Monday, October 29, 2007

First Letter Home

HI GANG, I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO STARTING A BLOG! Because it is now October 29, I think!, I can attach the new brochure I wrote and Laure Dunne and I designed and she did the actual layout. It is too wordy, but when we get the website up, we can get rid of a lot of the information in the brochure. Hopefully I can now share the pictures from San Antonio Agua Calientes. I now owe second letter home but there is so much to tell, I think I will go to be instead. This is a big week here and maybe I won't get it done until after the Day of the Dead.

BESITOS,K

First Letter Home, October 16, 2007

I have been here in Antigua, Guatemala (GT) for exactly two weeks. I arrived in the late afternoon/early evening on Tuesday, October 2. I was very excited to get back. I took two days to get here in order to arrive mid day and not have to worry about getting to Antigua from the Guate airport (Guatemala City is called either the City or Guate, just so you will know). I flew to Washington, Dulles and then to Charlotte, North Carolina, where I stayed overnight in a Days Inn for about $50. The next day I got a shuttle from the hotel to the airport and flew to Guate. Getting around in the airport in Guate is easier than anyplace in the US as they offer free carts. In the US you have to pay for them and they are locked up so it is a bit of trouble, my having two huge bags. But I managed quite well with the bags and the carts, the first time I ever used them, were very welcome.

I checked into my little hotel that I had stayed in last year for my first night in Antigua . . . with sweet and tough Letty, who takes care of the place for the owner, Carmen, who lives in the City, greeting me at the door, and also her son, Luis. This was my home for almost a month last year in November. It is in the southeast part of town, and not far from anything, although little is in central Antigua! It is the smallest of towns. After a bit of a rest and a shower, I wandered over to Nahual, where Ignacio was in a meeting with some community people about I have no idea what. Eventually he left the meeting. I do not remember the rest of that evening except that he probably walked me back to the hotel.

The next day, I went straight away to the rental company to see about renting a place. We looked at probably 4 or 5 places; I really cannot remember. Most were quite close to Nahual and up north of there . . . . one was highly recommended by Ignacio. But I wasn’t so sure. The streets up there were vacant and I didn’t like that and while I liked the idea that other people would be in the apartment complex, I also didn’t like it, as I am a person used to my quiet space. I thought that I would not want to be in the part of town that I had lived in before because it has a lot of pollution due to the fact that the bus route to Guate goes right through there. But it is close to Letty and Luis and the piano in the hotel, and also is a barrio that I really like because there are very few gringos and it is a real Antigua neighborhood. Also, the best gym in town is steps away. Then what really did it was that this house happened to be for rent right in that barrio and it is just wonderful, wonderful. It has two bedrooms, and a lovely sitting and kitchen area, all around a patio with mandarin oranges all over a huge tree and other very nice plants. I intend to plant an avocado tree from my pits, as Ignacio has two growing in his patio garden. So, I surprised myself by deciding on Friday to take this place and then I just up and moved from the hotel, boom. Nothing was working in the house, really, and it took about a week to get it all functioning. The bathroom is tiny tiny but it now works (first no gas and no heat for the shower or gas for the stove; then there was hot water but the shower was only one drip at a time, and for almost a week the refrigerator didn’t work . . . but life went on, as it does, and the food never spoiled for some reason. Go figure).

The day following my arrival there was the usual Wednesday night meeting at Nahual, where community members from the surrounding pueblos come in for training in the community council development system. Everyone introduces themselves and says where they are from. I introduced myself as a Friend of Nahual . . . the meeting was all in Spanish and it was given by a young reporter from InfoPress, which is a liberal weekly paper that is also online. You can view a weekly English summary of events in central America at: http://www.inforpressca.com/CAR/ Generally it was about the structure of the council system and many people brought up various points of what was going on in their villages.

The rest of the first week was just my looking at places and then after moving Friday, with Ignacio’s help, basically, settling in. It is great for me, because I don’t have to have anyone here if I don’t want to, and because I have lived alone for so long, it is good for me to have this privacy and space.

Nahual has the kite workshops every Saturday in October, in preparation for the big celebration in Santiago, Sacatepéquez, which is quite unique and is the glue of that village. I am attaching for those of you who haven’t read it yet a copy of a beautiful article that Ignacio wrote about this tradition. It is worth reading. Also, while still in the states, I edited this article to about one third of its original size and it was published in the October Revue magazine, which is what everyone uses to find out what is going on here in town and in Guate during the month.

The cover of the Revue features a foto of one of the giant kites and there is a listing for the workshops. I think Ignacio’s picture is there too. Still, only 9 people came the second Saturday to the kite workshop, when I was in attendance and finally at work with Nahual. It was a nice day and a woman from the states who lives here who brought two boys from the neighborhood gave me an extra 100 quetzales at the end of the day because I had told her about Ignacio and the work he does . . . . he may have broken even for the day, as he pays the two teachers 100 Q each and gives them lunch. That’s about the best he has done so far with these workshops since he started them a couple of years back. (a dollar has about 7.6 Q right now and the workshop costs only 35Q for the day, including materials). He also has a housekeeper who comes for that event, so he has to pay her, and another two days a week, which he does simply to support her, although I think without Lesbia, that place would be even more of a wreck than it is now. She is a delightful person, and cleans like a whirlwind. Apparently someone he knows was using her but not enough for her to make do, so he asked Ignacio to take her on another couple of days a week and he did, even though he has no salary at all.

As I said, the place is full of people and he has been buying coffee historically and tea and everyone just takes it. People come and go all day, asking for advice or for meetings or for god knows what. One of the first things we did was put up a sign that coffee and tea are 5Q a cup. People just hang out there because it is open. The young men who are forming the media commission for Nahual also work there (and smoke there) and do their own work there and often stay until all hours. It is all pretty nuts. People are actually occasionally paying for coffee now, although not that much. Ignacio had been using this little coffee pot for himself, which was so broken it was dangerous to pour from and would spill all over the place, so today I just went out and got a new one. One of the pleasures of renting the house for more than I am paying for rent here is that I can do things like that and not worry about it at all. What a great pleasure!

This past Saturday night was really fun because the two women who run the Mental Health Project were celebrating a year on the air. They created a cable TV program and it runs in prime time every Monday for the past year. The station held a huge party which was on air live celebrating their first anniversary. It was really amazing, how much everyone was gushing over everyone else and how sweet the event was. It was shot live, and it was held outside in the middle of this typically beautiful ruin in Antigua, but there was no camera for us to see it. Ignacio didn’t know that he was going to be called on to go on camera, but he did a beautiful job nonetheless. I am hoping to get a hold of a DVD of the broadcast to share with you. The whole thing ended in a conga line and there was a lot of live music, including some of the original members of Buena Vista Social Club, the leader of which is a man named Ignacio and is great friends of Nahual’s Ignacio . . .

Also, the media guys (this is a new thing Nahual is trying to get started) made a wonderful DVD of the Hurricane Stan relief effort and the follow up with house building and then the water project to restore water to a village in the municipality of Pastores, Sacatepéquez. It is well done and the guys told me that I could share it with all of you by a link. They also shot a bit of me introducing it to you from the top of Nahual’s office/community center. I never know when anything will be ready around here and of course my language skills are a challenge, but I have heard Carlos fooling around with it. I think he is editing the section they shot of me.

And then on Sunday, I was whisked away to San Antonio Agua Calientes, which is a small indigenous village about 5 km from Antigua, by a man who I met on Friday when Ignacio and I and this guy, Raul, went to a national gathering of indigenous people in Chimaltenango (I could kick myself for not taking my camera to that event: it was very interesting and not unlike a lot of conferences I have been to with nonprofits). People are extremely polite here, though, and that is a huge difference. Everyone who speaks first says thank you to his or her brothers and sisters and so on and so forth. And, when anyone comes in anywhere around here, they shake your hand and usually kiss you on the side of the cheek and say their name and your name if they know it. Coming and going takes some time and it is lovely. ANYHOW, I met this guy and he was immediately saying to me that we had some connection . , , why, I don’t know. He proposed that I come visit San Antonio, where he is building a hotel (and where one of Nahual’s volunteers stays, who is a long and separate story). I said sure, as I want only to be polite, although Ignacio seemed to think it was rather sudden. I am still a little puzzled by it, but he was perfectly polite, although he upset me at certain points in our conversation. He wanted me to start an organization in the states to help the people in San Antonio, I think; and I think he was trying to find out whatever information he could from me about Ignacio’s operation. This is really a long story and too much gossip and inside intrigue to recount it all. What I am finding out, though, is that people love to gossip here and many wonder about Ignacio and how he keeps this operation together and such and more that you can imagine. Fact is, I wonder how he does it when I see how much he takes on and how many people he seems to support in one way or another.

Although I am willing to buy copies for distribution of the brochures were are making (Laure Dunne, my pal from second grade, is doing the layout), and stuff like the coffee pot, etc., I don’t much want to take on the electric and internet bill and don’t know what is going to happen when the year is up, because the building costs $800/month, and although way below market, this is a bill he paid in advance last year when he had some money, apparently, but god knows from where. So, come January, I have no idea what he intends to do. I have raised this, but the days just go by with meetings and meetings and constant interruptions and, well, god only knows.

When I need someone to talk to more, I go by Sky Café and talk to the owner, a Canadian who runs the place. It has the best view from its roof in town, where you can watch one of the active volcanoes go off, as if set by a clock, at around 5:30. Given it is still the rainy season, I haven’t been up there yet this year . . . .But inside is quiet and the folks friendly and there are always gringos in there , , , Anyhow the owner is nice to talk to.

I took three days of school and then on Thursday and Friday had disasters and didn’t go (the cleaning woman who I didn’t want in the first place but who comes with the rent changed my door settings to my living space and it resulted in my keys being locked inside that space and me being locked inside the compound, so I could neither get in to my food and cooking area or out of my compound. About the same time, my phone ran out of its initial minutes (there is no life in 3rd world countries without cell phones. I could see that and gave in quite early. It is not particularly expensive in any case). Thank god people can call you back and talk to you even when you don’t have minutes. Ignacio sprung during some important meeting he was having only because I had called him earlier and he knew somehow it was me . . .

And the night I bragged to Ignacio that I had been here for over a week and hadn’t gotten sick even though I was eating whatever I wanted was the night (last Thursday) that I was up all night sick to my stomach and really really sick the next day . , , probably it was the broccoli. I have learned since that it is not sufficient simply to wash things with Clorox water, which is what you do with things here, but that certain things will get you because they have been grown in areas that use contaminated water. I am glad I have my thyphoid vaccine. I’ll tell you, that kind of sick is like the worst kind of flue. I was lucky, though, because I could have been sicker. But ugh. I felt like an overcooked piece of very thin pasta. In any event, I have lost even more weight and my clothes that were already pretty small are now falling off me. I hope I don’t lose any more weight because I look like a pencil.

Well, that’s about it for now. Nothing moves quickly enough for me, and Ignacio is extremely temperamental (but then, so am I). When we discuss things, many times it is like a fight, and I just wind up laughing or telling him to stop fighting with me. He is expansive in his use of things, which I am not (water, soap, anything) and he SMOKES, which I could NOT believe. He professes that he quit for 15 years and intends to again. I try to guilt trip him (who me? (: ~) ) by pointing out that he is a community leader with a health commission, among others (so many commissions, so few resources) and is setting a bad example, and he has gotten a pot belly because he never exercises.

He has a printer but the ink cartridges are so expensive, he can’t afford them. They are ridiculously expensive, so that it makes sense just to get a new printer for which there are less expensive refills. He also desperately needs a new computer as the old one is a piece of junk and keeps locking up on him. It is nuts. He is surrounded by all of these people who have these snappy laptops. It makes me feel guilty to be using mine, but what can I do?

A very nice piece of fundraising or donations would be simply to get three laptop computers for the office . . . for Ignacio and for volunteers/community people to use. And another very real need too is to get computers out in the communities where people in the pueblos can use them for educational purposes, especially about the community development council system. Ultimately this is Ignacio’s goal. To get all of this stuff and the projects in a form that can be communicated easily across the country. I am thinking that a great proposal would be for the model community libraries that Ignacio is trying to set up.

If anyone would like to work with me on a proposal to Microsoft Foundation or Dell or whatever source we can identify for this purpose, it would be wonderful. It would be fun to work back and forth over the internet on this with one of you. We could try to do the office first, with three laptops and a printer or two, and then move on to the community libraries . . . . . There is so much to do and I like to get things done NOW, so it will be interesting to see if I can stand it.

I promise to take more pictures, but now, I include just one from the kite making workshop and some of Raul and his son and San Antonio Agua Calientes where I visited on Sunday. I hope that soon I can share a DVD or some of it, at least, from the celebration of the Mental Health TV show, and the film about Hurricane Stan relief and the water project.

I am also attaching the content for the newest brochure (which is not designed yet) and the article about the Kite tradition.

Happy reading until we meet again!