Conferences, Weekend Trips, Fear-For-Your-Life Bus Rides, and More
When not studying or writing, I like to take fear-for-my-life bus rides to places like Chichicastenango to buy yoga pillow covers for my sister in Texas, San Marcos to visit with the Nuevo Amanecer community of once-refugees in Mexico who have returned to their patria, Volcan Chicabal where apparently the crater lake’s water has healing powers, and whirlwind Guatemala City to renew my visa in order to stay in the country another 90 days.
The San Francisco el Alto famous market, in Totonicapan, gives places like Costco and Quincy Market new meaning…Basically, this “bustling market which overlooks the Quetzaltenango valley” (as described in travel guides) is a full-on sensory experience. I was not prepared to see women chatting with one another while shushing the squealing pigs that hung by ropes beside them, often in bunches, or that distinct smell of the equivalent of a farm animal porta-potty. Nor was I prepared to get lost. I quickly realized that the Santa Maria volcano is, um, not a landmark. The Friday market is the largest weekly market in the country and traders from all over Guatemala show up for it. I tried to act cool, like I meant to walk down the same narrow market pathway three times, each time saying ‘no gracias’ when the vendors would try and sell me a dozen mini toothpaste containers or a cowboy hat or a puppy. I was literally lost in the maze of textiles, American denim, crafts, vegetables, fruit, pottery, furniture, and people inspecting the teeth and tongues of animals before buying them…Finally, the long line (think: the parking line at the last concert you attended, or basically any of lines for the popular rides at Six Flags) helped me find my way back to the meeting place for my group. Later I asked our guide, Amaro, what the long line was for anyway and he said, “the dentist.”
Another weekend we visited Volcan Chicabal where many Mayan communities hold ceremonies. There is a stunning crater lake set in the extinct volcano’s cone. The water is said to have healing powers and it is considered sacred. As we listened to our guide talk about the history of the town and the particular ceremonies, the clouds settled on the lake and I suddenly felt like I was inside a National Geographic photo.
Our guide Amaro is an ex-guerillero and he lives in an ex-guerillero community during the week in Xela, but on the weekends he lives with his family in a community called Nuevo Amanecer. Basically, this is translated into “New Sunrise.” The men and women of this town were displaced during the height of the civil war and thus, lived as refugees in Mexico for several years. When they returned to Guatemala, their original communities had been destroyed. So they worked to build this new community, Nuevo Amanecer. With some outside funding (mostly the Catholic Church), they started a honey cooperative as well as some other local projects. We toured the small town (one main strip) and visited the one school and visited the honey, carpentry, and tortilla mini-factories. It’s impossible to write here, right now, ALL that I felt-learned-experienced-observed-realized that trip…but maybe this will serve as the foundation for a short story someday…In any case, I plan to give Amaro some framed pictures which I took that trip…of him and his father (who was kidnapped and tortured for eight days in a camp by the Ejercito) and his son and daughter who are freakin’ adorable.
The Conferencias at PLQ are also pretty incredible. Topics range from “Birth in Guatemala” (led by Comadronas, or Midwives), “Los Desaparecidos” (“The Disappeared” led by an ex-guerillera and now teacher at PLQ who spoke about her father and brother who were kidnapped and never found), “La Radio” (the underground Guerilla Radio Movement during the war, led by a PLQ teacher who worked for La Radio for years and who spent time training in Cuba), “The History of Guatemala” (led by the Director of PLQ), “Racism in Guatemala” (led by a PLQ teacher who wrote her university thesis on the subject of racism and its effects on the self-esteem of the Mayan woman), and “The Day in the Life of a Rural Woman” or “Human Rights in Guatemala”…..There are so many more but these have made such an impression…Again, I could write forever, and hope to weave some of these topics into my work someday…but not today!
Sometimes I attend the Wednesday Night Films at PLQ…Again, some of the most moving films or documentaries have been: La Hija del Puma, El Norte, City of God, Padre Romero, Discovering Dominga…The library at PLQ is also impressive. I thought six months was going to be enough time to really dig in to the history of Guatemala, etc….but no….just, No.
On other topics, Chichicastenango is cool! My friend Emma and I took a chicken bus out there a couple weekends ago and it was pretty much Christmas in July…I was glad that the ATM machine did not work because I may have gone too far with my purchases…I hope the pictures speak for themselves on this one…Also, a highlight of this trip was the chicken kabob I had for lunch. See picture.
I did travel to Guatemala City again, in order to renew my visa. Again, the chicken bus ride on the way there served as an exercise in core muscle strength. I held on to the silver bar in front of me and seriously felt like I was on a ride at Disney World again…only no seatbelt, no time limit to the ride, and no safety guidelines in general. And it was not fun! I thought the bus was going to curve around the mountain and we’d go flying over the mountainside like The Magic School Bus or something. The upside of praying so hard for five hours is that I did not concentrate on my bladder for once. I chose to ride the Alamo on the way back to Xela (like Greyhound, like Heaven).
The end (for now).
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