I am sitting on my bed in my rented room in Chajul. The bed consists of two thin flat mattresses (the owner kindly and spontaneously gave me a second one after I moved in) on a wooden frame. The room is about 6'x10', with one concrete wall and three of wood planks. The floor is brick. There is one window, which is a small door that opens directly to the outside with no window pane. There is a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and there is one outlet on the wall next to the bed. The room has a small bench at the foot of the bed, and one chair next to the head of the bed. There is a shelf over the door, a narrow board runs around the room (also functioning as a shelf for, e.g., my toothpaste and toothbrush), some nails are hammered into various boards for hanging what I want to hang, and there are two pieces of art on one wall. There is no heating, but my bed has two warm blankets under an open loaner sleeping bag.
Without exception, all the locals who see the room comment admiringly on how luxurious it is.
The toilet is in a separate wood plank bathroom building around a corner, about 30 feet away from my room. The walkway is protected from rain by corrugated metal roofing. The bathroom is filled with basins and buckets, each of these filled with water, for bathing and for flushing the toilet. The floor of the building is concrete, with a couple of simple drains. When I want to bathe, my landlady/host, DE, heats up water for me on a concrete wood-burning stove and I mix this with cold (or, sometimes, ice cold) water from the "pila." I do not dawdle when taking bucket baths on a cold floor in a cold room; my baths are all business.
As is the wood-burning stove, the concrete pila is a centerpiece of daily life here in Chajul. This pila is huge, the size of a small hot-tub. (Oh that it were!) Water is delivered daily (or almost daily, depending on available water pressure) through a long above-ground network of narrow PVC pipe. As the pila is filling each morning, I do my daily chore of carrying buckets-full of water to the bathroom to refill the various basins and buckets there. Then I refill the water filter container from plastic jugs that are sitting on one wall of the pila, after which I refill the jugs. The pila has two "sinks" that are washing areas also made of concrete, completing a large rectangle in which the water trough area has the shape of a T. There is one raised spigot between the sinks, with a plastic bag wrapped around it and draped into the pila to function as a kind of hose for filling the jugs off to one side on the wall of a sink. It works great. There is a small cutaway into each sink to avoid overflow of the pila, and a drain at the back of each sink carries water into the ground.
Almost every pila I've seen has been outdoors, and most are about one-sixth to one-fourth the size of this one. Pilas are used for washing dishes, fruits and vegetables, and clothing, as well as for preparing some foods, hand washing, and bucketing out water that might be needed for any other purpose. The water is generally clear (but not clean/potable), though often slightly sandy or muddy. After washing dishes with soap of some kind, a small bowl-shaped plastic container is dipped into the pila and the water is then poured over the dishes to rinse them. The dishes are then stacked in an open-weave plastic basket to air dry. When I asked another woman from the US about the hygiene of using this unfiltered water to rinse washed dishes, she said that the bacteria don't survive air drying... "or something like that." Whatever the reason, people don't appear to get sick from this process and I've generally done fine here.
The pila has green algae streaks on the pitted walls. One day I wondered if and how the pila is cleaned, and I got my answer within a couple of days when the water level was relatively low. DE and I hauled out buckets of the remaining water into every available container (just in case there was no water delivered the next morning), and then she pulled the plug at the bottom of the pila. After it had drained, we used bristle brooms and brushes to scrub down the walls, sometimes using diluted bleach solution and then rinsing with non-bleach water. After we finished (algae still present in some areas), DE replaced the plug, moved a rock on top of it to avoid accidentally pulling it back out, and that was that. Happily, there was good water pressure the next morning and the pila filled back up.
As for the wood-burning stove, it is a box-shaped concrete affair with a round metal pipe at the back to carry the smoke away. DE builds a fire each morning, using pine tinder (which burns particularly easily), dried bare corn cobs, and large pieces of cut firewood. She is extremely practiced and, for her, the fire-building process is effortless. She pays attention to a number of details, such as the the particular shape of her stack inside the stove, and making sure that the firewood is placed so that only the ends are in the pine-and-cob tinder to begin with. It will catch more easily that way. Once a fire is going, the cut wood is pushed inside bit by bit as it continues to burn. Any visiting person might take responsibility for doing this -- as do I -- in order to keep the fire going. People also re-arrange the firewood as they sit near the stove, to suit their particular ideas of what the fire needs.
The upper part of the stove is a sheet of heavy metal, with circular pieces that can be removed to allow for more direct contact between cooking pot/pan and fire. The heat of the fire can be quite intense, and is truly delicious on cold days; these fires are the only source of heat here in Chajul. DE has a wood-burning stove outside, as well as one in her kitchen. She also has a gas stove in her kitchen, which she seldom uses. On particularly cold days, DE's two cats like to lie right against the side walls of the wood-burning stoves. One of the cats will gradually move onto the top of the stove as the fire is going out at night. DE brushes the top of the stove with lime to keep it clean.
On an almost daily basis, DE makes corn tortillas. She has a storehouse of dried corn from her land (elsewhere), and this gets cooked for hours in a huge pot, after which it is taken to the miller for grinding into a corn masa. Spanish has a verb for making tortillas, an indication of the importance of this activity, and I've been slowly improving my tortilla-making skills. I'm nowhere near ease or full size, however, and my efforts bring smiles to some women who watch me struggle with a skill that has already been mastered by all young girls here.
Where do the bare dried corn cobs come from, and how do those kernels get removed from the cobs? Well, kernels can be removed by hand if there aren't many cobs to deal with. If there are lots, however, they're put into a large-mesh bag placed on a tarp, and then you beat the hell out of them with a heavy wooden stick. The dried kernels fall off and through the mesh onto the tarp. The bare cobs are then saved for use as tinder.
The corn here is typically harvested old and dry (from plants up to 15 feet tall), and is incredibly beautiful. It comes in a wide variety of yellows, oranges and sometimes other colors; the rows are often twisted, and the grains themselves are quite large. When DE's sister brought her many bags of harvested corn over for sorting and prepping, I spent a good part of the weekend helping out with that process. The rest of those working on the corn laughed at my repeated oohs and aahs over the colors in the huge pile on the ground. Botanical homogeny is an agribusiness invention, and it is a great pleasure for me to see real vegetables with a variety of shapes and colors.
Over two days, we worked for hours in a process that sometimes felt like spinning gold from hay. First we sorted the corn one ear at a time into three piles of quality: perfectly good, middling good (would need further work) and rotting (would be given to pigs). After putting the perfectly good corn into a storage area (where it was sprinkled with some kind of nasty powder to protect it from pests), we went to work on the middling good corn. Ears of corn were again examined one at a time, this time more specifically, for rotting kernels or those with tiny holes (indicating the presence of a small moth worm that would later destroy the whole ear). The offending kernels were flicked off the cob, and the "repaired" ears of corn were then carried to the same storage area.
Some of the corn had been harvested, by intention, within the husk. These were prepared by cutting the stem end with a serated kitchen knife, then carefully peeling off the corn husk leaves one at a time to be used for wrapping tamales. Sometimes it was easy to find the edge of a husk leaf, and other times it was like looking for that edge of clear wrapping tape on the roll. I discovered that, if I rolled the corn in my hands with just a bit of friction, the next leaf edge would make itself known to me. One can't tell from the size of the ear how large the husk leaves will be, and I felt like I'd won the lottery on those occasions that I landed an ear with beautiful huge leaves. The leaves were stacked and bundled according to size, and knotted pieces of husk leaf were used to tie them together. The dried corn silk was also set aside, to be prepared as a medicinal tea for kidney health. As you can see, nothing was wasted.
We all chatted happily as we worked, and I was reminded of my experience shelling beans with a group of people in Brazil. These tasks are inherently social. By the time we finished, the storehouse (perhaps 6' or 8' by 10') was filled four or five feet high with ears of dried corn. DE and her sister joked that they would invite me back next year when it was time to prepare the harvested corn. What really struck me was that, for me, this was a singular kind-of-fun experience and learning opportunity. For them, it is a labor-intensive yearly event. They've been doing this since they were kids.
Other daily work activities in this region include cutting and carrying firewood. Boys as young as 10 carry bundles weighing a good 50 pounds, using forehead straps to support the bundles on their backs. Adults (generally men, but also the occasional woman) carry heavier loads. Men and boys carry huge bags and boxes of goods to the market, generally balancing these with their heads bent forward so that that weight sits on their upper backs and the backs of their heads and necks. This position is also used when heavy items are carried up the ladder at the back of a van to be loaded on top. Men working at construction sites haul bricks and buckets full of wet cement on one shoulder. Women carry heavy loads of corn and other items on their heads, and even young girls sometimes have younger siblings in a wide cloth sling on their backs. (I always admire how neatly the babies' behinds sit in these slings, their legs dangling comfortably and their heads supported or free to look about.) People plant and tend their crops by hand. They walk long distances with their animals (cattle, loaded-up horses and donkeys) from one place to another. One of DE's family members walks about 90" each way with two of his sons, to sell at market. Virtually all laundry is washed by hand and hung out to dry on lines, rooftops and fences, as well as sometimes laid out on the ground. (On gray days, the traditional reds of this region jump out like exclamation marks in the landscape. Women place their cortes -- the wrap skirt fabrics -- and exquisite handwoven huipils out to dry as if they were dish towels, and no one seems to bother them.)
Living here these past five weeks, I have been so struck by the amount of time that is spent on activities that, in the US, are managed with the use of various machines. (Oh, the industrial revolution!) I admire the knowledge that people have here about so many things. They work incredibly hard, and they also make time for visiting. The women weave and embroider in their spare time, making extraordinary huipils, rebozos, fajas (the straps used at the waist) and hair ties, as well as cloths used for keeping tortillas warm and for other purposes. Their textile art is highly skilled, endlessly beautiful, endlessly creative, and truly boggles my mind.
As I approach my winter return to the US, I think about turning a faucet to take a hot shower, cooking my meals without having to prepare a fire, sleeping in a heated home, and sitting in a heated car or bus. I think about drinking water from the sink, rinsing or washing fruits and vegetables in tap water rather than having to disinfect them first in iodine or bleach water, and flushing a toilet. I have not missed these luxuries very often, if at all, and I have a much deeper sense of what luxuries they are. I know I will appreciate and enjoy them, and I find myself wondering if I'll find them strange in any way -- or will I just fall back into the rhythm of US life?
Someone once shared the metaphor of swallowing one's own saliva, which we do all day without giving it a second thought; if presented with a glass full of our own saliva to drink down, however, we would probably gag at the thought. Have I already shared this metaphor in a prior post? It's one of my favorites. I am so curious to discover how I have changed during my travels, and what I will notice about life and culture in the US now that they have been put into a glass for me.
with love, meg December 6, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Stepping Into the Horizon Line
I am in Chajul, a small town
in the highlands of Guatemala, where I've spent the past month volunteering for
a wonderful and important program called Limitless Horizons Ixil (LHI --
http://limitlesshorizonsixil.org/about-us/). The surrounding mountains of this region
often disappear into the thick white fog of the cold and rainy
winter season. On rare sunny days, they almost shock me with their patchwork of
deep greens. On the in-between days, the fog both obscures and defines the
mountains' contours, lying on and nestling into them with what always strikes
me as a kind of tenderness. Colors disappear into a broad palette of gray
tones.
I'll be here for another two weeks before returning to the US, and I'm in the sadness, elation, confusion, intensity and freefall of the farewell transition from one kind of unknown into another. My tradition (habit?) has been to write about my voyage in the order in which it has unfolded. That simply makes no sense to me in this moment, two and a half months after my last post and many months behind in writing about the journey I'm on. I'd rather share “where I am now,” and fill in the blanks from the US after my return.
As I got ready to fly from Peru to Guatemala, I wrote in my journal that this would be my last stop before returning to the US. In the next moment, I realized that it wasn't that at all! Guatemala would be Guatemala, an unknown next set of experiences, joys, challenges and lessons -- and, in spite of the ticket that I planned to buy for my return to the US, this part of my journey had an unknown outcome. Why would I diminish all of that by parenthesizing it in relationship to an anticipated endpoint?
Crazy! I made a conscious choice to shoot for THIS-HERE-NOW. It was a good choice.
I have a metaphor for this "where I am now" that I want to write about. The metaphor is that I've been in a boat out on the vast ocean. I’m still in that boat and the ocean is still vast, but now I see a distant and approaching shore on the horizon line. It's not a shore in the sense of 'ah, finally landing on terra firma.' (Great word, "landing"; we should also have "oceaning" and “airing.”) In my metaphor, the shore is a different element, and my experience is that of a morphing and blending of elements. I have a sense of being in two places at once, and the balance keeps shifting as I rock and roll along. Really, I am still only here in the boat, but I cannot ignore the land I am approaching. It is part of my THIS.
On the van back into Chajul yesterday (from an overnight visit to the nearby small city of Nebaj), I gazed out at the passing landscape and found myself thinking about the people I have gotten to know here; the sweetness of the wildflowers; the endless fields and hillsides of hugely tall, dried corn plants; the cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, dogs, chickens, roosters and pigs that are always out on the roads; the seemingly unburdened playfulness of the children; the young age at which the children are already doing truly hard physical labor; the outrageously endless creativity and beauty of the textiles; the deep poverty and traumatic history of this region; the remarkable heart of the people here who are working hard to lift their families and community out of that poverty and trauma.
Having been in a day-dreamy bliss state there in the van, I surprised myself when I suddenly started to cry. I realized that, in addition to feeling a great sense of loss about my upcoming departure from Chajul and LHI, I was feeling other losses as well: of family members and pets who have died (beings to whom I would not be returning), of friends in other countries to whom I have already said good-bye, and of this extended travel and volunteer experience that is drawing to a close. Though mostly feeling a deep sorrow, I was also feeling a deep love, and a kind of buzzing excitement about the challenges that lie ahead as I move on to the next chapter of unknowns. I was overwhelmed by the richness and intensity of it all, and I cried freely.
Local van transport here is not the comfort van experience of the US. Vehicles built to hold 15 people are routinely chock-filled with up to 30, plus packages, backpacks and plastic baskets that have not been hauled up onto the roof. Depending on one's height, it may not be possible to stand upright in the crush. Roads are often just packed and rutted dirt, so there's lots of bumping along. People get on and off all along the way between starting and end points, and they shift to better seats when possible (i.e., a window seat that allows for leaning one's head to sleep, a seat next to a friend or family member, or any seat at all for those who have been standing). People on this van looked at me with concern, and one man asked if I was okay. I answered honestly and talked with him and the young woman sitting in front of me about my experiences in Chajul. In my baby Ixil I told my indigenous seat neighbors, "Naxh": It's okay.
When I talk with Guatemalans (in the markets and small stores, in people's homes, on the local transportation), they always ask me where I’m from, what I'm doing, how long I have been here, how long I will stay, and when I will return. It always feels like an invitation to come back. In every place I've volunteered, people have asked me to return and I know that I would love to do so. This has led to certain questions that thread through my journey: How can I spend time here again? How can I continue experiencing other parts of the world in which I might like to volunteer? How will I maintain contact with so many people? Is it possible to continue living like this? Can I live like this in the US?
In each of the three countries in which I've spent time, people have said that I should simply marry a native so I can just stay, and this also feels like an invitation. I smile and ask if they have someone in mind. In Lima, after telling me I should marry a Peruvian, my friend then stopped to think about it and changed her mind: she said that a Brazilian would be a better fit for me. I think that would make my Brazilian friends happy. Having never missed the US during my travels (and often actually feeling quite happy to be away from the US), I wonder if I would be capable of actually settling down in another country.
Though I continue to practice the simple complexity of THIS-HERE-NOW as my departure date approaches, it has been harder and harder to just be here. I sometimes want to run from the roughness of this road -- just get it over with and return to the US -- but I continue to choose the bumps of being inside the transition experience. Today I reminded the children I’ve been working and playing with in the local library that I will be leaving, and I told them that next week would be our last week together. Deep breath. Tears (mine). “Why are you going? When will you come back?” Lots of sly poking and hiding, lots of “Meguita” being called out. The children followed me out into the street, “Meguita! Meguita!” THIS is not easy.
Right now, the US feels like an end point to me, though I already know that the horizon line is a place at which one never actually arrives. I’m at an age at which job options tend to thin, and I’ve generally tried not to think too far into the future as regards job hunting. I’ve thought about the Peace Corps (Continue with Spanish in Central or South America? Use my Portuguese in Mozambique?), fantasized about returning long-term to a particular quilombo community in Brazil (a future post), and wondered what it would be like to get to know the indigenous communities of the US. I’m clear that I will not return to my former job, even if it is offered to me.
I once talked to an improv friend about the difficulty of leaving improvisation and stepping out “into the real world.” He replied, “What makes you think that this is not real?” and he was right. Part of my THIS is wanting to be true to myself and to what I have learned on this journey regarding what is possible and how I want to live. I have no idea of how I will achieve it. I hope to have the courage to step out joyously into that unknown.
with love, meg December 2, 2013
I'll be here for another two weeks before returning to the US, and I'm in the sadness, elation, confusion, intensity and freefall of the farewell transition from one kind of unknown into another. My tradition (habit?) has been to write about my voyage in the order in which it has unfolded. That simply makes no sense to me in this moment, two and a half months after my last post and many months behind in writing about the journey I'm on. I'd rather share “where I am now,” and fill in the blanks from the US after my return.
As I got ready to fly from Peru to Guatemala, I wrote in my journal that this would be my last stop before returning to the US. In the next moment, I realized that it wasn't that at all! Guatemala would be Guatemala, an unknown next set of experiences, joys, challenges and lessons -- and, in spite of the ticket that I planned to buy for my return to the US, this part of my journey had an unknown outcome. Why would I diminish all of that by parenthesizing it in relationship to an anticipated endpoint?
Crazy! I made a conscious choice to shoot for THIS-HERE-NOW. It was a good choice.
I have a metaphor for this "where I am now" that I want to write about. The metaphor is that I've been in a boat out on the vast ocean. I’m still in that boat and the ocean is still vast, but now I see a distant and approaching shore on the horizon line. It's not a shore in the sense of 'ah, finally landing on terra firma.' (Great word, "landing"; we should also have "oceaning" and “airing.”) In my metaphor, the shore is a different element, and my experience is that of a morphing and blending of elements. I have a sense of being in two places at once, and the balance keeps shifting as I rock and roll along. Really, I am still only here in the boat, but I cannot ignore the land I am approaching. It is part of my THIS.
On the van back into Chajul yesterday (from an overnight visit to the nearby small city of Nebaj), I gazed out at the passing landscape and found myself thinking about the people I have gotten to know here; the sweetness of the wildflowers; the endless fields and hillsides of hugely tall, dried corn plants; the cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, dogs, chickens, roosters and pigs that are always out on the roads; the seemingly unburdened playfulness of the children; the young age at which the children are already doing truly hard physical labor; the outrageously endless creativity and beauty of the textiles; the deep poverty and traumatic history of this region; the remarkable heart of the people here who are working hard to lift their families and community out of that poverty and trauma.
Having been in a day-dreamy bliss state there in the van, I surprised myself when I suddenly started to cry. I realized that, in addition to feeling a great sense of loss about my upcoming departure from Chajul and LHI, I was feeling other losses as well: of family members and pets who have died (beings to whom I would not be returning), of friends in other countries to whom I have already said good-bye, and of this extended travel and volunteer experience that is drawing to a close. Though mostly feeling a deep sorrow, I was also feeling a deep love, and a kind of buzzing excitement about the challenges that lie ahead as I move on to the next chapter of unknowns. I was overwhelmed by the richness and intensity of it all, and I cried freely.
Local van transport here is not the comfort van experience of the US. Vehicles built to hold 15 people are routinely chock-filled with up to 30, plus packages, backpacks and plastic baskets that have not been hauled up onto the roof. Depending on one's height, it may not be possible to stand upright in the crush. Roads are often just packed and rutted dirt, so there's lots of bumping along. People get on and off all along the way between starting and end points, and they shift to better seats when possible (i.e., a window seat that allows for leaning one's head to sleep, a seat next to a friend or family member, or any seat at all for those who have been standing). People on this van looked at me with concern, and one man asked if I was okay. I answered honestly and talked with him and the young woman sitting in front of me about my experiences in Chajul. In my baby Ixil I told my indigenous seat neighbors, "Naxh": It's okay.
When I talk with Guatemalans (in the markets and small stores, in people's homes, on the local transportation), they always ask me where I’m from, what I'm doing, how long I have been here, how long I will stay, and when I will return. It always feels like an invitation to come back. In every place I've volunteered, people have asked me to return and I know that I would love to do so. This has led to certain questions that thread through my journey: How can I spend time here again? How can I continue experiencing other parts of the world in which I might like to volunteer? How will I maintain contact with so many people? Is it possible to continue living like this? Can I live like this in the US?
In each of the three countries in which I've spent time, people have said that I should simply marry a native so I can just stay, and this also feels like an invitation. I smile and ask if they have someone in mind. In Lima, after telling me I should marry a Peruvian, my friend then stopped to think about it and changed her mind: she said that a Brazilian would be a better fit for me. I think that would make my Brazilian friends happy. Having never missed the US during my travels (and often actually feeling quite happy to be away from the US), I wonder if I would be capable of actually settling down in another country.
Though I continue to practice the simple complexity of THIS-HERE-NOW as my departure date approaches, it has been harder and harder to just be here. I sometimes want to run from the roughness of this road -- just get it over with and return to the US -- but I continue to choose the bumps of being inside the transition experience. Today I reminded the children I’ve been working and playing with in the local library that I will be leaving, and I told them that next week would be our last week together. Deep breath. Tears (mine). “Why are you going? When will you come back?” Lots of sly poking and hiding, lots of “Meguita” being called out. The children followed me out into the street, “Meguita! Meguita!” THIS is not easy.
Right now, the US feels like an end point to me, though I already know that the horizon line is a place at which one never actually arrives. I’m at an age at which job options tend to thin, and I’ve generally tried not to think too far into the future as regards job hunting. I’ve thought about the Peace Corps (Continue with Spanish in Central or South America? Use my Portuguese in Mozambique?), fantasized about returning long-term to a particular quilombo community in Brazil (a future post), and wondered what it would be like to get to know the indigenous communities of the US. I’m clear that I will not return to my former job, even if it is offered to me.
I once talked to an improv friend about the difficulty of leaving improvisation and stepping out “into the real world.” He replied, “What makes you think that this is not real?” and he was right. Part of my THIS is wanting to be true to myself and to what I have learned on this journey regarding what is possible and how I want to live. I have no idea of how I will achieve it. I hope to have the courage to step out joyously into that unknown.
with love, meg December 2, 2013
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