Monday, July 27, 2009

Mujeres Mam

Hey everyone! We are back in Xela to clean up and take care of some business. We really needed a nice hot shower, lol.
First off, I feel it is a little unfortunate that I have not been including my thoughts and discoveries in this blog, only our whereabouts and doings. There is much that I can´t describe through these posts, not only without enough time and without being able to upload pictures, but also in a cognitive beyond. I am trying to record some of my thoughts on paper and hopefully will have time to write some true posts in here. I´m not regretting it though, because this is travel of course and is of no surprise. I just want to share a lot more with all of you and I´ll probably do so when I see you again. My only worry is about forgetting all I wanted to say! The fact that I can use my camera again (thanks to a fellow friendly traveler lending me his camera lens and another fellow traveler helping to store some of my photos since my card is full) will certainly help bring back the moments to memory. You know how I love to take photos!

This past week we worked with a man named Rony, who is essentially a Guatemalan hippy with a wealth of knowledge on the surrounding flora, permaculture, politics, and other insights that I was able to relate to. Very nice guy. I found his contact online and set up for us to volunteer at the permaculture projects he has going at San Lucas Toliman off of Lago de Atitlan. He does run on ¨Guatemalan time¨ but he certainly came through with putting us to work. The first two days were spent working with the IJATZ, an association that is switching from coffee farming to ecotourism and has a plot of land designed to alleviate the flooding and sediment problems in San Lucas. Rony wants to work more with land used for producing food for the people of the village and so does not want to deal with IJATZ´s coffee production (as coffee is a cash crop and the king of these parts). So we weeded their medicinal herb garden, husked red beans, cleaned rabbit cages (the rabbits are food for the people) and so on. We also make tortillas with the women´s cooperative cooking group that is associated with IJATZ. Very exciting, but difficult for us gringos! I´ll have to practice.
On Friday, Rony took us down to the ¨costa¨out of the mountain highlands, to a pueblo near Reu. There we worked on a blitz project with a women´s cooperative that also has a Mayan weaving school. We fixed up their garden and helped them build a water system. It was an awesome experience working with the women, who had such community in their little pueblo. They spoke a dialect of Mam (Mayan) that was so neat to listen to. I couldn´t understand them much and they hardly understood me, but it was easy to work side by side with them and respect each other.
After working on the project, Rony and his friends showed us an archaeological park with Mayan ruins set in the jungle. It was so beautiful, I was beaming! Yeah, imagine me running around with my camera. Rony and his friends helped translate what the guide was saying and helped explain the significance of the stones. The spiritual presence was felt.

Ah! OK I must go! Tomorrow we leave to work on the organic coffee co-operative farm and then back to Lago for a music and art festival that Rony´s friend Rene is performing in.

love!

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