TheBanyanTree: Hello from Xela, Guatemala

[apmartin at canada.com]

It is the rainy season in Guatemala.  The mornings are
sweltering hot but every afternoon there is a short
thunderstorm and torrents of rain pelt down. The
streets flood with six inches of water and it is a real
challenge to walk. Often times the electricity goes out.

Andrew and I have been in Xela for nearly three weeks
now and are finishing our second week of Spanish
school.  It has been a real adjustment because every
day is so full.  Not only are we attending school for 5
hours a day but we are going on numerous field trips
with the school in the afternoons and weekends.  And
there is always homework.  Twice a week, we volunteer
at a women´s shelter in the afternoon.  Unlike the
orphanage in Mexico, Nuevos Horizontes is a 'happy'
place and it is fun to be there.  The kids are happy!

Every morning I get up around 7:00 and have 'my turn'
in the bathroom at 7:10. There are seven people living
in the house and only one bathroom so timing is
everything. Although Andres and Azucena (pronouned
Ah-sue-say-na), the family we live with are very poor,
they do have one of the infamous Guatemalan electrical
devices attached to the showerhead and if I adjust the
hot water tap to the lowest possible pressure it works
and I am able to enjoy a light sprinkle of warm water. 
The hot water tap does not function in any of the
sinks.  

Breakfast is always very simple and rushed because
Azucena is one of the instructors at Utatlan, the
school we are attending, and she is not an early riser.
 She is Mayan but has adopted the western stye of dress
although her mother still wears traditional clothing.
Asucena is in her early thirties and is less than five
feet tall.  She wears her long black hair in a
ponytail.  Compared to her, I am a giant at 5 feet 5
inches.  When I first arrived, Azucena´s two children
Karina and Daniel commented on how tall I was. (I had
never been called tall before.) 

Andres is also Mayan and is slightly shorter than me. 
He plays in a Marimba band and I doubt brings in much
money.  Many bands here are not paid but rely on the
generosity of the audience.  

Every morning Asuzena throws a package of cornflakes
and a few bananas on the table and gulps down her
breakfast before rushing out the door.  During the week
the menu never varies.  Often there is ´pan´ (bread) as
well but nothing to go with it. The fridge is nearly
always empty.  Because the family cannot afford coffee,
I bought a jar to share with everyone.  Neither Andrew
nor I were prepared to go without our morning
kick-start.  

There is always a shortage of milk because one litre a
day must do for five adults (another student is staying
here too) and two children.  As in Mexico, I have been
eating too much bread because there is so little else
and am gaining weight.  

After breakfast, it takes ten minutes to walk to the
school.  There are two cantinas (small pubs) near the
house and nearly every morning there are one or more
men sleeping on the sidewalk outside them.  It has
become common-place to have to walk around them. 

The walk to school is always a bit of an adventure. 
Drivers in Guatemala don´t stop for anyone and one has
to be very alert at all times when trying to cross the
road.  Everyone speeds as well so often one thinks the
coast is clear and begins to cross when a car appears
out of nowhere blasting its horn.

The school is on the second floor of an old building
and is one of the most inexpensive in Xela. 
Nevertheless, it is excellent.  I really like my
teacher, Magda, who, it turns out is Azucena´s sister. 
We have incredibly interesting conversations in Spanish
about life in Guatemala.  She, too, is an idealist and
a kindred spirit.

Andrew and I pay US$110.00 per person for 5 hours of
one-on-one Spanish instruction Monday through Friday
and our homestay.  Of that, US$85.00 goes to the school
and US$25.00 goes to the homestay family for seven days
accommodation and food. It is incredibly cheap to live
here, but not as cheap as it would first seem.  There
is so little food in the house that Andrew and I are
constantly going out to restaurants and that really
adds up.  

Every weekday after school we stop at one of the street
vendors to buy fruit on the way home for lunch since
the family can´t afford it.  Both Andrew and I love the
pineapples, watermelon, payapa and mangos here.  Not
only are they especially sweet but they are cheap.  We
don't mind sharing with everyone in the house.  

After lunch we often walk back to the school to attend
one of the activities.  These range from watching
movies about the culture and history of Guatemala,
cooking classes, dancing classes and field trips to
various hot springs or remote villages.  Every Friday
night, all the students are invited to a dinner at the
school.  Even on the weekend, there is always an all
day field trip.     

Last weekend Andrew and I went with a few people from
the school to a remote village in the mountains where
the Mayans make handmade wool blankets and other
beautiful textiles. The women there all wore long,
handwoven skirts and beautiful lacy blouses with
embroidered flowers on them.  Many had babies slung on
their backs wrapped in brightly colored cloth.  Some
had large cloth-wrapped baskets and bundles balanced on
their heads.  Life is hard for the campesinos (the
Mayans who live in the country).  

While in the market, I bought a couple of very
attractive handmade carpets in a geometric pattern. 
The family I bought from said they raised the sheep,
spun the wool, dyed it using natural dyes and then wove
it.  

There were so many beautiful rugs, woolen blankets and
other textiles and they were so reasonably priced that
it was hard not to buy more.

Our small group of students and Marven, the Director of
the school, also walked up a dirt road into the hills
to an area where all the locals go to bathe because
they don't have running water in their homes.  We
descended to the bottom of a deep gully where scalding
water bubbled out of the earth. The place smelled vile.
Initially I thought the smell came from a filthy nearby
stream but was told it was sulpher and minerals from
the hot spring.  A pipe delivered cool water from the
mountains into an enormous vat and the locals mixed it
with the hot water in order to bathe.  There were a
couple dozen people there washing their hair, bathing
their children and bathing themselves. One toddler was
howling because his mother had lathered his hair and
was combing it with one of a fine-toothed lice comb. 
The women, for the most part, bathed with their clothes
on. 

Returning to the road was difficult.  It was so hot and
the trail was so steep that I was completely covered in
sweat by the time I reached it.  All the people who had
just bathed had to make the same climb. I imagined by
the time they reached the road they needed another
bath.  One of the students with us, a teen from
Australia, suffered heat stroke and had to sit down for
awhile.  

Our last stop was an area called ¨The Riscos¨ which
were tall, sandstone and pumice pillars of stone that
reminded me of one of the Star Trek sets.  Then, it was
onto the chicken bus for the two hour trip back to
Xela.  And it really was a chicken bus.  There were men
on the bus with cartons of peeping baby chicks and when
they stood up to leave they balanced the crates on
their heads.  

On the way home, the sky darkened and rain pelted the
windshield. The road quickly became a rushing stream.
Everyone hurried to close all the windows on the bus. 
Most were broken.  The conductor distributed pieces of
wood to prop into the window frame so the window
couldn´t slide open again. 

Life in Central America continues to be interesting.

Pat Martin