Advertisement
Published: February 21st 2008
Pigs on parade
They were everywhere. We toyed with the idea doing an entire series of photos with just pigs and the town in the background. It seemed a bit gross.Getting there
We were sitting in an internet cafe in Flores with our bags packed on a Sunday afternoon, not knowing exactly where we were headed.
We had heard of a small village on Lago de Petén Itzá called San Andrés where classes were offered, but knew nothing else.
We searched the web and found an interesting lead - a somewhat lo-fi website seeming to be more geared for volunteering but also touting language school.
The other option in the village listed more touristy activities in your free time but we figured we´d rather work when not studying.
So we called the number from the site and an American answered.
We said we wanted to study/volunteer and he said he´d send a car.
An hour later we were driving into the low, late afternoon sun in the little sedan of big Luis.
Él no habla ingles - he talked about how kids here have to work so hard and have no time to study, and was flabbergasted to hear that it is not uncommon for people in the States to study well into their 20s.
A Window Full of Fruit
People sell whatever they can from their front stoops, living rooms or windows. Driving by an open building, a voice yelled, ´Luis!´ - we stopped and in jumped a wiry, skinny fellow in work clothes.
His beard and small glasses made him look a touch older, but his boyish grin belied the fact that he was only early 30s.
He said his name was Mateo and that he was the guy in charge.
There was an odd affectation about him, he seemed removed - not that he didn´t care but that he wasn´t about to fake it.
We had to maneuver through some unbelievably tight and steep streets as we wound all the way down to our host family´s house.
It was 50 meters from the shore of the crystal clear lake - this was muy bueno, but the walks to the center of town, the projects, and our Spanish tutors house were all straight uphill.
Mateo was quite polite as he dropped us on this unfamiliar Guatemalan family, but was very matter-of-fact and seemed ready to leave right away.
No money was discussed, nor much in the way of details.
Our room was bare
bones, but it was relieving to know we had a space we could define as personal.
It would be understatement to say we were overwhelmed - Mateo had left, we knew few details, and our Spanish seemed troubling-ly inferior.
We weren´t sure we could communicate around the house nor navigate around the town.
After a few deep breaths, we emerged from our room armed with books and dictionaries, expecting to be ignored in a corner by a family jaded from hosting too many mute gringos.
After a couple of minutes in the living room, the three daughters were clamouring for Brittany´s attention and making fun of Honore´s flashcards.
They said most lodgers sit quietly and have to play charades just to ask for food.
They were all impressed with Brittany´s speech and comprehension (or at least her ability to pretend she understood).
Granted, they spoke clearly and slowly, but Brittany was amazing and confident (so says Honore - I felt like my tongue was swollen and speech ungraceful).
We quickly came to be fully at ease knowing we had made a good decision and
Exploding fruit
Don´t know if it´s edible but it´s sure cool looking gotten a bit lucky.
----------
Gut check
We were feeling good about the family, but what about the place?
Our cinder block bedroom had a concrete slab for a floor, one bare bulb for light, and a dangerous-looking outlet dangling from the ceiling; the kitchen had a fridge from the 70s and no sink; the backyard was rock and concrete with a sink for washing clothes, dishes, et al.; the toilet and shower were outside with unreliable cold water.
No one ever accused Brittany of being prissy or intolerate of roughing it, but this was pretty extreme.
I was quite proud to find no complaints come from her and a very optimistic attitude on the whole, but then came dinner...
We were sitting at the table when she looked down and, crawling leisurely across the floor, was a palm-sized, hairy tarantula.
Our house mother, Ana, quickly pounced with her broom, and after some smacking and sweeping, she managed to wrangle it out the door.
We went back to eating, but Brittany remained a bit on edge.
Upon returning to our room, she was again
confronted by a large spider.
This one was about the size of a small hand with skinny legs.
I was able to incapacitate it with the aforementioned broom, but Brittany had gone quite pale and stiff.
Not only were there huge, poisonous spiders in this country, and in this little village, and in this very house, but they were in our room, where we were most vulnerable.
She wouldn´t move for a while and I thought she might have reached her breaking point.
Knowing the severity of her spider-bite allergy, I could hardly tell her to stop worrying and go to sleep.
I was beginning to envision plan b - retreating to the one hotel in town or running for the hills - when in came Ana with a fine, white mosquito net.
The effect this had on our psyches was palpable.
After Ana quickly, firmly, and efficiently installed the net (as she does every task), we were comforted by a protective barrier that allowed us long nights of peaceful rest.
Spiders schmiders! (The second tarantula in the kitchen, later in the
week, was barely worth a shrug.)
----------
Work
Our first morning, we walked with Mateo a few kilometers to the project site.
He had succeeded in building a library and an elementary school so far.
The current project was a high school for students planning to become teachers (which they do at 18).
His approach was very Guatemalan - no rush, there´s always more work - just plod through it, keep going, and don´t get frustrated by the red tape.
He was pretty disgusted with the Central American non-profit system and saw most Guatemalan grant writers as being more interested in personal status (nice car, air-conditioned office), rather than the good of the people.
He said he couldn´t be happy unless his clothes were dirty at the end of the day.
Sure he was a bit jaded, but he had become a happy realist in his eight years in San Andrés, and there was something very admirable in his approach.
That morning we moved a couple tons of sand from one spot to another with wheelbarrows and shovels.
It´s incredible how manual
Delivery boy
I asked for permission and he jumped out but I think it was ok. labor feels - especially for someone who has had little exposure in the past.
I (Brittany) like feeling the work in my back, blisters forming on my hands, and sweat on my brow (and everywhere else).
Slow, deliberate work is good for the mind.
After two (two!) long, gruelling hours, Mateo took us to the 1-sq-km forest he is working to preserve.
There were many different types of trees, flowers, fruits, a pond, and a peaceful medicinal garden.
The forest lies on public land, which he fights to keep public, but is only guarded by a short fence.
As the park is hedged in on all sides by people and pastures, it is regularly encroached upon.
Many families send their sons there to chop down trees for firewood.
Mateo explained that it is frustrating, but also impossible to ask families to ¨Save the Trees¨ when they need the wood for cooking dinner.
Trees or food?
The same catch-22 applies to trash disposal here.
There is so little infrastructure that people burn their trash in their backyards - including
plastics, styrofoam, etc. - it´s nasty.
There is no proper town plumbing for water or sewage - the grey water drains run out behind the houses - but everyone has a 100 channels of cable tv.
How can you tell people they should care about abstract ideas like preserving forests or not polluting the earth and atmosphere when they have concrete needs, such as cooking dinner or getting rid of their waste? (They do charge for plastic bags at most stores, though.)
----------
Escuela
We knew our main venture in San Andrés was school, and couldn´t wait to feel a bit more competent.
We each were given a different tutor, but held ´class´ together in the backyard of my teacher, Rember, at separate tables.
I have felt a slow increase in my ability and was lucky to have gotten a really great maestro.
He knew how to speak so I could understand - could explain any verb, noun, or otherwise through gestures and by trying out different phrases.
I´ve definitely moved beyond the level I had previously learned, but the week was a bit of a
Ana Roasting Banana Leaves for Dinner
She would put in hours at the wood-fired stove making delicious tortillas. The downside being carbon monoxide in the house... mmm, sleep. mental challenge.
I tried to take the info in stride and accept that I won´t learn another language overnight, but the more I learn, the more I realize I don´t know.
Of course we keep meeting people who speak two, three, four languages, and it motivates me even more - it can´t be that hard to learn a second!
By Wednesday, halfway through school, we both realized that Honore´s teacher was a schmuck, and he decided to drop lessons and work while I was in class.
It bummed me out, but this was definitely not the teacher to excite Honoré into learning Spanish - he was unprepared, unprofessional, sloppy, and had a terrible accent.
Honoré found himself copying verbs from a book while the teacher couldn´t stop checking his watch .
So it goes.
----------
Family
We couldn´t have found a better family to live with.
The mom is Ana - she has a huge, warm smile (as they all do), and can cook like a professional chef.
Her husband is Esteban, a good-looking guy with a well-groomed mustache.
He
Smoking House
Not sure if the smoke is coming from inside or from some garbage outside. is a teacher & fisherman and rides a motorcycle.
The oldest daughter, Elena, is 16 and studying to be a teacher as well.
She is quite outgoing and likes to dance, sing, and perform (the weekend we were there, she was a dancer in a parade for the whole town).
The middle daughter is Jaquelyn, 14 or 15 - with freckles and an enormous smile, she is endlessly polite and a bit more shy.
We fell in love with her melodic reply of ¨De nada¨ to our constant ¨Gracias.¨
We were head over heels for their youngest daughter, Ariadna.
She is eight, and a D-I-Y gal in a tough world.
The only time we ever heard her say ayuda (help) all week was joking around in the lake.
She could figure out a way to do anything if she put her mind to it.
Endlessly curious and a quick learner who never complains, she is the kind of person who would benefit tremendously from greater opportunities in education.
She´s something else.
----------
Town
When you walk around San
Andrés, it looks and feels like a small town with a few storefronts, bars, and a hardware store.
The main road intersects with the road back to Flores at the center of town, and that main junction still feels like a very small place.
Get off the main, though, and it feels like I imagine Faulkner´s Tennessee from the 1930s.
A fairly rigid grid is formed by wide, dirt lanes - the grass is grown up so that often only the tracks are left dirt.
Little, wide-planked fences of weather-worn wood stand crooked and leaning along the sides.
Often there are pools or trenches of water and on every block can be found either an active, open fire, or the remnants of one.
Dogs, pigs and chickens are everywhere - they are invariably scrappy, dirty, skinny, and foraging.
Occasionally, a lazy-looking horse will poke his head over a fence or be strolling the lanes.
We saw only a couple cats, one bunny, a few ducks, several lizards, and a woodpecker.
San Andrés is apparently known for its over-abundance of dogs.
----------
Leaving
After a week that felt like a month, it finally had to happen: we had to leave San Andrés.
It was quite a moment when Jaquelyn saw our packed bags, called to her mother and sisters, and the four beautiful Guatemalan women came slowly toward us.
Each looked a bit sad, but not only did they know we had to move on, I´m sure they´ve gotten used to goodbyes.
We both felt incredibly lucky to have such an attentive house mother with gracious daughters, who all did everything they could to make us comfortable.
But little Ariadna was the roughest.
She insisted on carrying some of our bags and waiting for the bus with us.
She said bye about 100 times and kept waving as the bus drove off.
¡Adios San Andrés!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.128s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 55; dbt: 0.052s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
