Decision 2007

The elections passed pretty quietly in Comalapa. Mateo and I did quite a bit to support our candidate for mayor, Valeriano Pixchit. He is a board member of Chuwi Tinamit, the host developement organization for the Long Way Home here in Comalapa. Both Mateo and I advised Valeriano before debates and at other key moments of the campaign. We sat in on meetings, supported him at rallies and undertook development projects in the name of his candidacy. While I wish that Valeriano and other rural, Guatemalan politicians like him had a little more education and a little less self-interest, I truly believe that out of all the candidates for mayor of Comalapa, he was the best one for the job.
Unfortunately, politics in Guatemala, like in many countries, is not as simple as doing good work, gaining experience and proving that you are the best man for the job. Some people say the political system here is rigged from the top, and has been for years. Others say that only the candidates with money and exposure win, which appears to have some truth. And still others say that all Guatemalan political candidates are just waiting to cash-in once elected.
In any case, the elections passed reletively peacefully and with no major corruption scandals. Voter participation was at an all time high for a democratic Guatemala, 65%, which is more than can be said for the U.S. They had a nation-wide youth election, which has been attributed with raising registered voter participation in the elections, while building a legitimate democratic future for Guatemala as well. Ten years after the 1996 Peace Accords ended the thirty year Civil War here, Guatemala appears to be on a firm, but imperfect, democratic path.
Nevertheless, Valeriano lost and so did Rigoberta Menchu. In fact, her campaign appears to have disappointed expectations, while she recieved her anticipated 2% of the national vote, some of the mayorial candidates on her party´s ticket recieved more votes than her in many departments. For now the two big winners were Alvaro Colom of the UNE Party, and Otto Perez of Partido Patriota. The two spent the most money and can be seen on the most billboards throughout Guatemala. In many peoples opinion, neither offer anything new or exciting for Guatemala, just more of the same machine politics. Since no one recieved a 50% majority vote in the primary elections last week these two candidates will have a ¨segunda vuelta¨on the 4th of November to determine who the next President of Guatemala will be.

My Nawal

Nearly everytime I spend a few hours hanging around the Tecnico Maya school I seem to pick up a little more knowledge of what exactly modern-day Guatemalan´s believe are the religious, spiritual and cultural foundations of their Maya ancestors. At the school they teach the mathematics, calendars and language of the Maya, developing much of their curriculum from the Consejo Nacional de Educacion Maya (the national Maya education council), which conducts research, publishes educational materials and advises Maya education programs, such as Tecnico Maya.
The teachers at Tecnico Maya and other indigenous peoples of Guatemala are currently in a common position for Native American groups in the 20th and 21st Centuries. They are attempting to accurately and sufficiently preserve their culture in the new generations, while adapting and assimilating to the rapidly changing modern world. Thus, the curriculum at Tecnico Maya has shed much of the ritualism and superstition that it is still practiced and preached by many Maya priests.
So, for example, they teach that the beheading of a chicken in a sacrificial ceremony, a fairly common occurance at many Maya ruins here, is an antiquated practice, that is not in agreeance with the Maya belief in respecting all of God´s creations in nature. The teachers at Tecnico Maya also tell me that the Maya believed in one, universal God, which they call Ajaw. This is in contrast to what is taught academically in the U.S. about the Maya, which is that they were polytheistic in the pre-Colonial era, worshiping the many gods of the different natural elements of the earth. I have been told that the Spanish colonizers assumed the Maya were polytheistic because they had ceremonies for their maiz crops and for rainfall, and therefore the Conquistadores assumed they were praying to individual Gods on each occasion. In reality, the Maya believe in one God, who is the universal creator, and the Maya Nawales or Gods of fire, rain, healthy birth, and abundant corn-crop, for example, the images that can be seen carved into the sides of the great Maya pyramids, are earthly essences or representations of the one God, Ajaw.
The other day I was fortunate enough to have my Nawal told to me by the teachers. A persons Nawal in the Maya religion is the equivalent of someones Zodiac sign, as they are believed to determine a persons personality and life path. The Nawal is determined by one of the three Maya calendars. There is a lunar, solar and purely mathematical calendar, the last of which is used in this case. There are thirteen Nawales or characters which represent different personality traits or destinies. These thirteen symbols are numbered one to thirteen as well, with thirteen being the strongest number and one the weakest. A persons Nawal is then broke into three groups, 1)Nacimiento-Birth trait, 2)Origen-Your purpose or calling in life, 3)Esperanza-Your destiny for later life.
Being born on April 9th, 1984, I have a 12 No´j, 4 Toj, and 7 Kan. A 12 No´j in first category is apparently very good because it means that I have a strong number, 12, and No´j means sabiduria in Spanish or wise, intelligente, or thinker. 4 Toj is pretty good as well. It means I have a small debt to God, and have to do some of his work throughout my life. The last, 7 Kan, sounds good to me as well. It means that I will have a decent amount of peace when I am old. Here´s hoping all of your Nawales are as good as mine.

Building Appropriate Technologies...

Last week the Long Way Home crew completed two appropriate technology projects; a solar shower for ourselves and a wood-burning stove for our neighbors. With the help of our resident AT Peace Core member, Ben, we were able to construct our shower over a two and a half week period, while the stove took us just five days to finish.
The solar shower is a very simple peice of equipment requiring some lengths of hard PVC piping, 50 to 100 meters of black tubing, a couple of valves, a shower head, roof space and a few hours of direct sunlight per day. We fit all the peices together by putting the black tubing (mangera) under a flame, leaving it malleable and then fitting it over its PVC counterpart. We used a strong adhesive (pegamiento) and wire to stick and securely fasten all joints together. The 100 meter coil of mangera is located on top of our shower and bath rooms, on a flat surface, which recieves at least six hours of direct sunlight a day. We may place a piece of sheet metal underneath the mangera in the future in order to amplify the heat the coil recieves from the sun and thus heat the water in the tube faster and with less sunlight. Considering that our water supply flows at least 200-300 feet down hill from its source before reaching the mangera coil, we now have a very strong, hot flow from the shower, which is quite a luxury.
While the solar shower has certainly added to the gringos comfortability at Parque Chimiya, this is not what we came here for. That is why building the stove for our neighbor David and his family was so much more rewarding, and became the central project for us last week.
The stove was built in 6 stages, more or less. First you dig out a small, rectangular fitting which becomes the base for the whole cooking station. After digging and leveling, we mixed-up a batch of cement and began placing the cinder-block foundation. Three levels of cinder-blocks later we packed the center of the cinder-block rectangle with garbage, rock and dirt until it was filled to the top, forming a single, solid platform. Upon this platform we then layed clay tiles, on top of which the wood is burned. After that structure sat for a day and settled and hardened, we came back and built the enclosed stove area itself. Using a mixture of fine sand, clay and molassas we coated the tiled floor of the stove and built-up a three-sided brick casing for the metal stove-top (plancha o pollo). The molassas mixture is used around the stove area instead of cement because it bakes and hardens like brick after just a few firings. Finally, we placed the plancha in its brick casing and attached and sealed the stove-pipe and ran it up through the roof.
It is interesting to note that this final step of placing a proper smoke exhaust system is really the most important aspect of building stoves like these in the developing world. For most Guatemalan women their day is filled with two activities; washing clothes by hand and cooking over an open fire. Many women experience complications in pregnancy and birth defects in their children because of the years of smoke inhalation. In addition, firewood (leña) is a big expense or a very time consuming effort for most Guatemalan families, as they almost always have a fire going in order to cook or make tortillas (tortillar). The efficient stove we built for David and his family will hopefully allow his mother, the perpetual cook, to breath in less smoke, while saving them time and money.

Teaching II...

For those of you have wondered, including myself, how exactly I could put to use my History degree, rest assured The Long Way Home and Comalapa have provided me with a wonderful opportunity to do just that.
Myself and fellow History major and volunteer, Rosie, have begun teaching a history series at the Tecnico Maya school I have previously mentioned. I have been assigned to the sixth grade class, which allows me to cover some fairly serious and complex historical events and issues, although in quite a simplified manner. The sixth grade teacher at Tecnico Maya, a bright, dedicated and distressingly under-paid and under-trained young man named Carlos, has asked me to teach the students something about the history of the rest of Latin America, as the students have already been required to study a bit of Guatemala´s.
I therefore started with a lesson in the historical relationship between Latin America and the United States, as it is a sordid, yet extremely important relationship for both parties. I chose to begin with what Americans call the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the United States, acting upon the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, for the first time in its history broke out of its isolationist shell and participated in a war outside of its continental boundaries. However, south of the Mexico border this war, along with what we call the Mexican-American War are respectively known as La Guerra Hispano-Estadounidense(The Spanish-United States War) and La Intervencion Norteamericana(The Northamerican Intervention), as most Latin Americans take offense to the fact that those of us from the U.S. reserve the right to call ourselves "Americans" instead of using an equivalent english phrase for estadounidense(person from United States).
As for the class itself, I believe it was something interesting and new for both the sixth graders and their teacher, yet I think I tried to accomplish too much with it. I used the well-known song "Guantanamera", written by the famous cuban poet, writer and war of independence martyr, Jose Marti, in order to illustrate through pop-culture how the historical events of the Spanish-American War still have implications for the present day relationship between Cuba and the United States. For the result of the Spanish-American War was independence for Cuba, as Jose Marti had envisioned and fought for, but not on their own terms, as the 1901 Platt Amendment ceded Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. indefinitely.
As I said, I believe I overreached on my first history "lecture" to the sixth graders, but it certainly made an impact on Carlos, and the directora of the Tecnico Maya school. Both of them observed with fascination during my presentation, and asked many questions during and after. I will no doubt get better and more efficient in my history teaching method, but if nothing else hopefully the teachers will learn something from them that they can pass to class after class once I am gone. In development work, as in life, if you teach a man to fish or to teach a new subject more properly, that effort will always have a greater impact on a community than just feeding them fish or information could ever have over the long-term.
I was immediately reminded of this at the end of my class, when Carlos and the directora of the school came up to me to discuss my lesson further. The older woman at one point asked whether or not the manner in which Cuba gained its independence had any affect on the building of the canal by the U.S. later on in the 20th Century, obviously confusing Cuba with Panama. Without hesitation Carlos went back to the board and clarified for the directora the difference between Cuba and Panama, and again explained the historical implications of the U.S. possession of Guantanamo Bay, loosely likening it to the history of the Panama Canal.
This geographic and historical ignorance demonstrated by this directora of a developing nation´s school, like the similar histories of many Latin American nations in relation to the U.S., was not and is not unusual, and I think it is an interesting yet not surprising anecdote.

Teaching...

My fellow volunteers and I have been busy teaching and educating the Comalapan children about their environment and how to protect it. While the indigenous population here is certainly more connected to their land than I may ever be to the tierra of the Northwest, they lack an understanding of how modern, Western technologies detrimentally affect their milpa, water supply and health. Clear-cutting and a subsequent lack of biodiversity, litter and vehicle pollution are the basic problems facing Comalapa and its surrrounding aldeas.
Therefore, El Proyecto Chimiya brings children and teachers to our park for an environmental education program which explains the interconnections between humans, plants, animals, insects, waterways and the air we breath. Simple excercises demonstrating the ¨web of life¨ show how human health and prosperity are dependent upon the natural resources that we often take for granted. We identify local species of plants, animals and insects and directly associate them with the local food and water supply. We also encourage the children to think of nature not only as a vulnerable and valuable commodity, but also as a place where they can maintain their indigenous traditions and values; something that has an intrinsic value as a healthy, communal space.
As a reward for our session with the Tecnico Maya school, a few of the children demonstrated a traditional Maya rain dance ceremony. The Tecnico Maya school here in Comalapa is one of the only schools not directly funded by the Catholic Church. This is the case because the Church considers the school a teacher of the pagaen traditions of the Maya. While the school teaches reading, writing and arithmetic just like all others, it also teaches Kakchiquel, the local indigenous dialect and many of the dieing Maya traditions. If you scroll down to the bottom of the blog site you can watch a video of their demonstration, in which the children dance, sing and play music with their chinchines.

A quick update

I have found out that Rigoberta Menchu is polling at about 2 to 3 percent of the vote right now. However, that is not as bad as it sounds because there are nearly a dozen candidates running, and the three major establishment parties and their respective candidates are expected to garner the majority of the votes in September. It therefore seems likely that this election is simply an initial entry into politics for Rigoberta Menchu, establishing herself as a serious Guatemalan politician and activist for the long term.
As for me, I have spent the last few days organizing and preparing for a series of projects that are going on next week at the Long Way Home and in Comalapa. Next Wednesday, the Long Way Home is going to host a free Dia de Diversion, where girls and boys will come to the Home and get organized into age-grouped leagues which will compete throughout the summer and may become permanent.
In addition, my fellow volunteers and I have been going around to the local schools and asking if they need any assistance or support with education curriculums. We have more interest from the schools than we can handle right now. For example, Rosie and I are going to teach a little history, english and basic environmental education for two hours a day, every day next week in the main school in Comalapa.
Most of the free schools here are funded by the Catholic Church, and nearly all are underfunded and overcrowded. It is an interesting and telling commentary on the state of rural schools here that there is so much interest in having foreign gringos come and teach whatever we would like for however long we would like in their schools.

First day on the job...

Ok, so not surprisingly I have a lot to write about now that I have arrived in Comalapa and have settled in a bit at El Proyecto Chimiya. I´ll be breif and allow you to use your imagination to understand the excitement and genuine pleasure I have been experiencing in the last twenty-four hours.
First of all, my fellow intern, Rosie, and I found our way to this small rural town on a series of short but eventful ¨chicken bus¨ rides. The roads are never straight and you are constantly surrounded by imposing ravine drops, sheer cliffs and far away hill-top maize farms terraced on seemingly impossible angles. All of the farm work is done by hand here because of this geographic exigency.
The grounds of the project include a new basketball court, a soccer field, an ecological park with a nature trail and new schoolhouse, two housing cabanas, a solar shower and facilities. The mission of the Long Way Home is essentially to fill any type of educational or recreational void that exists in Comalapa. Children in Comalapa only spend a half-day in school, so for most, the rest of the day is spent either helping or watching their parents work their corn or strawberry fields. In addition, nearly all of the people here are wholly ignorant of basic environmental concepts, which is common in most developing nations. There is not recycling, trash is thrown wherever, rivers are the the dumps, forested property is cut down for firewood to cook with and environmental protection is a luxury most think they can ill afford. The Long Way Home is attempting to change this with education on local tree varieties and by slowly communicating to the community its role and its future benefits from sustainably using its natural environment.
But we are not just about lecturing, we wouldn´t get very far if we were. Instead we have to get people involved in a fun and exciting way, which is why participating and encouraging athletic activities is key. So, for instance, today I woke up early and went with my fellow intern, Ben, a former peace corps volunteer, and spent two hours coaching an 11 and 12 year old girls basketball team! They are the champions of the Chimaltenango department(i.e. state) and are going on Wednesday to Antigua to compete in the national championship tournament for their age group.
Their local coach asked us gringos to help him coach because both Ben and I have extensive playing histories and I have a coached a little. I lack a knowledge of specific basketball terms in spanish, but somehow through demonstration and persistence we were able to drill them on proper chest-passing technique, general movement on the court, layups and defense. They had recieved very little formal training like this before and it was great to see them improve right there in those two hours. I think we all had a great time and learned something.
Afterwards, Ben took me around town to meet the locals that the Project works with and is supported by. A local communtiy development group called Chuwi Tinimit owns the property where the Project is located and the head of the board of that group is running for mayor of Comalapa in the upcoming elections. We are officially supporting him. I met him, along with the crew of workers that are building the new schoolhouse and the local weavers whose indigenous crafts we sell in the US for funding. All are very committed to the Project and strongly believe that we are filling an educational and environmental awareness need here.
However, the best was yet to come. As we left a pizza parlor and were heading to the Internet cafe that I am writing from now, a politcal rally of some sort started filtering past us playing loud music, waving signs and attracting a large number of people to it. The rally was for the political party and campaign of Rigoberta Menchu, the indigenous Gautemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner. If you have not heard of her and are interested in learning more about Guatemala I strongly recommend that you read I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. It is the testimony of her life during the civil war period here, and it is for that which she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In any case, she was the one drawing the large crowds, shaking hands, talking with the locals and looking very much the politician. And in fact, she recently announced her candidacy for president, no small thing in a primarily indigenous country that has been run by white, male Ladinos for centuries. I shook hands with her and took her picture as she was embraced by the people who obviously love her. There is for the first time in many decades an excitement about the political process that is taking place in this election cycle, there is more participation, and more recognition of indigenous rights, as is evident in other Latin American countries recently as well. This movement is attempting to change the long-standing political and economic status quo, which is not without its inherent divisiveness. In fact, one of the opposing parties to Menchu´s uses the symbol of el mano blanco in its political campaign, the name and symbol of the former campaign of state terror that was directed towards the rural indigenous populations during their years of civil war.
After all of this, believe it or not, we are headed back to the Project site to hook up another, better solar shower for us interns. I am hoping it lives up to the hype because I could certainly use a hot shower.
Just remember, this was my first day on the job...