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Published: September 25th 2006
Dani & Carlos
Dani 7, was the cutest kid with a ready smile and an interest in everything we did. He made a big impression on us.This was probably the most humbling experience either of us will ever have. We saw the opportunity “advertised” in the Lonely Planet and I (K) was unsure. These types of visits are often ill managed with families being saturated with visitors and numbed by the experience. The literature at the centre, EcoQueztal in Coban, was carefully written and clearly well planned. The organisation had been running for 12 years. 50 families were involved throughout the area and it was used to supplement to their regular income. All products sold and profits made were ploughed back into sustaining the development of the region. We decided to go.
The following day, Carlos picked us up. With my sketchy spanish we managed to bumble along and make small talk. We took a chicken bus to a village where we were able to have lunch before the truck journey. It was scorching hot so I took off my long sleeved top only to observe that all the women around me had their shoulders covered. I made that questioning face to Carlos, the one that says “should I have this long sleeved top on?” and he nodded. I also noticed the women wore full gathered
Pear hunting
Food is readily available from nearby trees and roadside plants. The community consists of 20 houses so everyone shares everything. skirts, their uncut hair in a low pony tail and plastic sandals. Most of the men wore wellington boots (as well as the usual atire, of course). We bundled into the truck at the appointed time only to wait for a further hour for the truck to fill up. The next hour was the most incredibly trying journey we have had and I hope will ever have. Bracing against the sides and support bars of the truck so as not to fall into your neighbour who is about 4foot high and politely not making eye contact. The contents of the truck sway in unison and if you happen to be in a position to brace yourself, you become the brace for the collective, which was exhausting.
On arrival, we were introduced to grandma, mum, sister, son, sister-in-law´s brother´s child, daughter of cousin twice removed and great aunt Ethel. All of whom I proceeded to get hopelessly confused and really have little idea who was who in the end. Nevertheless they must have all been related as each greated us with the same shy polite smile. The house was a spacious concrete block house with a large wooden walled kitchen
Piglet Scratching
This was the funniest sight! Tickle this piglet´s tummy and he flops over on his side for more tickles! I just wanted to take him home. to one side. The kitchen was dark and smoky. The fire pit (2m x 2m) encased in planks about 50cm high held days, weeks and months worth of ash, on top of which a new fire burned where our coffee was being brewed. We sat down to sickly sweet coffee, gratefully received, while trying to make out our who else was in the room. I small child stood by the pit....no I see, he is IN the pit...no, now I can make it out...he is playing with the ash in the pit, well the stuff he can reach anyway, but he is not actually in the pit. I realised there are a number of women sitting behind me and we greated them. A delightful bubble of shy laughter follows and one runs out the door. We are truly an eye sore after our journey, no doubt! I am shown to a room about 1.5m high and 2m square. In the centre of the room runs a gutter so that water entering the room can leave. “Hmmm, very interesting” I try to gesticulate to another eruption of laughter. No...this is the wash room! Ok, I get the idea, I have been
Grinding maize for tortillas
This is Olga, the mother of the household. Tortilla slapping is the call to dinner and can be heard the village over. Our attempts were embarrassing! invited to freshen up and a bucket of water is duly pointed out.
In the afternoon, we go in search of pears and company and wander up the dirt track to the top of the hill. We pass by groups of women and men and once we learn the correct greating in the local Q´echi language, the greating is reciprocated respectfully, curiously and with a pleasantly surprised smile. Men stop to shake hands and respond in spanish and young girls smile and look away shyly glancing back to take a better look hoping we are not looking. Caught in the act, they giggle and rush away. We meet a pig, tethered and are shown how, if you scratch its side, it stops guzzling, eyes closed, and leans over to one side, lifting a front trotter to reveal a hairy underbelly. In utter ecstacy, it flops over onto its side, eyes closed trotters skyward with an obvious “yes...left a bit....bit more....yes you got ” piglet face. No anthropomorphism here - this is the honest truth! I could have taken it home. I have heard of trout tickling to catch a fish but this is just takes the biscuit!!!
Dinner
Candle Tree
The locals collect berries from this tree and make candles - which are sold in town to tourists. It is cheaper to buy the regular ones for their own use. was announced with urgent and efficient tortilla slapping. We both had a try and were pretty awful much to the delight of our hosts. After dinner, there is not much to do in the dark when you can´t speak the language, but go to bed. We were given one of the 3 candles and tried to make the-plank-of-wood bed, comfortable. Of course the obligatory 5am bathroom visit was required by which time the rain was bucketing down....which was NOT a good thing. I scrambled around in the dark for my head torch (oh ye head torch, what would I do without thee?) toilet paper, rainjacket and wellies....didn´t bother with trousers, and rushed out into the rain, across the road, past the corner shop, between the corn, 8, 9, 10th row of corn, the well trod path now gushing with muddy water, into the 4foot high shed, hovering over the correct (hell knows if it was the correct) hole to relax.....yeah right....just try and relax after that! Not an easy expedition. Needless to say I declined the last 2 cups of coffee and glass of water after 6pm the following evening.
The following day we went with Carlos and Dani
Oh Canada
We had a world map and were able to show the family where Canada and UK were. The Canadian flag transfers went down really well and bonded this lot for life! (7yrs) up to through the thick cloud forest. We learnt that berries can be used to make wax for candles, the horsetail plant can be used for muscular pains, roadside plants can be eaten like spinach and that this father and son have a close and beautifully respectful relationship. We hike up and over, through and around, in search of the Quetzal bird native to central america and like the Cloud people, of a shy disposition. Carlos has been along this “path” before but needs to hack away a bit to make it a little more managable. Liam was hugely grateful for the wellington boots we hired at EcoQuetzal as by this stage we are totally covered in mud...well at least up to the top of the wellies. Long tresses of lichen hang from branches, saturated mosses of different kinds soundproof every movement and we see the most amazing fruits, flowers and fungi. At the top of the hill we have lunch consisting of a pocket of tortilla with mushed up black beans inside. Spicy tomato salsa is smothered over the top which is all washed down with homemade maize juice. The maize juice was too much for me but
Our ride up to the mountains
One hour of grueling twists and bumps, squashed inbetween armpits and hanging on lest we fall on someone. Give me a chicken bus any day!!! Liam was fully initiated into the cloud clan after accepting and enjoying the maize juice, a sickly sweet water in which maize is boiled and then cooled and extracted. We continued on our walk and were shown the house where the founder of EcoQuetzal lived for 2 years about 12 years previously. It is similar to the other houses in the village although very much further away and quite hidden. She was German and lived alone building up the business. Carlos had met her many years before. We find out from Carlos that in the 7 years he has been receiving tourists, we are only his 7th and 8th. The others were also english speaking and equally bad at spanish. He wants his son to learn English as he realises it will help sustain his livelyhood. The grinning Dani, oblivious at this stage, is holding Liam´s hand and they alternatively kick an unripe forest fruit as they walk. It starts to rain and we both get out our rainjackets, mine a berghaus which I quickly find out is water “resistant” and not waterproof. Carlos gets out what he calls his “nylon”. I look at it enviously as I know his
thick transparent piece of plastic made into a poncho is far more waterproof than my rainjacket and I feel instantly foolish. Dani becomes a large walking umbrella below which his wellies walk. He is still grinning admiringly up at Liam.
We arrive home to fervant tortilla slapping and another darkened room full of people. There is a meeting which we later find out to be a weekly church meeting next door and the grandmother is the big wig who proceeds to fill our bedroom (the house is just one large room and our “room” was cordoned off with sheets) with incense. I am encouraged to take a photo and when I do the grandmother shoots me a look and then a smile to which my encourager bursts into laughter and runs off leaving me redhanded. The Canadian transfers Liam brought go down very well and all the kids brandish them proudly. We share some photos with Carlos who then asks how much my camera costs. It is a digital camera worth about US$130. He looks crest fallen and I am ashamed as I realise what that means to him. I ask in my best spanish how much that would last him and his family here in the mountains. Everything he needs is pretty much here in the mountains. It would last them 2years. It is my turn to look crestfallen. In fact, I feel physically ill, or perhaps it was that sickly coffee I politely accepted against my desire. We try to justify the cost of living in England and Canada and explain that my house is about as big as his kitchen. I explain that many people live on top of each other and feel threatened by one another and , and , I know he has done the calculation. I want to explain how this experience is like none other we have ever or will ever have and that we have learnt so much but I fear he thinks we have just “bought” an experience. And we have. I want to cry but there is no reason to cry. We live in different worlds and we are just born into them. We don´t choose where we will be born and what privaleges we will receive as a result, therefore why do I feel so embarrassed about what I have. Because I know how much he doesn´t. But, is my life so much richer than his for its things?
The next morning we all have breakfast together and as I hand out Canadian pins to the women which are happily and excitedly accepted, Liam hands a letter, written as best we could, to Carlos with US$50 for Dani to learn English. He is quiet and for a moment I think he has taken it the wrong way and feels humiliated and patronised by our gesture. His silence is only because he is overwhelmed and unable to speak. I well-up at the sight of his sincere and grateful thanks given quietly to Liam while the women are clucking over the pins I´m putting on their garments. There is a verbal agreement between them that this is for the family and not for the community and "EcoQuetzal" are not to know. He agrees and discretely shares the information with his wife who nods and looks away. We gather our clobber and stand outside the house for the truck which comes and goes as it is too full. Enough time for a family photo we promise to copy and leave at the agency (and do so) then there are handshakes, hugs and a very sad looking Dani who can´t quite make eye contact, and as Liam rushes up to him and gives him a hug, his bottom lip juts out. He rubs his one eye and scuffs the ground, looking up doe eyed to wave goodbye. I turn into the truck, pleased of the closeness of people and the ability to hide within the mass.
Throughout our stay, I was so very charmed by the polite and respectful way in which everyone we met greated and treated us and, from what I could gather, one another. It was clear to me that it was not common to have tourists such as us in this region and while we were somewhat of a curiosity, we were never stared at, questioned or challenged in any way. We were truly accepted just the way we were, however strange, with whatever we had, and welcomed into this family´s home. We will never forget this family who, just by being themselves, have so deeply impacted us. Sincerest and deepest thanks.....
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Gaye
non-member comment
Happy for you
Hi, I am so happy for you to have this wonderful experience. It will last a life time, have a wonderful time, love, Gaye