Sunday, November 13, 2011

Mom's post


Since I obviously can't keep up with writing a blog myself, I decided to throw the task on my mom to give everyone a different view of things... enjoy...

Nov. 13th, 2011

Lots and lots of chicken buses since I arrived on Nov. 8 th (with a number of took tooks and micros thrown in a couple of times a day) and although Anne’s sister, Katie, requested pictures of me on the chicken buses, they will not be forthcoming simply because I was usually gripping desperately onto whatever was available, including some poor woman’s trahe, while Anne was nodding off (apparently that happens to most people who ride chicken buses with any regularity). But what stands out beyond the hours spent on the buses is the time spent at some of the sites. Hoping Anne will post some pictures that we took in Patachaj where we were able to watch a stove being built in Dona Santa’s home. We walked for quite a while on a dusty road from the aldea of Patachaj to reach her home, encountering dogs ~ a few which were mean/threatening dogs, pigs, shy and smiling children, corn field after corn field (or “milpa” after “milpa”), warm sun, and a stunningly beautiful big blue sky. I have thought for days how I might be able to give folks back home a picture/sense of what Dona Santa’s home is really like, but frankly, I’m stumped. Words like small compound, smoke - thick, choking smoke, dirt floors, no latrine except for the cornfields, 4 surviving children after giving birth to 9, 3 beds for 8+ people, weaving loom that takes up over 2/3 of one of her 3 rooms in the compound, windy, very little water ~ no pila but just a big bucket and a hose, beautiful and green landscape, a way of living that most of us in my everyday world have no ability to imagine (how Dona Santa does so much with so very, very little).

Words for Dona Santa and her friends, however, come easily ~ generous, thoughtful, productive, tired/exhausted, sweet, busy/industrious women. Small example: we had to leave before they served us lunch (after having served us a snack of bread and a hot drink or “atol” made of fresh cow’s milk and rice) and as we left her compound, Dona Santa came running out trying to give us money to buy our lunch (from a woman who has no money) since she had been unable to feed us. I will never forget that and am grateful that I have a picture of her to remind me of that morning in her home.

Some impressions from my time here:
- the incredible amount of time, every day, that must be spent on travel here, simply getting from one place to another
- how Antigua is quite surely “Guatemala Light” as compared to the rest of the country ~ so very, very different
- how little most folks here make do with ~ and with little or no complaint
- how colorful and LOUD the chicken buses are with their LOUD music with extra LOUD bass that is played on all chicken buses
- how “being on time” is all very relative, which makes any real “planning” (as we Americans know it) pretty much impossible
- the amount of trash that is found everywhere. . . . except for in Antigua, of course. In my memory, however, the trash issue was much worse in the DR than Guate ~
- the beautiful trahe worn by almost everyone in the Highlands

Now, after 5 days on the road doing what Anne does for her work here and using her house in San Cristóbal as a base, we’re in Antigua until I leave on the 15th ~ two days to slow down, relax, do some hiking in and around Antigua, visit some markets, watch OTHER people ride the chicken buses, spend some time with a couple of Anne’s PCV friends, hang out in the central plaza and eat at some of the really good restaurants around. . . . a really nice ending to a trip and time with my daughter that I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

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