marzo ya

After many despedidas in Rabinal and the capital, 7 interns left Guate before sunup on Thursday morning. Bright lights and stale smells for many long hours in Houston and Chicago before reaching a snow-filled Halifax just after midnight... white streets and skies, chill Maritime winds.

And so this blog comes to a close... thank you for reading, & 'till soon!

e ya...

On Sunday morning I walked through the cloud forests of the Biotopo.  Tall thin trees climbing with vines and mossy trunks, birds whispering out loud, rivers streaming, green leaves and the microscopic unknown, air brimming with life… my legs scissoring forward along a narrow gravel path, winding up, up, down, leaving the group behind as per usual. A strange pattern I have: having to run forward all the time (maybe it’s because I’m a twin, born last..?)  I saw two Quetzales, male and female, Guatemala's national bird: proud blue, red, green feathers perched on fruit-baring treetops. It rained all morning, soaking my white skin and sweater through. All in all, a beautiful way to reflect on these past few months, and the ones that are coming so soon…

As many ups and downs as I've had here, the idea of leaving makes me uneasy: once again, with no destination in mind and no particular pull... suspended somewhere between here and there, not here and not there. Guatemala is a weight: an incredible world to have been pulled into. I am so grateful for the lessons that I've gained here, and for the inspiring spirit of the people I have met who continue to risk their lives for what they believe is right: for memory, for justice, for an end to impunity... 

On my way back from the Biotopo, crossing into Salama, a group of armed military and police officers stopped our overcrowded microbus and asked all the men to get out of the vehicle. With women watching from empty benches, one by one each man was searched before returning back to his seat. A military checkpoint: the first of its kind I've seen since here in Guatemala (mind you, I don't get out of Rabinal often) -- a common tactic in the 1980s, and perhaps a sign of changing times? Mano Dura, Guatemala's new reality.  


The sight of military personnel and police officers stocked with artillery has become 'normal' to me. Still, no matter how long I spend here or flinch less in the sight of a gun, I am an outsider: my reality is not confined to these borders and this past, nor to rash acts of violence led by the government, drug cartels, or foreign (Canadian) corporations (rather, if anything, I in some way represent the perpetrators of that violence). I hold an absurd amount of privilege, with winding paths at my fingertips: the thick knowledge that I may be somewhere today and gone tomorrow, free to fly thanks to the 'superiority' of my 'nation' (i.e. colonization). And yet, despite my alien status, these profound structural injustices move me to look beyond today's imagined borders as a means of belonging... I am sure there is more learning to be done here. 

No matter, I won't be figuring out any grand decisions over the next few days, and there will be plenty of space for reflection upon arrival in Tatamagouche. That leaves ample time to walk the labyrinth... another green path to scissorkick and sort through, to organize and to behold. Paths for moving forward.

escucha

Piece on CBC Radio about a Canadian mining case in Guate: http://www.cbc.ca/inthefield/2012/02/february-7.html

basta ya, 30 years later

Yesterday was a historic day for Guatemala and human rights: Rios Montt, former dictator during 1982-83, became the first Latin American ruler to be accused of genocide. Head of both the Guatemalan state and military during the worst years of the "scorched earth" campaigns, Montt oversaw the military counter insurgency plans that massacred hundreds of indigenous communities, including Rabinal's Plan de Sanchez.

While friends and fellow interns attended the trial yesterday in Guate, I stayed at the Fundacion to see a play put on by a traveling theatre group, "Bajo las hojas secas, el cemento y la broza" (a tricky way of describing what lays buried beneath the ground we walk on: the past), which told of five characters' relationship with the armed conflict. Beautifully done, and by the end students were standing to share their own families' stories. Quite a day... even if it comes 30 years later.

Embroidered signs in front of the Supreme Court of Justice, Guatemala City, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012

Rios Montt: For he who gave the order of agony, I ask for punishment

For more on Rios Montt:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16750880
http://www.asfcanada.ca/fr/blogue/billet/ex-dictator-efrain-rios-montt-indicted-on-genocide-charges/93

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/27/efrain-rios-montt-genocide-trial?newsfeed=true
http://nisgua.blogspot.com/2012/01/efrain-rios-montt-to-stand-trial-for.html

otro sistema

Tuesdays have lately been 'charla-days' - mornings with primero A and B (grade 7s), discussions of worms, the environment, food sovereignty and security. This morning: 'como fuera el mundo si...?' (what the world would be like..?)  without access to land (as is the reality here in Guatemala)? food? clean water? fertile soils?

Our 'recycling system' at the ICB has been set up: bins in each classroom, garbage collected, composteras built, worms fattening, grade 7s organized to gather and turn the compost... slowly but surely.

And, finally, the Rabinal Achi feria has not been a disappointment: a ferris wheel lights up the sky at all hours, a lit yellow circle from my roof. Plenty of mysterious food to taste in the parque, bright weavings, shrines to san pedro and san pablo, churros and tamales, costumed parades, cumbia, salsa, traditional songs and dramatizaciones, dancing each night... bicycle rides through town to explore those bits I've yet to know, and my first encounter with REAL coffee just down the street... and so it seems I've only just skimmed the surface of this place.

el libro de los abrazos

beautiful poem by Eduardo Galeano that I feel the need to share...


El sistema/ the System


Los funcionarios no funcionan.
Los politicios hablan pero no dicen.
Los votantes votan pero no eligen.
Los medios de informacion desinforman.
Los centros de ensenanza ensenan a ignorar.
Los jueces condenan a las victimas.
Los militares estan en guerra contra sus compatriotas.
Los policias no combaten los crimenes, porque estan ocupados en cometerlos. 
Los bancarrotas se socializan, las ganancias se privatizan.
Es mas libre el dinero que la gente.
La gente esta al servicio de las cosas.

**********
Functionaries don't function.
Politicians speak but say nothing.
Voters vote but don't elect.
The 'information' media disinforms.
Schools teach ignorance.
Judges punish victims.
The military makes war against its own people. 
The police don't fight crime because they are too busy committing it.
Bankruptcies are socialized while profits are privatized.
Money is more free than people.
People are at the service of things.


...and, for the more hopeful:
http://eduardogaleano.org/category/frases/dicen-las-paredes/

pues allí

Lately I have been rambling about worms and labeling buckets - red, green, blue - in a makeshift recycling attempt I hope will take hold before the weeks wind down. Pine, nails and sarruchos - Juan and I working to finish a second composter. Classes began: once again up at dawn, up to Corralajbac, looming mountains and cool breezes, hands-on community work in the fields, names to memorize. Last week a delegation from the University of Washington spilled through: traditional dances, rock-piling for water-catchment and ice cream excursions, followed by the arrival of two Quebecois couchsurfers in my kitchen. In town, preparations underway for the Rabinal Achi festival that will last two weeks, stands and stages surfacing, goods to sell, costumes to perfect. And at home: back to guitar on the rooftop, debates over dinner, morning yoga, slow living… cool evenings broken by the occasional hum of an internet cafe or ponche in the parque central.

In other news, Otto Perez Molina took office on Saturday, rolling in with a long inauguration speech (in which, at one point, he denounced the work of international human rights organizations who are "not letting us forget the past") . Guatemala has been getting plenty of press as of late - and here are a few pieces well worth reading:

Guatemala: Reconciliation or retrenchment?

Perez sworn in as Guatemala's president

Guatemala's Legacy Of Violence Follows New Leader To Power

Justice delayed 30 years in Guatemala (tells of Rio Negro, the Fundacion's namesake and a community in the municipality of Rabinal)

media revuelta

I am back in Rabinal’s mountains after a few weeks of gallivanting; wonderful travels with Michelle in Ometepe: a cycle around the green island, legs up a 1,500 metre volcano, swims in mineral pools, and Christmas with a (scandalous) Nica family, before jumping a ferry to the Costa Rican border and hiding out in the city of Liberia for a few, then back northward, to Managua, Leon, Chinandega, Guasaule, Choluteca (Honduras), Amatillo, San Miguel (El Salvador), and, finally, on a rickety bus and pickup, to the historical FMLN stronghold of Perquin. There I hilariously realized I was stuck with 6$ in a town without a bank machine – but, lucky for me beds were cheap and a family across the way kindly fed me a meal, letting me tour the FLMN museum (another revolutionary song sung!) and then jet down the mountain, money recovered and set for the coast. I made it to La Libertad before sunset on the 31st, guideless and a bit lost, strangers on bicycles leading me to el Tunco, a  surfing town swimming with tourists and locals. Plenty of unknown company on New Years eve, coupled with a stunning Pacific sunset. Couldn’t have asked for a better trip back - except for one quirk: my camera was swiped on the beach, so no more photos.

Winter hums in Rabinal and time is flying fast – less than 7 weeks before our flight leaves for Halifax. The green hills have faded to yellow for lack of rain, and nights are cool and clear. Classes begin on Monday, where I hope to be working with primero A and B in the garden; experiments with seeds and vermiculture. Hard to get used to this stillness again – el Salvador and Nicaragua were so incredible and living from a backpack so sweetly simple that a part of me wishes I could do it for a long long while. Ay.


The fleetingness of these past few weeks has also in a sense confirmed my own fleetingness here in Rabinal - 8 months is so short, and 6 weeks is much, much shorter. A privileged pleat in time I am, while others remain here, for better or for worse.