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.

como no?

'Como no?' - 'Why not?' A recent saying I've picked up while travelling around beautiful Nicaragua.

After a few nights in Guatemala's capital accompanied by wonderful city-dwellers, I hopped on a bus to Managua to track down Michelle G, a fellow TIEger from Ecuador 08/09. The idea is to do some meandering until the beginnings of 2012... lately, 27 hours of bussing over three days, to San Salvador, Managua and up to Somoto in Nica's north -- a town that reminds me of a living version of magical realism or a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: maniquered streets, open porches with wicker rocking chairs, cool breezes, mountains looming. Then to Leon: joking Sandinista veterans singing FSLN songs and telling stories of Sandino, the war, the contras...  murals of resistencia, and, a few blocks away, the place where Somoza himself was shot dead by a young rebel.

I have to make it down to Costa Rica to renew my visa in the C-4, so we are heading south: Granada and Ometepe, then at least 72 hours (says migracion) in a national park on the Costa Rican border. 

Nicaragua is stunning, and safe to travel in. Feels like it is worlds away.

la capital

no to the fascist coup d'etat in Honduras, no more militarism

con buena onda

As November winds down the nights get cooler and the rains cease – a chance to finally use my wool sweater, ‘winter’ sprung. Days disappearing: barely two weeks before vacations begin, when I’ll take a bus south, to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras … to visit the museum of the revolution, a liberation theology mass, hikes, wanders… For now, promises of painting and translation, costume-making for the Rabinal-Achi dance. At home: sawing, building, planting, juggling between less-clumsy fingers.

Last week Sandia and I coordinated a book-binding workshop – real bees wax, a few sheets of paper, paints, string to sew the folded pages; a full morning of using our hands, each book a different Nawal. The idea is that if we bind our own books we'll buy and waste less - in January each teacher can pass on the workshop to students. My search for materials brought me to a man who cares for bees, 'apicultura' just a kilometre outside of town, real honey and wax by the litre... 

In a 'salon' that shaded us from Friday's afternoon sun, ECAP (Estudios Comunitarios con Aplicacion Psicosocial) awarded diplomas of ‘cultura de paz y participación para el desarrollo’ to over 60 local teachers  – i.e. recognizing their participation in ECAP seminars all year long, and their contribution to historical memory, peace, and community building here in Rabinal. Students performed a series of ‘dramatizaciones’ - skits on gender, poverty, cultural difference - followed by a meal to share to the beat of a marimba band: chicken, rice, tortillas, fresco... 

'roots of poverty'

proud graduates: FNE teachers

Then a BTS 'reflection weekend' in Monterrico, croaky buses on highways winding at dawn, pacific waves and bird-watching - yet another world; black sand and white bellies, salty skin. 

lately

5:30am runs
to the water tanks, up a winding dirt road
that climbs to San Rafael, red sunrise on blue grey mountains;
gathering soil between corn fields, a rooftop garden to be built from used wood,
Guatemalan reggae in the afternoon heat
and chicken-coop engineering for red lay hens;
one-two-three kittens on my patchwork quilt, folded together,
away from the seeds planted in pop bottles,
juggling balls and jibberish hand-gestures that arise
at an overcrowded kitchen table

nuestra minería

Yesterday I stumbled upon a beautiful spoken word piece of Rachel's, 'Lot 8'. A fellow intern this year, Rachel visited mining communities around Guatemala then performed this poem for a G20 resistance slam last spring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_7inUJdS9FM#

Also worth a watch: human rights activist Graham Russell speaks about Canadian mining here in Guatemala on Face to Face, shedding a little light on what it means to be Canadian in Central America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71mB0JuJSpE

mural in san juan (photo by joanne!)

ps. out of curiosity, who in Russia is reading this?

yo no sé nada

lovely poem by argentine poet oliverio girondo

Yo no sé nada 

Tú no sabes nada 
Ud. no sabe nada 
El no sabe nada 
Ellos no saben nada 
Ellas no saben nada 
Uds. no saben nada 
Nosotros no sabemos nada 
La desorientación de mi generación tiene su expli- 

cación en la dirección de nuestra educación,cuya 
idealización de la acción, era - ¡sin discusión!- 
una mistificación, en contradicción 
con nuestra propensión a la me- 
ditación, a la contemplación y 
a la masturbación. (Gutural, 
lo más guturalmente que 
se pueda.) Creo que 
creo en lo que creo 
que no creo. Y creo 
que no creo en lo 
que creo que creo 
«C a n t a r d e l a s r a n as»
¡Y     ¡Y      ¿A       ¿A     ¡Y       ¡Y 
  su     ba       llí        llá      su       ba 
   bo       jo          es           es        bo         jo 
   las      las          tá?            tá?       las        las 
     es        es          ¡A                 ¡A           es          es 
      ca       ca            quí                    cá            ca          ca 
       le        le            no                          no             le           le 
         ras      ras          es                              es             ras        ras 
         arri     aba         tá                                   tá            arri        aba 
         ba!...    jo!...       !...                                       !...            ba!...     jo!...