Carin's Guatemalan Adventures

February 23, 2008, I set out again to visit Carin and Guatemala. I told Carin she would recognize me as the “lady with all the luggage”. I had packed a lot of stuff for her, and craft materials to do meetings with 5 of her women’s groups. When I did pick up my luggage at the airport that afternoon, my one big, heavy bag was all taped together, because the zipper had broken, and when they examined my bag, they couldn’t get it re-zipped. In that bag, I had macaroni and cheese, Oreo cheesecake, a box of wine, bbq sauce, ketchup, books, movies, cd’s, you name it and I was bringing it to Carin. My carryon bag made noises as I walked through the airport, because I had 3 cases of loose beads in that bag. When I arrived and exited the airport, she was there and waiting and it was really crowded that day. Our shuttle arrived and off we went to Antigua to spend the night. We checked in to our hotel, and then set out to reserve our shuttle for the next day to Lake Atitlan and to get some money. We stayed at a nice place called Casa de Azul, which had a hot tub that Carin tried out. That evening, we had a long, leisurely dinner at a little French restaurant in Antigua. The food and atmosphere were great. We retired early, and in the morning had breakfast at a little table on the patio outside our room. After breakfast we headed to the main square and sat and watched the people and just relaxed. We left Antigua about 12:30 pm and headed for the lake. Our shuttle was really packed, and our luggage was strapped on the top of the van, and off we went. When we arrived at the lake, we caught a boat shuttle to Casa Mundo. This particular inn was built into the side of the mountain on the lake, and it took them 18 years to build. We had a great room with windows that opened onto the lake, and a small patio outside of our room. Dinner that evening is served family style, and of course this is the only place to eat. We met a lot of nice people and enjoyed ourselves. We retired early, since there is nothing else to do. The next morning which was Monday, we had breakfast at the inn, and sat out around the lake for about an hour and a half. It was pretty warm, and Carin took a swim in the cold water. Around 11:00 am we caught another boat shuttle and headed back to the mainland, where we had hired a private taxi to take us to Carin’s town, Nahaula. The taxi driver stopped at the grocery store for us, and we bought peanut butter, and wine, and pasta, and cheese, and English muffins, and a cake mix and frosting. The trip to Nahuala was nice, it was quiet and clean, and we did not have to worry about anything (like the last shuttle we took, we were not sure it would make it up the mountain, and most of the trip was in 1st gear), and the taxi driver had brought his wife with him, and he played an English CD of music for us. It was also nice to be deposited right at the door of Carin’s home, and I didn’t have to carry my heavy bags anymore. We only had to stop one time for road construction, which is everywhere, and it was for only about 20 minutes. It can last an hour or more. They have vendors up and down the road, selling drinks and snacks as you sit and wait in your bus, or car.

We unloaded our luggage and put all our food away and planned our dinner. Carin leads an exercise class on Monday and Wednesday, so we had about an hour before we had to leave so that she could teach her class. On the way to her class, we stopped and said hello to all the employees at the radio station. After the class (when no one showed up), we stopped by a little market and bought a six pack of diet coke, and headed home. Carin cooked pasta for dinner and we watched a movie. We watched a movie every night we were there. We also went to visit Maria (the nun who has lived in Nahuala for 30 years). She has been back in the states for a couple of months, and has just come back to Nahuala.

The next morning was Tuesday, and we headed off for another village to meet with two of Carin’s women’s groups. We had a nice little walk (all up hill) probably about 1 ½ to 2 miles from Carin’s home to the next little village to work with two different women’s groups there. As we walked up a very steep incline, little Guatemalan women would stop and laugh at me as I huffed and puffed up the incline. These women were carrying stuff on their backs, and some of them had baskets on their heads and were walking faster than I was. We passed hogs on the side of road, a lot of dogs, because a lot of dogs just wander through the streets and really have no real family, and cows tied up alongside the road looking for whatever greenery they could find to eat. A farmer stopped us and asked if we knew where we were going, I guess we looked lost. But they don’t normally see two pale tall women walking in blue jeans through their farms. When we got to the first home, there might have been about 12 women, and a few children. We set up in a room that was dark, and had a dirt floor and we proceeded to show the women how to make beaded key rings. They all have keys to their homes so we thought this might be something fun, and yet practical. They were all so nice. They gave Carin and I a snack after the meeting, and it was a can of Orange Crush, and a pack of saltine crackers. I was pleased because I knew that this was something that I could accept from them and it would not upset my stomach. We took a group picture and then headed on our way to the next meeting.

This group was a little smaller; maybe 7 or 8, and we also make key rings with this group. These women do not speak Spanish, so Carin would tell them how to make the key rings in Spanish, and then a beautiful young woman would translate into their Mayan language. In both groups, well, really in all the groups that we worked with, they were always coming in late. But taking care of the homes, the cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children at least they showed up for the meetings. After the meeting, they wanted to dress up Carin and myself in their native dress, so off we went to another home and into her bedroom we all went, and they dressed us in the tops, shirts, belts, and wraps. They were laughing and having so much fun. They we all went outside and took some pictures. The women in the group wanted their pictures made with us, and they wanted the individual pictures. So we took all the pictures and I promised to mail them copies. One woman wanted to come home with me in my suitcase she said. She had a brother in Philadelphia, and another woman had three brothers living and working in Houston, Texas. We did not ask, but I will bet they are here in this country illegally.

After the second group, we headed back to Carin’s home and some much needed lunch. After lunch we headed to one of the government buildings near the radio station for a meeting with women from the town that was trying to set up a women’s resource center. The new mayor has pulled the plans on this center, but the women are going ahead and will use money from a grant that Carin received to help them buy supplies, and they have found a small room that they can use to store the supplies and their materials, and they can meet there. After this meeting we headed to another of Carin’s women’s groups. This group meets in the compound of another family, and we meet in the kitchen around a table. There were about 7-8 women in this group also. The rooms are so dark that each time we worked with the groups, I had trouble seeing because of not having enough light, and we were working with small beads. We taught this group to make beaded book marks. After we made the book marks we told them they could be used in their bibles or any books that they had, and then Carin encouraged them to try and read a little bit every day. I then proceeded to bring out a bag of Hershey’s miniature candy bars that I had brought with me from the states. We told the women to divide them up, which was a mistake, because then one women took almost all of the candy, so we then preceded to tell them they could each have 3 pieces, and that was enough for each of them. The Guatemalans love sweets. When we left, this set of homes is in an area that has some rough dogs, and Carin has been bitten by one before, so we asked someone to walk us out back to the main street and help us get by the dogs.

This evening, I had put chicken and rice in the crock pot for dinner. So we had a good dinner, watched a movie, and headed to bed. We were tired; it had been a long day.

The next day was Wednesday, and we took a Tuk-Tuk to the main road into the town of Nahuala. From there we hitched a ride on a cattle truck. They did let us sit up front instead of in the back. On the 15 minute ride there, I kept feeling someone looking at me and the guy sitting next to me (there were 4 of us in the cab of the truck) was staring at me. I really think he was looking at my hair and how light the color was. We were heading to another village, so that I could have a Mayan ceremony performed on me. When we got to the village, we had to walk from the highway to the house where the ceremony would be performed. We were too early; we got there about 7:30 am, so we went to visit another friend of Carin’s, Nick. We walked to Nick’s house, and Carin had a cup of coffee, and we met Jeff who is also a volunteer. After visiting for about 30 minutes we headed for our ceremony. The ceremony was done in a cinder block room adjacent to the lady’s house. She was a Mayan priestess. The ceiling in the room was tin, and part of it had fallen down. She had nawal statues in the corner, which are like Mayan astrological symbols. In the other corner was the statue, and pictures of a gentleman who was some type of symbol. Not sure of what, it is said that you bring him gifts of liquor and cigarettes to make him happy. Then the priestess built a fire in a fire pit in the center of the room. She used a lot of symbols in making this fire. Then Carin and I both sat on stools in front of the fire. We had hundreds, and I mean hundreds of different colored candles, representing the earth, sky, green grass, etc, and for each prayer that she gave for either Carin or myself; we threw 13 candles into the fire. We prayed for family, for health, for money, etc. She told me that I would have stomach problems, and Carin and I said “No, No”, so she had me rub 6 large white candles over my stomach. I didn’t rub hard enough so she took them from me and continued to rub all over the front and sides of my stomach, and then she gave me the candles back and told me to throw them in the fire. After I threw them in, and we watched them burn, she told me everything was fine, I would not have any more stomach problems. She also told me I would always have money, of course she didn’t tell me how much, just that I would always have money. She told Carin and me that we had good karma, and the signs for both of us were good. She told Carin, she would marry a good man, one who would not drink or beat her, she would find a great job, but she would not work in the United States. We were there for 2 solid hours praying and burning candles. When we left I felt that I was covered in soot from the fire. It was quite an experience and I think Carin got more out of it than I did, but she understood what the priestess was saying in Spanish, and she had to translate for me.

Before we left the village, we headed to the birthing center that they have been trying to open in the village, and it is fully equipped, but they have no water. So until they get water, they cannot treat any patients.

We then hitched another ride in the back of a pickup truck back to Nahuala. We stood up in the pickup truck, and rode with a woman and 3 of her children.

After we returned from our Mayan ceremony, we headed for the radio station. The employees from the radio station had a luncheon in my honor. Maria (the nun in the village) myself and Carin were there for lunch with the employees. They had the meal catered. We had beef, rice, and tortillas. After lunch, Carin had made a cake the night before and we frosted it this morning and brought it for lunch. It was Miguel’s birthday; he is the leader of the radio station. After lunch we headed for another women’s group meetings. This was at Miguel’s house and his wife and kids were part of the group. We met in the kitchen of the house, and the women made beaded bracelets. We then visited the family that Carin lived with when she first moved to Nahuala. We met the grandmother, mother, dad and kids. We brought gifts for all of them, and of course they gave us gifts. They are such a wonderful group of people. Tonight was supposed to be Carin’s exercise class again, and only one person showed up and she was 30 minutes late, so we just talked with her, and did not have the class. I had put a chicken chili in the crock-pot for dinner tonight, so we have dinner again. We also used the shower downstairs in the house where Carin lives. Since I was not sure how to work it, you have to cut it on with an off and on switch to heat the water first and then shower. After our shower, (and I really needed it), we had dinner, watched a movie, and headed to bed. We were tired.

It is now Thursday, and I invited, Nick, Jeff, Maria, and Eric (Carin’s site mate in the village) to breakfast. They came over about 9:00 am, and I made beignets (like they make in New Orleans) and we had coffee, and Eric brought a cantaloupe. I made 6 dozen doughnuts and we ate every one of them. It was nice to be able to bring something different into their diets. After breakfast, we headed for the market. Thursday’s and Sunday’s are big market days, and you can buy anything you want. The main street has stalls set up; you can get furniture, fruit, vegetables, meat of any kind, shoes, clothes, purses, etc. We didn’t buy anything but it was nice to see all the things you could get. I forgot to write that yesterday, we also attended one of the mid wives classes that were being held in the village. Two weeks ago they had lost a young 26 year old mother; she bled to death, so there were two ob/gyn physicians from Canada, and two nurses who were holding the classes. They also had mid wives from the lake that were interpreting for the physicians. They were holding their graduation on Thursday and invited us to come but we had another women’s group to attend in “Little Alaska” so we could not come. They had attended a birth for one of the women in the village the day before, and they showed us the pictures of the new born, and her brothers and sisters, and Mom and Dad. She of course was born in her home, and assisted by the mid wives.

Later (we didn’t eat lunch, we were still full from breakfast) we hitched another ride to “Little Alaska” to attend another of Carin’s women’s groups. We got a pick up ride to the main road into town again (this seems to be where everyone goes, and then either rides in chicken buses, or hitch hikes) and then a shuttle bus told us they had no room, so we walked away, and then they changed their mind and said we could ride. Where we were supposed to sit, I don’t know. The two guys in the front seat with the driver, got in the van, and sat on the floor near the door, where you step to get in and out of the van. The van was packed, there were no other seats. This was about a 30 minute ride to a road that then we would have to walk the rest of the way into the village. The driver picked us up because we were American and he wanted to practice his English. He had lived in the states for about 3 years and worked in Houston, and then he came back to Guatemala. He had been back in Guatemala for about a year. He was leaving again in 2 weeks and he was paying a coyote (someone to smuggle him across the border into the states) to go to California and work. He wanted to speak some English, we did ask him how much he had to pay to get back into the states, and he was paying about $6000 to $7000 dollars to take him across the border. When we got to the road to the village, we were dropped off and started down the road to the village. The roads were not cobblestone, because this village had been wiped out with the last hurricane, and they rebuilt the homes and the roads. It looked more modern than the other villages we had been in. We stopped to get a drink at a little store in the main square. You don’t just stop and buy anything and get out in a hurry, everyone wants to talk to the gringos, and Carin is very popular in all of these villages, so after about 30 minutes, of which I don’t understand a thing, but everyone keeps looking at me, we were on our way. Carin told me later, everyone asks how old I am, and I won’t tell you how old they thought I was, but if you ask them, most of the time, they don’t know their own ages.

The meeting was being held in a cinder block building that was just for the women’s groups to hold their meetings in. The building was new, and was clean, except that it is the dry season, and it gets windy, and there is dust everywhere. They had a table in the room and since I have had trouble seeing since we got here, trying to string beads, we moved the table near the door. We were going to have this group make pocketbooks out of place mats. We had 15 women, and I don’t know how many kids running in and out. The kids come because there is no one to watch them, and they bring candy that Carin has given them at the previous meetings. When they bring the candy back, she gives them another piece and lets them eat one of them. This is to teach the children to save. I don’t know how they can save these pieces of candy for weeks at a time, and then bring them back to receive another piece. The women chose a placemat and then started making their pocketbooks. I had also brought needles, thread and ribbon to make the arm straps. The placemats were all different, and the women were great at sewing, and making them all different. When they were through, they started placing them on the table in front of me to give them back to me. We then explained that no, the pocketbooks were for them to keep. They then brought a snack in for us. It looked like a fried apple pie, but it had potatoes in them and had ketchup on top, and then you could put a hot chili sauce on top. They also had a drink for us, I did not have either, and we told them that my stomach was upset, but we took the food with me. The women starting thanking us and telling us how much Carin meant to them, and of course I started to cry, and then Carin started crying. I think it was just knowing that we only had one more day together and then I was heading back to the states. We then walked back up to the road to catch a ride back to Nahuala. I had some difficulty in breathing; I think it was just the elevation. We were at one of the highest points in Guatemala. This particular village had a lot of farms, and we passed a lot of people returning to the village after spending a day in the fields. Kids, women, and men had worked all day by hand tilling and planting their soil. They are a hard working group of people. It was also very cool here in this village, and we both had on jackets and scarves.

Well, we missed a chicken bus, so we just stood on the side of the road, and a pickup finally stopped, but they said they were not going to Nahuala, so we waited for another pickup and then the driver changed his mind and told us we could ride. I didn’t feel real comfortable, thought they were a little sketchy. With Carin and myself there were 8 or 9 of us sitting in back of this pickup truck. Carin at one point looked at me and said “Mom, what is that smell, and I told her I didn’t know and didn’t want to know.” One of the men in the pickup told Carin he was hungry so she handed him the food that I had brought with me from the women’s group. Now in Guatemala, there are no driving rules, or speed limits, and there is a lot of construction, and sitting in traffic for a long time, while they block lanes of the road. Then when the construction company lets the traffic go, all the buses, cars, and trucks race to get at the front of the line. It is scary just driving, let alone sitting in the back of a pickup truck.

When we got to the main road to Nahuala, they dropped us off, and we had another 1-2 mile walk back to town. We stopped by the Grameen Bank and met all the people that Carin works with on microcredit. By now it was going on 6 pm so we headed to Carin’s, for dinner and a movie. Carin’s friend Nick called and he wanted to catch a ride with us to Antigua in the morning, so we invited him to have dinner with us and spend the night at Carin’s, since our ride was leaving at 6 am in the morning. The radio station was driving us to Antigua so we would not have to find other transportation. They had a meeting in Guatemala City, so they would drop us in Antigua. So after dinner of Brunswick stew, cooked in the crock pot, and a bottle of wine, we watched another movie, of which Nick slept through and it was a pirated copy of “Into the Wild” and it stopped at the last 5 minutes of the movie. So Carin and I headed to bed, since we had to be up at 5:30 am to leave.

There is only one man that works at the radio station that can drive and he lives across the street from Carin, so at 6 am we headed across the street with our luggage and we started our trip. Nick was with us and we were able to all sit in the back of the cab of the truck, and not in the very back. Since there was so much road construction, they took a short cut through the mountains, and dozens of little towns, with speed bumps every 50 feet. Half way there, we stopped at a little roadside restaurant for breakfast. I did eat a piece of bread, and Miguel and Manuel, Nick and Carin, all had eggs, and beans and cheese and tortillas, and coffee. I had a diet Pepsi and a piece of bread. Then we were on our way again. It took us about 4 hours to get to Antigua and they dropped us right at our hotel. They are such nice people and they think so much of Carin. They said she has done so much for them, and they couldn’t have done it without her. They treat her like she is a daughter and part of their family. I will miss them, and I know that Carin will also miss them.

Well this is my last day in Guatemala, and I don’t know that I will return. I would not have traveled their twice if it had not been for Carin living and working there. I really enjoyed working with her women’s groups and meeting all of the people of Guatemala. We shopped and relaxed our last day, and had dinner with Cecilia and JP (two more volunteers) at a great Italian restaurant, and one last visit to Mono Logo. We retired early, I know Carin probably wanted to stay out with her friends, but she opted to spend the last night with me. The next morning, we relaxed, took showers, had a great breakfast with Cecilia, and then we headed for Guatemala City for my flight home. Needless to say, it was so hard to leave her, and I think for the next hour and a half, I sat and cried in the airport. I looked terrible, from crying, being tired, and having a bad hair day. Arrived back in Charlotte, the good ole USA about 8:30 pm, and it took me about an hour to make it through customs. There were 4 international flights that came in at the same time. Got home to Greensboro about 11 pm, and I headed straight for the shower. It was great, I have said this before, and will say it again, I couldn’t do what my daughter does, and we take so much for granted here in the states. Glad to be home, but miss Carinita mucho.

Adios
Mrs. Robinson