Santiago to San Antonio to Panajachal

We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time shopping for things to sell at the church, sending the profit back to Guatemala for the scholarship fund, and I'm not too great at shopping for very long.  I am trying to maintain my patience and my mindfulness.  The air is ambient, the people are colorful, and the textures are varied.  My eye is happy.

Caps for sale in the center of Santiago reminded me of the children's story.  When I saw several women playing ball, I joined them and then took their photo where they frolicked full of glee and giggles, my favorite part of any travel...

I took some photos of the city because I loved the textures and the doors.

Here are the striped pants that all the men seem to wear.  Santiago is a town of striped fabrics all over the place.

And then there is this gorgeous Atitlan Lake that reflects the sun as though some higher spirit were just touching down to remind us of our mortality - or our sacredness, hard to tell which, and I suppose it really depends on your state of mind.

Onto San Antonio where we bought scarves and walked around a bit, and now we landed back in Panajachal from whence we took the boat across the lake to San Lucas the other day.

Tomorrow we headto Chichicastenengo where I believe we meet with families of scholarship children, but nobody early knows what will happen next.  I'm just glad I am not going to dig any more trenches as I did in San Lucas and still feeling its effects!  

Beauty, beans and bread

This post is a jumble because I cannot quite get the blogger right on my iPad.  Bear with me.  First we took the boat across lake Atitlan to San Lucas, checked into our hotel where was given a room in the back where the trucks and the laundry are.  We walked around the town and along the water,and then went to the mission for dinner where we had soup with chicken stock,so once again I had bread,plantains and rice; however, once they leader learned was a vegetarian,she brought me a big old bowl of black beans.  Life is good.

Tomorrow we tour the projects of the mission workers and then join a work group in the afternoon.  It will be an adventure, and despite the cold shower and potential bedbugs, I have been promised a hot shower on Wednesday night when we leave and go to the next place.  So, read these photos backwards and try to make sense of them.  Lake Atitlan is gorgeous and the place from which we took the boat.  To bed.

This was a little outside place with a television and a group of young men watching the soccer game between Guatemala and Bermuda, the game that was tied in Guatemala now played in Bermuda.  We didn't stay to see who won.Walking along the lake we spotted these wonderfully  crafted rowboats and saw women washing clothes along the rocks, pounding and lathering, as children swam, washed and played in the water.

The town of San Lucas -

😌Today we took a small boat across from pochotal to San Lucas where the big mission is located.

We walked around the small town, checked into our hotel, only to learnt that there really wasn't a room for me, so I am In a dark, dreary room at the back where the laundry hangs.  

Church, prison and more tomales...

Yesterday we drove to pick up Roberto who was carrying heavy plastic bags full of the sandals we had brought from the u.s.  He also carried three cakes in boxes piled on top of each other and one small zippered, plastic bag the size of a Dopp kit.  We were told to leave everything but our psssports in the car.  After knocking at the enormously forbidding door, we were let into a dark windowless room with high ceilings.  We handed the young armed guard our passports as I whispered a prayer that I would see mine again, and we were stamped two times on our arms with big black ink circles.  Then, we were searched before being permitted into the women's prison.  Roberto, always laughing infectiously, led us into the little chapel where women we had never met gave us welcoming hugs and then strew their merchandise across the top of the altar table so that we could look and buy what they had knit, crocheted or made.  We selected several hats, wallets, but not many things and then settled into our plastic chairs while Roberto went up to the altar with his little Dopp kit and began to prepare communion for his service.  We sang with no accompaniment hymns from shiny red books and followed a familiar service in Spanish.  Roberto gave his sermon sitting in a plastic chair, engaging the women with questions and an accessible sermon to which they seemed to relate.  The liturgy was familiar, the pace quick, and the ritual comforting.  We lined up for communion where we had wafers and wine, all produced from that little kit, and then we sang some more.

Afterwards we were ushered into a small open courtyard, surrounded by dark, windowless rooms where women came and went, doing chores, lugging clothes, and or chatting amongst themselves.  A table was pulled out of nowhere, and the women came flocking around us, one insisting that the other hats we had not bought would really fit if we would only try them.  One of them pushed me down into a chair and began to pull and shove one after another hat onto my head to prove the point.  We were all laughing so hard at the hats jammed onto my head, my hair and ears poking out every which way, struggling for survival, that we just about collapsed in heaps, at least Anita and I did.  Soon a small table and several other chairs appeared out of nowhere, and we were served tomales (again) and slices of the cakes that Roberto had brought along.  The women, instead, sat along ledges of the courtyard, eating their cake and talking in hushed tones.  There was one small boy with a toy cell phone who peered shyly at us from behind a column as we tried to coax him out to see us.  The courtyard let in the only light, making the halls and the rooms look dreadfully dark and dreary.  The women, on the other hand, were cheery and lovely.  Roberto had told us about one woman who had a tattooed rosary around her neck; he had thought it a religious symbol, but it turned out to be a symbol used within one of the most vicious gangs in Quetzaltenango.  Because I was curious to see it and her, he called her over, and she showed us ALL her tattooes, including the names of her three children and two other names on her breasts.  I never found out why she was in prison, but most of the women had been imprisoned because I they had been used by drug dealers or had stood up to abusive husbands.  The woman who seemed by far the most educated and capable chatted with me extensively, and I learned that she had been in Houston for some years and had worked in the travel industry, speaking Spanish, English and French.  I asked if she read and she assured me that she would love to have more books to read, which, of course, touched my soul and made me yearn to provide her with reading material.  I learned later that she was in prison for murder - just goes to show that you cannot judge a book by its cover?

I talked as well as I could to many of the women sitting around the edges of the courtyard, and when we left, I gave them huge hugs and felt that we had touched each other in ways that women who share time and space do.  When w got into that dark entry room, I quickly looked for our passports and felt enormous relief when mine was returned to me.  Roberto left, his laughter echoing through through those dank corridors, his little kit tucked under his arm.  The street was filled with families waiting to get into the prison to visit their woman.  There were babies, people changing clothes, bundles of food, and people sprawled all along the street.  We nipped into the car and sped away to Roberts church where we waiting on the porch for the English service to end so that we could attend his Spanish service.  The church was decorated with balloons and festive decorations because it was a young member's quinzeano, and she, looking ravishing as a new bride, stood outside the church with her bouquet of flowers as people congratulated and hugged her.  Below is a photo of Roberto and the young girl:

Church in Totonicapan and gay pride parade in Quezaltenengo

I took no pictures in Totonicapan where we attended a service on a Saturday for the people who bring their wares to the big market; however, the only people at the service were the grandchildren of the priest and one indigenous family with far too many children, one of whom disrupted the service so often that I thought if the family didn't take him in hand, I would have to!  The priest told us he hadn't held services for two months because of some hold up with the bishop on money, and his father had been sick.

After the service we went to lunch at Church's Chicken, which I believe is a chain, another opportunity for chicken, rice and tortillas.  Then, we went to meet a woman who was receiving scholarship money and heard her difficulties.  I began to feel that the people needed to complain and thought that induced us to give more money, but it really made me dig my heels in.  The vibe was negative, the problems insurmountable, and the ownership absent. 

We drove back to Quezeltenango for the gay pride parade where Roberto was going to speak, and boy, did I get photos to show a very different mind set and outlook!

There were two rallies going on at once, a practice that seems consistent with this culture of overlapping sounds, discourses and intentions.  One was a political rally because the president of the country is being investigated for corruption after the Vice President was ousted. The second rally, and the one we came to see, was the gay pride one, which was wild for a small, poor catholic country.  This was the homofopjia monster, and these are some of the people in the crowd.  At one point, Anita turned to me and said, "Look at the two elderly women over there," and I had to disappoint her by telling her that they were not women...

When this young man began to gyrate on the stage to roars of approval and hoots of delight, I wondered about the very large woman on stage behind him, and when more and more scantily dressed transvestites paraded and danced on the stage, I wondered if she thought about the way we were defining gender.  Who was usurping whose role?  Did she feel coopted, or have we women given over the frivolous facets of our womanhood to men who yearn to play that role?

As the dancing became more and more seductive with men dressed and presenting themselves Ina more sexual way than I have seen any women in this country present themselves, the crowds roared.  Here a very thin man, jiggled and shook and sang his/her heart out.  But when the dancer from Costa Rica bounced up on stage, I ran to catch some shots.

He began with a little skirt but very quickly took it off to reveal his very bare bottom with only 

a thong.  After the performance, I found him to ask where she was from.  Puntaranus, she exclaimed, distracted and reeking of alcohol.  Father Roberto arrived, hugging and chatting with his friends whom he has worked with in the streets late at night when he distributes condoms, advice, help, etc...  He asked that I take this photo where he looks as delighted as the man  on the left looks dismayed, disdainful, or frightened.  These ar definitely his people!

At the end of the dancing and singing, Roberto held up a candle and asked everybody to light one and parade around the square just as dusk was dropping down.  As we rounded the last corner of the square toward the stage, he was preaching about no more discrimination in Guatemala for homosexuality, etc...  I wasn't really sure what he said, but it sounded at the end as ough he was declaring that God was near, and just at that moment tremendous display of fireworks went off right above our heads.  I thought I'd never pull myself together.  It was quite extraordinary.  Onto tomorrow when we go to the women's prison....

Diabetes in two weeks...

I am posting this without photos because I think I can paint the picture with words.  I am embarking on a two week adventure with no vegetables because Guatemala is a country devoid of green vegetables and healthy eating.  The amount of sugar in EVYTHING is frightening; it is the one thing I can count on whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, most of which have been completely white meals.  Eggs and plantains in the morning - okay black bean mush is not white - begin the day unless I want to add to that the white bread that is also available.  Sugar is always on the table even when salt and pepper are excluded.  Yesterday we had chicken, rice and tomales for lunch, and the very, very large women had seconds of rice and tomales, washing it all down wi Pepsi.  In the evening we were fed another meal of chicken and rice, but because I am "vegetarian," I was given rice and fried potatoes instead.  I'm not complaining because they were delicious potatoes and lovely rice, but I abstained on the tortillas.

This morning we had omelets and white toast, but lunch mandated a chicken meal, so I watched everyone eat fried chicken, chicken wings, or some other form of chicken and rice; tortillas were on the side, but I noticed that the men wrapped their chicken inside a tortilla, including the man who ordered chicken wings, before eating it.  I ordered a tuna sandwich on "integral" bread, which is grain bread, but the sandwich arrived on not two but three slices of white bread, a side of fried potatoes.  

Our driver is from Guatemala City, and he eats bread all day long.  Someone suggested that he had diabetes and so he had to keep eating so he didn't get low blood sugar, but I noticed that he had a large bottle of coke in his car, and he seems to carry rolls with him so that he perpetually looks as though he has just popped a morsel or two into his mouth,crumbs often dusting his lips, or worse, a little chunk of bread dangling from his mouth.

The women are often overweight, and their eating habits are so unhealthy that I am certain that the diabetes rate must be skyrocketing.  It was interesting at the gay parade tonight to see many men dressed as women, thin, teetering on spiky high heels and wearing overtly sexy clothing that revealed most of their bodies, including some parts that were not their own.  I wondered as they paraded around the square what it meant to be a woman here, as the very heavy woman covered as much of their bodies as they could.  What is going on with gender?  With sexuality?

And how is a simple, heterosexual vegetarian woman from Philadelphia going to last for 2 weeks?

Quetzaltenango - day one

Breakfast: plantains, eggs and onion and tomato, beans and coffee!!

Ospedale Regionale HIV clinic where padre Roberts Armas gave a presentation on rights of people living with HIV.  THEY WERE GIVEN BOOKS SND FED EGGS, HOTDOGS AND THE EVER-present black beans, also a drink made of oatmeal water and WAY too much sugar (it's called atol).

Then, we saw the place where people can buy a full meal for three quetzals, less than 50 cents, and they all parade through the line with their trays, each little slot filled with rice, a meat, vegetable, dessert.  They can buy an extra tortilla for an extra quetzal.

They go through the line, get their meals served, and then sit at the tables.  One man raced up to me and asked if I would take his picture.  I dutifully followed and took him at the end of his meal, quite please with himself and his photo.

After leaving the government run cafeteria, we went with padre Roberto to a group of women who have begun a chocolate business.  These women were so much fun and so jolly, beginning with toasting corn for a cereal that they make and sell, to showing us how they roast the cocoa and peel it before it is then ground and sweetened.  They are using wood stoves that are eco friendly with pipes to move the smoke up out of the kitchen.

They were very patient and let us help them peel the roasted cocoa, but I made a dreadful mess, and I began to refer to myself as the cochinada Americana.  

After they let us "help," they served us lunch, chicken, gravy, rice and tamales, which seem to be hot blobs of soft rubbery corn mush.  I ate rice and tamales.  Once we realized we could actually buy some of their chocolate, they got another member of the group to bring a hot mound of just ground and mixed chocolate, which they then weighed and molded into bars.

They wrapped each bar without even using tape, just folding the paper neatly into a package.

But wait!  How about trying some hot chocolate before you go?  Ayiyiyi!

-!: now we are off for another dinner at the Iglesia San Marcos, probably chicken, race and tamales...

Guatemala Bound

It is 3:27 am, and I am sitting on my back steps, waiting for a ride to the airport for our 6:00 am flight.  It is balmy, not hot, this morning, but I have socks and a sweater on, knowing what I know about airport temperatures and airplane air conditioning.  No photo, no nothing this morning.  I have little to report other than anxiousness and curiosity, coated with some enthusiasm, but at this hour, despite coffee and yogurt, I cannot muster much else.

My suitcase is full of old sandals people have donated for women prisoners - some, I might add, are might high stepping for prison attire, but it is, after all, Chestnut Hill.

I promised I'd be curbside, so I'd better get out there, peanut butter and banana sandwiches packed for all.