Last day building stoves

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February 14th 2012

Published: February 20th 2012

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Nancy L

children

The last day of building stoves is here, it seems like just yesterday we were stepping off the plane in Guatemala City. We are a smaller group but still have 3 groups building stoves. Marvin is training a new mason and that is interesting for us to see. Keith and Lisa worked with them while Paul and George worked with Oneisimo and Jim, Dana and I were with Don Juan. The spaces were very small so really assisting the masons was almost impossible, we mainly wondered about interacting with the families and taking pictures. The families today were probably to poorest we have worked with so far and along with that a number of the members were deaf mute. One of the younger boys was absolutely besotted with Lisa as she was able to sign to him and that was communication with the outside world, although he has not been to any formal training it seems that his mother had been, and was able to teach him some of the basics of signing. The families were very happy and quite excited to have stoves; they helped us with soaking blocks and bricks and mixing the cement. As the masons were mainly

open three stone fire

this was the fire the woman cooked over prior to having a stove built for her and her family

building the stoves, we had finished up by 2 and were back at the hotel by about 3:45.

Jim took Dana, George and I on a trek up to the local Cemetery, which we all found very interesting. The Guatemalans bury their dead in crypts above the ground or large vaults underground with entrance doors above ground. Some of the tombs were in the style of Egyptian pyramids while others were buried along the outer walls of the cemetery stacked 4 high. We spent about an hour wondering about among the tombs, even finding an open crypt were we could see human remains which were about 100 years old. As we were leaving the cemetery, we saw a funeral coming in and ducking out of the way we came upon the tomb of a young woman named Vanushka, it had a life size sculpture of her lying on top of it. It was February 14^th and there seemed to be a number of young women hanging about this particular tomb leaving roses and writing messages some even playing music at the grave side. Taking an interest in these happenings we went over to the tomb to take

ceiling

the soot on the ceiling of the home where a stove was being built

a closer look and then researched the name when we were back at the hotel. It seems that the young Vanushka was from a gypsy family who came to Xela in the early 1900’s performing in a circus and settling here. At one particular performance a young man from a wealthy family was in the audience and he and Vanushka fell in love. It was an ill-fated romance as the father of the young man forbade him to continue seeing the young gypsy girl as she was from a poor family and sent his son off to Spain to study for 4 years. After clinging to her love and finally saying good bye the young Vanushka went home alone and died of a broken heart. The legend in Xela tells that if you have lost your love and come to the tomb of Vanushka leaving her a rose or a poem, she will help return your lost love to you. This legend has been immortalized in song now and the tomb of Vanushka was rebuilt on February 14, 2011.

This evening we had dinner at the Indian restaurant with Clara and Utzil, who presented more proposals to