Feliz Comadrona! Guatemala!
I have arrived in San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a town outside of the tourism capitol of Guatemala, Antigua. The second leg of my trip is now on it´s way, and I am living for the next month with a comodrona (midwife) and her family. So...time for some reflections!
A little bit more about the finca system:
La Escuela de la Montaña, where I studied last week, is established in one of the poorest areas of Guatemala. Well sort of. There´s this interesting little fact that Guatemala has the highest rate of helicopters per capita of any country in the Americas. So the escuela is in the area of Guatemala that has the highest discrepancy in wealth. This area has a bit of a different history because it has been an area of agricultural production for such a long time. Fincas are large farms or plantations. The area of mountainous highlands right before the Pacific coast of Guatemala is prime coffee growing area, so about 150 years ago, campesinos started getting kicked off of their land to make way for humongous coffee fincas. Campesinos then got employed on the fincas in debt-slavery situations. Generations of campesinos were born and worked on these coffee fincas. Even though the people who live in this area are indigenous, they experience little of the celebrated Mayan culture.
Due to generations of hard labor, the cultural aspects of their heritage seem lost on the coffee plantations. Women don´t know how to weave, they don´t wear the splendid Mayan traditional clothing, they don´t disdain cameras the way that foreigners are warned that Mayans dislike having photos taken of them, literacy rates are low, etc.
A slightly bizarre upside of the finca system, though, is that the coffee region of Guatemala was largely unaffected by the Civil War here in the 80s. Call me a pessimist, but I suspect this is because the finca owners (who were probably supporting the brutal government at the time) didn´t want their labor forces to get killed off. So the brutal stories that we hear about entire villages of Mayan people getting wiped off the map don´t really persist in this region. There is some hope for the people in these areas.
The Guatemalan government has set up a program that assists communities with loans to buy up finca property so that they can farm their own vegetables as well as raise some cash crops, working for themselves. The community is expected to pay back the government over time. The downside of the program is that the government has acknowledged that 80% of communities are unable to afford to pay back the loans. There are some cool community fincas around that sell honey and fair trade coffee to lefty foreigners. The two communities of La Floridad and La Nueva Alianza have ecotourism projects that invites foreigners to stay on their community fincas, pick coffee and cacao, and live the life for a few days.
Tak alik: I went with some folks to this really old archaeological site. It´s situated in the middle of three fincas (surprise!). It´s supposedly one of the few sites where a Mexican society lived as well as the Mayans. It was kind of interesting because it was actively being excavated, and it was kind of boring because it was mostly piles of rocks.
Splendid hiking: On Saturday morning, three gals and I met a shuttle bus at 4am to climb Vulcan Santa Maria. The volcano last erupted in 1902, when the ashes went as far as Panama. Now the volcano is extinct, but there´s a little volcano that developed on the side of it called Santiaguito that has eruptions several times daily. This hike was really hard! I felt like I could hardly breathe due to the high altitude. The city that it is near, Quetzaltenango, is already at an elevation of 7660ft, and Santa Maria is at 12375ft. Watching Santiaguito erupt was awesome, first we heard some hissing, and then lots and lots of smoke, and after about 15 minutes it stopped, the smoked cleared away and we could see the crater again. It was the type of thing you could see in an Imax theater of some science museum, a film that loops every 20 minutes and is narrated by Tom Hanks. Wild cows live on the mountain, and our tour guide said that a few years ago they had a huge party on top of the volcano, killed a cow, and had a roast. ¡Que buen fiesta!
A new family: On Sunday I moved in with Doña Vidalina and her family. The family is huge and really welcoming. It´s a pleasure to live with them. When I arrived, they were wrapping up a birthday party for Doña Vidalina. At the age of 58, she has 5 kids and 15 grandchildren. We´ve settled into a nice daily pace. I wake up around 6:15am to the sound of rhythmic clapping, the sound of women making tortillas. The verb for making tortillas is "tortillar." Learning Spanish isn´t so hard after all, eh? I am trying to learn to make tortillas but my technique isn´t quite up to speed and it´s kind of a joke. I keep telling them that at the end of the month I will be a master tortillera. We´ll see.
After breakfast I usually study for the morning. I study from the Spanish version of the book Where There is No Doctor. Over lunch I discuss with Doña Vidalina about what I´m reading. For the afternoon I practice my Spanish with the kids. That is, we watch cartoons together, play soccer together, compare words in English and Spanish together, chit chat...
Throughout the day she and the two other women that live in the house weave in the traditional style of backstrap weaving, where the loom is tied to a point in a wall and a strap loops around her back from where she sits on the floor. They really seem excited about teaching me to weave, but I am a little bit intimidated. They make huipiles, these really intricate tunics that women wear here. They say that it takes about 2 months to finish one huipil and that they sell for $250-375.
My bedroom doubles as an examination room, and 3 or 4 times a day, a woman stops by the house to consult with Doña Vidalina about a pregnancy or another general ailment. I´ve been booted out of my room twice so far. I observe during the consultations. I think she´s waiting until I speak Spanish a bit better before I get more hands-on. I think she charges around $1.25 for a visit. She expects two of her patients to give birth in the next week. I´m excited.
Reading: I´ve been reading birthing stories from the book Spiritual Midwifery to get in the mood for the births that are to come. I also am reading bell hooks´ All About Love for when I get Ben-sick and feminism-sick.
I hope all is well with all of you, and thanks for all of your warm responses!
A little bit more about the finca system:
La Escuela de la Montaña, where I studied last week, is established in one of the poorest areas of Guatemala. Well sort of. There´s this interesting little fact that Guatemala has the highest rate of helicopters per capita of any country in the Americas. So the escuela is in the area of Guatemala that has the highest discrepancy in wealth. This area has a bit of a different history because it has been an area of agricultural production for such a long time. Fincas are large farms or plantations. The area of mountainous highlands right before the Pacific coast of Guatemala is prime coffee growing area, so about 150 years ago, campesinos started getting kicked off of their land to make way for humongous coffee fincas. Campesinos then got employed on the fincas in debt-slavery situations. Generations of campesinos were born and worked on these coffee fincas. Even though the people who live in this area are indigenous, they experience little of the celebrated Mayan culture.
Due to generations of hard labor, the cultural aspects of their heritage seem lost on the coffee plantations. Women don´t know how to weave, they don´t wear the splendid Mayan traditional clothing, they don´t disdain cameras the way that foreigners are warned that Mayans dislike having photos taken of them, literacy rates are low, etc.
A slightly bizarre upside of the finca system, though, is that the coffee region of Guatemala was largely unaffected by the Civil War here in the 80s. Call me a pessimist, but I suspect this is because the finca owners (who were probably supporting the brutal government at the time) didn´t want their labor forces to get killed off. So the brutal stories that we hear about entire villages of Mayan people getting wiped off the map don´t really persist in this region. There is some hope for the people in these areas.
The Guatemalan government has set up a program that assists communities with loans to buy up finca property so that they can farm their own vegetables as well as raise some cash crops, working for themselves. The community is expected to pay back the government over time. The downside of the program is that the government has acknowledged that 80% of communities are unable to afford to pay back the loans. There are some cool community fincas around that sell honey and fair trade coffee to lefty foreigners. The two communities of La Floridad and La Nueva Alianza have ecotourism projects that invites foreigners to stay on their community fincas, pick coffee and cacao, and live the life for a few days.
Tak alik: I went with some folks to this really old archaeological site. It´s situated in the middle of three fincas (surprise!). It´s supposedly one of the few sites where a Mexican society lived as well as the Mayans. It was kind of interesting because it was actively being excavated, and it was kind of boring because it was mostly piles of rocks.
Splendid hiking: On Saturday morning, three gals and I met a shuttle bus at 4am to climb Vulcan Santa Maria. The volcano last erupted in 1902, when the ashes went as far as Panama. Now the volcano is extinct, but there´s a little volcano that developed on the side of it called Santiaguito that has eruptions several times daily. This hike was really hard! I felt like I could hardly breathe due to the high altitude. The city that it is near, Quetzaltenango, is already at an elevation of 7660ft, and Santa Maria is at 12375ft. Watching Santiaguito erupt was awesome, first we heard some hissing, and then lots and lots of smoke, and after about 15 minutes it stopped, the smoked cleared away and we could see the crater again. It was the type of thing you could see in an Imax theater of some science museum, a film that loops every 20 minutes and is narrated by Tom Hanks. Wild cows live on the mountain, and our tour guide said that a few years ago they had a huge party on top of the volcano, killed a cow, and had a roast. ¡Que buen fiesta!
A new family: On Sunday I moved in with Doña Vidalina and her family. The family is huge and really welcoming. It´s a pleasure to live with them. When I arrived, they were wrapping up a birthday party for Doña Vidalina. At the age of 58, she has 5 kids and 15 grandchildren. We´ve settled into a nice daily pace. I wake up around 6:15am to the sound of rhythmic clapping, the sound of women making tortillas. The verb for making tortillas is "tortillar." Learning Spanish isn´t so hard after all, eh? I am trying to learn to make tortillas but my technique isn´t quite up to speed and it´s kind of a joke. I keep telling them that at the end of the month I will be a master tortillera. We´ll see.
After breakfast I usually study for the morning. I study from the Spanish version of the book Where There is No Doctor. Over lunch I discuss with Doña Vidalina about what I´m reading. For the afternoon I practice my Spanish with the kids. That is, we watch cartoons together, play soccer together, compare words in English and Spanish together, chit chat...
Throughout the day she and the two other women that live in the house weave in the traditional style of backstrap weaving, where the loom is tied to a point in a wall and a strap loops around her back from where she sits on the floor. They really seem excited about teaching me to weave, but I am a little bit intimidated. They make huipiles, these really intricate tunics that women wear here. They say that it takes about 2 months to finish one huipil and that they sell for $250-375.
My bedroom doubles as an examination room, and 3 or 4 times a day, a woman stops by the house to consult with Doña Vidalina about a pregnancy or another general ailment. I´ve been booted out of my room twice so far. I observe during the consultations. I think she´s waiting until I speak Spanish a bit better before I get more hands-on. I think she charges around $1.25 for a visit. She expects two of her patients to give birth in the next week. I´m excited.
Reading: I´ve been reading birthing stories from the book Spiritual Midwifery to get in the mood for the births that are to come. I also am reading bell hooks´ All About Love for when I get Ben-sick and feminism-sick.
I hope all is well with all of you, and thanks for all of your warm responses!