San Pedro la Laguna is finishing it's last day of feria--a two week period of carnival rides, video game and food booths, and constant activities, parades, etc. The men in the photo at the right dance all day and evening for six days straight! (The photo to the left is similar costumes in a parade in Antigua from 2 years ago.) It seems impossible; I asked a local friend if different people wear the same costume at different times of the day, and he said no, it's the same person. I asked "How can that be?" and he said, "It's like a sport." But of course it's also a time-honored custom in Guatemala--a depiction of the conquistadores, from several centuries ago.

There are three sets of masks, usually lots of young white faces (they also wear white stockings) depicting regular soldiers, two or more who look like the officals or high-ranking "officers," and then the bulls, who often play a comedic role. One of the bulls, this time, looked to be about 5 years old, but my camera batteries quit before I could get a shot of him.

Other parades were of the princesses of each school, and then the princess of San Pedro.

Crisis in Honduras

A military coup d'etat (or golpe de estado) took place this morning in Honduras. Evidently the background is a referendum called for by the president, Manuel Zelaya, in order to change the constitution. He asked for the military to protect the people as they went to vote. This somehow resulted in his asking the leader of the military to step down, and other military leaders did so voluntarily. Leading to the coup.
Excellent background article.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/27/honduras-crisis-over-controversial-referendum/

Quoted in this article are several bloggers from Honduras, and latin-americans writing from the U.S. which show the opposing views on the call for referendum. Worth reading.

El dia de feria en San Pedro la Laguna

Wild, wild days. Rain all afternoon yesterday, the streets running with small rivers, people picking their way around them to get to the booths that line every street--full of roasted meat or corn, muchissimas hard bagel-looking things, video games galore, shooting galleries, plastic toys for kids, sports shoes, etc etc. We went to see the Queen of San Pedro crowned, when it was reputed that queens from all the other pueblos would come dressed in the tipica clothing indigenous to their pueblo. But of course it was raining, so feet and the hem of my long skirt soaked, I headed for home....only to learn this morning that of course the rain stopped just in time for the event, which I missed.

This morning I headed out to see the procession of "queens of sport" (reina de deportes) from each school in town. Really adorable marching bands in full uniform (a month's wages for some daddies,) and a decorated floats for each of the queens. All the girls were in traje (traditional clothing) and each float had it's own theme---one young girl throwing candy at the crowd from the middle of a huge paper flower, another with Respect the Environment blazoned on the front of the truck, another with "Let's avoid using plastic." I loved both of those. In the left photo, above, is a little sports queen next to two boys in tipical male clothing, playing a marimba. The back part of her float had been ingeniously set up to depict something you often see at fairs, but the announcer was saying not here in San Pedro-- a tall pole which rotates to swing men--or in the case boys--dressed up a monkeys (serves sort of the Coyote function in Guatemalan tradition) at the end of long poles. In the photo on the right you can see the boys in red fluffy suits, hanging---but they are actually having fun. The man sitting at the top of the pole is rotating the pole. Click on the photos to see the details.

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

A local, indigenous friend of mine drew a parallel between current Guatemalan politics and what is and has been going on in Boliva, Brazil, Venezuela--the new liberal trend. As a long-time liberal, I am of course delighted that the needs of the poor are being listened to, that education and health care are being funded, etc. But as a person slightly more jaded than I, he says, sure....they see that a more stable political base is the huge number of poor rather than the much fewer ricos! A redefinition of power. And according to him, each of these persons is using the poor as a stepping stone to personal power. Lasting personal power.; in each of these cases, the president is taking steps to ensure his own succession.
I can see the logic in this. This same person says that the current accusations against the president are just the rich trying to stop him. Maybe this is true too (it's a little hard not to believe the written and video evidence.) I think a little light is leaking into my ivory tower.

Published!

I am delighted to finish a two-year work and publish it on Lulu.com. This novel essentially is my story of volunteering in education and social work near Antigua, then moving to San Pedro to volunteer in education again. But by a stroke of inspiration, I threw in a lovely romance, and the slow uncovering of ancient and modern history in my new village. How that history affects the couple is the crux of this story. Many details of Guatemalan/Mayan customs and traditions, and this enchanting landscape.

Preview it on www.lulu.com/preview/paperback-book/heart-of-the-sky/7239260.

Guatemalan Debacle

Early this week Guatemalans were stunned to learn of accusations against their current president, Alvaro Colom, his wife and an aide by a lawyer who made a video saying he expected to be assassinated and that they would be responsible for his death, as well as that of another lawyer and his adult daughter who had been murdered the week before. The second lawyer was found dead, shot while bicycling two or three days after making the video, and a friend made sure the video reached CNN and other news venues.
The story behind this staggering story is that Colom, et al, were accused of using public money to launch private ventures through Banrural, the biggest bank in Guate. The first lawyer refused to have anything to do with this but gave documents proving the ventures to the second lawyer. Both were subsequently killed to prevent the information getting out, so the accusations go, but it emerged anyway, thanks to rather brave friends.
This is of course huge.
It is sad for me, because I had many hopes for Colom's presidency--the first liberal in many years. It is sad for many because some good things have been happening in education and health during his tenure. It is also terrible because this poor country can not get going without one thing or another providing a huge disruption. And now of course this president has to attend to his defense rather than the huge efforts that this country needs.
And should there be a coup by the army or the civil sector, it would be a devastating upheaval.
There are many calling for him to step down, but he of course refuses and denies all charges. Wisely he has asked for the UN and the FBI to come in to investigate the charges.
Many were afraid of a coup, which has happened so many times in the past.
I felt it would be a test of Guatemala's maturity at this point -- could they pursue and resolve these accusations and a change of government (there is a named vice-president) if needed, without upheaval??
So far, that is happening. The investigation is supposedly underway. There have been huge protests in the capital, but orderly protest (and shows of support -- held in two different plazas.)
Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The Death of a Culture

I have been feeling lately that I am witnessing the Death of Culture, here.....mainly because the little girls are not always wearing the traditional clothing any more, but wearing sports clothes, instead. And today at a lovely celebration of Las Abuelitas (the little grandmothers) in San Juan, where we were testing reading in the public school, the school boys were playing around, ignoring the ceremonies and being interruptive. Which is just boys, of course, but usually in Guate I've seen them being very respectful.....kissing the hands of the older men as they pass them, for instance. That has always touched me.

So today I was watching the Dia de las Abuelitas ceremony, during a break. There were probably 50 older women in full traditional dress (traje) sitting on one side of the audience and 40 or so men sitting on the other side, all the men wearing the usual sort of man's hat, but white straw with a black band, and maybe 18 or so wearing full traje (see inset photo of girl and boy in local traje like their elders'....however this is a San Pablo foto, and the style is different. I'll find the one I want one of these days!)

The six older women being honored that day danced with their spouses (presumably) up to the stage in the usual 1-2-3, 1-2-3 step to marimba music and the men then tipped their hats and bowed to the women sitting on the stage and left each woman in her seat of honor. The women gave speeches in Tz'utujil in which "maktiosh" (thank you) appeared prominently.

Then some of the women danced together with the same step in couple posture.

It all seemed incredibly sweet to me.

But I can imagine how it might look to the young kids, who aren't interested in laboring in the fields or over a backstrap loom, as their grandparents and parents did or still do; who look to tv (what little they may see) to define the world for them: "Those old people, who no longer have wisdom to offer us, who wear those silly clothes...."

Sometimes I fantasize that the presence of us Americans, who like to wear the traje (I just happened to have a venerated huipile from San Juan on today with a local textile skirt,) and who love to work in the garden, if not the field, might be a different example...at least for those few who revere the old ways, and there will always be a few - like me - who revere honest physical labor, who love weaving, and a relationship with the soil and plant life and the weather.

But of course culture is ever-changing, and has been "dying," here, since before La Violencia. One anthropologist dates it to the time when the younger men didn't want to "spend" their money, hard-earned on the distant fincas or in the city, in the traditional way--by throwing big fiestas for todo el pueblo which cost everything they had--the ancient culture's way of levelling the playing field, establishing non-material status, and avoiding jealousy over material goods.

(See the wonderful book, Violent Memories by Judith Zur, which is about so much more than the war years.)

Mothers Day

2:30 am Mother's Day. Of course! it's time for firecrackers and long lines of youth singing and laughing in the streets in front of my house. My dog is alarmed and won't stop barking. I consider getting dressed and going out to the street to see what is up, but......nyah. I return to sleep to be awakened again as the group returns and walks down the path next to my house, sets off firecrackers at the house at the bottom and after a bit returns.
I'm not CERTAIN that all this is in honor of Mothers Day, although they do take the day seriously, here. But I remember when I lived in Santa Ana, in the house next to the cancha de futbol and church plaza, there were drunken musicians at 3 a.m. on Mothers Day And then about 5:30 or 6 the women, in traditional dress, lined up on chairs outside the church.
Will I walk up to the central plaza today to see if the mothers line up, here? Maybe.

I am more excited to stay home because my friend went to Pana in the boat yesterday and will bring me back some vegetable seeds for the garden--nothing unusual: broccoli, zucchini, watermelon, green beans, carrots, and the like. There are only two vegetables here that I like that I wasn't previously familiar with--huisquil (a vine with green, squash-like "fruit") and some leafy green they use in soups.
I can't remember if I said I rented the little plot ("terreno") below my house, paid my favorite gardener to fence it with corn cane, get all the huge rocks sorted out of the planting spot, and burn the "montes" (weeds.) I helped a bit with putting the cane on the gate frame, but then he came along and redid it all, tightening the baling wire they weave it together with. (And I thought I'd done a good job!)
This house is too enclosed, except at my writing desk--where there is a window across the front of my bedroom. I like being outside, with the sky over my head.
I have been researching medicinal plants and want to put some in the garden. Some will be easy: there's already a lime tree; I planted a weed I brought from Lago Izabal whose leaves taste like cilantro and it turns out to be good for "women's troubles," my gardener says. Also the lemon grass which I planted to enhance my attempts at Thai food is supposed to be good for "colds coughs diarrhea fever flatulence flu and stomach pain." By chance I have a papaya tree, which is good for urethitis. Avocado, coconut, mango, coffee, orange leaves, banana, basil.....all are good foods (though I don't have most of them in the garden they are available in the market) and medicinal, as well. Of course.

The days are full of rain but at least yesterday morning, and I suspect this one, much sun as well. Happy garden. Happy gardener.