Luxury Prison?
Hi all,
I don´t have time to post a blog this week so I am leaving you with an interesting story that took place here on Monday...
Armed forces storm prison in Guatemala leaving 8 dead
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpaPublished: Monday September 25, 2006
Guatemala City- Eight inmates at Guatemala's main prison were killed on Monday when a 1,500-strong joint police and army force stormed the facility in an attempt to take back the prison from the gangs that largely controlled it. Guatemalan authorities said the jail in the town of Fraijanes, around 30 kilometres east of Guatemala City, was controlled by gangs that had set up drug-processing plants within the premises. Local media in the Central American country reported that gang bosses, with the help of corrupt anti-narcotics agents, processed cocaine there and sold the drug both inside and outside the prison.© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa
Never a dull day in Guatemala:)
Until next week,
Carin
San P, My Paradise
If I could live anywhere in Guatemala, I would probably choose to settle down in San P La Laguna…
San P is definitely the most popular lakeside town (Lake Atitlan, that is) among travelers, mainly because there are a lot of super-cheap language schools, not to mention Gringos galore. (At this moment, there seems to be a lot of Israelis and Aussies camped-out there.) It’s more of a destination spot than simply a town to pass through for just a couple of days….I can see how people get hooked. A lot of Gringos have stayed on and started their own businesses or restaurants because it’s such a mellow, laid-back town. One reason could be because marijuana is a widely cultivated crop there, even though it’s definitely not legal in Guatemala. The Volcan San P looms right above the village, but people say that it’s too dangerous to hike because of recent robberies. You can also rent kayaks for the day to tour the other towns around the lake. And they have thermal waters and solar pools located along the lakeshore for those that want to really relax.
My friend and I traveled there the other weekend…and even though it’s really only about 8 miles from my site, it took us over 2 ½ hours to get there. First of all, the highway that runs right past Nahuala is a traffic nightmare: 1) two bridges are still being rebuilt from the hurricane last year and 2) we’ve had a couple of recent landslides. Even though the chicken buses typically try to front the line of cars waiting, it can still take over an hour just to get ten minutes down the road. Once we finally got going, my friend and I ended up getting off at the wrong exit for the lake, so we had to walk back 1 mile. Next, we decided to hop in a mini-van to get closer to our destination, stopping in Santa Clara La Laguna. And then finally we were able to catch a ride to San P…a scary one, nonetheless. This road was also severely destroyed by last year’s hurricane, making travel extremely difficult. It wasn’t even intact in some places, and cars barely have room to turn around the sharp curves overlooking the steep cliffs. But, the view of the lake is incredible!
Most of the hotels and restaurants in San P are situated around the shoreline, between the two main docks. We secured a place overlooking the lake, with hammocks hanging outside of each individual room. And then we grabbed dinner at a restaurant that was right on the lake, all outdoor seating by candlelight. Next came the nightlife! San P has so many cozy, chill places to sit and have a drink, and they are all located on this one path that is completely hidden from the town…it’s almost like it’s a secret garden. My favorite was a bar that was filled with over-sized couches on an outdoor, upper deck overlooking the lake. Then it was off to an outdoor techno-club that reminded me of the ones in Europe – Let’s just say that Guatemalans dancing to trance is quite a sight!
The next morning, we ate breakfast at another little nook overlooking the lake…and this property was actually for sale! If only I had enough to buy it….It was the most serene, calm place I have discovered in Guatemala. Then we hung out at the dock, watching the local women washing their clothes in the lake…One word – SUNBURN. I should have put sunscreen on my white skin! To escape the heat, we found a neat little place called ZuLa’s. The ground was covered with straw mats, and each individual table had masses of pillows to lean on or hammocks to lie in. I could have stayed here forever…but it also helped that their music selection consisted of Ben Harper and Jack Johnson. So, to recap, I have found my personal paradise in Guatemala…
Getting back to the ‘real’ Guatemala, the country celebrated their Independence Day on September 15th from Spain. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica share the same date of independence from Spain, so there are basically festivals all over Latin America. At this same time, control of Belize was given to Britain in exchange for the construction of a road between the two capitals…but since the road was never built, most Guatemalans believe that Belize is still a part of Guatemala (which is pretty funny for lessons in geography). Anyways, a lot of Mayans choose not to celebrate or take part in this holiday, largely because it ignites support and appraisal for the national government. Things following independence really worsened for Guatemalan Mayas – the end of Spanish rule meant the end for the few safeguards they had, which had afforded them minimal protection up until then. Mayan claims to land were ignored, and they became enslaved to the big landowners. So, needless to say, a large part of the population in Nahuala ignored this holiday altogether.
HOWEVER, Guatemalans are serious about festivals, and this was no different. Most of the kids in town had been practicing for the holiday parades for over a month…not a day went by when I didn’t hear someone banging on their drums or attempting to play a recorder at all hours of the day (and night)…major headache!! And that’s really all that the kids have been doing at school, solely preparing for these parades, no educational value whatsoever. So on both the 14th and 15th of September, Nahuala had huge parades snaking their way through town. All of the kids in my host family were in the parade, so it was fun to be able to spot them and wave and take pictures. Since I was the Gringa with the camera, I had a lot of locals ask me to take pictures of their kids in the parade…so it became quite a chore. A Guatemalan parade consists of mostly school marching bands, clowns, local beauty queens, and more school marching bands. They last up to three hours or so, and you pretty much see the same thing over and over again. The festivities culminated in the town square, where the townsfolk sang the national anthem, recited their pledge of allegiance, and the leaders (such as the mayor) said a couple of words to the community. All businesses were closed on the 15th, except of course, for the cantinas. The drunks came out in full force, men dancing with each other in front of the marimba band that was playing in the middle of the town square. You could also hear firecrackers all afternoon long…we participated in this too, buying our own for the occasion:)
Following the holiday on Friday, I had to work with the radio both Saturday and Sunday. My office was given a grant to purchase two new computers for digitalizing all of their programs. We held a workshop in order to teach the personnel how to use the new computers. Most of these people have never even used a computer before, so it will take more than one weekend to complete the training. Even simple things like how to save a document were foreign concepts to some of the participants…
As for my own continuation of the learning process, I will start Kiche classes the first week in October. My site mate and I went around town last week searching for someone that could give us classes. We came across a name and went looking for his house. We happened to be asking someone for directions, and they pointed to a man that was standing in the middle of the street. He took us back to his house, and we set up the date that we would start and the times. He’s a pretty old guy, but very respected in the town and has a lot of experience teaching the language. We are going to try and hold a class for one hour each day…but we will see how that goes because right now my schedule is already pretty packed in the afternoons.
In reference to learning another language, a random guy in town rang our doorbell this week and asked to speak with me. He is a school teacher in the outskirts of town, and I am not really sure how he got my name or where I live, but he needed help writing some cards in English to some folks in the U.S. I thought it would just take a couple of minutes so I agreed to help, but an hour rolled around and he was still pulling out one card after another. Afterwards, he invited me to his house to meet his family and have a cup of coffee. He’s definitely a really nice guy, but he called me again today and is planning to stop by the radio tomorrow for more help…so I’m not sure exactly what I have gotten myself into. Sometimes I feel like I am being taken advantage of because I am a Gringo, and I tend to get suckered into helping people over and beyond the ‘call’.
Finally, I know I probably sound like a broken record, but one of the most frustrating things about working here is having a meeting scheduled and then no one shows up for it. For instance, I traveled to Santa Catarina Ixtuhuacan last week in the cold and rain – which is where one of the women’s groups that I am helping is located – and as soon as I got there, the women canceled the meeting. I made the trip for no reason whatsoever! (I am supposed to go with these women tomorrow to Xela to help them buy yarn from a new vendor – but let’s see if they show up this time.) I also had a meeting scheduled this morning at the radio, which was even confirmed late Sunday afternoon, but was immediately canceled because no one showed up. Sometimes, I just grit my teeth and think, ‘Gotta love Guatemala!’…
Until next week,
-C
P.S. My family’s puppy fell off the top of the roof this week and landed right in the pila (i.e. the outdoor sink). He didn’t fall in the water either – he fell on the concrete side that you scrub your clothes on. It’s a long fall…so it’s amazing he is still alive! Poor little fella:(
Fui a Alaska
‘Fui a Alaska’ translates to ‘I went to Alaska’….which I literally did, because there is, in fact, a town here called Alaska – because it’s so cold! – frost is already on the ground in August. However, it’s pretty humorous since my parents are actually in Alaska right now (the actual state of course). Anyways, Alaska is where they moved most of the communities that were wiped away during last year’s hurricane. There are approximately 12-13 communities ‘up there’ in the cumbre (which means the top of the mountain). Michelle, another volunteer, is closing out her service in November, and I am going to take over a weaving group that she has been working with that happens to live in Alaska. Also, we had some school supplies that we wanted to donate to a couple of the schools out there. We left Nahuala around 7 a.m. and took a pickup straight there. Since there are very few pickups that go that way, we had to stand in the back of the bed, which was extremely cold with the wind whipping through your body (especially the higher that we got). The town itself is not really that far, but since the road is just a rocky, dirt one, it took us about an hour to get to the very last community. There are two communities from Nahuala that are living out there, and then the other 10 or so are from Ixtuahuacan. It was evident once we were dropped off that most of the people in these communities have never seen a Gringo before…so needless to say, they were very timid of us.
A U.S. organization constructed most of the housing for these communities – but this consists of plastic sheets draped over wooden frames. Once the rainy season gets into full swing, these houses won’t stand a chance, they will be flooded instantaneously. In addition, the cold season hasn’t even started, but the people that live here are already feeling its effects since they are so high up on the mountain. They don’t have any kind of insulation or heating. This same U.S. organization also built latrines for the communities, but supposedly there are about 75 people to 1 latrine. The families were given stoves to cook on, but the majority of them have thrown them out because they are too small. Nothing was built for these people to bathe in – so they have constructed their own ‘tamascals’ beneath the earth – they dug out large crevices in the dirt and placed a stick in the opening to keep it from caving in. Supposedly some of them were already standing during the war as guerilla hideouts. There are no trees or animals that are living up there..it’s completely barren. And the best part is the water system that they put in for these communities! This organization built the water collection tanks at quite a distance from the houses – and didn’t even bother to construct covers, so the water is completely unsanitary. Then, the water pumps they put in don’t work, so the women have to go directly to the tank to get water and lug it back up to their houses. It’s amazing how incompetent some of these organizations are even though they have plenty of resources available! This is exactly why I think some development organizations are completely useless…they provide the money but then they don’t follow through with the projects they have supported. Ok, getting off my soapbox…
So we walked through the different communities giving out jars of bubbles and marbles to the kids that were outside their homes, and we stopped in three different schools to donate school supplies (Thanks again Eddy!). Classes are being held in lamina sheds with dirt floors, but the students all had desks and chairs. The first class we visited, a couple of the kids started crying as soon as we walked in…they were really scared of us. But the second class was better, and they got up and sang us a song that was really sweet. Most of the kids were REALLY dirty, all with runny noses, uncombed hair, running around barefoot…just a general observation. Once we finished up at the schools, we walked to the community where the weaving group lives. The fog started creeping in at this time, and you could hardly see anything that was in front of you. Supposedly the fog is thick like this every afternoon, and it got a LOT colder. We were hoping to catch a pickup, but one never came by, so we ended up walking two hours before we made it to the town. Did I mention we were in the middle of nowhere?? After a brutal hike, I was introduced to the men that are members of the micro-credit organization that I am going to be helping. They showed us some of their weavings and the standing loom that they work off of. However, we couldn’t stay long because the last pickup of the day was leaving soon, and we didn’t want to walk 3 hours back to the highway. It’s basically an all-day trip to get out to these communities and then return to my own town in the evening – so I won’t be able to do it more than once a week!
As for my weekend, I first headed to La Libertad to visit the family I used to live with, and drop off some gifts for them. The first thing my host mom said when I walked up was, ‘Hola Gordita’ (which translates to fat girl) and then she proceeded to tell me how ‘healthy’ I looked and that I had gained weight in the past month. They think this is a compliment and say it like it’s no big deal. So I guess this means that the tortillas are starting to pay off!
On Saturday, I headed to San Martin – a town that is located about 45 minutes from Chimaltenango. A current volunteer lives there and she was throwing a ‘welcome’ party for the new volunteers at her house. It was probably the worst chicken bus experience I have had to date! I was literally standing in the very middle of the bus, with my two friends on top of me, and a little girl throwing up on my side. I just had to laugh throughout the ride, and I think the Guatemaltecos thought we were on something. We were so glad to get off!! San Martin has more of a tropical climate with wild fauna…more of what I thought Guatemala would be like. It’s not a huge town, but it’s got a great market in the center. The volunteer that held the party lives in a house outside of town, and she has the hookup! We hung out on her roof all night getting to know some of the other volunteers that live here in Guatemala (FYI – there are about 200 of us in-country). The next morning, we were all laying on the floor in her living room (cause there weren’t any beds for all of us) – and my friend Cecelia leaned over and asked me if I felt something….it was a tremor. Evidently there was an earthquake with the epicenter out in the Pacific, but we certainly felt the effect! (Maybe I should not share this with my family, but Guatemala is rated #1 for ‘countries most likely to be hit by natural disasters’ along with Italy…we have a lot of earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions…fun stuff!!)
Alright, so most of you know that sometimes I can be a workaholic, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I have probably taken on too many things – but let’s hope that I can juggle them all. I am not only going to work with the men’s weaving group in Alaska, but I am also going to work with one women’s group in Nahuala and another women’s group in Ixtuahuacan. I went with representatives of each of these groups to Guatemala City on Monday to visit the empresas (businesses) that they sell their weavings to. The first business is actually an art museum, but they buy weavings to sell in their gift shop. The ladies had several pieces to show the ‘empresa’ – but things didn’t go so well. The buyer for the museum was not happy with the pieces – saying they were dirty and the measurements were not exact. The lady I was with explained that she was sorry but she has kids, and she has to take care of them while she weaves. The buyer told her that she was not to do anymore weavings for them, and to give the work to others in the association. This does not sit well in a Guatemalan society where groups are like close-knit families. You can’t just tell one person she can’t participate anymore…they work as a team. Also, we needed to try and get a better price for their pieces (because they weren’t really making a profit considering that their trip to Guatemala City is about the same amount that they receive from the buyer). Unfortunately, most indigenous women are very quiet and do not like to speak up. We couldn’t get the buyer to budge on the price – so we decided that I am going to start looking for other markets for them but that they will produce one more time for this lady. They have committed to making pillow covers, so they received all the yarn and thread involved in making them, and we will return in November with the finished products. It was pretty depressing, because these women will work weeks on these weavings, and then someone tells them they are crap and they get paid peanuts!
After lunch, we visited the second empresa – which is a bigger company that exports to Europe and the U.S. The owner was extremely impressed with the men’s weavings (which can be used for bed sheets, men’s shirts, curtains, tablecloths, etc). They received a lot more work for the next month, which we were all really happy about! The women showed their placemats and coasters that they had made – and were given a lecture on quality again. This is only their second time producing for these two companies, so they are still in the learning process. Plus, these groups are used to weaving whatever they want – they aren’t familiar with producing off of requirements from someone else. Still, I think this trip was really good for them – it gives them a chance to see what other people weave, other things that they can create, and ideas for other patterns. Also, it gets the women out of the house! I know that one of the women I was with, her husband hardly ever lets her out of the kitchen…so I was extremely thrilled that she was allowed to go. But, over the next couple of months, I will need to work with them on quality control – especially before I find more businesses for them to sell their stuff to. Finding new markets – this is the main thing that almost every group in the western highlands needs help with – they don’t know how to go about finding places to sell their stuff, but they make the most beautiful things that any tourist or foreigner would snatch up in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, this whole experience made me think of foreign sweatshops…you have the indigenous, uneducated working long, tedious hours to produce for the wealthy exporters that buy at a ridiculously low amount so that they can go and sell it for an unreasonably high dollar.
Okay, I have written enough…BUT I have to give a BIG thank you for the packages I received this week. I traveled to Xela on Wednesday para recoger – and I didn’t know that there were going to be three boxes waiting on me! Of course, one of them was from my mom:) But Jeani and Carly, you guys are the greatest!!! It seriously felt like Christmas – and you guys seemed to know exactly what I wanted and needed. Carly, you were a little insane with yours (seriously, she went way overboard) – but I loved all of it (especially the pink pillow). I put all three packages in a big duffel bag, and then discovered that I couldn’t pick the bag up. I had to have my site mate carry it to the bus, and then once we got to Nahuala, he had to carry it to my house..hahah, that’s what men are for right?
Hope everyone has a great weekend! I am hopefully gonna head to the lake on Saturday for some warm weather and kayaking:)
Love,Carin
No Tengo Miedo;)
So, I have skimmed the surface a couple of times regarding the violence that still pervades Guatemala, but I am going to dive a little bit deeper this week. It’s not the most pleasant subject, but one that is at the core of the problems that exist in the country. During the first three months of my training, I basically lived in a bubble – Granted, I saw my share of dead bodies along the side of the road while taking rides on a chicken bus, but I somehow felt detached from these incidents because I didn’t know them. Normally, these guys’ deaths were gang-related or they were criminals themselves, in which most Guatemaltecos will respond that ‘they probably got what they deserved’. However, this week in Nahuala, a man was found dead who definitely didn’t deserve it, and who happened to be a prominent figure in the town. He was 35 years old with two children, and a teacher at the school. His sister actually works with me at the radio. Evidently, his body was thrown off one of the cliffs outside of town, and then found right near the highway. Unfortunately, this incident has sparked a string of violence in town, with young boys fighting each other with machetes or using shards of glass. This is precisely why the kids in my family are not allowed to play outside of the house, and why I am never in the street past dark. The thing to keep in mind is that the men that live in Guatemala today are the same men that witnessed a civil war for more than 40 years…they have lived within the ‘war’ model, and this is all they know…they handle everything with violence. A perfect example is an incident that occurred about 10 years ago here in town – two chefs at the local school were suspected of poisoning the students. The townspeople got together and lynched the two men. Afterwards though, around 30 people were put in prison for their deaths, guilty until proven innocent. These guys are still in jail today…even though some of them might not have even participated.
As I might have mentioned before, ‘Mayan rule’ outweighs official law here. Therefore, ‘guilty before proven innocent’ is a common practice in the highlands. The public punishment that I have mentioned in my previous posts isn’t administered by the government, but instead by the townspeople themselves. For instance, more women from Nahuala were publicly punished this week for trying to buy a baby in another department in Guatemala. Unfortunately, Nahuala is making a name for themselves as the town that sells babies…
To add to the mix, the local government can be just as corrupt. For instance, a government official in our town supposedly killed someone a couple of years ago, AND his son is the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in Guatemala…yet he’s re-elected year after year…supposedly. However, I will say that the local government’s new method of removing the drunks from the street has proved to be an excellent initiative…at least for the town itself, but it still doesn’t solve the overall problem. Typically, you can walk around town and find at least one drunk sleeping in the street – but if it’s market day, you might find more than you can count. Now the local government is just throwing these guys in jail, letting them go through detox, and then feeding them in order to absorb the rest of the alcohol. Then they are let back out on the streets, and they head straight for the cantinas again.
Along the same lines, Mary Liz, my college buddy that is also a volunteer here in Guatemala, was held up at gun-point on one of the chicken buses last week. This is pretty typical because, think about it, it’s a large pool of people and its fast and easy access to their wallets. Now I completely understand why, when you rent a car in Guatemala, your chauffeurs carry arms!
As for my integration within the community, things are going pretty smoothly. Whenever I decide to sit down in the town square to relax and people-watch, I inevitably end up with 10 to 15 school kids gathered around me, asking me what their names are in English, or begging me to translate something in English. Also, it seems that a lot of people in town know me…whenever I walk down the street, someone will say ‘Hello Carin’, and yet I have no clue who they are. There is a crowd of little boys that play soccer outside of my house, and all of them yell my name whenever I come by, but they are too scared to talk to me. (As a side note, I have also taken up the practice of carrying a stick around with me…because Nahuala has vicious dogs everywhere! I’m not kidding; you can’t trust any of them. A couple of volunteers that lived here before were bitten, which is scary since rabies is fairly common. Luckily, I have my shots:)
Since I am on the subject of dogs, my host dad came home with a new member of the family this week. His name is Beethoven and he’s about the size of my hand. Unfortunately, people here in Guatemala don’t treat their pets like we do in the U.S. Beethoven has to stay up on our roof all day, and he’s fed tortillas and rice (no kidding!) I think I am the only one that really gives him any attention, so I’m not really sure why they even bother having him. I told them the other night that when I was in college, my dog used to sleep in the bed with me. This was probably the weirdest thing they had ever heard! Guatemalans don’t perceive pets as ‘amigos’; they don’t have any value or significance at all….for instance, when a pet dies, it’s just another day, no biggie. But, they also don’t know how to care for them properly…so when I hear about families getting new pets, I just cringe because I know it won’t last. The girls in the house across from me had fish, and they died pretty much within one week because they couldn’t remember if they had fed them or not…sad.
In regards to my living situation, the family is absolutely fantastic! I must admit though, I don’t see much of them since I am working at the radio station everyday. Also, they just finished renovating the two rooms upstairs, so the mother and father moved into one room, and the two kids are in the second room…which leaves me downstairs by myself. (Why the two kids share a room is beyond me, when they have two empty rooms downstairs??) The family had lots of people over this week to celebrate the two rooms being finished. They cleared out all the chairs in the living room, put down straw mats in front of their catholic shrine, and then about 40 people crowded around to kneel and pray. Then they moved upstairs to look at the rooms (which I helped decorate with 100s of balloons) and had a snack provided by the family. Pretty interesting type of house-warming party if you ask me! (There is so much construction on houses in Nahuala, and this really has to do with all of the men that have returned from the U.S. – this was their primary line of work in the States.)
Anyways, I still eat three meals a day with them…so that leaves plenty of family-time. I’m not sure if I shared this before, but one of the customs here is to say thank-you to each person in the room once you are finished with your meal. In response, the other person should say ‘Buen Provecho’ – or basically, bon appetite. (I find it a little strange that they say this after the meal, instead of before the meal, but whatever.) I’m definitely not knocking the custom, but it can be pretty tiresome if there are 10 people over for dinner. That means you have to say ‘gracias’ to 10 people and wait for their response…and then you have to give a response back to the same 10 people once they finish their own meals. What cracks me up is that the little ole’ grandma in my family can’t hear very well, so you have to scream thank-you about ten times before she catches on to reply back!
I have more stories from this week, but I don´t have time to write more! I visited a lot of the communities that were hit by Hurriance Stan last year, but I will tell you about it later...
Have a great weekend,
Car
