3rd and Last Letter Home, March 25, 2009

Well, this will be my third and last letter home this trip to central American. I left Managua on February 14, flying to Guatemala City and then traveled to Antigua for a couple of days before going up into the Western Highlands to Xela. The days in Antigua were uneventful, and all I did was say hello to a few people and get a haircut, recaptured my coffee grinder, went to brunch at a beautiful hotel in Antigua with a friend, and generally just drank in the beauty of Antigua.

The night before I left Managua, I went out with Susan, Richard, Douglas and a friend from Seattle who was visiting some old friends of hers in Nica and was having mixed feelings, but I always get this way when leaving some place. I had had very mixed feelings about leaving this fall for central America from Seattle. So I guess that says that there is enough good about every place that I feel nostalgic about leaving.

I was happy to arrive in Xela and immediately took up residence in barrio San Bartolomé, southeast of the center of town. I am renting a small efficiency apartment that is very pretty and also very much of a fish bowl, with windows opening onto the hotel’s indoor courtyard and into my neighbor’s courtyard, so I keep the drapes drawn much of the time, unfortunately. But it is really convenient, with a pila outside and a lot of clothesline up over the upper patio and in the back, so I have continued to wash my clothes by hand, although not forced to here, as there are even auto laundries. I had become so used to washing by hand in various forms over the past few months that it actually seemed like a luxury to have a pila right outside my door and a clothesline that actually works! (the line I used in the countryside of Nicaragua was either of barbed wire – not too great for the clothes – or was a metal line on which my prensa ropas (clothes pins) slid and often I would find various pieces of clothing way out at the end of the line, up in a tree, basically. It was funny).

Anyhow, I settled into this very cute, tiny apartment quickly and got started doing work for AIDG, which is only a couple of blocks from here. It is an organization based in the states, very small, that has an office here in Xela, and one in Haiti, and its aim is to help start small appropriate technology businesses to serve the rural poor. It has done that with a group called Xela Teco here in Xela. I am doing research on microfinance orgs for Xela Teco, so they can place their high efficiency wood stoves. The stoves are $130 and people don´t have that upfront. The problem is that almost all micro-financing is for people´s businesses, not to finance their buying a high efficiency stove, or anything else, for that matter.

This work experience with AIDG has turned out to be very limited in scope and not at all rewarding. Part of this is my fault, I guess. Because I have wifi here at the apartment and it is very comfortable and convenient to stay here and work, I have done my work mostly in the apartment. It has been very boring because it required no interaction with anyone. Moreover, the times I did go to the office, the people there were glued to their computers and really didn’t seem to have any time to talk or make friends. No one offered to tell me about or show me what projects were going on, nor did anyone offer any opportunity to take a trip into the countryside with folks doing real things . . . and so I didn’t make an effort, either. There were random invites to a couple of AIDG parties at the intern house (not formally made to me but I sort of found out about them from one person), two of which I went to, but the sameness of them (people standing or sitting around a fire outside freezing to death and drinking too much) led me to not go to a 3rd one and eventually I just stopped going to AIDG at all, except to meet with someone to hand over my work. I was glad I went to the second party, however, because there I met a guy from Michigan who grew up and worked for many years very near to where I grew up. He is a volunteer in San Lucas Tomilán near Lake Atitlán and had sold out of his family business early. He spends quite a bit of the year working as a volunteer at a Catholic mission in San Lucas. He is a very nice man and he was here taking Spanish for a couple of weeks to try to improve, and we fell in together and did a lot of things together during those two weeks. It was great to have someone to hike with, explore and go out to dinner and events with.

Although AIDG has been a bust, I continued to work with Grupo Fenix in Nicaragua via internet, mostly on copy and design for the website but also on other random things, and that is fun for me. I also encountered happier work here with another organization called Entremundos, the director of which grabbed me immediately upon finding out that I was an environmental lawyer. She is a lovely person and I have worked pretty steadily with a small group of four of us on the problem of plastic bag litter and what could be done. Entremundos would like to get national legislation passed to address the problem. Having just seen this whole thing develop in Seattle was a help, and now I know more than I thought possible about bans, green fees, and other types of remedies for this problem. It is of course complex, like anything else. In some places, especially where there are no good solid waste management strategies in place, as is the case in many developing countries, it is a very serious problem and results in infrastructure and health issues when storm drains are blocked, for instance. In any event, I really like the people I have been working on this and while I think that there are LOTS worse problems to get a grip on here in Guatemala – air pollution being one of them, and of course the things that everyone knows about Guatemala – the violence, the mob killings, the drug violence, the poverty of the indigenous communities, huge mining issues, on and on and on – indeed, just yesterday in Guate, 4 bus drivers were killed in the same day --- I still agreed to work on it and have been working this issue quite a bit. If I come back here, I would like to be involved in issues that I find more basic, more important. On the environment score, just thinking about the health of the population (and, selfishly, my own health, as I have developed some asthma just as a result of living here), air pollution is a very big one for me. It is just awful here in Xela, and what a shame, because I really like this town and the people here and everything about the way it feels, except the air pollution is killing me, probably literally. I cannot go out without a handkerchief to stem my running nose and eyes. I cough all morning every day, and when I go out, I often find myself having a hard time getting my breath. The pollution is partially from cars and buses in these incredibly narrow streets, from which black toxic smoke spews right onto the people who are squished up against the cars and buses. You simply cannot get away from it. Antigua is better because the streets are much wider and the buses are not in the center of town. Here, they run everywhere. But the pollution is from other sources as well. There is a ton of particulate matter from open construction areas, from garbage burning and burning to clear fields for cropping. In adddtion, I was told by one local friend yesterday, the cobblestone streets are held together by a lime like substance instead of cement, and it dries out and becomes airborne with the slightest touch. Xela is also subject to inversions, as it sits in a high mountain valley surrounded by volcanoes, and boy, is that a mess.

I have told you before that Xela is in the Western highlands of Guatemala, at 7,600 feet. It is cold in the am and evening and sunny and warm, usually, during the day, but no more than the 70s during the time I am here, and often the breeze makes it feel cooler. People here are very friendly and I get on with folks very well. Although it is the second biggest in Guatemala, it is NOTHING like Guatemala City. Nothing. People are lovely, it feels like a very small town (I think it is actually about 300,000), and I am situated about as well as one could hope for for the work I am doing, in the southeast part of town and only about 10 blocks to central park.

My experience here, though, is very different from my time in Nicaragua where I lived much of the times in the community of Sabana Grande. First, I am living alone, which is very different from the fun (and dirt) of living with Alejandra and Marcio and the kids in Sabana Grande and the constant stream of visitors at the house, people passing by, etc. I miss that a lot. I wish it were possible to live in the community in a little house that I could somehow keep clean and yet be a part of all of that activity. I love going by Marta’s and talking to Rosita the parrot, or going up to someone’s birthday party celebration – everyone in the community is related -- and the thought of growing my own papaya and banana trees.

It is SO hard to find the right balance in life, but being here alone in Xela maybe is what the universe planned for me to realize that it is important for me to be with people in a very real way. When I went to “get away” in Nicaragua, I was also with people all of the time as well, at the Laguna. And that was great, too. I love the Laguna and the way one could be with people or not, as one liked. But I have to admit that the BOREDOM factor in the countryside was great, too, and the fact that you just don´t talk on the same level with folks about the things that are swirling around in my head all of the time, the great questions of life, the bigger world issues, the workings of the development projects, all of that more intellectual stuff. The people there are just so removed from that . . . in the daily work of getting food grown and on the table, so much work to do to keep the kids feed. And there is the constant of the TV, one channel, filled with trash, and many of the middle age people there are not very educated.

So each place has its pluses and minuses. And if I come back to Xela I will try to live more communally and it will be cheaper, too. I like very much having my own kitchen and 24 hour wifi, but some things must be sacrificed for community and price! I LOVE the market here, the one known as La Democracía, which is just sprawled out in the streets several blocks north of central park. One of my largest treats is my weekly journey there to get pineapple, avocados, tomatoes, onion, garlic, eggplant, cilantro, blackberries, strawberries, carrots – the most amazing tasting carrots imaginable – squash, little potatoes, limes for my potato salad dressing (which I use instead of vinegar to put in the olive oil-mayonnaise dressing I make, with a spot of honey), red peppers, melons, you name it, La Democracía has it, along with a ton of other fruits and vegetables that I am ignorant of. I haven’t had a bad interaction or one that hasn’t been very positive. The people are beautiful, as you know, and the mix of the city with people in their native dress is gorgeous.

For the first 3 weeks or so here, I walked up in the high hills in back of my neighborhood, straight up a steep way from 7,600 ft, through deep dust areas and then by two houses with dogs that snarled after me almost every time I went up there. I quickly made friends with everyone in one house and all of those dogs, who then left me alone. But no matter how many times I went by the other house, and how much I talked to the people in that house and tried to get the dogs to quit terrorizing me, it never stopped. Finally, after facing that fear every day for weeks and never having it improve, I gave up that hike, to my chagrin but to my relief as well! At first I had this philosophical argument ready for myself every morning about how important it is to face and overcome your fears. And then I realized I could take another walk that would not be quite as steep and probably not as helpful to my heart, but at least I didn’t dread it every day! So much for facing fears. I was attacked by a German shepherd as a kid alone in the woods, and of course one never gets over that. Every day I went up in the hills, chills ran up and down my body as I approached the houses with the dogs.

One major plus for me here in addition to Rick and work with Entremundos was the fact that I was able to attend 4 different performances of an international jazz festival that Xela was lucky enough to have happen here. They were really excellent and the tickets were free and the performances held in this wonderful old municipal theater. It was quite the thing, and really gave me something wonderful to look forward to. Apparently while the jazz fest came to Guate many years in the past, it never before brought the performers here to Xela. I hope the audience response, which was wildly enthusiastic, will mean that the Jazz fest will be here again next March.

I have met a mix of foreigners and Guatemalans and all have been good. I like it so much when I am able to mix with Guatemalans and one family that I have gotten to know a bit because they run the coffee shop where we have many meetings now has a family member who lives up north of me in Everett, WA and she has been visiting the family this past week, so I met her. We say we will go out to salsa. We shall see! She comes down to go to China Harbor on occasion, so . . .

Well, I don´t have anything profound to say, dammit. Just that I always find it rewarding to meet Chivos here and talk or just say hey when I see someone riding his bike up the huge hill up to the Baul, the lookout high above the city, where I like to hike, or in the street, or wherever we interact. Or when I get to play peek a boo with little Enrique down the street from me. These kids are so damned adorable, it is ridiculous. Or just wandering around a street fair thrown up for the weekend near the church that is having a procession that weekend in preparation for Semana Santa, sampling the roasted whole pig with a Washington state apple in its mouth, or the incredibly greasy and delicious fried sweet dough and any number of other tempting treats for sale in the makeshift booths lining the streets, bringing everyone out of their houses to talk, eat, and generally enjoy the afternoon and evening. I love the way people are out, interacting in the streets. This is what small towns with small streets do for people, at least when people are not in their cars. And boy, do we need much more of that in the US.

Well, that’s it for this season in Central America. I hope to see many of you soon and at least communicate with those of you too far from Seattle to see in person.

XOXOXO,
Katherine