Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Fish market at the pier

La Libertad, El Salvador

















Monday, November 26, 2012

A sunny place for shady people

That's what this guy's El Salvador shirt said when I was in Europe like ten years ago. Only been here two days and love it. But missed a week in guatemala-
Some highlights-
Dinner with my Guatemalan family and Pauline and Lisa and my teacher, Ana.
Three beautiful days at La Iguana Perdida in Santa Cruz la Laguna on lake Atitlan and having a child guide take us to Maximon (look it up). Meeting people there from Santa Cruz and Humboldt and sharing thanksgiving dinner with a singing ER doc from Washington DC and a family of five from the greater New Orleans area, traveling for an indefinite amount of time while homeschooling their children. And having one of these children, age 12, serenading the entire international crowd of about 70 with classic guitar songs. Funny conversations that start with the sentence, "so on my way here, someone stole my didgeridoo". And then the accidental interview to finish up a school year with 4th graders in Panajachel at a private school started with UN values that started with gringos years ago and now serves 85% guate families, 50% for free.

Mom flew in Saturday morning and we spent a night in Antigua, had lunch at the most gorgeous place with Carolina, and then ran into a couple I had met at the lake almost a month ago. Last time I saw them, they'd literally jumped on a chicken bus to Guatemala City, the man hanging off the bottom step and onto a pole, so full that the door wouldn't close. I guess he made it!

We shuttled the next morning to El Tunco, El Salvador and have spent the last 36 hours soaking up sun, wading in the water and on the black sand, eating ceviche and lobster, and "liberating" turtles. I love it when Spanish / English translations aren't exactly the same.

Tonight we are sitting at our tiny hotel on the beach, eating mahi mahi made by an el Salvadorean chef who lived in Louisiana in the 70's and has a voice like the godfather, with a lovely couple from Hawaii and chilling out, while being protected by an armed guard with a machine gun. It's all good!













Saturday, November 17, 2012

Heaven

I'm not a religious person. I am Jewish by culture and family ties, but don't have any tenacity about there being an absolute truth when it comes to religion. As an educator in the public sector, and a minority, I'm a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and I'm definitely sensitive about religious language. When it comes to matters of the heart I know that people respond and react in well meaning and loving ways, and try to be sensitive in my own reactions and responses.

Last week, my nurse mom and I had an IM conversation about the different terms for death. She said in her profession, they say amongst the staff that a patient has "gone to heaven". This bothered me. What is heaven? And how can one define when another is 'going' there? How long does it take? Where is it? I am just too pragmatic and roll my eyes at that (gotta work on that part). There are too many beliefs in the world about death and the presence or lack thereof of an afterlife. People often talk about how to explain what happens AFTER death. But how do you tell someone that a loved one has died? Even the word 'died' is loaded. It's passive. Deceased. Demise. Depart. Perish. Succumb. And those are only the passive synonyms.
In truth, often it is a passive experience. Passive- passed away. Passed away doesn't carry any religious connotation like "gone to heaven", so I like it more. When I was very ill and in the hospital this year, during late night nurse shift change my nurse knelt by my bed, placed her hand in praying formation and said "G-d bless you." While well meaning, this really irked me. "May you be well," would have sufficed.

So here I am the night of my grandmother's death. The second grandmother I've lost in the last 6 months. And while I don't believe in heaven, I do believe that if one believes there is one, then it is an absolute truth for that person. I don't know if my grandma, if either if my grandmas, believed in heaven. But I know if they did, then they are both there, perhaps having a cup of tea, or more likely some delicious pastry my grandma Viola made, talking about the similarities and differences in their lives, and how they both ended up settling in the same suburban area. And how each of their lives were affected by their religion during World War II, and each had husbands that served in the military in America, and each had lovely children, one of each who would meet each other very early in their lives, and share their memories of their first granddaughter, ME, when they were still very young themselves. And how each of them would have three more grandchildren each (one more shared) and how fortunate they both were to live into their 90's.
I couldn't be with my grandma Florence today, but she was heavy in my heart while we ventured out of the city. The pictures were taken, unknowingly, around the same time my grandma took her last breath. Think what you will.





Friday, November 16, 2012

Decisions

I just got word that my grandmother is dying. She's 90, so the time was going to come at some point. But this wasn't the point we were expecting.

Even if I got on a bus to Guatemala City right now, I could be on the first flight tomorrow to Phoenix. But she probably won't make it that long. And I don't see how rushing is going to change anything. My dad is thre. My uncle and aunt are there. My cousin flies in tomorrow.

I'm not quite sure what to do. Decisions

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Chocolate

This is said with an accent of course. Cafe de chocolate, dulces con chocolate, pan de chocolate, chocolate con jenjibre, naranja, manis, nuez, licor. Chocolate entero, en polvo.

And most of it is amazing. They really like their sugar here so a few times my taste buds have been overpowered by crystallized sugar. But for the most part, it's delicious. As is the coffee. Looking forward to bringing a pound back to Xela to have in the apartment in the morning.
Still in San Cristobal. Still enchanted. Pauline's friend Lisa left to return to xela today. Pauline and I will leave Thursday. A week here and I still can't wait to come back. I'm really going to have to explore the option of spending an entire summer here. Or if when I figure out what I want to be when I grow up, be able to work from here for a month or so. It's just such a treat to the eyes and senses. And not hot. It's quite cold at night, and sunny and in the high 60's low 70's in the day. Perfect. No smog. Crisp air. I could go on and on....

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Farmers market

There's not much to say. Organic coffee, different kinds of cheeses, purple broccoli, honey, gorgeous pasteles, pesto. Seriously. I am going to need to come back here and live here live here for a month at the very very least. Yes I wrote live here twice.

Me encanta San Cristobal

Yes, it's touristy. But Mexican touristy. I could spend days wandering up and down the old streets looking at beautiful old homes and churches. San cristobal is located in a valley high in the mountains. The air is crisp and clean- such a treat after the smog of Xela.
Pauline mentioned that the whole Zapatista movement drew in the musicians and artists and clearly that is the case. Adorable ambient restaurants, bars and coffee shops line the streets. Highland Mayans come to the city to sell their beautiful textiles on the pedestrian walkways. The city feels safe and kind and of a manageable size. I could feel at home here (other than the bitter cold at night!) for some time.
Pauline, her friend Lisa and I will head back to Xela next week. And I will stay with them to finish my schooling with Ana. They have a nice clean WARM apartment and I will be healthier there.
Off to another day of smiling and meandering in San Cristobal.
Check out the guy playing a jawbone!

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Bananas!!!!

56 seconds seems like nothing when waiting for a friend to come downstairs to go somewhere fun. A blink in time when staying in bed after the alarm has gone off. 56 seconds passes without notice in the classroom, in a movie, listening to music, walking to the store. 56 seconds isn't even noticeable in so many instances (ok, except in football!). 56 seconds in a 7.4 earthquake feels like a week and a half.
Bananas- This is the game I was playing with Ana at school today. It's kind of like scrabble but each person has their own 'board' and the object is to make as many connecting words as possible and when you run out of your initial stack of letters, you say, "Bananas!" An both parties pick up another letter.

As I said "Bananas!" to finish the game, the look on Ana's face shocked me. "Afuera! Es un temblor!" She said firmly, but calmly. We went outside and the ground started swaying. We both looked up at the porch roof and she shooed me further down the patio to a part where there was no roof. The ground was still swaying. We crouched down a couple times. Still swaying. She moved back up a step or two and we just stared at each other in shock. I couldn't tell at this point if it was the ground still moving, or my body acting like jelly. We could hear some screaming from outside, and strangely the crying that we had been listening to all morning by the many many children in the area completely stopped. The movement stopped, the crying stopped, the screaming stopped. No sirens, even. Strange.

Ana and I slowly moved back inside and she called her family. I attempted to call mine or at least call Carolina in guate city but it was a no go. We decided to continue our studies but canceled our plans to go to Fuentes Georginas, thinking it probably wasn't a good idea to go partway up a semi-active volcano amidst loose rocks with the risk of aftershocks. We stalled at the school for a couple of hours watching the tv news. 7.4, less than two hours from here. Looks like Xela did ok, though some of its neighbors, mostly it's poorer neighbors, didn't fare so well.
I just checked in with the shuttle company and as of now we are still leaving for San Cristobal in the morning. I hope preliminary news is the truth and not too many people died. I guess I'll know more after I leave here. That seems to be the way things go.
Until then, Bananas!

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Surprise!

My intent was to surprise Rolando, my host father, with a visit. I've remained in touch with his family for the last 12 years, both in Guatemala and in California.

Turns out the surprise was on me. Rolando is in Guatemala City recovering from getting a prosthetic. He is ok, just not in Xela. He won't be here for another two weeks.

His new wife, Elizabeth, and two new stepchildren are I here, and all are quite lovely. But it's not what I expected. The school kept it a secret from him, and told him that a friend of mine was coming, so the room was ready with a beautiful rose from his garden in a vase on the table. So sweet.

Elizabeth walked me to school today and Ana met me with the same smile and energy I remember from so long ago. We had a lovely day catching up and sharing stories and although I don't think my Spanish has gotten any better (and I know it's gotten worse in the last ten years), at least the feeling of chewing on my words has dissipated. Ana brought out pictures from when our group from Santa Cruz came for school so long ago and asked about everyone. It was so nice to spend the day with her.

Xela has changed and simultaneously, tourist infrastructure came into play right as tourism is at a low low low. So many other impressions that aren't important at the moment.

So now I'm at a strange decision making place I wasn't expecting, and sort of wish I knew about ahead of time but what can you do. Pauline is in San Cristobal right now and I can leave as early as Thursday morning and return when Rolando comes home. It's a long drive. A really long drive. Though I guess a lot of people do it for weekends and I will have a week. And I do really love San Cristobal. I suppose the whole point of this adventure was to not have a plan. So maybe that's what this is- an opportunity to stray. We will see.

In any case, after crazy transportation issues, it took some time to get to Xela from the lake. I spent an hour waiting for a bus that never came, got told there were no shuttles by two different travel agencies and pressed on to find a third that offered me one in two hours. Just keep asking til you get the answer you want. Glad I've learned this one!!!
So far everything is fabulous. Cold. Freezing cold. But fabulous.

Some pics of recent, including my view the last hour from road 148 to Xela

Friday, November 02, 2012

Que Beautiful

A lot can happen in 5 days. Your home team can be in the World Series. An earthquake can jolt Canada and send a tsunami warning and preliminary evacuations to the Hawaiian islands where all 4 of your parents happen to be vacationing. A Superstorm can hit land over one of the most populated areas of the United States, and threaten the areas where two of your four cousins are residing. Technically, this all happened in much less than 3 days. But this is how long I was almost completely off the grid. Thankfully, everyone on my end is ok. Giants won the World Series, tsunami warnings were cancelled, and although inconvenienced with no power or transportation, both cousins are safe and sound.

5 days in Guatemala was packed with it's own excitement. My friend Athena's cousin, Carolina, is Guatemalteco. She waited for me at the airport on Sunday morning, with the intent of taking me to the tourist mecca of Antigua, and perhaps a quick lunch. Instead, Carolina took me to her friends' house in Antigua for lunch (a very interesting Guatemalan/Swiss Israeli Jewish couple) where my first meal was Polish dumplings and onions. Their house was centered around a courtyard with a small pool, open to the sky to see the top portion of a beautiful volcano. Unbelievable. She then drove me up the mountain to Earth Lodge (www.earthlodgeguatemala.com), and against her better judgement, walked with me to this place "stuck in the 70's" as she said. It was Sunday, so there was an Americana musician and a BBQ and I really thought I had walked in to a secret summer camp open only to backpackers. Carolina walked me to my treehouse, nestled high in an oak tree with a private deck overlooking the valley below, and then I walked her back to her car, about half mile UP a hill. The entire time I wondered two things- one, is Carolina ever going to speak to me again, and two- how am I going to lug my backpack up this hill on Wednesday?

As is true of many places that are difficult to get to, Earth Lodge did not disappoint. Aside from the fabulous food and staff, the beauty was somewhat unreal. The land spans a semi flat area which is an avocado farm, with an elevation of about 6000 feet, overlooking the Antigua valley roughly 1000 feet below. In full view are Volcan Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. They spend much of the day cloaked with clouds, but in the early early morning, they take up the entire 180 degree landscape. Earth Lodge is situated to always drink in these views. If you are lucky, you can see Fuego sputter smoke and lava.

I really thought I would just stick around the treehouse and lodge, gawk at the view, eat enormous family style vegetarian meals cooked by a lovely Louisianan chef, and relax. But a collective group of solo travelers had a different idea about how our time would be spent. At breakfast I was invited to join them for a walk to the waterfall. I'm in some of the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen in the world, how can I refuse this? Without asking too many questions, I tagged along. We traced our way back up the hill to the 'road', and took a left onto what to me, at first, looked like any old hiking trail. What I didn't realize is that there were several villages both up to the right, and down to the left of this trail. Within a few minutes of hiking, we came across several groups of Mayans in traditional wear, many of them children, carrying stacks of flowers, wood, and other crops on their heads. Panting and sweating in our hiking shoes (except for our solo male who hiked barefoot), they stepped aside to let us pass, wearing plastic sandals.We hiked through corn fields and flower fields, through oak trees, pine trees and more. The views were astounding. It was hot, our map was homemade, and a few times I truly thought I should stop, but thought it better to stay with the group no matter how slow or how tired I was. Four and a half hours later, after seeing a small trickle of a stream, we were back at Earthlodge, and I had a bit of an emotional moment. I was slow, I hurt, but I felt so good knowing that 4 months ago, I would NEVER have been able to do this.2 months ago I could start to imagine it. In essence...my body is healing.

The next two mornings, I braved the hill again, this time to volunteer at the El Hato school. It's summer break in Guatemala right now, so it was more like summer camp. We made decorations and masks and hats for dia de los muertos and Halloween. The kids were sooooo sweet, the volunteers and teachers wonderful. Earth Lodge has a partnership with the school, and will house and feed long term volunteers who work part time at the lodge as well. This is most definitely on my list of future possibilites.

Wednesday after volunteering, I took the collectivo back to Antigua with new friends, who all just happened to be staying at the same hostel. It was Halloween, and Antigua (and our hostel, unfortunately) was quite the party. Halloween isn't really that popular in Latin America, so we didn't see too many costumes on local people. The next day, Dia de Los Muertos, is THE big holiday. I was very happy I'd decided to go to sleep early to maximize this experience.

Guatemala celebrates Dia de los Muertos in a different way than in Mexico, with kites instead of skeletons. There are two big kite festivals, one in Santiago Sacatepequez, and one in Sumpango Sacatepequez. Carolina offered to take me with her family to Sumpango. I was up much earlier than my travel companions, who had booked shuttles to Santiago after breakfast.I didn't know the difference, and didn't care much, as I would be experiencing it with locals, and trusted them completely. All I knew was that Sumpango was the smaller festival. Carolina and her two sisters and 11 yr old niece collected me at about 7 am, and we got to the fairgrounds shortly thereafter. There were already about 7 kites up. The rest were in various stages. The kites I am speaking of are not the small ones that children fly at the beach. These kites are 60 meters in diameter, made of tissue paper and glue to create somewhat of a story quilt. Once all erected, they are displayed the way teachers organize their students for school photos, tallest ones in back, shortest in front. It is quite an ordeal, and one taken quite seriously. Having a child along enriched the experience tenfold, and all day, the sisters were speaking to me in English to explain things. The youngest sister cracked herself up regularly with her own Spanglish. "Que beautiful" she exclaimed when we walked up the hill to capture all of the kites up, volcano in the background. For this, we all laughed.

We spent about 4 hours (seems like the magic number) at the festival, and left for friend's of Carolina's in Mixto, about an hour away. They serve traditional fiambre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiambre) for dia de los muertos. I had no idea what to expect, and suddenly we were in a gated community with guards, and I was immersed in a Guatemala that I have never seen. The community was up a mountain (shocking, I know) in the forest. Everyone at the party was absolutely lovely and a bit formal. There were roughly 30 people there, and each time someone new arrived, they would pass around the outdoor tables kissing everyone on the cheek and greeting them. At one point, for my benefit, the entire table switched their conversation to English, which was kind, yet also surprising, as in my many many experiences in Guatemala, I've never been around a group this large who were all proficient in English. The food was as good as the company, though I didn't try the fiambre. But several plates of food, glasses of wine, and delicious desserts, and I was about ready to pass out at the table. Going back to the hostel and sharing experiences with new friends was wonderful. "The Book" speaks of both festivals, but what they fail to mention is that the Santiago festival actually happens IN a cemetery. Apples and oranges. But it certainly made for good picture swapping!

I had dinner with Nancy and Anna last night in Antigua, and said goodbye to them this morning to get on an early shuttle to Lago de Atitlan. Choosing a village to stay in was difficult, and I finally settled on San Marcos, which is sort of the "yoga hippie" town. When we approached the dock, there was a 60ish year old American man with a big white beard, long hair, and a tie dye shirt squatting down talking to a friend. He had a bone in his pocket. Yes. A bone. A large bone that I could not identify. He was swigging on a bottle of local hooch, discussing with his friend how he'd gone to Antigua for the day and the entire time he missed San Marcos, because "it's really the only place where these things are happening." I must admit, I was intrigued. Probably not for the same reasons (or substances) he was, but amused nonetheless. So I'm exploring this interesting place, dotted with Holistic centers, yoga workshops, weaving cooperatives and bizarre mixes of music, wandering through it's unpaved trails (here we go again) through coffee and avocado farms, and have stumbled across a restaurant with proper internet called Blind Lemon's, full of Mississippi delta art and music, feeling a little nostalgic for home, but mostly glad to just have a few minutes to myself on the internet before I have blackened fish and head to bed. I will attempt to add photos- if not now, then when I get to Quetzaltenango (Xela) on Sunday. I'm looking forward to reuniting with my host family there (and experiencing the surprise), and with Pauline, too!

Time for some Cajun.
Hugs.