Guatemalan Women are Simply Amazing

Iglesia y Convento de Santa Clara

TechNOOOOOOOOOOOOOlogy

Somebody asked how all this stuff gets posted - given that I decided not to carry the additional weight and bulk of my tiny laptop.
This leads me to fear that eventually I'm going to have to talk about my love/hate relationship with technology. But for now maybe I'll just describe how this works - theoretically - when nothing goes wrong, which of course is never.
I'm so smart that I don't bring my tiny laptop. Why carry one more thing unless it's absolutely necessary? Don't want to have to worry all the time about it getting lost or stolen. Don't want to add another 2 1/2 pounds to my 12 pound backpack. So here I am traveling for 3 months with just my little PDA in one pocket, my digital camera in another, a bunch of memory cards, and a collapsible keyboard and a memory card reader stuck somewhere else in my garments. (Remind me to tell you later about my discovery of cargo pants – those wonderful traveling pants with so many zippered and velcroed pockets that purses and day packs have become obsolete!)
So whenever I get a chance – and the urge – I unfold the keyboard, plug it into the little handheld and write away. It´s pretty cool. I save what I write to a memory card and then later on when I get to an internet café, plug the memory card into the card reader, plug it into the computer and upload to my blog. Then I put the memory card from the camera into the card reader and upload some photos to go with the blog entries. Pretty cool, huh? When I see someone else whip out their laptop at one of the many places where they have wireless internet available, I wish that I had brought my laptop with me. But only for a minute. And then I proceed to feel oh, so superior for being able to do all of this without one.
Now this all sounds so totally cool and together that I´ve decided I really don´t want to tell you about:
Two days ago when I was being ever so efficient and editing all of my photos directly on the camera and accidentally managed to hit the ¨format¨button. Amazing how fast you can delete 939 photos of all the incredible things seen in 5 weeks in Antigua.
Earlier this month when my memory card reader died and I couldn´t upload anything without it. Anyhow, I was only moaning and groaning about that for a week or so until Gene went out and found me a new one.
Last year when I spent a ridiculous amount of time on our North American trip searching for the particular type of battery used by my digital camera; by the time I found one, the trip was nearly over anyhow.
The year before in Spain when the Palm decided not to see the keyboard. Just gave up on writing altogether.
And the year before that, in Florence, when I dropped the PDA down on the bed and it sort of deleted all of its data. Seems like that was before I started doing regular backups to memory cards.
So those are the things I´m not going to tell you about, because I want you to think I am incredibly cool and with it when it comes to utilizing current technology. Any more questions?

Museo del Libro Antiguo

Home of the first printing press in Central America - 1660. Interesting small museum - and another beautiful spot in the center of Antigua

Smells Like Coffee

On Thursday, we had made a reservation at Hotel Nazareno, so we´d have a place to stay our last few days here before leaving for Tikal to see the great Mayan ruins. It´s a pretty cool place, only a dozen rooms or so, with a beautiful courtyard and sitting areas in the center. Our room is upstairs with a beautiful window overlooking the cobblestoned road below. A big benefit we hadn´t noticed: We are next door to our favorite breakfast place, Fernando´s, where they roast their own coffee. Waking up in the morning is oh, so nice!

Last Day of School...

well, for a while anyhow. School was never this fun in the old days.
We were late getting around to breakfast again so we took our teachers out for donuts and coffee at the donut shop. Had some great conversation over coffees and decided to go tour La Iglesia y Convento de Las Capuchinas. This is a fascinating place, which I will try to tell you more about later on. The 4 of us spent over an hour touring Las Capuchinas and then decided we needed a refreshment break.
We walked down the street to our favorite Pupuso place and spent an hour or two in uproarious laughter over my Spanish, Chiqui's English, and everything else we could think of. It was just one of those days when everything was funny. I got Saira to teach me how to do that crossing yourself thing that all Catholics do all the time. I've always been intrigued by the people who cross themselves when passing a church or a cemetary, before and after eating, and on any other occasion which might seem like a good time for it. But I've never been able to quite catch how it all works. Saira is a devout Catholic and crosses herself all the time, so I knew she could teach me the technique, but I was afraid she would be offended by the whole thing. NOT! She was practically rolling on the floor as I practiced trying to get it straight, whether to cross to the left or right breast first (it's the left) and how close to the navel to come for the bottom part. The man at the next table was watching and listening in and I was afraid he might not like it that we were having so much fun. Saira had explained about saying "en el nombre del Padre, el Hijo y el Espirito Santo." When I asked her what happened to la Madre Maria, I thought the poor man was going to wet his pants! And when we discussed that Maria must be the most important part of the thing because every single Catholic girl gets Maria as part of her names, he was laughing so hard that I feared for his health. He left shortly thereafter, still laughing, so hopefully he wasn't too offended.
I think I got a great picture of Gene, Saira and Chiqui sharing a banana licuado (that's refresco for you folks in C.R; smoothie for you guys in the U.S.)! If it turns out any good, I will post the photo with this.

A Recycled Life

El Sitio was showing the film "A Recycled Life," and we knew we had to see it. It was nominated for best short documentary of the year and is about the 1700 or so people (babies, kids, mothers, old people) who live and work in the enormous landfill in Guatemala City. It is also about a young American woman (from Maine) who came to Antigua to study Spanish, saw the dump and the people who live there, and never left, working continuously to help these people. It is an absolutely incredible story. I will not tell you more, because it is really important that you SEE this film, even if you think the subject is not something you want to think about. I will be taking a survey (or why don't I just watch for comments here) to see who has seen it and to hear your reactions. I believe you can read more about it at www.safepassage.org. It´s available on DVD, along with the additional footage added after the Academy Awards.

Still Crazy ... After All This Time

Still having a great time. Just uploaded a bunch more pictures. Hope you all enjoy them. I keep finding something else I want to tell you about! But for now, see all the stuff I´ve added below!

Another Week Over Already

It's hard to believe that we've been in Antigua for almost 4 weeks already - and have been studying for 3 weeks already. Seems like I should be a fluent speaker of the Spanish language by now, right? Not!
We've spent a lot of time studying this week. I think that Gene is making some real progress. He says that he is still waiting for the "light bulb to go on in his brain," but I see things sinking in that just didn't stick with him before. As for me, I am starting to get familiar enough with certain words, phrases and concepts that they are becoming natural to me now. But I still seem to have a huge "CRS disease" (can't remember shit) problem. I rarely understand everything that is said to me and I always speak haltingly while trying to put ny thoughts together. I get more frustrated than Gene does, I think. Chiqui and I do a lot of just plain talkiing. I am determined to improve my conversation skills, but there are times when I think I was able to speak more 4 years ago than I can now. Good thing I am a very patient person, huh?

Guidebooks - Don´t Trust Them!

After a leisurely walk and an appallingly bad breakfast at a "recommended" eating establishment, we had a lovely day being tourists!
One of the important lessons to learn when traveling is to never trust guidebooks. Of course I could add never trust other travelers, never trust tourist offices, never trust travel agencies, and a host of other important things not to trust, but the subject for the day is guidebooks. Never trust guidebooks. Not that I'm a non-believer in guidebooks. I love the damned things. I buy at least 2 of them for every place that we go. Reading about places I'm going to visit, or that I might visit, or that I'm thinking about visiting, or that I dream of visiting, is one of my favorite passtimes. Guidebooks are a great place to start all this. But once there, they are inherently untrustworthy.
Assume for a moment that every single word written in a given guidebook is the God's honest truth when it is written. If there is one thing that I can promise you is always going to happen no matter where you travel, it is change. So if you have this year's edition of the guidebook, some of that material is going to be almost a year old - right? Wrong! Most of it is going to be years old! It may be that guidebook publishers like to say that their books are completely updated every year, but think about it. Is that even possible? Sure, a lot of it is updated, but most of it is just there, year after year after ... One instance in particular that we always remember is the time in Costa Rica when we walked and walked trying to find the cute-sounding bed and breakfast in Santa Ana. We finally stopped at a bar that we were familiar with, since it happened to be in the area. Over a beer, we asked the owner where this mysterious B & B that we couldn't find was. Laughing uproareously (and I am sure that is NOT a word in any language), he said, "You're in it!" It turned out that years before, his very bar had been a B & B. "Some owner before me, years and years ago..." he said. Since then, I take my guidebooks lightly.
Speakiing of taking guidebooks lightly, please do not ever carry around a whole guidebook if you do not need it. First off, when you first get a guidebook (assuming that you own it and didn't borrow it from a friend or the library), immediately tear out any pages with bullshit like advertising for travel agencies and resorts. You paid good money for this book. You certainly do not need to be bombarded with paid advertising! Tear it out, throw it away - immediately. Thank you. Now, you may read every chapter and every word, if you so desire, but before leaving on your grand adventure, tear out and take with you only those pages which will be useful to you on your trip. So, for example, if you have purchased a book about Spain, but are definitely going only to Madrid and Seville, tear out those pages to take with you and leave the rest of the book at home. How you handle the loose pages depends on your personality, but don't get all hung up on that thing your mom told you about not defacing or destroying books. Trust me on this. You paid for the damned thing. It's yours to do with as you please. And when you trip lightly up the stairs in the metro station, comfortable with your little 12 pound backpack, you will thank me for this. You have permission to laugh at those serious travelers who carry those huge honkin' 50 pound packs around. (We won't even talk about the volkswagon sized suitcases on wheels here). So tear the pages out, staple them together in sections (one for each town perhaps; or one section for sights to see and another for places to eat or whatever), or leave them loose, but carry them in baggies, or whatever works for you. Repeat after me: "Paper is heavy."
OK. Where were we? Oh, yes, I take my guidebooks lightly. Unfortunately, at times, I still take them. And I still need to try places that are made to sound really interesting in said books. So this place, being near the bus station and the market (always a good bet for good local food at low prices in places with genuine character), sounded like a good bet. Here's a tip: If it takes more than 5 minutes to get your first cup of coffee in a restaurant that supposedly caters to breakfast traffic, it's gonna get worse. Get the hell out of there. Another tip: If the coffee finally comes, but the milk takes another 10 minutes to appear, get the hell out. But oh, no! We've gotta check this out. After all, the guidebook said ... So we finally got the cold rubbery eggs with the bowl of room temperature purreed black beans (NOT what I expect when I order refried beans). Lovely that the little basket of cold tortillas arrived at the same time as the cold eggs. The saving grace was the golden platanos. If only they'd been warm.
We've had so many great meals here. And so many totally adequate meals here. I guess you have to expect a bad one once in a while. So I don't expect guidebooks to be perfect, and I know that places change and are not always consistent, but I still plan to write to the Rough Guide to Guatemala and tell them that they need to delete the Comedor Tipico Anigüeño from their next edition.
After breakfast, I took Gene to see the weaving museum that I had seen a couple weeks ago with Chiqui. I was even more impressed this time than on my first visit.

Santa Teresa & How to Tip

We were just walking up the street after having a nice little lunch near the park. Suddenly there was another awesome ruined church. I was taking photos through the iron gate and wishing I could get inside to see more when the caretaker arrived. He invited us in, said it was ok to take pictures and told us about the history of the church.
This convent and church were built from 1677 to 1687. Originally housing 3 nuns from Lima, Peru, the convent ultimately grew to 18. The 2-story building was badly damaged in the earthquakes of 1717. Some 20 years later the convent was restored. Then in the earthquake of 1773, it sustained extensive damage again. The impressive façade of the convent survived all the earthquakes, including 1976. The northern section of the building still stands and now houses the city jail for men!
I asked our friendly guide if he had been in Antigua and remembered the earthquake of 1976. Yes, he said, it was horrible. Actually the first one, on February 4, happened at 2 o'clock in the morning. The second one occurred on February 6, during the day, and was terrifying. When you see the enormous pieces of buildings which are now lying around on the ground, you get a feel for just how terrifying it must have been. The 1976 earthquakes left 23,000 dead and a million homeless.
I often marvel at how the people here seem so proud of the ruins, and want to tell the stories to outsiders. I am embarrassed to call a ruined building " beautiful," although of course they are. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but my feeling is that they are proud that they survived, and that their city is still one of the most impressive and beautiful cities in the world.
As we started to leave, our informal "guide" told me that it was "customary" to give a small "propina," or tip as a thanks for the information. This seemed totally reasonable to me, but I was embarrassed that I had no idea what to give. We gave him 10 quetzales and he seemed satisfied with the amount. Chiqui later told me that while it certainly is not required to tip such "informal guides," if one wishes to do so, 5 or 10 quetzales is considered adequate. So I think next time I will try to have the cash in my hand, ready to give when shaking hands good bye and thanks.
So many things to learn. Cultural differences are fascinating but bewildering. I have a tendency to not want to embarrass someone by offering money inapproprately. I guess it's better to offer it, but to do so in such a gracious way that it won't be considered an affront if offered at the wrong time to the wrong person. Much easier to do if fluent in the recipient's language. Another reason to keep studying!

He´d Give You the Pants off His ...

His name is Morgan. He is one of the owners of a really cool little cafe/bar half a block from our apartment. We were the only customers in Kafka tonight when we stopped by for a late night bite to eat. This seemed to be good luck for us, since we caught Morgan in a talkative mood. It was obviously not good news for Morgan, who would probably have preferred to have a full house tonight.
We originally met Morgan the day that Gene sat down and ripped one entire leg out of his pants. Later that day, we dropped by his bar for lunch and asked where a 6' 2" guy might buy a pair of pants in Antigua! "I might have some jeans that would fit you!" said Morgan. Whenever he sees pants in the market that look like they might be long enough for him, he buys them. So he had a pair that were a bit short for him, but turned out to fit Gene almost perfectly. So I don't know if Morgan would give you the shirt off his back, but he did give Gene the pants off his ... What a guy!
Still in his 20's, originally from Alaska, in Guatemala for a year and a half after traveling to various other places, Morgan turns out to be a friendly guy who loves Antigua but seems a little uncertain about what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He tells me that $400 a month is a good deal for our funky little 2 room apartment in this town. I had assumed that we were overpaying dramatically to get a short-term rental. After all, I thought, for $425 a month in Costa Rica, we have a really nice 3 bedroom 2 bath, 2 story house! And Costa Rica is known to be the most expensive country in Central America. Nevertheless, says Morgan, this may be a poor country, but Antigua is the most expensive city in Central america. Interesting perspective, given how much less expensive it is to eat in restaurants here than at home. So, it seems, housing here is expensive, but food is very reasonable. Does this all make sense? Beats the hell out of me.
I have noticed also that while there are something like 80 language schools in this town, and a couple of travel agencies on every block, I have not seen one real estate office. Now I know that there are 3 or 4 such offices, although I don't know where. But I'm remembering that everywhere else that I've ever gone, there have been multitudes of real estate offices.
Eventually someone is going to explain all this to me. But meanwhile, as I may have mentioned before, I could live here!

Women´s Health & Other Problems in Guatemala

It was 6 years ago when Sue Patterson received a call from a nurse friend asking for her help. The friend was working with 7 women who wanted to have their tubes tied. Each of them had at least 8 children. When Sue learned that $35 would pay for a tubal ligation for one of the women, she said that yes, she would pay for one of them. And furthermore she would email some of her friends, who might help some of the other women. The next thing she knew, says Sue, her friends had emailed their friends, and people were sending money to her. Shortly she had $4,000 in her bank account and says, "it occurred to me that this was not my daughter's money if something should happen to me!" Thus WINGS was created to help poor women in Guatemala to obtain reproductive health services.

Sue spoke this evening at the Rainbow Cafe. The Rainbow is kind of an all-purpose hangout for foreigners. It includes a cafe with pretty good food (but terrible coffee!), a bar, a used book store / exchange, a travel agency, and a bulletin board with announcements about local events, rentals available, etc. They host musical performances on most nights, and their best feature, they regularly host speakers on significant current events and conditions in Guatemala.

WINGS now has 15 employees as well as many volunteers. They have a $500,000 budget and focus on 3 main programs: (1) Family planning education and referrals in rural villages, (2) Youth Wings - 140 young people have been trained to provide talks to their peers and others, and (3) Cervical cancer screening.
Here are some of the sad statistics which Sue discussed:

· 60% of the population of Guatemala lives below the poverty line.
· Only 43% of women use any form of birth control, including "natural" methods. This falls to 21% among indigenous women.
· The average woman has 4 - 5 children.
· Cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women of reproductive age.
· A woman is 15 times more likely to die in childbirth in Guatemala than in the U.S.

As she discussed the numerous problems facing the country today, it was clear that Ms Patterson found the situation to be discouraging. It was equally obvious that she intends to continuing to help as many women as she can to have the resources to take control of their own reproductive health.

Other statistics:
· $50 protects 4 women from unwanted pregnancy for 1 year using Depo Provera every 3 months.
· $100 pays for 7 women or men to undergo voluntary sterilization.
· $250 pays for 20 women to receive cervical cancer screening and necessary follow-up treatment.

I am very impressed by this organization. You can find more information about them at the Wings Website.

The Macademia Farm

So we were getting the impression that perhaps we were being thought of as unsociable or something, because we hadn't gone on any of the school sponsored trips. There wasn't any particular reason for this. It was just that we forgot to go over to the school to check the weekly bulletin board, or there was nothing that particularly interested us that week, or we had other things we wanted to do.
Anyhow, we decided it might be interesting to see the macademia finca. And it would be an opportunity to be sociable with other students, none of whom have we met, since we are still having our classes in our apartment!
So off we went to the school to meet the rest of the group. Five minutes later, a young woman who apparently works there gets up and says "Vamanos!" So off we went: Gene, myself, and the teacher, who never introduced herself and who spoke to me maybe 4 times during the afternoon trip! Bear in mind that this was a trip that we could easily have taken ourselves; we went by bus and it's right on the bus line! Anyhow, the farm itself was mildly interesting. And it was an opportunity to buy not just a bag of delicious macademias, but also a bag of chocolate-covered macademias! Heaven! Oh, and did I mention that I had a free facial with macademia oil!

Dinner at Chiqui´s House

Hard to know where to begin. Pepián is the specialty in Guatemala. Chiqui had told me that her mom's pepián is the best anywhere. I'm sure she is right. This was an awesome meal. I am going to post the recipe for anyone adventurous enough to try it! Chiqui met us at our apartment and accompanied us to her town, San Antonio Aquas Caliente, which is only 15 or 20 minutes from Antigua. It was our first experience on the famous "chicken busses," which we learned are basically the same busses that we have for many of the local routes in Costa Rica, the old refurbished "Blue Bird" busses. The difference is that here all the busses are painted in bright colors and patterns, whereas in Costa Rica, they are plain blue or green or whatever. As we came around a bend and down into a valley, the town of San Antonio spread out before us, nestled into the hills. A beautiful sight! I've gotta tell you that Gene was really laughing at me this morning because I was so nervous about meeting Chiqui's mom! Anyhow, Chiqui's mom, Johanna, is a really sweet, friendly person. And she's beautiful. And besides that, she's a fabulous cook! So the deal was that we could accompany her to the tiendas (stores) to purchase the ingredients. We ended up going to at least 4 different stores, all within a block of their home, to get the right stuff. Johanna had already bought the carne because she wanted to start simmering it before we got there - and because she wanted to get the best beef before it was gone. At the first store that we went to, we bought a chicken, 3 carrots, 2 chiles dulces (sweet red peppers) and green beans. They didn't have any culantro, so we went to another store for that. They had tomatoes, but not the kind that Chiqui's mom likes, so we stopped at a 3rd store for the tomatoes. Then we stopped at a little store near the house for a small bag of harina de pan (flour) for thickening. Chiqui and I later went out to a 4th store for beer. And at one point Chiqui left and came back with a melon (cantelope) for liquados (refrescos), so that may have been a 5th store.
Back at the house, there were pots bubbling, vegetables getting chopped, other vegetables getting grilled, tortillas staying warmed (That's right - that must have been at least a 6th store - Chiqui went out and bought fresh, hot tortillas somewhere), things getting liquified in the blenders, and lots of laughing and "spanglish" conversation. And definitely some of the best food I've ever tasted! It was a lot of work (see recipe). Apparently Pepián is normally prepared for special occasions like a wedding.
Chiqui's parents were wonderful - so friendly and willing to put up with our lousy Spanish, too! What an honor to be invited to their home. What a fabulous day!
Seems like I didn´t get many photos. I´m hoping that Gene´s camera has some more that I can add to this later.

I Could Live Here!

Why would you do that? This is the question of our waiter in one of our favorite neighborhood cafes. We have stopped in for an afternoon beer (Gallo, a local brand) to celebrate getting through another week of Spanish studies. Our waiter is from Holland. He's traveling for a year or so - or maybe more, he says. He spent a couple of months in Antigua and then continued on, traveling through Central America and then to South America. He says he got as far as Bolivia when he remembered how much he loved Antigua and decided to come back here for a while! Meanwhile, he says, he spent some time in Costa Rica and was amazed at how expensive it was. And Antigua is such a fabulous city, he says. Why would you live in Costa Rica when you could live in Antigua?, he asks. Good question.

An Invitation

¡We have an invitation to Sunday dinner! But first let me back up to yesterday's excitement!
Chiqui and I have spent quite a bit of time talking about the traditional Maya clothing, which is totally fascinating to me. A woman can spend months creating one article of clothing. Of course they are works of art and if they're sold, they can sell for hundreds of dollars. So yesterday Chiqui showed up for my class carrying a garbage bag. "A surprise!" she said when I asked her what was in the bag! She had borrowed from her mother an entire outfit of her traditional clothing to not just show me, but to allow me to try on! Yes, we took photos! Chiqui and Gene's teacher, Saira, both helped to wrap me in the traditional "corte," or skirt, which is actually a long (maybe 5 meters) piece of cloth. The cortes are woven on a foot loom. They have no buttons, zippers or velcro, and are held up by a beautiful woven sash, which I think also has a special name, but I don't remember it. The sash is also very long and is wrapped tightly (!) many times around the waist. It is this tightly wrapped belt which Chiqui says is too uncomfortable. Although her mother wears traditional dress, Chiqui prefers her jeans and t-shirts. Next I was adorned with the ultimate piece of Maya dress, the Güipil. This loose fitting blouse, woven on a back-strap loom, is the part of the costume which indicates what area, or village, the woman is from. The designs are incredibly intricate. They are actually made in 2 pieces and sewn together. This is the part of the costume which can cost several hundreds of dollars, depending on its detail. I was nervous just pulling it over my head! The grand finale was the addition of the headdress, which in this case was a square piece of cloth which was folded up to a size that I could carry on my head. It seems to me that its purpose is to cushion the head when carrying large loads on the head, as is frequently done, but the purpose was not really explained to me. The women also weave shawls and "tzutes," used to carry babies, food or other loads.
Dressing up as a Maya woman was an awesome experience. I cannot imagine how so many women can have the talent to create these works of art. I can't envision working on a blouse for 3 months. I watch these women walking down the street in their beautiful outfits and I am in awe of them. I wish I could take pictures of some of these beautiful women, but this is not possible without permission, so for now you'll have to settle for this picture of me in Chiqui's mom's clothes!
Oh! So the Sunday dinner! I got so excited telling you about the dress up day that I almost forgot. Chiqui's mom has invited us to their home for Sunday dinner! Obviously you'll hear more about that later!
So far now, back to the books!

Discussions with Chiqui

It's been a quiet few days after all the excitement of Holy Week. On Monday when Gene didn't feel like going out to lunch, I found a really cool little restaurant (we would call it a soda in Costa Rica) that serves tipico food. I had the "Adobado Antigüeño," which was a big slab of nicely flavored beef with a baked potato (naked), guacamol, chirmol and tortillas. Chirmol is a tiny bowl of salsa which my teacher tells me is puréed tomato, onion and salt (and maybe with some culantro). Anyhow, it was good. It was served on a wooden "plate." The entire meal cost me 25 Quetzales ($3.20 or so). The delicious licuado de melon (read refresco de melon in Costa Rica or cantaloupe smoothie in the US) cost another $1 or so. I liked the place so well that I took Gene there yesterday for lunch.
Other than the excitement of discovering a new place to eat (OK so you all know how I rate a place), the week so far has been about studying Spanish. We still have our morning classes. We had planned to switch to afternoon classes, but Saira, Gene's teacher, is only available in the mornings and he didn't want to change teachers, so we're still doing classes from 9 to 1 or so. Then we do a lot of studying the rest of the day.
The really cool thing about having a one-on-one learning situation like they do here is that we get to decide what we want to do. If we want to take a break and go for a walk to some historical site, the teachers are happy to do so. Or we can spend the entire morning doing some activity or trip, talking Spanish as we go. It's pretty much up to us. Most of the time, we feel that we get more practice studying at the apartment.
Today my teacher (Chiqui) and I decided we would go to the mercado (market). We got side-tracked when I told her I had read about a museum near where we were walking. We ended up touring the "Casa del Tejido Antiguo," a museum dedicated to the traditional Maya clothing and weaving. It is a large place with many rooms displaying the traditional syles from many villages (which are still being worn today). We also got to watch a woman doing some weaving. It is amazingly meticulous work, incredibly time-consuming. The bright colors used are beautiful, the intricate designs are incredible. For a donation of 5 Quetzales (Q7.5 = $1.00), we were given a private tour with a guide who explained the different styles from the different villages. The receptionist asked if I wanted English or Spanish and my teacher told her Spanish before I had a chance to "vote," but I was able to understand most of the explanations. It is an awesome place and I want to go back again and take Gene.
In Chiqui I feel like I have a teacher, guide, and cultural expert all rolled into one. Although we spend some time everyday going over grammer and vocabulary, we spend a lot of time discussing Guatemala, it's history and culture, it's problems today, what it needs to do in order to improve the lives of its people. It is a country of diverse culture and many languages. There are 28 indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala today - and there are many villages where few people speak Spanish. It is an election year here. Although it appears that there have been many improvements under the current administration, the prior president, Alfonso Portillo, left for Mexico the day his parliamentary immunity from prosecution ended after leaving the country virtually bankrupt, with allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred from the social security fund into Panamanian bank accounts. Apparently no one knows where he is now. It's not surprising that the people do not tend to trust governmental officials. The current president, Óscar Berger, was an enthusiastic supporter of CAFTA, which was ratified in 2005 in spite of massive opposition from the people.
Chiqui is studying to be a lawyer. She is an incredibly intelligent, strong-willed woman. I fully expect to read about her in the national news someday. For now I just feel lucky to have her as my teacher.

Making Tortillas

Did I Tell You We Live Behind an Heladeria (Ice Cream Store)?

Easter Sunday

Rest, study, rest, study. Streets are quiet today. Mid-afternoon decide to walk around and find someplace to eat. Want to try Don Martin on the other side of the church. Sounds like it might have some good simple tipico food. It's not open today, so we stop on the corner and eat at Capit án tortuga. Food was not all that great and the prices were high, but we ran into Suzy, who we had talked to while in the line at the bank the other day. We ended up having a great conversation and hearing about all her fascinating travels from her single days. Another one of those adventurous women, now in her 60's, who traveled in her 20's to places where women didn't travel by themselves back then - Africa, Afghanistan... would love to hear more of her stories.
Saw today's only procession, San Pedro - a little tiny one to wind up the week!

Recovery Day

After sleeping in til mid-morning, we walk to the Rainbow Cafe for big breakfasts, pick up a few necessities from the grocery store, and walk back home. Still feeling a bit wiped out from lack of sleep on Thursday night. Gene walks to the deli for cheese and olives for "dinner."
Study, write journals, read, rest.

Viernes Santo - Good Friday

After a brief couple of hours of very uncomfortable "sleep," we awoke with a start at 3 in the morning, just before the Roman Soldiers paraded down our street, elaborately costumed and on horseback. What a show as they were announced by trumpet and stopped at each corner to read the sentencing of Jesus. The electricity had come on and the neighborhoods were alive with alfombra makers. We agreed that we were "awake." Half a pot of coffee later, we were ready to go out into the dark streets again to watch as the alfombras grew on every street around us.
I said that the "informal" alfombras in the streets on Palm Sunday were works of art and that is true. Today's street art was worthy of one of the world's great art museums! Every street was alive with neighbors working on their alfombras. Each was totally different. At each site there were buckets of materials: supplies of sawdust or sand in various colors, multi-colored chrysanthemum buds, all sorts of flowers, and other items as needed. The street is first sprayed with water to keep the sawdust from blowing around. A base of sawdust (or sand) is laid to create a flat surface on the cobblestones. Then the formas (stensils) are used to meticulously create these beautiful multi-colored masterpieces. What an amazing experience to wander through the streets for the remainder of the night, watching these creations come to life! By about five in the morning, the alformbras closest to the church had been completed in time to welcome the procession. The atmosphere that exists in Antigua as the entire town is involved throughout the night and then all day is indescribable. Some of the active participants in the procession are Roman centurions, trumpeters, and cohorts, drums and flutes, Pontius Pilot, the thieves, banners with the Sentencing, incense carriers, children processioners, bands playing funeral marches and numerous floats carrying images including the Prayer at the Garden, the Seizure of Christ, Saint Peter, Christ at the Column, Christ Falling, María Magdalena, San Juan, Marta, María Solomé, María Cleofás, and the large floats with the sculpture of Jesús Nazareno, the sculpture of the Virgin of Dolores.
After a couple hours of watching the procession pass through our area, we wandered around the town through the streets that were still workiing on their alfombras in preparation for when the procession would get to their street later in the day. At some point, we stopped long enough to have a good breakfast at our neighborhood cafe, and then continued walking and admiring the art work until noon, when it was time to walk to the Cathedral in the middle of town to observe the Crucifixion Ceremony. No, they didn't crucify real people, although I had observed that particular custom many years ago in the Philippines. There were 3 more processions which started out around 3 o'clock from various churches (about the time that the one that had started at 5 am returned to Iglesia La Merced and ended). Thus throughout the day and night these amazing events wound through this unbelievable town, eliminating all that beautiful art work as they went! Sometime between midnight and 2 am we went back into the street to watch one of them make its way through our neighborhood. I heard one passing through the area around 4 am, but decided not to get up and go back into the street to see it again. Earlier in the evening (believe me this all runs together after the fact!) we had come out of a restaurant on the corner and stupidly started to make our way to our apartment through the crowd. We eventually figured out that something had gone wrong with one of the processions and two of them had come together at the same time, from opposite directions, at our corner. There was total gridlock for a couple of hours as neither could move through the intersection until the other did so - and there were thousands of people in the streets who couldn't move either. There was a man directly behind me with a huge basket of something on his head who kept saying "Permiso por favor!" I finally turned around to him, which was vertually impossible, and told him I could not move! He told me that yes, I could; that I just had to keep saying "Permiso!" and pushing my way through! Amazingly, we eventually made it down the half a block to our apartment and stood outside for another couple of hours with our landlords watching the processions as the gridlock somehow eventually got untangled.
This is a day that I will remember the rest of my life, in spite of the fact that it is all running together in my mind already. This week is something that I will return to Antigua for every year that I get the chance. It is totally amazing and trying to describe it is futile.
By the way, have I mentioned lately that I could live here?

Will the Lights Come On?

There is a definite atmosphere of waiting for something to happen today. Tonight will be the final preparations for the Good Friday processions. For most people, it will be a sleepless night. After our class, we walk down the street to Kafka's, a really cool tiny courtyard cafe where you can relax in a hammock with your drink or enjoy it from a table on the veranda. Selecting a table, we have pulled pork sandwiches with fries and beer. After a bit of a walk, we plan to study a while and then take naps in preparation for the busy night to follow. Alas! As usual at such times, I am too wired to take a nap, but do some reading and studying. In the evening I sleep for nearly an hour and when I awake, we hear a loud bang and the electricity goes off in the entire neighborhood. We walk in the strange darkness up to the plaza, along with a lot of other people. We think we will go to Kafka's because we know Kevin is going to grill "pinchos" (kabobs) on the charcoal grill. But he's decided it's too much trouble to cook in the dark and is giving up by the time we get there. Across the street, many of the vendors have generators, so we wander around enjoying the crowd for a while and have some fried chicken. I can't help thinking of all those plastic gloved people in fast food restaurants who are not allowed to touch (dirty) money as the woman picks up a chicken leg and hands it to me, accepting my quetzales with the same bare hand! When did we start requiring food handlers to wear plastic gloves, I wonder. Certainly no one wore them when I was growing up. And somehow I lived. Anyhow after the chicken, we buy some churros and make our way home to make hot chocolate in the dark to go with them. Late at night we take a chance and lie down for a while. We keep all our clothes on so that we will be uncomfortable enough to not fall into a deep sleep because we can sleep no more than 2 hours or we will miss all the excitement of the night.

More Procesiones & Preparations

Today was the Procesion Infantil, from the church on the corner by our apartment - La Merced. There were thousands of people in the streets to watch. The floats are enormous - and the carriers are all children. We learned that the carriers for each procession are organized into groups according to height in order to balance the load properly. So the first group to carry a float out of a church will consist of the tallest carriers. At the first change-off, the next group will be a bit shorter, etc until the last group, who will all be short people! The organization involved in these processions is incredible, but the changes of the carriers and other things that happen along the way are done so smoothly that an observer will probably never be aware unless watching for it very closely.
Some of the floats weigh several thousand pounds and require as many as 80 people to carry them. The processions last for as long as 12 hours or more, continuing into the darkness of night or even into the early hours of the next day. The images that they carry may be as much as 400 years old in some cases, and their history is a history of La Antigua itself. There are stories of where statues were moved to be protected and restored after they survived the destructive force of various earthquakes. There are stories of where they were hidden to protect them from being moved when the government was moved from Antigua to Guatemala City after the earthquake of 1776. And stories of images which miraculously moved themselves to different locations in the middle of the night. These images (imágenes in Spanish) are more than just sculptures. Many believe them to have miraculous powers. We hear them referred to as "the Jesus," or "el Seniór," clearly indicating that they are considered to be of significance much greater than merely a representation. The Virgin Mary is usually called "la Virgen" (the Virgin). The activities of lent and holy week are an integral part of the history and culture of La Antigua. Indeed, without the processions, vigils, alfombras and sacred images, it would simply not be Antigua.

La Iglesia de San Francisco

We did our class all day today because we're going to take Friday off because of all the festivities. We took our teachers to lunch around the corner at Fernando's. Then in the afternoon we all took a break and walked down to la Iglesia de San Francisco.
The original San Francisco church was badly damaged in the 1565 earthquake. Work on the current location comenced in 1579, and it became a cultural and learning center for the region. The school taught theology, canonical law, philosophy, physics and mathematics. Ultimately there was a library, music and art rooms, and a printing press as well as a beautiful chapel. The massive 3 story hospital was damaged in the 1689 earthquake. Reconstruction began immediately and the complex ultimately covered 4 city blocks. In 1717, another earthquake hit. This time the complex sustained massive damage. All of the church arches were cracked, the bell tower was partially destroyed. Engineering mistakes made in the reconstruction this time resulted in even more destruction in the 1773 earthquake. Most of the church lay in ruins until the 1960's when another renovation project was undertaken. Walking through the ruins, it is hard to take in just how massive this place originally was. It is said that the current church is very simple compared to what it used to be. It still appears very beautiful and elaborate to me. It receives massive numbers of visitors each year, many of them to pray to Hermano Pedro de San José de Bethancourt, whose remains lie here, and who is credited with miraculous powers of healing.
The church also houses the remains of Fray Augusto Ramírez, who was declared a martyr by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Guatemala in 1992 for his efforts and death at the hands of the national police in 1983.
In many ways this beautiful church seems to represent so much of the history of this amazing country. Earthquakes and rebuilding and earthquakes again. Prayers for miracles. Martyrs at the hands of the police. But always beauty and an attitude of endurance.
After a really busy day, we spent some time studying and then went up to the church plaza for some munchies. We had some surprisingly good pizza and then brought some churros home with us to eat with hot chocolate. We're in heaven. They actually make churros like the ones we loved in Spain. If I eat these as often as I want to, I will gain another 20 pounds.

1st Day of Class

We started our classes today. My teacher is Chiqui. Gene's is Saira. Both seem pretty good, but it's hard to say after only 1 day. Our classes are from 9 to 1 this week so we'll have time for all the holy week activities in the afternoons. Since the school is really crowded this week, Julio asked if we would like to have our classes in our apartment, where we'd have a much quieter place to study. He brought us over an extra table and 2 more chairs. Gene has set up his classroom in the living/dining/kitchen room. Mine is in the "patio," entrance, which is really just the pila. So far, it works great, and we're both happy to not be in the noisy environment of the school, which or course is right next door if we need anything.
During a break we walked up the la Iglesia de Merced on the corner to see the alfombra with our teachers. These things are amazingly beautiful. We found out that they create a new one each week during lent.
One day while we were wandering around, we came across a little shop where 2 men make the "formas," or stensils, for the alfombras. They are very intricate designs and made of heavy cardboard. Every one of the hundreds of alfombras that are made in the churches and in the streets for Good Friday is different from all the others. And every one is a brand new design each year. The artists invited us in and let us watch for a while. We were fascinated by the intricate designs and their creative abilities. It's even more fascinating when you see what the people create using these formas and many colors of sawdust and other materials.