Viva la Revolucion!

This past weekend, we had to go to Mexico so we could renew our student visas.  We went to San Cristobal in Chiapas.  It is a really beautiful city, kind of like Antigua, Guatemala but cleaner, better preserved, cheaper, safer, and with fewer tourists. 

We had one free day, which was primarily spent in the huge open-air artisan market.

Here are two little boys wrestling in the middle of the market. They were so cute and everyone had to walk around them.  Their mothers, selling these beautiful necklaces made from native seeds and nuts, just let them be.

Our second day, we went to two villages, Ovantik and San Juan Chemula.  Ovantik was amazing.  It is an autonomous Zapatista village (really, it’s more like a meeting ground, but people do live there).  The Mexican government and army aren’t allowed to interfere with/enter the Zapatista villages but we were lucky enough to be granted permission.  They were incredibly humble, thanking us for coming to learn about their movement, and asking us to spread the word that they were, indeed, still active, and still involved in the struggle.  The buildings are all painted with beautiful murals, most of them involving corn in some form.  The Zapatistas are well known for their anti-globalization position (US-subsidized corn and NAFTA really screwed over Mexican farmers, who primarily make up the Zapatistas). 

This was the sign upon entering: "You are in Zapatista territory. Here mandates the people and the government obeys. A junta of good government..." 

Murals. 

Emilio Zapata (for whom the Zapatistas are named) on his horse.

The primary school.

A person masked with maiz, Emilio Zapata is at the door with corn in one hand and a rifle in the other.

The Zapatistas have not been violent for 13 years, but there was a 12 day period of armed conflict between the Mexican government and them.  And I can only guess that if it came to it, they would be willing to take up arms again.  They wear red bandanas and/or ski masks to protect their identity.  Here are two of the Zapatistas that helped to answer our questions.

 We could only take pictures of the few people in the room answering our questions, none of the Zapatistas outside, especially if they weren't wearing their masks.

This was the coolest thing I have probably ever done, and I regret we couldn’t spend more time there and talk more with the people.  To see a group of impoverished people empower themselves by setting up autonomous governments and dedicating/risking their lives to fighting for a cause they truly believe in is great.  I wish I could have asked some of the villagers about life under Zapatista rule, but people were either a) wearing their ski mask or bandana, which makes it pretty intimidating to talk to them or b) didn’t speak Spanish very well. Plus we just didn’t have a lot of time.

Ovantik was pretty dang hard to beat, but Chemula was pretty cool.  Chemula is a village comprised of only indigenous people—it is illegal to sell land to anyone who is not of the indigenous group native to the region.  We visited the Catholic Church there, which is used in a completely non-traditional way.  There are no masses and no regular clergy, but people come in on their own as they choose to realize their own indigenous-inspired rituals.  There are thousands of candles, lots of saints with mirrors on their chests (the mirrors reflect the sun during the monthly processions, which gives wisdom to the people), and when we went there was a family getting ready to slaughter a hen.  There is one volunteer “keeper” for each saint, and they maintain the saints, scrape the wax off the floors, and cover the floor with pine branches.  Cameras were forbidden inside the church unfortunately, and I didn’t feel like cameras were that welcomed in the village generally, so I didn’t get many pictures.

As usual, there were little kids following us around asking for pesos or trying to sell us trinkets.  A little boy came up to me with a basket of tiny felted turtles plus one odd doll. When I asked him what the doll was, his sister simply said “Marcos,” referring to Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista movement.  I couldn’t help but buy it.

So, all in all, it was another great weekend.

Long Excursion

Before the second phase of our program, we took a group trip to some sweet places. We left last Friday the 6th and got back on Valentine’s Day. It was a very romantic day, no doubt, spent in a bus with fellow stinky students.

Some general notes about the whole trip: a lot of hours in buses on bad roads (as can be said with any trip in Guatemala). And a lot of hacky sack was played.  We played on top of ruins, in hotel lobbies, and at every gas station along the way. It seems like every street vendor sells hacky sacks, but I have not yet seen any Guatemaltecos playing with them.

Angela, Doug, me, and Laura playing hackey sack on top of ruins in Tikal. Photo: Steph Wegmann

So the following is a list of the places we went and the highlight(s) of each place.   

Guatemala City - We stayed on the 15th floor of the Holiday Inn with the National Mexican soccer team. They were wearing their green jerseys and were of the right age and shape, but I didn’t know it was the actual Mexico team until we left.

Tikal - Titanic ruins. We climbed the 4th temple (among others), where the Ewok scene of The Empire Strikes Back was filmed (I'm not a huge Star Wars fan). I guess more impressive than that factoid were the actual ruins. They are massive and took several hundreds of years to construct and are in the middle of a rain forest, complete with howler monkeys.

Howla monkey in action. They sound like dinosaurs! Photo: Shannon Conk

Mammoth temple, I think #5. Photo: Shannon Conk

Yaxha - Tikal gets all the hype, but I thought this place was even cooler. This was the scene of Survivor Guatemala (I’m also not a Survivor fan). I liked this more than Tikal I guess because there were less people and our guide was really great and also was able to tell us about all the plants.  This is also where I fell in love with ants.

Here's me observing a "love tree," which is really a parasitic plant that suffocates a normal tree. Photo: Shannon Conk

A temple in Yaxha. Photo: Angela Guentzel

An ant diligently working. Ants can carry (or in this case pull?) up to 50 times their weight! Photo: Becky Suhr

Flores, Peten - Flores in an island without police officers, only the occasional visit from the mainland police to make sure everything is okay.  We started out our first night there in a club and were surprised when 15 police came in.  They let our group leave and we relocated to another club.  This was a good move.  If you ever want to make friends at a bar in Guatemala, wear a Super Chivos (Xela’s team) soccer jersey.  I know it’s not typical club attire, but they locals absolutely loved it.

Copan - This sandwiched our time at Las Marias.  My favorite part of Copan was Taqueria Jalisco. The food was so cheap and so good.  The first time I went there, we watched the US-Mexico futbol game. We saw the US team beat the same team we had ridden in the same elevator with 5 days before in Guatemala City!

Semuc Champey/Las Cuevas Marias - SC was absolutely amazing! We ended up hiking through the rainforest in our bathing suits (we didn’t know what to expect, clearly), and spent some time swimming in the beautiful river. A lot of people jumped of a really tall bridge. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but I think next time I have the opportunity I will. I would probably be a lot cooler if I did that. We spent about 3 hours swimming and walking and crawling through the underground rivers/caves caused by Semuc Champey. This was all done one-handed as I had to carry a candle to light the way. I was one of four people who wore the unnecessary life vest.  As my dad always reminds me, I am not a strong swimmer. I think I am strong enough to have survived the caves, but I know that my dad would be pleased with my decision. Just as long as I wasn’t the only dork in a life vest. 

Some of the pools/cataracts of Semuc. Photo: Angela Guentzel

And I finally got my package last week with my camera which I'm hoping will expedite the process of writing my blogs.

Algunas piensamientos...

Until the people who have cameras upload their fotos, I want to hold out on the big blog post, explaining about the week-long trip we just had.  Here are just some quick thoughts:

1)   Today I found a hotel for my parents to stay in during their visit to Xela. I also made a surprise phone call home (it surprised me too) and talked to my mom and dad for the first time since being here. It was really nice to talk to them, although it was not for long. These two things reminded me that I have a really great family.

2)   I talked to three dear friends today. One only through email and two through Skype. This reminded me that I am wealthy in good friends. I have many good friends here on the trip with me, but it’s nice to remember how good my friends are back home too.

3)   Being “home” after traveling last week is good.  I love traveling because it reminds me of how great home feels.  This can be said of leaving Colorado to go to school in Minnesota, of leaving school in Minnesota to go to school in Xela, and also of leaving my house on Diagonal 12 to visit four other beautiful places.  I always return with a greater affection for the place I left.  Home is a really beautiful thing, and I am lucky to have multiple homes.

Soooooo, that was a cheesy list of thoughts. I had a lot of much-needed time to think today.

I will have that next post up soon, hopefully complete with pictures, none of which I took.  I already wrote the post and it is waiting in a Word document to be copied and pasted.  I have gotten in the habit of writing emails, blog posts, everything in Word documents from my house to save money and internet use.

Volcan Tajumulcooool!

Last weekend I climbed the highest peak in Guatemala, Volcan Tajumulco (almost 14000 feet). We left on Saturday at 9 am and climbed a good portion of the day. Then we woke up at 3 am to finish the climb to the summit and to watch the sunrise. It was pretty incredible because we were above the constant accumulation of clouds and smog and could actually see the stars for once. Tajumulco is dormant, but we were able to see two other volcanoes erupt while at the summit.

Aaaaaand I still don’t have my camera, so… Photo Cred: Shannon Conk.

All of these pictures are from the top.

   

I also met a young man from Visby, a small town in Sweden and one of my favorite places in the world. Like my first teacher here told me, “el mundo es como un panuelo” (Literally, “the world is like a handkerchief,” or It’s a small world).

On the way down, we picked up trash, which sadly litters the entire country, including places that are supposedly sacred to the Mayans, like this particular volcano. The environmental situation here is pretty disheartening. Hopefully at the very least our endeavor to pick up trash will make the climb even more beautiful for the next group to climb it.

Although the environmental situation is pretty bad here (I've seen people dump bags of trash straight into rivers, and you can literally taste the pollution) the average amount of carbon emitted per person here is still less than that of the average US citizen. It was hard for me to believe when Shannon told me and told me I should write about it in my blog. So idea cred: Shannon Conk.  I think I'm going to start commissioning her to write this for me. Either her or Allison, because Allison writes very well. Bloggin is hard.