After 28 (almost 29) years of wanting to travel the world and almost as many years of being afraid to do it alone I have finally sucked it up and did it! In the process, I fell further in love with this country and had whole new worlds open up before me.
After I left Panajachel I caught the bus up to Nebaj. The journey involved taking 3 different chicken buses and with each one I become increasingly the source of much hushed whispers and giggles around me. Clearly, I was moving waaaay off the gringo trail. On the second bus towards Quiche a young woman spent most of the 3 hour trip staring at me and looking away whenever I caught her looking at me. She followed me into the washroom at the bus station once we had arrived and when I said hello to her she covered her face in her hands, giggled and ran away. This would soon become a familiar experience as I made my way through Nebaj and Acul. I knew I was a strange novelty when packs of small children followed me through the streets and groups of women called out to me to wave and giggle (men are rarely a good indicator since they just stare no matter where you go).
Nebaj was a bit bigger than I had initially anticipated, now numbering at close to 50,000 people. Most of those people used to live scattered across the mountian sides but during the war many of the surrounding villages were destroyed and the military moved survivors into the towns instead. On my hike to Acul my guide pointed out hillsides where whole villages had once stood that were now nothing more than green fields with no signs that anything had ever existed there.
My hike from Nebaj to Acul took me up and over one of the mountains along paths that often were barely decipherable. I kept thinking about a friends words that travel often means having to put complete trust into strangers and as me and my guide hiked through the slippery mountain sides with his machete swinging at his side, his words ran true. We finally reached the crest of the mountain and the valley dropped out before us, with the pueblo of Acul nestled below. So tranquil, surrounded by meadows and corn fields - so hard to believe the violence that had occured here and the terror those mountains know.
Up there in the Ixil Triangle the main language is Ixil, with spanish being a very distant second language. The vast majority of people in Acul didn't speak any spanish at all, so my guide was my main communication link. However, never underestimate the power of a smile and the joy in their faces when I said the only word I knew in Ixil "Tantish" (thank you). My guide Nicolas took me to visit a family in their home on the mountainside on the edge of town, a wooden home with a dirt floor and a thick layer of black from the ever present cooking stove in the corner. There was an alter of flowers against the wall and the air was filled with the smell of pine from incense and the blanket of pine needles that covered the floor. The walls were decorated with newspapers and the wooden beds were piled high with thick woolen blankets. The moment we walked in I felt instantly comfortable and welcomed by the many women and children gathered around the cooking stove or playing in the meadow. To my suprise our hostess offered us a glass of Coke. Even in the farthest reaches of the country in a place with no electricity, Coca Cola was there. We hung out there as the family all chatted with Nicolas in Ixil while the young girls kept peeking their heads in the door and giggling. We said goodbye and carried along into town and then up another hillside to another family home for lunch. The parents were out but there were 5 or 6 kids at home so we sat down and waited for the adults to return. Within a few moments both me and my guide were napping on the wooden plank beds as the kids whispered around us. An hour later we awoke when the father came home and informed us his wife had gone to Nebaj for the day to get medicine for one of the kids and wouldn't be back until the end of the day. Refreshed from our little siestas we headed back to Acul and grabbed lunch at the sole comedor in town before jumping in the back of a pickup truck back to Nebaj.
On a development/policy level Acul was interesting. It has been the site of a lot of assistance from the UN as it seeks to find its identity after the war. The signs of that help were everywhere, but subtle. Each of the homes we visted had running water despite being well out into the outskirts of town. In the centre of town was a machine that ground raw maise and then mixed it with water to make the dough for the tortillas that are served with every single meal in Guatemala. Women wandered into the hut with buckets of corn balanced upon their heads and left with dough ready to cook. Previously, women had to grind the corn themselves which undoubtably represented a significant part of their daily labour. Along the main path were various schools and health centres bearing the logos of Save the Children and other aid agencies. However, despite this international assistance the town still felt very Ixil in nature and the peoples responses to me in the streets suggests it remains a long way from being some UNDP money pit dominated by development workers. A very interesting space that I will reflect on for a long time to come.
I am now back in Antigua where I will be hanging out and spending time with my Guatemalan friends before leaving in less than a week. I look forward to seeing you all soon!!
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