More Time in Xela.

February 3rd, 2009. Approximately 9:21 PM

Phew. So, I’m really not writing a lot (surprise, surprise). I think about writing every night, but by the end of the days, I’m so exhausted that I just want to shower and sleep. Using the brain power to try to understand the Espanol that is all around me really does wear me out. Usually I’m running around all day too, with little time to rest. I would say a typical day here in Xela consists of me waking up at around 7 de la manana (in the morning), forcing myself to emerge from under my warm blankets to face the cold (because nights/mornings get to below 30 degrees, and we have no heating), and walking the three steps to the right of my door to get to the kitchen. There, my host mama makes me a pancake, which I eat with fresh, homemade strawberry jam, and banana mush. Then I finish getting ready and head to the school. School is from eight until one de la tarde (in the afternoon). Then I usually hop online for a few to check my e-mails, and then I head home to have lunch with my mama and all the neighbors/teachers that she cooks for every day. After that I either rush to my weaving school to continue my scarf or head to a lecture or activity with my program or just with the school. Then comes dinner, and then whatever activity is going on for the night. Basically, my point is, it’s a jam-packed day with no time to rest.

So what’s been going on these past couple of days? A lot.

In Spanish I am learning a lot, but I’m also at the point where I’ve got all the easy stuff done, and now I feel like I’m not moving as fast through it all. I wish I could just understand everything right away (but I did get a 100% on my first written exam! And I actually found our oral exam/discussion to be quite interesting. We discussed politics and the realities of Guatemala). I’m still enjoying my classes though, and I really do like my teacher. I am going to the village of Cantel in two weeks to spend a week in the 100% indigenous village, and my teacher now is going to come up there to continue to teach me, rather than me starting with another one. That made me happy to hear. She is so open with me, and I feel like I know so much about her already. I love when we just talk about life, especially since she speaks no english, so when I understand her stories it's even more exciting. The other day I was doing a worksheet where I was asked to respond to the questions. One of them was “Do you know how to dance the Merengue?” I said no, but wanted to make a bit of conversation, so I asked my teacher if she knew how. Little did I know what the question would lead to. She started telling me how she was not allowed to dance, wear make-up, get her ears pierced, or cut her hair when she was younger because of her religion (Catholicism) and because of this regions machismo. Then she started telling me about the time she did cut her hair. A male friend of hers called her cell phone while she was with her ex-husband. Her husband freaked out and started beating her and hitting her with his belt. She was pregnant at the time, and he left after beating her. Feeling like she needed to be freed, she went and got her hair cut. When her husband returned to her two weeks later to see that she had cut her beautiful hair, he beat her again and then left for good. She is now a single mother of four, but I respect her so much for being so strong and for working so hard to take care of her children. She teaches me in the morning, and then she has another student from two to seven. What a long day!


I am really enjoying my weaving. I love trying to speak with the women that work there, and I love to watch their children run around being children as I weave. It just feels normal, and it’s so relaxing and calming. I am about 1/3 of the way done with the third and final step of the process. I’m very excited to see how it turns out, and very proud that I took the initiative to actually proceed with this activity even while all my friends here decided they didn’t have enough time.



“If you have a crisis, you have an opportunity as well.”

That was said during our lecture today from a man in the business field in Guatemala. He had a very interesting perspective, and mainly focused on the fact that tourism and bringing foreign-owned businesses into the country are things that can push Guatemala to success. Education was also a key part to his lecture. But most of it didn’t sit well with me, because I feel like with tourism comes such a fake surface, and makes the culture just something to come and see rather than something that people live. I also don’t like the idea of importing foreign ideas to a place that doesn’t necessarily have them yet. I think a lot of America’s and the world’s ideas are good, but at the same time, so many of them are corrupt. It’s like taking a child’s innocence. I’d rather Guatemala kept it. Also, I don’t like the idea of foreign-owned business because undoubtedly that leads to exploitation, although he said that America isn’t really the problem country here in that regard. He said they have had a lot of trouble with Korean companies coming, hiring people, having them produce product, and then declaring bankruptcy/leaving without paying their former employees. I can’t believe stuff like that happens. I mean, I guess I can, but I wish so much that humans would be humane and not always focus on money and business advances.

I also got to hear from an ex-Guerilla. It’s so strange to have someone sit before you who is an ex-Guerilla. I think it’s just because I’ve read so much about them that they have become so foreign, almost inhuman maybe? I’m not sure. It was very interesting and heartbreaking to hear his perspective though. I really found it interesting that the reason our speaker joined the Guerilla forces was because of his parents and family, which was the same reason that our army official had joined the army. Just two different experiences. Two different lives. I wonder what each would be like if their families hadn’t influenced them. If they had been born in a different class, with a different status. Anyway, the Guerilla talked about the bloodbath that was Guatemala and his experiences trying to succeed and survive. I really appreciate the opportunity to see the contrast of the perspectives of these men on extreme opposites of the spectrum during the war years. It’s a unique opportunity, and I think it’s really good to try to actually understand today’s reality by looking at these perspectives.

Hmmm. This past weekend we left Xela to go to Chichicastenango. It’s such a beautiful city, and the drive there through the mountains was incredible. We were literally driving through clouds and the top of the mountains. I wanted to get out so I could “walk on the clouds,” just because I thought it would be cool to say that I’ve done it. On the way there, there was a lot of beauty, but also a lot of evidence of the poverty and the awful realities of this country. For instance, there were drunk men asleep in the ditches at the sides of the roads (along with in the roads of Chichi), and I just prayed that they be safe from cars that could so easily slip into the gutter while coming around a bend. I can’t even imagine a life where I would drink so much that I would just fall over on the side of the road and sleep for hours. I really wonder what each of their true stories are…where they come from, what their background is, how they ended up where they are, and if there are people that know them and care that this is where they are now. Seeing the bodies lying on the road makes them look eerily dead. It kept bringing me back to Israel when I saw the man lying on the pavement after falling out of the building. So overall, seeing that was just hard for me all around.

There were also so many children around Chichi trying to sell things and working all day to do so. It really made me think about my childhood and how easy and happy it was. These children should be playing, learning, and using their imaginations, not asking white people who come through the town to buy the painting necklaces and woven stuffed animals that they have made so that they can help to feed their families. What a responsibility. We have no idea how lucky we are. Or are we? What’s better? A life with a lot of material but no sense of appreciation and no love? Or the opposite? It’s hard to say. I wonder whose life is more “full.”

We went to a woman’s cooperative about 20 minutes from the city. It was a little village that was massacred during the war times. People were tied together and burned inside of the churches and the schools. The women at the cooperative had lost their husbands and started this project with the help of the evangelical Methodist church on May 6, 1988 (my day of birth). They really do make some beautiful pieces, and I ended up spending more money than I had planned to there, but I did get some amazing things, and I felt like I was supporting a good thing, so it’s alright. I also went to church on Sunday morning, which was a very interesting experience. Since a lot of the population in Chichi only speaks Quiche, the indigenous language spoken by the Mayan descendants, the service was held in both Spanish and Quiche. Also, outside of the church their were people doing Mayan ceremonies, and many many people selling flowers to be used as offerings and gifts. Sunday is also market day, and it was incredible to literally see the entire city transformed into a market. There were thousands of stands and so many nice things to purchase.

It was nice to take a break from Xela, but at the same time it was so nice to get back here. I like having a home base, and my own space in my room (even if I don’t really spend much time in it).

When we were in Chichi my group met four guys. Two from France, one from California, and one from ISRAEL! I didn’t hang out with them the night they met because I was on the phone with my love, but then they came to Xela the same day we came back, and I hung out with them that night. They are probably some of the nicest, most intelligent, and chill guys I’ve met in awhile. It’s really nice to hang out with them, and I really seem to connect with the Israeli, although I feel so comfortable with all of them.

Last night we all went out, and then Heylal, the Israeli, asked if we wanted him to walk us home. We said no cause we were a group of 5 girls, and I didn’t want him to have to walk all the way back alone, but it turns out we should have said yes. It was just so quiet and eery and scary walking, and Chels and I live closest to the school so we walked the other girls home to their houses, and then walked back just us. Then Jessica got locked out of her house and ended up walking all the way back to mine to sleep. It was just really stressful, and I’m not doing that again.

Also, Guatemalans like to set of fireworks, but they echo in my courtyard, and really really sound like gunshots. I thought I was escaping that tension of hearing noises that could possibly be gunshots when I left Israel. Oh well.

Okay well I’m going to jump in the shower, then talk to Abby, then perhaps watch an episode of the Office, cause I’m just feeling it right now.

Con Amor,

Leah