Semana

My Tuesday class in Cantel has become quite the disciplined workshop. Juana splits her time between making and talking with HIlda, but has developed pretty consistent craftsmanship. Her biggest problem now is that in the passion of gesticulating during a speech she will drop things. Olga is quick, consistent, quiet, and confident. I don't know anything about her except that she can follow a design, is a good problem solver, and has intense accuracy with her fingers. She doesn't talk except to whisper to Dilma. Dilma is perfect but has high expectations. She is hesitant to try new designs for fear of messing up the first one, and will act really embarrassed when she hands me something because she sees an invisible flaw. It's impossible for me to give her a pep talk, I don't know the words and I don't think she'd believe me.

My Wednesday class in Xela is interesting. They are more used to fast paced, instant gratification, constant stimulation, city life than my others. Cantel and Xeavaj are content to sit for 2 hours and make the same things over and over again, knowing that each one they finish gains them money. My class in Xela is bored! bored bored bored. Sylva, who works in the sewing project here and is related or close friends with everyone in my class, approached me and asked if we were doing the same old things again this week, that she's heard from the girls that they are tired of it. I guess they are either intimidated of the "teacher" to tell me, or are afraid I wouldn't understand their Spanish. Or other things. So I changed the plans a bit, and gave them the option of either making more earrings (stressing the fact that that's where the money comes from) or playing with the new materials that I have and helping me make new designs.

Here's the breakdown of the students that I have here: Alicia is an older woman, and seems to be a bit of a hobbyist. After one of the first classes, she went out to a hardware store and bought whatever pliers she could find so she could practice at home. She's insecure with herself. She wants to know how to make beautiful things, but doesn't think she has the creativity to do it. She's always telling me I have so much creativity and so much talent, while discounting her own. She opted for the experimenting option, first asking me to teach her how to make some objects I was working on, then deciding that was too hard, and moving on to other things. She made a lot of stuff, and some of it was really great. I tried to give her lots of encouragement, and I think I'm going to work with some of her ideas. Etna is also a bit older. She's funny and a little sarcastic and is always laughing at something. She and Rocio, who is her neice, look and act exactly alike. Their skill level is the same and they worked together to make ideas with the raw materials. All of which were really cool. They're very creative, and know a lot of craft techniques on their own from their own hobbies. Lourdes is the youngest, I believe, in University to be a social worker I think. She's either a little shy or a little aloof. I kind of get the feeling she's here because the rest of her family is and she either doesn't want to be left out or doesn't want to make a scene about not coming anymore. I've heard Sylvia, her mom, say that she likes wearing jewelry more than making it. She works well and quickly, but doesn't try very hard. She didn't have any ideas so she just made more earrings on Wednesday, even though I have the suspicion she's the most bored of all.

I now have a couple sets of old tools that I never use, and I think I might start sending them home to make their products. I think three hours in a little room with me isn't the best way for them to work. The idea session this week was fun and productive, but I'm afraid it's a waste of their time if it becomes a weekly occurrence. When I order more materials from Ben, I will also order a few more tools so that we can do this.

Xeavaj had their first class with real silver this week. I was so upset after last week with them not improving, as well as the fact that I knew I was being pushed around. This week I put it all out there. I showed them the bags with the real beads and silver in them, they were curious, and I told them that this is not practice anymore. If you want to work with this, and make money (very important) you have to give me 5 perfect examples of each technique. And if one's not perfect, remake it. So they really got to work, even Marta put her game face on. When they were done I handed out the bolsitas with the earring ingredients in them, and they did really well. I was extremely happy with them. And extremely happy that I finally got to do what I came there to do- get them making jewelry so they can make some money.

There my students go like this: Marta is the major Spanish speaker, the most outspoken, and the most friendly/manipulative. I write about her every week, she's such a mystery to me. I am completely annoyed and frustrated and sometimes even angered by her, but I just cannot help but love her. She knows exactly where she is in the world and does what she does to take advantage of her situation. I found out a bit more about her Thursday, which answers a lot of my questions. She is completely different from the other women in Xeavaj, who are generally shy and stay in packs. The house we work in is hers, and I asked her if she lived with family. She said no, just my boyfriend's mother. So she's not from Xeavaj, she's from a neighboring village, and I expect her boyfriend sends money from Texas (where he lives) to support them. I want to ask more questions about him and their future life, but never know what's appropriate. Also, she's only 22. Antonia (who's name I thought was Maria?) may or may not be Marta's mother in law. I wasn't able to ask, but she seems like the matron of the house, so I might be safe to assume. She's hilarious, always laughing. She hasn't participated in my class for a couple weeks, but I expect she'll be back. She was the quickest learner. Also there's Pascuala, who I think might be the youngest, but it's hard to tell. As far as I can tell she doesn't know a bit of Spanish, never talks, just works. and works and works. She has the most compact hands with the littlest fingers, and when she holds something with the pliers, she has so much strength she tends to bite through the metal. If I ever demonstrate anything, even something specific for another girl with a different problem, she stops everything and watches transfixed, absorbing every little movement. She's exceptional. Francisca and Juana come and go. Sometimes they're there, sometimes not. I haven't gotten much contact with them.

After class is where the day gets interesting.

First of all, there's a new AMA volunteer. Her name is Julia, 27, from Germany, and she's here for a couple months and found AMA through a volunteer directory, wants to find a way to help. Right now she's just following Hilda around until they decide on something she can do, right now it's mostly watching the kids. Also, there's a new intern, Christine, who is a highschool student in Xela doing an internship both with the women's circle with Hilda and the sewing project with Sylvia. She, also, is just following HIlda around to get acquainted with the groups.

Thursday, Hilda dropped Hugh and I off at Xeavaj, and she, Julia, Christine, and a different driver than Gonzalo, went out to their other communities. On the way back from one, on the dirt road between Xeavaj (the end of the road before a cliff off the mountains) and the main highway, a car came around a blind turn, and though our driver swerved as far as possible out of the way, the other car slammed and scraped down the truck across the drivers side doors. The car didn't stop trying to run away, so our truck turned around and followed it. After a while I guess they gave up, and there was a man, his wife, and what looked like maybe a 3 or 4 year old boy inside. The police here are entirely too harsh (you can probably imagine) so Hilda didn't want to call them, but also didn't want to have to pay for the repairs that weren't our fault. After some arguing, apparently (Julia told me all of this) they agreed to come back to Xela with us, go to the mechanics, and discuss how they were going to pay for this.
So we all piled in (no weaving class for me) the family jumped in the back, and we went all the way back to Xela, to the mechanics, and back to the house, where the family waited for a couple hours while everything got worked out. I still have no idea what they decided. I felt bad for them, they clearly didn't have enough money to pay for the repairs, not to mention they had to sit in this strange office/workshop/house all afternoon waiting for their doom. Something like that never EVER would have happened in the states. First of all, I never would have thought to bring the people that just ran into my car back to my house, and then I never would have been able to force them to stay there for three hours, losing their whole day. I guess the threat of police involvement is pretty intense. And Guatemalans are surprisingly patient people. Even the little boy never made a peep. I have no idea how it was settled. Claudia has been deathly ill with the flu, so I don't think she was much up for making decisions. Her mom came in to town to take care of Luie and Yanessi and the house, and Claudia must have stayed in bed for 2 days straight. I never saw her though I know she never left. Friday she and the family left around 8. She said she was trying to find a doctor because she's having terrible back pain, too, and afterwards was going to San Marcos for the weekend. I'm glad her mom could come in town at least. I can't imagine caring for a 6 year old by yourself when you can't get out of bed.

The next thing that happened Thursday was just bizarre and eery. That night I was in bed reading my strange and somewhat spooky book, and it was completely quiet and solemn in the whole house. Then the bed started shaking, more violently, the walls and roof creaked, I woke Hugh up who was trying to read beside me, and it settled down to what felt like floating on relatively calm water, which went on consistently for a good 30 seconds before everything was quiet again. I've never never never felt an earthquake before! It was so disturbing. Just bad timing maybe. All the ghosts in Guatemala came out after that. There was a thunderstorm across the mountains, so there was lots of silent lightning outside but no rain, and only occasionally a distant rumble of thunder. I got up and went out to make something warm to comfort me and talked to Yanessi for a bit, who said that it's relatively frequent that there are tremors here. This one (which was extremely gentle, just spooky) was actually more forceful than most. After that the rain started in earnest, and I was so creeped out I had to listen to music while I fell asleep. Exciting, but I'll be happy if I never feel one of those again.

Friday, and I'll try to make this brief, Julia, Hugh and I went to Espumpuja with Hilda, who was suffering from a little bit of whiplash as well as the beginnings of the flu caught from Claudia, I think. There, I watched the women measure and set up a backstrap loom from the beginning, and watched them weave for a while. Then we came home, ate some pizza, and went to another Friday dinner at the school to say bye to some of our friends who were leaving. Next week the school goes from 12 students to 3. Then some salsa dancing with Carlos at La Rumba, and home. This morning Hugh had a few more hours of class with Carlos, and then I think we're going to take advantage of this beautiful blue day to hike up to an overlook on one of the mountains near us.

So that's it.