200km just to go swim in the ocean for a day!
Hombres de Maiz:
It was the end of a good week, a great month, and three of our five volunteers were leaving that Sunday. Vamos a mi terreno en la manana? Carlos suggested as a goodbye party. De veras?! We get to see your land? Seria un honor... Rudy, our young mechanic, came knocking for us at five, on his trusty red "Trek" and decked out in typical Guatemalan highland fashion: wide brimmed farmer hat, imitation Pumpa sports jacket, a machete on one hip and walkman on the other. The roosters were barely crowing when we hopped on our bikes and headed out of town through the fog. Carlos joined us on the road and with a sudden turn between two arbitrary corn stalks, we were riding on a narrow dirt path, laughing from our bellies as we ducked and swerved around the large leaves of the magnificent grass. Horses with sacks loaded on their backs trampled stalks to make way for the bicycle troop, indigenous men taking breaks from working the ields grinned and waved their machetes. A mile of dirt path later we halted in the middle of a cornfield that to my eyes looked like any other. See how the leaves on this was plant are different from the ones over there? I didn't, but I listened intently as Carlos pointed out the boundary lines of his land. While my eyes may not have seen the subtle variation, there was no mistakingthis: to one who has planted every seed with care, who battles neighbors' chemical use with companion planting, who has inherited seeds from a tradition that took root five thousand years ago: this plant is life.
The indigenous people here, the Kaqchickel, call this land Ixim ulew, land of corn. According to the Mayan legend of creation, the Maya themselves are made of corn; corn makes up their very flesh and bones. It's the truth: corn is life here. The most handsome of the Gods, Yum Kaax, was the god of maiz: with the power of this plant he protected the young shoots, not only of the corn plant but the young newlywed humans, too. For this great gift from the gods, the Maya would observe periods of abstinence during the planting season; war during this time was unheard of. Maiz came before everything.
Mornings in Itzapa begin with men and boys heading out of town for the milpa to spend their entire days working the corn fields. In the evenings they return with leaves and stalks for the animals, and large sacks of elotes, fresh ears, for the family. From sunrise until sunset the slapping sound of women's hands quickly preparing tortilla after tortilla can be heard throughout Guatemala. On any given street corner in any given village, atole is served three meals a day: corn milk served in a bowl is made dulce for breakfast or served with beans and chiles for dinner. When curn first comes into season, markets are bustling with open flame roasted elotes, served still in their skin with just a little salt and lime. For more of a treat, vendors fry up pupusas, friend cornmeal patties with fresh cheese inside, or steam tamales, cornmeal with meat or vegetables mixed in.
The Maya have always been intimately involved in every step of the corn's growth, harvest, and processing. Seeds were planted one by one, the ears watched closely until they were ripe for picking, then kernals were scraped off the cob and ground into flour. The wholel process was done by hand. In the last century, however, this process has been changing rapidly. The dehusking of the eats and grinding of the flour is now usually done by middlemen: corn wholesalers who buy the grain from the farmers, and animal feed producers who sell corn-based feeds back to the farmers for a profit. This has not only created a system of dependence, it has also put a severe dent into the finances of an already impoverished people. It is from this relationship with corn: the love, commitment, and crisis, which emerged the idea of bicitecnologia in Guatemala.
It's a Monday morning in San Andres Itzapa. I wake in my hammock, slung beneath beams of hanging bicycle frames, guarded from a Guatemalan invierno sky by just a thin tin roof. The walls of bicycle wheels leave plenty of room between the rims and spokes to peek at the world beyond: neighbors' wandering chickens and pigs; women and children hanging out brightly handwoven huipiles on clotheslines in their yards; the morning traffic of cattle, skinny horses, and men with machetes on the street below. The distant view of the mountains and the milpa that surround town is clouded by the soft morning mist. Early hours remain slow, shapeless here, but the sun will be shining by late morning. I'll wash some clothes in the pila, hastening to let my clothes catch the few hours of sunlight we get here in the winter. Another volunteer will prepare desayunos tipicos: our everyday breakfast of eggs, beans, fresh cheese (packaged that morning in a banana leaf) and tortillas bought from a neighbor. We might all take a morning stroll together down to market, where on the pavement in front of the church sit dozens of brightly dressed indigenous women with displays of beets, broccoli, bananas and mangoes, varieties of squash and local wild greens, all ready for the bargaining. We'll fumble over prices: Weren't mangoes only two Quetzales last week? If anyone is feeling ill, I'll ask around about herbs until i come across bunches of manzanilla, yerba buena, and albahaca for sale, cut fresh that day. Back at the house we'll hear the familiar sound of the front doors screeching open by nine am, the Guatemalan pop music will be turned on, and a cheerful round of "buenos dias!" will echo around the shop. ANother day at Maya Pedal will have begun.
This is where I live right now. Since April I've been based in this village, living life alongside the twenty thousand mostly Mayan residents. My lifestyle may be different than theirs, but there's nothing foreign to me anymore about hopping on a bus and sharing a kindergarten sized seat with four Mayan women and occasionally their chickens, too; purchasing everything I eat at an outdoor market down the street, or saying buenas taaaardes about sixty times on my walk back up the hill. It doesn't seem strange that my commute into the city is through cornfields, down a gorgeous hill with panoramic view of lush green mountains and volcanoes, then darting through the obstacle course of black clouds of chickens bus fumes, crazy drivers and tumulos, horse traffic and eventually, Antigua's cobblestone streets full of tourists. It's just a regular afternoon ride, now.
It seems totally normal to have a bicycle mechanic shop as my living room, to make licuados for breakfast in the bicilicuadora and wash my clothes in the bicilavadora every week, and then curl up in a hammock while the used Huffys against the volcanic mountains of highland Guatemala watch over me.
And so I find that it's my favorite phrase; I repeat it to myself and others daily: this is where I live! I say it in part just to hear it, to know that it's true, I say it to wake up, to not get so caught up in bliss that I negate to recognize my luck. It works: I still feel utter disbelief and overwhelming gratitude when the words escape my mouth. When the sun sets beautifully behind distant volcanoes, when the rains come on strong and halt all activity with their power, when I take a wrong turn on my bike and discover overlapping patchwork quilted hillsides, green squares of anciently sacred crops. This is where i live.
We spend a lot of time on the rooftop in the sunshine. I won't deny it: volunteer life here is pretty easy livin'. We choose our own tasks based on skills and interests, and work whiever hours we wish. Maya Pedal provides bedrooms and kitchen that exceeds Guatemalan standards of luxury: electricity and a propane stove, dishes and a pressure cooker, a table and chairs.... They ask thath we put in twenty to thirty hours of work in exchange, but to be honest, I've never known anyone to keep track. Whether I'm building up an old Schwinn from just a frame and scavenged parts, or being shown how Carlos makes the welds for the bicibomba, or getting up at four am to load sixteen bicycles into the pickup and go to a distant indigenous market to practice my sales and bargaining skills... working here is fun, it's inspiring, and every day arrives with lessons I may have never otherwise had the opportunity to learn. When nature gave us a week long mini-verano, a break from the winter rains, Shane and I brought workstands up to the roof to bask in the rare sunshine while doing repairs against the backdrop of the glowing mountains. When Cory and I were preparing to give a presentation on Maya Pedal to tourists in Antigua, we were given a day-long tour of Itzapa's local cooperatives that use bicimaquinas, and respected elders of the community invited us into their homes, taking the time to tell us about their cooperative work, teach us the local medicinal plants and their uses in permaculture farming, and give us tortillas making lessons. They call is work, but really it's an honor to be given a place in this community so unlike anything in my culture.
Cornbread and Quiche in a Pressure Cooker?!
When there are lots of volunteers here it can be a great exercise in communial living. We had a great family going at one point: four strangers all showed up really excited and high on life, and everything clicked perfectly into place. My relationship with food rubbed off on folks, and we were having three gourmet meals a day made entirely of local produce, served up on the roof where we could see the cropfields. My newfound friends started challenging me with meal requests, and we all learned a bit more of a skill that is very rooted in the language of Guatemala: Aprovechar, making best use of what you have. Who knew you could bake bread in a pressure cooker, or make Vermont style squash soup with Guatemalan vegetables and bicycle blender? Dawn's totally radical unschooler worldview had everyone's brains stirring with her thought-provoking questions every evening. (How do we know when we have enough? What skill sets do you want to acquire in the coming year? And by the way, Laura, what was your favorite smell today?) Shane brought with him an aspect that perhaps we had all been too afraid to introduce: giving reverence. Recognizing what is sacred. We started giving thanks before meals, spending more time talking at night by candlelight, not being ashamed to get excited about how blue the sky was that day and reognizing how precious it was when we could see the stars, a rare treat in winter here. We took a lot of group field trips and encouraged each other through bike rides. Without a fellow adventure-crazed bike geek, it would have never seemed feasible to bike 200km just to go swim in the ocean for a day!
Hombres de Maiz:
It was the end of a good week, a great month, and three of our five volunteers were leaving that Sunday. Vamos a mi terreno en la manana? Carlos suggested as a goodbye party. De veras?! We get to see your land? Seria un honor... Rudy, our young mechanic, came knocking for us at five, on his trusty red "Trek" and decked out in typical Guatemalan highland fashion: wide brimmed farmer hat, imitation Pumpa sports jacket, a machete on one hip and walkman on the other. The roosters were barely crowing when we hopped on our bikes and headed out of town through the fog. Carlos joined us on the road and with a sudden turn between two arbitrary corn stalks, we were riding on a narrow dirt path, laughing from our bellies as we ducked and swerved around the large leaves of the magnificent grass. Horses with sacks loaded on their backs trampled stalks to make way for the bicycle troop, indigenous men taking breaks from working the ields grinned and waved their machetes. A mile of dirt path later we halted in the middle of a cornfield that to my eyes looked like any other. See how the leaves on this was plant are different from the ones over there? I didn't, but I listened intently as Carlos pointed out the boundary lines of his land. While my eyes may not have seen the subtle variation, there was no mistakingthis: to one who has planted every seed with care, who battles neighbors' chemical use with companion planting, who has inherited seeds from a tradition that took root five thousand years ago: this plant is life.
The indigenous people here, the Kaqchickel, call this land Ixim ulew, land of corn. According to the Mayan legend of creation, the Maya themselves are made of corn; corn makes up their very flesh and bones. It's the truth: corn is life here. The most handsome of the Gods, Yum Kaax, was the god of maiz: with the power of this plant he protected the young shoots, not only of the corn plant but the young newlywed humans, too. For this great gift from the gods, the Maya would observe periods of abstinence during the planting season; war during this time was unheard of. Maiz came before everything.
Mornings in Itzapa begin with men and boys heading out of town for the milpa to spend their entire days working the corn fields. In the evenings they return with leaves and stalks for the animals, and large sacks of elotes, fresh ears, for the family. From sunrise until sunset the slapping sound of women's hands quickly preparing tortilla after tortilla can be heard throughout Guatemala. On any given street corner in any given village, atole is served three meals a day: corn milk served in a bowl is made dulce for breakfast or served with beans and chiles for dinner. When curn first comes into season, markets are bustling with open flame roasted elotes, served still in their skin with just a little salt and lime. For more of a treat, vendors fry up pupusas, friend cornmeal patties with fresh cheese inside, or steam tamales, cornmeal with meat or vegetables mixed in.
The Maya have always been intimately involved in every step of the corn's growth, harvest, and processing. Seeds were planted one by one, the ears watched closely until they were ripe for picking, then kernals were scraped off the cob and ground into flour. The wholel process was done by hand. In the last century, however, this process has been changing rapidly. The dehusking of the eats and grinding of the flour is now usually done by middlemen: corn wholesalers who buy the grain from the farmers, and animal feed producers who sell corn-based feeds back to the farmers for a profit. This has not only created a system of dependence, it has also put a severe dent into the finances of an already impoverished people. It is from this relationship with corn: the love, commitment, and crisis, which emerged the idea of bicitecnologia in Guatemala.