State of Siege

In an effort to curtail the increased drug activity at the Mexican border, President Colom declared a state of siege in Guatemala on Sunday.

It is true that the area that borders Mexico has developed an environment that panders to the flow of illegal activity. The geography of the region is mostly rural, jungle-filled land, which is bought by up in large chunks by those made wealthy in the drug trade. They claim to use the land as farms to raise horses and livestock, when in reality that is what gives them sufficient cover to hide the private runways for small planes used in the drug trade. This has created a hybrid profession that is a narco-cowboy of sorts.

The idea is that declaring a state of siege, which allows the Guatemalan officials to arrest and detain persons without just cause and often involves the use of heavy artillery and automatic weapons, might be an effective – although somewhat blunt – manner to catch criminals. A state of siege in a country like Guatemala, however, has a more brutal history. During the four-decade-long civil war that has its recent end in the mid-90′s, a state of siege was declared and maintained for 2 years. It was a weapon used by the state to covertly kill populations who were portrayed as “insurgent” guerillas but who, in the vast majority of cases, were not crazy anarchist rebels, but rather were simple townspeople hoping that the revolution might improve their pauperism. The Guatemalan state used these terms to construct a false image of the Mayan population so that they could politically justify their genocide (which was, of course, motivated by economic forces – land ownership.)

With that history, a state of siege in Guatemala makes me nervous. While our collective consciousness about human rights is tuned in a way that simply didn’t exist 50 years ago, one can only hope that this state of siege will be used to improve the daily lives of Guatemalans and not to precipitate more violence.

Patron Saint Festival

Every town in Guatemala has a patron saint. They are viewed as the protectors and overseers of the community, and they are the principal figure presented in the church, which is always a central location in the town, both geographically and socially.

In accordance with the Catholic calendar, each saint has a day during the year reserved for their reverence. On the day of the patron saint of a particular town, there is an appropriately large festival in celebration, coupled with extensive mass and chanting every night. There are also multiple processions every day, involving large dancing effigies, music, and floats topped with the saint himself.

During the three weeks surrounding our town’s patron saint day, the plaza in front of the church turned into a carnival. People stood in doorways, tucked away from sudden rainy-season downpours, watching the processions pass by: a surprise pause possessed by a flurry of noise and dancing amidst the daily coming and going. At night, food booths, cheap toys from China, precarious Ferris wheels held together with rope, musical bands, and merry-go-rounds lit up the square. People walked back and forth across the cement road, milling from one booth to the next, pausing to watch the band as still and stiff as stalks of corn staring at a scarecrow.

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Maximón, The Shape-Shifting Saint

I published an article this month in the local magazine Qué Pasa on the well-known and sometimes controversial figure Maximón (also known as Laj Mam, San Simón, El Monchito). You can read the article here.

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The whistling tree

The tree called out to him. As a man walked down a dusty path, the tree instructed him to build a figure out of wood.

That is one version of the story behind the formation of Maximón, an important Mayan saint-like figure.* Besides being an important tree culturally due to its association with that particular image, the whistling tree – palo de pito in Spanish (Erythrine corallodendron) – is a beautiful tree with impressive flowers and burning red seeds.

These seeds are collected and used by Mayan daykeepers in their divining tasks. They are called tz’ite’ beans in k’iche’-maya, and each daykeeper is given a sacred bundle of 260 of these beans when they graduate from their nine-month-long apprenticeship. There are several methods by which a daykeeper may use the seeds to divine the cause and cure of their patient’s natural or supernatural illness. Almost all of them involve a process of counting by using of the sacred Mayan calendar, which consists of 20 months containing 13 days, each bearing a particular energy.

The tree itself does indeed seem magical. It possesses great regrowth abilities, growing back in a matter of weeks if completely chopped to pieces. Perhaps this is part of the reason why it represents such a powerful image for the people who know this tree through their daily environment: it is constantly regenerating, continually capable of being renewed. We can conjecture as to why this may be important for a population whose beliefs have been systematically hacked down since the time of the conquest.

An open tz'ite' bundle

*Stay tuned for more on Maximón in future posts.

Video games in Santa Catarina Barahona

Today I did an interview in Santa Catarina Barahona (about 6km outside of Antigua, just past San Antonio Aguas Calientes). More on that later. As yesterday was Independence Day in Guatemala, the central square was still filled with booths selling food and toys, as well as the usual metal cartoon-character-filled carousels and game stations. As I was waiting for my interviewee to meet me at noon, I discovered a horde of boys playing video games on these old school machines.

Guatemalans are so enterprising. They take old beatup junk and give it new life. Cars and trucks are refurbished and hammered together with metal and wood. Old school buses from the US are painted wild colors, donned with female names, and carry countless passengers around the country daily (these public transport buses are known as chicken buses.) Coffee cans become childrens’ drums and cheese graters musical instruments. It is a landscape full of trash-turned-treasure.

Too Cool for School

We rent the first floor of a house that’s owned by a family with three girls, ages 8, 6, and 3. They love to come downstairs and play with Rho and his toys, and he mostly stares at them with interest and a bit of hesitation. I enjoy what they’re able to give to him that adults aren’t: a child’s perspective on the way things work, which always seem to be helpful to a little one’s development. They also speak Spanish to him, adding to his linguistic ability and vocabulary. We do our best to teach him words and phrases ourselves, but I’m happy to have him exposed to native Spanish-speaking children. He says some words, like agua (water), caballo (horse), gato (cat), estrella (the name of the family dog, which means star), and vaca (cow). He responds with the appropriate animal and object noises when asked in Spanish: moo for vaca (cow), growl for león (lion), snort for cerdo (pig), brrrr for moto (motorcycle). And he holds up one tiny finger when asked how old he is.

How adorable is this picture of him and the 3-year-old? They are so cool in their shades.

Heavy rains devastate Guatemala

This rainy season in Guatemala has supposedly been the most difficult one in living memory. At only 2/3 of the way through the season, we’ve already had 40% more rainfall than is usual for the entire rainy season. This past weekend there were heavy rains which lead to mudslides along the Pan-American Highway, burying dozens of people who were traveling in buses and others who were trying to help those who were stranded. Natural disaster cleanup in Guatemala is hard enough due to difficult road conditions and limited resources for heavy machinery, but this disaster came at a very inopportune time due to the still lingering effects of Tropical Storm Agatha, which wreaked havoc on the countryside with heavy winds and rain at the end of May.  This news story gives an overview of the situation in Mexico and Guatemala, and the video below has some footage.

There are some Non-Governmental Organizations who are working to aid people directly affected by the storm. Giving to reputable NGO’s is the best way to make sure your donations go to the people who really need it instead of lining the pockets of government officials. Wuqu’ Kawoq is a great NGO that provides medical services to the community in their native language. They have a program which aims to provide those affected with sustainable clean water, and you can donate here. Mayan families is another respectable organization that provides many forms of care like food and housing, and you can donate via their website.

Doña Luisa Xicotencatl

There is a wonderful bread store in Antigua that we love to visit called Doña Luisa Xicotencatl (or Doña Luisa for short). They have specially baked bread every day of the week, which varies between yogurt bread, banana, carrot walnut, and olive among others. Yum!

They also have a wonderful homemade 2% yogurt (with live cultures – a must for the international traveler!) that is made fresh twice daily.

The story of the house on 4a Calle Oriente is interesting in itself. It was once the residence of Luisa Xicotencatl, an indigenous woman from Tlaxcala, Mexico. She was presented to Hernán Cortéz upon his arrival to Montezuma’s Aztec empire, who then gave her to Pedro the Alvarado, the conquistador who did much of the plundering of Guatemala. The couple eventually resided in this house in Antigua with their children.

Despite the violent history of its previous owner, the Doña Luisa bakery now boasts a beautiful mural that pays homage to the plurality of cultures and landscapes that comprise contemporary Guatemala.

Happy First Birthday

Happy First Birthday to my little guy! He turned one year old on July 28th.

How has it been a year? And how was I blessed with the most wonderful creature on earth?

I’ve said before that being a mom was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But in its challenge also lies its wonder. A mom must give up everything that she ever felt was important to her own sense of self. Or at least be prepared to give it up. But in exchange, a mom is afforded the most wonderful, purest love possible.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful thing. You make my life complete.

Guatemala: Great Differences, Great Faith

Catholic, Protestant, Mayan Spiritualist… what do these categories imply? Who is permitted entry into these “religions” that contribute to the formation of different groups? Must they always be in conflict?

Guatemala is a country built on differences. While many nations make a claim to homogeneity for the sake of unification, Guatemala has always been a country of plurality. Home to a large mestizo population (who refer to themselves as Ladinos), there is an even larger contingent of Mayan peoples, around 60% of the total population. Within that Mayan population, there exist twenty-three different ethno-linguistic groupings.

Guatemala is considered to be one of the most Catholic countries of Latin America. Nevertheless, the influence of the Evangelical church is steadily growing, such that data indicates that the country now has the largest percentage of Evangelical Christians in all of Latin America. In the changing religious landscape of Guatemala, figures show that 60% of Guatemalans are Catholic, and 30% are Evangelical Christians. Mayan spirituality is more difficult to identify with a numerical figure, as many people profess to be another religion but also engage in Mayan spiritual practices. We can assume, however, that the majority of people who self-declare as Mayan also practice some form of Mayan spirituality. Rarely do these groups of believers converse with one another about their faiths. Rarely are there opportunities for different religious leaders to meet in a public format and to create a conversation with the greater community.

It is precisely this environment of plurality that our symposium attempted to mediate. On July 17^th 2010, I and my fellow Fulbrighter Kara Andrade held a symposium entitled “El Día y El Destino: Desde los Derechos Hasta el 2012,” in which we heard from a panel of six religious leaders: three Mayan Daykeepers (leaders of Mayan community spiritual practices), an Evangelical Pastor, a director of a Christian community organization, and a Catholic Priest. The goal was to bring together leaders of these often opposing groups so that they could talk about what role religion might have in the future of Guatemala. Will religion continue to divide? Will Mayan spiritual practices only ever be recognized as tourism? Or will these leaders, in all of their differences, be a source of positive guidance and unification for future generations?

A Mayan Daykeeper once told me that Guatemala is a country of great faith. As a country that has been battered by a recent four-decade-long civil war and is still plagued by ongoing violence, many people look to ritual practices of faith for answers. These leaders, both Mayan and Ladino, were given space to speak in a public forum about what role they and their practices might have in leading the way for the future of Guatemala. While conclusive answers are rarely easy, through our symposium we discovered that religious groups are not insulated according to ethnic groups. A Mayan may be Catholic, Christian, or practice traditional beliefs and continue to be proud of their Mayan heritage. Whether Maya or Ladino, Catholic or Christian or Mayan Spiritualist, all Guatemalans share a desire for mutual respect and understanding.

The webcast of the symposium can be found recorded here on the HablaGuate website.