Atitlan and more

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alright, considering my last blog attempt did not work out very well, i hope that this will all work out.

so, last week we met with a businessman here in Xela who does development work with small businesses. he had a really interesting perspective on how guatemala needs development, but that often entails sacrificing culture and environmental rights, but so often those are the sacrifices that need to be made in order to have economic stability but more importantly economic growth. but he was specultating that within the next four years or so, guatemala will have the #1 tourism industry in the americas. right now costa rica is the reigning champion but guatemala is really coming along fast and he believes that it will take the top the list soon enough. he had mentioned how the inter-american development bank (1300 NY Ave NW, marth) had done a really great job of coming into guatemala and were good to their hosts and respected the wishes of their contractors and whatnot but the IMF and the World Bank were terrible and came in to really bully their way around and invaded the sovereignty of Guatemala.

last week we also met with a former guerilla here in guatemala who was aligned with ORPA = Organización del Pueblo en Armas for 18 years. she was really an amazing woman who was so dedicated to her beliefs and so passionate about her cause. to be fair, the exact same can be said about the soldier who we met with, but he said that he began attending a military school since he was 13, so i can't help but think this woman was able to make more of an informed decision being able to have the age advantage of when she joined. but she said that the real selling point for her was when she would have conversations with a priest about the current situation and the priest was the one who put her in contact with the guerillas. she had many many different duties during the war but they were all at the same time. so she was a producer for a guerilla radio station and was a nurse for guerilla combatans which consisted of driving into the mountains to pick up injured guerilla and driving them back to a safe house to take care of them and was sewing 14 complete uniforms a week while also cooking meals for the guerilla forces and delivering them. she said that her ability to do all of this AT ONCE was because she was young and could do it. being young meant that she was in her mid 20s. she mentioned how the hardest part for her was when her father and brother were disappeared but she couldn't go home, otherwise who knows what would've happened. but she believed so strongly in the cause of the guerilla forces that she was able to find comfort and consolation. she also had other relatives who were in the military so that was incredibly hard and stressful part for her. it was really an amazing story to hear and even if you don't agree with her cause, you probably couldn't help but feel that this was an incredibly strong and dedicated woman. one aspect that i had originally published in the last blog that got cut out was how the soldier we met with mentioned how atrocities were carried out by token individuals and not the military as a whole. it's hard to imagine that when the scorched earth plan was implemented by rios montt, if that's true. it would take another long time to explain what that all means, but long story short it's a military strategy that was started by the head of the military at the time. i know this is wikipedia, i apologize to my professors for using this, but it's a quick brush up if you're not familiar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efra%C3%ADn_R%C3%ADos_Montt

i was speaking with my professor about the woman's talk and how i thought it was powerful. he told me how it's true that it's powerful, but he only agrees with about 75% of it. he mentioned how the army did carry out atrocities and it's documented that about 90% of human rights violations were committed by the army, but in the long run, it's a very good thing that the guerillas didn't win. because if they had won, guatemala's economy would be SO much worse than it is today. he mentioned how nicaragua is economically blockaded by the U.S. and how much harm that has caused. Nicaragua is receiving aid from Hugo Chavez, but he uses oil as a strangle hold and a manipulation tactic. My professor was a spanish teacher for USAID workers in guatemala for a long time before he began working at the language school in Xela. he completely agrees that the army went over the top in it's response, but he doesn't agree with the justifications for the civil war from the perspective of the guerilla. the civil war started off as military members who led a mutiny of sorts after the CIA backed coup of the former president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. My professor said that he agreed with the start of the civil war and it's reasoning for military members not wanting to serve a president who was imposed by the U.S., but later the war moved towards land redistribution from people living in the mountains and that is an unjustified reason to wage a civil war and would've been beyond horrible for the guatemalan economy had they succeeded. he doesn't believe that they were communists, but that they were Marxists and yes, we did have another big conversation about that too.

So those were the big events that happened last week. There was a small arguement within the family i'm living with last week over the dog in their house. the married couple i'm living with are really really great people, but they tend to disagree over the usefulness of the german shepard (wolf) that lives in the roof. The husband believes that the dog, Balto, yes Balto, acts as a great guard dog. which is true when the dog barks at every moving object within three blocks at all hours of the day and night. The wife thinks that the dog is completely useless except for eating food and using up their money. Well, last week Balto broke the wife's favorite vase that her father had given to her who has long since past away. Well, for the wife, that was it, Balto was out. After some intense and heated debates, Balto was allowed to stay in the house, but for a while now, I was beyond unsure as to what my role should be. So i stayed in my room while "my parents" here "talked" it out. Eventually I stuck my head out to see if there was anything I could help with. I'm not sure if i mentioned this already, but there's another smaller dog named Yumpy in the house too which is "my mother's" one and only child as far as she is concerned. So the smaller dog putters around the house and at this point was barking barking barking barking. So i asked the husband if he needed any help, because he was holding Balto on the stairs after his wife stormed off. He gave me this waving back sort of hand motion and pointed at Yumpy and continued waving me off. So I understood that as go back, if Yumpy sees you it's going to start barking more. So the next day, all was well again and everything had calmed down. I had lunch with my parents and my father asked me "what happened last night?? why didn't you help me???" i told him how he had waved me off. it was then that i learned that a waving off motion that we in the United States would interpret as like, go away or go in the other direction means get over here and for the purpose of the other night meant get over here i need you to help me out with this crazy little dog while i hold back this werewolf. Needless to say, i was horrified and he laughed at me, but honestly, Guatemalan Sign Language is not part of the curriculum of my spanish classes here, lo siento.

So we had a free weekend this past weekend so as a group we all decided to go to Lake Atitlan. We originally had one hotel in mind but that didn't work out so we got a hotel in San Pedro which is a town along the lake. The bus ride there was an experience to say the least. it was one of the chicken buses similar to the one i took in Ecuador, but this one was BEYOND packed. i didn't think that we would all fit on the bus to begin with, but then we made like, 5 more stops and picked up 20 more people. so I had given up my seat to this woman and her little boy so i was standing for about two and half hours having elbows and knees knocking into me as i'm desperately holding on for dear life and trying not to fall into other people. the worst part was when the guy working on the bus went to collect the bus fare while there were probably around 110 people in the bus meant for 50. that man's flexibility is something that i will certainly never forget. So we got to Panajachel which is kind of the destination point before you take a boat to your final destination. So to describe this lake, there are towns all around built into moutains and volcanoes with this huge beauiful lake in the middle. I've heard that the lake now is a little contaminated, but i didn't care, it was beautiful. so we took a boat to our hotel which was beautiful. there were 12 of us in total who decided to go (12 / 15). so for saturday, we woke up to go on a boat tour around the lake at different points which was great and took up most of the morning and afternoon, then upon return to the hotel, me and some other friends decided to go for a horseback ride around San Pedro which again was beautiful. That night me and two other friends decided to go out to check out some live music, but the bar we were at was just giving me a really really bad vibe, so we opted out of the music for a much more laid back spot to hang out at but honestly, it was totally the hippy gringo hang out bar. It was all Americans who had either moved or retired to Guatemala and I swear they were all hippies. It was like going to the Shire for a Dark Hollow concert for those who are Le Moyne savvy. It was totally great, but i really didn't feel like i was in Guatemala. the next day everybody took advantage of the relaxation of a sunday and we caught a bus back to Xela. the bus experience back to xela started off a little chaotic. We got dropped off at the bus "terminal" and mentioned how we wanted to go to Xela. about 5 seconds later about 7 guys started screaming XELA XELA XELA XELA!!! and were pointing on a bus, so i instantly take off for the bus, throw myself into it from the back and move to sit down thinking the rest of my group is behind me. well, i suppose the inner competitor in me came out because i had sprinted for the bus darting in between cars while everybody else waited for the traffic to break. so eventually the other 11 girls were able to cross the street (that's right, 11) and about half of them get on the bus from the back when it starts to take off, so people are chasing after the bus with their bags as we're screaming at the bus driver to stop, and eventually, everybody gets in the bus. we're doing head counts and making sure we have everybody when literally, the bus drives about 2 blocks and then stops for about 25 minutes to let other people on the bus. it was the most ridiculous thing that i've ever experienced regarding transportation.

So just now, we finished class then met with a guy who gave his perspective of the war as a civilian. he mentioned how the civilians were really the ones who were the worst off during the war having been caught in the cross fire and bearing the brunt from the army's tactics. an interesting perspective he mentioned was how people instantly lose their humanity when they shoot one another for disagreeing with another way of thinking.

the group is dropping like flies in terms of getting sick. there are only 5 out of 15 now at this point (including me) who have not gotten sick yet and getting sick ranges from getting a stomach infection to amebas. so i'm keeping the fingers crossed. so this is our last week here in Xela. on saturday we split up to go to two different schools. 10 are going to Cantel which is an indigenous community around Xela to go to school and 5 (including me) are going to a school in Columba at the Escuela de la Montaña. Xela has been really great. All my blogging / internet use has been at this great cafe here with wireless internet called Babylon. so if ever you're in Xela, come and support this spot. After a week at the mountain school, we regroup and then it's off to El Salvador! it's crazy to think i'm almost one country down, but i'm just chugging along here.

i hope everybody is doing great!

p.s. happy belated birthday wishes to Justin Campeau and Francis Manning!

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Photos

mountains
view outside hotel

crooked volcano shot
doesn't it look like somebody stepped into the volcano?

picture of a painting
i wonder if i could sell a picture of a painting?

tuk-tuk!!
i don't think i spelled that right, but these are little taxis

another volcano shot
this reminded me of a coldplay album cover or something

house
yup, that's a house up there

cool building
house? hotel? i'm not sure

drying coffee beans + volcano
the coffee here actually hasn't been very good. the best coffee was in guatemala city. my house has instant coffee, YUCK!

Comments

[Cousin Rodrigo]

Great stories!! Glad to hear you haven't gotten sick! Must be that Guatemalan blood you got from your Uncle Frank, haha!