My weekend was so dauntingly event filled I’ve been procrastinating writing about it. But now things are starting to pile up and I can’t write about mis estudiantes until I write about everything else. I really want to write about the women, but it has to wait.
Friday night we got home from school and Hugh wasn’t feeling well. He was a little bit feverish, and having stomach cramps. We had to leave that night to go to Chichi to spend the night, and he wasn’t up for it. So we loaded him up with some medicine, and gave him a free weekend to sleep it off. After two hours of driving, Lupe, Vlad, Marvin, and I made it to Chichi and spent the night in a little hotel there. We were only in it for 6 hours, so I can’t really make a comment as to whether it was nice or not. The bed served its function just fine.
At 4 again we left the hotel on our way to this attraction near Coban, in the central lowlands of Guatemala. We weren’t going to eat until somewhere around 8:00, so I made sure I sat in front, since my carsickness is so much worse on an empty stomach. It didn’t help that much. Once again, I just tried to sleep through it, though there were occasions when I felt downright dizzy. We drove through the mountains, some of the most beautiful peaks I’ve ever seen. They were completely vertical and incredibly high, but there were still one or two plots of farmland, nestled right onto the peaks. At some point, we got to a bridge over a gorgeous teal blue river and stopped to take pictures. When we opened the door we realized we could see straight down to the rocks below us-the bridge had an iron grating for road surface. It was a bit disquieting. After a while we got back in the truck and drove another maybe half mile until traffic was stopped in front of the end of pavement/beginning of dirt and gravel. We were wondering why there wasn’t any oncoming traffic.. Marvin got out and asked around, found out they were dynamiting the road ahead and it wouldn’t open till 9:00. He told them we were peace corp volunteers (which would make us very important) but I’m not sure if that helped. It was 8, so we went back down to the river to entertain ourselves. I found a rock to perch on to watch the tadpoles, Vlad took some video with his borrowed video camera, and Lupe and Marvin apparently went rock hunting. She called me over at some point because she found a huge chunk of jade. Definitely jade. Later, they also came across this strange rock that was semi-translucent and kind of the size and shape of a tree trunk. It was super soft and brittle, and marvin knocked off a couple chunks with the block of jade. At first they thought it was amber-it’s about the same color and transparency, but when we got it wet it had bands running through it like agate, and it had an obvious crystal structure that was really brittle and fragile. I don’t know what it is, I’m bringing a chunk back though to see if anyone in the US could tell me, or at least cut it into something I could use for jewelry!
We went back up the mountain, where they were letting traffic through, and fought our way through the construction zone, that was probably 20 or more miles long. We finally, FINALLY stopped for breakfast at this cute, small restaurant. It was all open air, and they served us blackbeans and eggs and tortillas. Delicious tortillas. Back on the road, this time Vlad’s in front, another two hours and we’re in the jungle. We turned down an undeveloped road, and every time Lupe opened the window to take a picture wet, hot air rushed in. We passed through some small rural village, which was interesting for me, because the costume changed quite a bit with the heat. The women there wear cortes with the specified million yards of fabric, but instead of wrapping it around the waste multiple times, they have what looks like an elastic wasteline, and the fabric is bunched around so that it’s more free. Also, they don’t wear huipils like they do here, they wear a spaghetti strap top or lingerie, with a billowy squarish top on top of that, made out of neon lace. Usually neon, not always.
Out of the jungle appeared these really well maintained cottages, and a swimming pool. What? A swimming pool? This place was apparently a kind of resort. There was a man made lake with a swimming pool attached to it, with a large club house that was kitchen/bar/office in the middle, restaurant on the outside, and no windows, just railings. This place is developed around a natural spring and laguna, with a cave and zipline and other things. We paid Q75 for the tour up to the spring, and ate a quick lunch in the restaurant. The tour left at 2:00, and by then it had started sprinkling. We jumped in what was basically a jeep with grandstand seating in the back, drove less than a mile, and they dumped us out at a trail that led to a blue lake nestled in the trees. It was dumping rain at this point, and we waited under a shelter for a while, hoping it would let up. We were there scouting for places to bring new groups of ecotourists in the future with HSP. Kind of a fun diversion for them to do between building stoves and whatnot. We wanted pictures for the new website that Vladimir is here making, so we pushed Vlad and Marvin out with our only rain equipment to take some, while Lupe and I tried to stay dry under the shelter. After about 10 minutes of kicking the dirt, I said “I don’t mind getting wet..” “me neither!” and we ran out into the rain anyway.
Under the canopy there is the most gorgeous vivid blue lake hugged by large leafed, waxy green jungle plants. There were some guides there that asked if we wanted to see the spring, which of course we do, so he took us up a muddy trail, occasionally crossing fallen trees with railings attached to them. At the top of the trail is the spring, which is kind of half cave too. Half of it is overhung with stone, stalactites and all, and half of it is under tree and sky. The guide told us there is an underwater cave there that you can scuba dive to if you want, granted you come with your own license and equipment. Also there is a cave in the wall above the lake (I don’t know how you get to it) that goes back 50 meters, in which the developers found an altar and various drawings, writings, and objects from Maya religious ceremonies. One writing said something about how this was the cave of the Moon, which also has something to do with the corn. I can’t fully remember, and Lupe isn’t a very good translator. Below the cave is a waterfall, which I’ve posted a picture of, complete with rope bridge in front of it. On our way back we stopped back at the larger lake with the zipline, and by god, I did not spend 8 hours being deathly car sick to just look at a zipline! I took off my boots and jumped, clothes and all! 3 times! The tour guides didn’t even bother looking at me like I was crazy, I think they just sighed. Another stupid American. If I only get one opportunity to fly over a perfectly blue lake of fresh water, surrounded by tropical foliage, in the middle of a rain storm, I’m going to take advantage of it.
After that, we walked barefoot back to the jeep and were able to change clothes in the clubhouse. After 8 hours of driving, and only 2 hours of visiting, we got back into that damn truck and headed out again. It was still raining when we headed out, and still raining when we got back onto the new pavement on the way to Coban. As we were going up a steep hill, the truck lost traction a bit, and the wheels spun. It happened again on a different hill. At first Marvin thought there was oil on the road, and he stopped and checked out the tires to make sure they were functioning correctly. After a bit, we came to a place where the traffic was stopped, navigated through it, and passed a tractor trailor, inserted into the guardrail on a pin turn. There was a policeman there, and Marvin asked what was going on with the road.. the policeman said that the pavement was made with bad materials, and so every time it’s wet, it gets slick like cement. It rains for a straight 6 months! So…. I’m going to avoid Coban for a while.
We decided to not even bother going all the way back to Chichi, and looked for a hotel there in Coban. We found one really easily, ate at Pollo Campero again, and I slept like a log. What a good sleep that was. We left again at 7, stopped at a bakery for a breakfast of bread and cheese in the car, and went straight back into that construction. This time I had food in my belly, and the climate was so nice we had the windows down, so I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The landscape there is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s close to the Rockies in Colorado, but imagine that but populated with farmland and the unimaginably vibrant colors of native dress. There is something so inherently gorgeous in the mixture of impossible landscape and human endeavor.
When we got to Chichi we went to one of the same restaurants we went to last year with the whole group. Apparently Marvin and Fernando and some of the other guys that drive/are firefighters in Chichi own in or something. We got a delicious lunch for free, either way. Then we left to check out the market. We went in one shop (thank god one with a roof) for one second, turn around and it’s pouring. We’re at the gulch of two hills, with the street rising on either side, and at the bottom is an open vent for water. The amount of water that was coming down was completely awe inspiring, and the sheer amount of water that came rushing down those hills was quite the spectacle. Especially to the right, where the hill was higher, the shack-keeper in the street there was wearing sandals with a two inch platform, and was still over her ankles in torrential brown water, laced with plastic packaging. We stood there for a good 20 or 30 minutes, waiting for it to let up, which eventually it did, but the water was still so deep in the streets. We were running out of time before Marvin came to pick us up, so we braved it. Towards the left the water wasn’t ankle deep, and most the people had cleared out, so it ended up not being hard to walk. We checked out some tiendas, walked past the giant white church where I took a memorable photo last year of a woman selling flowers, and went to one shop where Lupe knew the merchant so figured she could get good prices. She wanted coins, antique or replica coins with holes punch in them for jewelry. There were a few, most didn’t have holes, and I just plain don’t much like the idea of putting these pewter coins in the jewelry. It’s hard to make something like that look valid, or stylish for that matter. What we did find were these charms- nickel I think- handmade in the shapes of birds, peacocks, roosters, donkeys, an owl, a fish, something that looks like a platapuss?, and a lion I think. We got everything they had, 8 in all. I think they’re adorable. Don’t know what to do with them, but I love them. Then we went to another store where we bought clothing for alternatives. It’s the same woven articles they have in all the tourist shops around here, but half the price since we were basically buying wholesale. I made Lupe get wrapskirts, 24 in all, of every imaginable combination of colors, and she also got these blouses for her “gay customers.” She knows her clientele, I’ll give her that much. A lot of my suggestions for buying are coming from Meg, who emphatically and ecstatically told me right before I left that “tribal patterns are so in right now.” I got online and looked up Urban Outfitters’ website, and sure enough, it’s all over the place. Actually last night Meg sent me an email of a lot of things that are popular in NYC that have Guatemalan inspired patterns. Really detailed descriptions of things that are or will be successful… I know that one of Meg’s many talents is merchandising, and watching/analyzing/making predictions in the fashion scene, so I totally trust her, and I’m really psyched for how good this might end up being for Ben and Lupe in the store. I’m amazed with how lucky this is! So I’ve been pushing her suggestions, and they’re going with it. I hope it works out for the best. Every day I go in the sewing studio and ooh and ah over the new patterns Sylvia is making. Seriously, these bags are so amazingly cool. I can’t wait till one is done so I can post pictures. And I want one of each. And one of each for Meg, and one of each for Mom, and one of each for everyone I know.
Soooo, 30 minutes late for Marvin, we find him and head the heck home. That 2 hour drive was like dessert. Got in, and I’ve rarely seen Hugh in such a giddily good mood! He had a ball here by himself apparently-Claudia and family left for Tehutlah, so Hugh got the run of things. He tends to incline towards a solitary nature, so he enjoyed the lonesomeness. Got to wake up early and play guitar or cook or whatever without worrying about waking people up, got to go to bed really early at night without me trying to drag him around, walk around in his underwear, who knows. He thinks he was just exhausted and had eaten something bad, because after a long night’s sleep he didn’t feel sick at all anymore. So great news with him, I was worried about him all weekend and wasn’t able to call to check up on him.
That night we ate dinner together, drank un pocito tequila, and Hugh and Vlad traded off playing guitar (folk for pearl jam.)
And THERE. was my weekend. Tah dah!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Jueves y parte de Viernes
THURSDAY!
What a massive day. Wednesday night, Marvin came to the house. He’s one of the drivers we had when we came here last year. He usually lives in Chichicastenango, which is about 2 hours away. He knocked on my door and told me to be ready to leave at 4:30. So in my brand new room I slept like a feather, which is the farthest thing I can think of from a rock. Every time a car went by or a dog barked I woke up. Plus the room is really big and smells kind of bad, so it was just a bad night. So 3:30 rolls around and I’m awake but stay in bed till I have to get up. Marvin and I leave at 4:30 and I have to tell him I don’t know much Spanish, which really might have been a bad thing to do, because instead of trying to talk to each other, I think he thought of me as being kind of hopeless and we didn’t talk at all after that. We picked up Sylvia at her house and got on the road.
5 hours later we’re in Antigua, stopped in front of a hotel which apparently Lupe and Vladimir stayed at that night. Lupe jumped out and directed us to a restaurant to meet her at. There I had a giant bowl with a mixture of fresh fruit, granola, and rich yogurt. Which I ate about 10 bites of. Seriously, the roads around here are nothing I’ve ever experience before. Add that to the nature of the truck, and I’m toast. It has a row of seats behind the driver that’s equal the amount of space as probably my Camry, but it’s the cab of a truck, so the windows are small and placed more industrially than esthetically. Then the windows are tinted, so I’m in a truck pod, I can’t escape the interior of the truck, so I get so unbelievably nauseous. The only thing I can do then is to just try to fall asleep. Which I did. But it didn’t help my appetite.
After we finished breakfast, we all piled in, Vlad included, to go to a market in Antigua. This town is tourist city. There were probably more white people there than Guatemaltecos. Antigua is also ancient. It was the capital of the country for a while, till a water volcano destroyed it. That’s right, a volcano erupted that was full of hyper-heated water and killed everyone. I’m not sure what year that happened in, but it wasn’t the first time Antigua was destroyed either. There was a fire at some point too, if my memory serves me correctly, and each time the city was rebuilt it was in a slightly different location, so there are technically 3 different Antiguas. The market was kind of like an outdoor shopping mall full of those kinds of stores that you see in tourist towns. Carved masks and lots of weavings. There was one store that sold all second hand Mayan traditional clothing, which is where we got a bunch of belts and different patterned items for inspiration and to actually use for new jewelry ideas. I also made them get this unbelievable brilliantly colored Corte. Cortes are traditional skirts that is honestly just made out of straight yardage. It is rectangular in shape, and contains something like 5 yards of material. It’s wrapped around the waist several times and secured with a long woven belt that is also simply wrapped around and the ends are tucked in. Usually, the corte has a simple vertical and horizontal cross embroidered on top of the multicolored fabric. Carlos told me the pattern of the horizontal line indicates the days of the Mayan Calendar, and the vertical line signifies the months. These people are the real deal. I’m telling you. When your every day clothes have that many hidden secrets, you’re not messing around as a culture.
After we got what we were looking for there (I got a belt with birds embroidered on it, what a surprise,) we were walking through the market, talking about ideas with Guatemalan jade, as we then also stumbled onto a store exclusively selling it. Lupe asked where the storekeeper got her jade, took a card, and we went back to the hotel to pack up the two new travelers. Lupe made a few frantic phone calls which I couldn’t even begin to translate, I had no idea what was going on, and then told us to hurry, we were going to the jade factory. I’m pretty confused at this point, too. She gets in a cab, we follow in the truck, and end up at this compound behind a tall steel fence and razor wire. We knock at the door, totally uninvited, some lady comes finally and lets us in. On the right, under a corrugated steel roof and a fence are 5-6 men and women in front of lapidary machines, grinding and polishing. On the left is a larger roofed section with some bellows and hammer, which I take to be the metal working side of it. We follow the path back and back, through papaya trees, to where some automatic machines are cutting giant bricks of jade into more manageable pieces, and go inside this giant, expensively furnished house in the middle of a giant, well manicured yard, sit at the dining room table and order things. They brought out every color Guatemala had to offer, every shape, and we even ordered some custom. Lupe knew of one other factory, apparently, so we got a little from one and headed to see what the other was about. That place was smaller and clearly more geared towards tourists. The silver workers were under and open air studio type building (which I am incredibly jealous of) and inside was a showroom with all their makings. Lupe asked for the raw stones, no silver, and some lady scratched some up unwillingly. We looked around, noticing how the prices were not only high, but they were marked in dollars, not quetzales, which is a very bad sign. The lady ended up telling us their jade was something like 10x more expensive than the other places. So we left there in a hurry.
It’s about 1:00 now, and I’m thinking we’ve done what we needed to do, we can go home now and be back in time for a late dinner, but no, we’re off to Guatemala City. All five of us and luggage included. We stopped at Pollo Campero (the chick fil a of Guatemala) and headed to a shop downtown that vends fabric. I’ll just go ahead and say that this place is my heaven. It is a cooperative project where traditionally made Guatemalan fabrics are woven in bulk for the world market. It’s incredibly good quality, incredibly well made, stunningly beautiful, and incredibly expensive. I got the honor of being looked at as the most educated in style and fashionable person of the bunch, I guess my qualifications were that I was young and from the U.S. Also, being related to Meg counts in my favor. I basically got to pick out all the fabrics for the new line of bags Sylvia is making for AlterNatives. I was in heaven. Her designs are all so incredibly cool, one of them is actually inspired by a bag I sent to Lupe, telling her something like it would be popular at the store. So that bag will be made out of the corte we bought in Antigua, and then others from the fabrics we picked out Thursday. 4 in total I think. Heaven. And I want them all. Sylvia is so incredibly talented as a seamstress, and the work she and the two other girls do is just amazing. I want one so bad and they haven’t even finished the designs yet.
Well, anyway, enough of my bliss session. We got back in the car and made the long trip home. I was in the middle of the back seat, which was good because it gave me the full view out the windshield, but bad because I’m trapped. I don’t know what it is about boys. It’s like they expand once they sit down. They will take up as much space as they believe they can physically allow. So I’ve got my knees jammed together, halfway in Sylvia’s seat, because as time goes by, Vladimir just expands. It’s a physical law that applies to most boys that will forever confuse me. I think if I took a particular offender and tied his legs together, after 3 hours in a car, the rope will have frayed and snapped. Such is the force of the expanding boy. (Sorry Vlad, this isn't completely directed at you, but boys in general.)
Sorry, that was quite the tangent.
Once again, incredibly sick. Vladimir keeps talking to me, and I keep uh-huh-ing, but I just can't can't keep up with the chatter. With my stomach about at the level of the gravel beneath the tires, I’m just not up for brainwork. I want to go to sleep. Eventually I think I do.
We arrive around 9, eat some black beans and eggs, and talk for a while. Claudia introduces Vlad to the house. I think he’s only staying here about a week though. He says he wants to live somewhere that is more socially active. This place is a bit of a wallflower as far as that’s concerned. I like it that way though.
Friday morning Lupe’s got me up and supply shopping again. I was supposed to go to Espunpuja, but I told Lupe about the troubles I was having there, and she basically decided to cut out losses and told me not to go anymore. If this isn’t their thing, this isn’t their thing. We’re just going to waste money and time and my patience trying to change it. So I played hooky on espunpuja. I’m a bit relieved about it. Hugh, Sylvia, Lupe, and I, with Marvin still driving, ran around town getting ribbons, beads, and leather together. We came back and worked feverishly until we couldn’t stand it anymore. It’s frustrating, though. Lupe has examples of jewelry she wants to reference for new design ideas, which I’m all about, but as we were shopping, she made it a point to buy the exact-to the T-materials that were used in the examples. Same leather, same beads, same ribbon, same colors. It’s scaring me. I’m not into that. We get back and she starts more or less going at it. She has an idea in mind, but doesn’t have the means to follow it through. It’s kind of what I went to school for, so I was pretty successful with it. I don’t think she quite understands the creative process. Coming up with an idea, which is where she’s at, and she’s good with that, but then brainstorming, refining, thinking through the details of it. Sketching, playing, working, getting to know new materials. It’s difficult! Making jewelry out of textile is general is difficult, unbelievably, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to do it myself for something like 2 years now, unsuccessfully. She started cutting and stitching and gluing, and I could tell she was really unhappy with how it was going. I got myself some clear thread and that ribbon, and I’m kind of excited with what I found out I could do with it. I think what Lupe was working with-the original weavings-is a good plan, well representative of the region and culture, and will work, but will be really hard and take some time to figure out. I’m up for the challenge, though. What else I’ve got going on with the ribbon, though, I think will take on a different life. I major part of Maya culture is maize, corn. The Mayans figured out a way to grow and prepare fields so that they could harvest the same fields year round without tiring out the soil. It’s an involved process that has been difficult, since, to reproduce, but benefited them by making it, literally, so that they only had to work 3 months out of the year to provide all the food they’d need. This then allowed the Mayas the extra time and freedom for religion, art, cosmology, study of the heavens, and abstract though in general. The science museum in Richmond has an upcoming project with this farming method that Ben (Lupe’s husband) has a part in, and HSP is planning some events in correspondence with it. Soooooooo, I’m thinking about this jewelry having some design element of the corn leaves in it. We’ll see how it goes. Lupe seemed ok with that. I couldn’t tell if her lack of excitement was directed at the project in general not going the way she wanted it to, or frustration for her unsuccessful hours of gluing weavings (trust me, it was hard to watch that beautiful hand woven fabric get cut and glued and cut some more. I’m about to do the same things to it.. I’m sorry, weaving gods, don’t punish me!)
I went to school after that, in no mood to put up with any crap. I couldn’t help but feel like I was being treated like a preschooler by Rosario. She had me read this book about the sun, and another about the rain, which were meant for kids. I understand this concept, I did it with Carlos. I’m on a gradeschool reading level, here, so I’ve gotta read gradeschool books. It’s the commentary provided with it that killed me. “And the sun makes the water in the oceans turn into clouds!! I don’t like thunder storms, they’re scary! Don’t you think so?” Yep. I did have a science class when I was in 3rd grade. And please talk to me with your adult voice. Claudia called Olga to tell her about Vlad, who’s going to be a new student, and I think told her I was unhappy with me teacher. She asked me, quietly if I was happy with my last two weeks, and I told her not really. I’ll tell her the full story of it sometime, but there’s never really any privacy. I actually still have one more class left since I missed the one on Thursday. I hope I can take it with someone other than Rosario. She’ll probably just try to get me to fix more jewelry. She offered, very emphatically, to come to the house and teach me here. She really, really wanted to do it. She tends to be of a lazy nature, being a hamster and all, so the only way I can figure why she would want to come over so badly is so she’s close to all my jewelry equipment. She wants desperately for me let her be in my class, she likes shiny things so much, and she’s so emotionally involved in my repairs to the things she’s brought me. I think it was a strategy. Anyway. I think I’m done with her.
After class we came home and I left again for a voyage throughout Guatemala that had me jumping in jungle lakes with all my clothes on, among other things. I’ll have to write about it another day, it’s too late now and I’m too tired, but there will be pictures of our adventures on Flickr. So you can check those out before you get the full commentary if you want.
What a massive day. Wednesday night, Marvin came to the house. He’s one of the drivers we had when we came here last year. He usually lives in Chichicastenango, which is about 2 hours away. He knocked on my door and told me to be ready to leave at 4:30. So in my brand new room I slept like a feather, which is the farthest thing I can think of from a rock. Every time a car went by or a dog barked I woke up. Plus the room is really big and smells kind of bad, so it was just a bad night. So 3:30 rolls around and I’m awake but stay in bed till I have to get up. Marvin and I leave at 4:30 and I have to tell him I don’t know much Spanish, which really might have been a bad thing to do, because instead of trying to talk to each other, I think he thought of me as being kind of hopeless and we didn’t talk at all after that. We picked up Sylvia at her house and got on the road.
5 hours later we’re in Antigua, stopped in front of a hotel which apparently Lupe and Vladimir stayed at that night. Lupe jumped out and directed us to a restaurant to meet her at. There I had a giant bowl with a mixture of fresh fruit, granola, and rich yogurt. Which I ate about 10 bites of. Seriously, the roads around here are nothing I’ve ever experience before. Add that to the nature of the truck, and I’m toast. It has a row of seats behind the driver that’s equal the amount of space as probably my Camry, but it’s the cab of a truck, so the windows are small and placed more industrially than esthetically. Then the windows are tinted, so I’m in a truck pod, I can’t escape the interior of the truck, so I get so unbelievably nauseous. The only thing I can do then is to just try to fall asleep. Which I did. But it didn’t help my appetite.
After we finished breakfast, we all piled in, Vlad included, to go to a market in Antigua. This town is tourist city. There were probably more white people there than Guatemaltecos. Antigua is also ancient. It was the capital of the country for a while, till a water volcano destroyed it. That’s right, a volcano erupted that was full of hyper-heated water and killed everyone. I’m not sure what year that happened in, but it wasn’t the first time Antigua was destroyed either. There was a fire at some point too, if my memory serves me correctly, and each time the city was rebuilt it was in a slightly different location, so there are technically 3 different Antiguas. The market was kind of like an outdoor shopping mall full of those kinds of stores that you see in tourist towns. Carved masks and lots of weavings. There was one store that sold all second hand Mayan traditional clothing, which is where we got a bunch of belts and different patterned items for inspiration and to actually use for new jewelry ideas. I also made them get this unbelievable brilliantly colored Corte. Cortes are traditional skirts that is honestly just made out of straight yardage. It is rectangular in shape, and contains something like 5 yards of material. It’s wrapped around the waist several times and secured with a long woven belt that is also simply wrapped around and the ends are tucked in. Usually, the corte has a simple vertical and horizontal cross embroidered on top of the multicolored fabric. Carlos told me the pattern of the horizontal line indicates the days of the Mayan Calendar, and the vertical line signifies the months. These people are the real deal. I’m telling you. When your every day clothes have that many hidden secrets, you’re not messing around as a culture.
After we got what we were looking for there (I got a belt with birds embroidered on it, what a surprise,) we were walking through the market, talking about ideas with Guatemalan jade, as we then also stumbled onto a store exclusively selling it. Lupe asked where the storekeeper got her jade, took a card, and we went back to the hotel to pack up the two new travelers. Lupe made a few frantic phone calls which I couldn’t even begin to translate, I had no idea what was going on, and then told us to hurry, we were going to the jade factory. I’m pretty confused at this point, too. She gets in a cab, we follow in the truck, and end up at this compound behind a tall steel fence and razor wire. We knock at the door, totally uninvited, some lady comes finally and lets us in. On the right, under a corrugated steel roof and a fence are 5-6 men and women in front of lapidary machines, grinding and polishing. On the left is a larger roofed section with some bellows and hammer, which I take to be the metal working side of it. We follow the path back and back, through papaya trees, to where some automatic machines are cutting giant bricks of jade into more manageable pieces, and go inside this giant, expensively furnished house in the middle of a giant, well manicured yard, sit at the dining room table and order things. They brought out every color Guatemala had to offer, every shape, and we even ordered some custom. Lupe knew of one other factory, apparently, so we got a little from one and headed to see what the other was about. That place was smaller and clearly more geared towards tourists. The silver workers were under and open air studio type building (which I am incredibly jealous of) and inside was a showroom with all their makings. Lupe asked for the raw stones, no silver, and some lady scratched some up unwillingly. We looked around, noticing how the prices were not only high, but they were marked in dollars, not quetzales, which is a very bad sign. The lady ended up telling us their jade was something like 10x more expensive than the other places. So we left there in a hurry.
It’s about 1:00 now, and I’m thinking we’ve done what we needed to do, we can go home now and be back in time for a late dinner, but no, we’re off to Guatemala City. All five of us and luggage included. We stopped at Pollo Campero (the chick fil a of Guatemala) and headed to a shop downtown that vends fabric. I’ll just go ahead and say that this place is my heaven. It is a cooperative project where traditionally made Guatemalan fabrics are woven in bulk for the world market. It’s incredibly good quality, incredibly well made, stunningly beautiful, and incredibly expensive. I got the honor of being looked at as the most educated in style and fashionable person of the bunch, I guess my qualifications were that I was young and from the U.S. Also, being related to Meg counts in my favor. I basically got to pick out all the fabrics for the new line of bags Sylvia is making for AlterNatives. I was in heaven. Her designs are all so incredibly cool, one of them is actually inspired by a bag I sent to Lupe, telling her something like it would be popular at the store. So that bag will be made out of the corte we bought in Antigua, and then others from the fabrics we picked out Thursday. 4 in total I think. Heaven. And I want them all. Sylvia is so incredibly talented as a seamstress, and the work she and the two other girls do is just amazing. I want one so bad and they haven’t even finished the designs yet.
Well, anyway, enough of my bliss session. We got back in the car and made the long trip home. I was in the middle of the back seat, which was good because it gave me the full view out the windshield, but bad because I’m trapped. I don’t know what it is about boys. It’s like they expand once they sit down. They will take up as much space as they believe they can physically allow. So I’ve got my knees jammed together, halfway in Sylvia’s seat, because as time goes by, Vladimir just expands. It’s a physical law that applies to most boys that will forever confuse me. I think if I took a particular offender and tied his legs together, after 3 hours in a car, the rope will have frayed and snapped. Such is the force of the expanding boy. (Sorry Vlad, this isn't completely directed at you, but boys in general.)
Sorry, that was quite the tangent.
Once again, incredibly sick. Vladimir keeps talking to me, and I keep uh-huh-ing, but I just can't can't keep up with the chatter. With my stomach about at the level of the gravel beneath the tires, I’m just not up for brainwork. I want to go to sleep. Eventually I think I do.
We arrive around 9, eat some black beans and eggs, and talk for a while. Claudia introduces Vlad to the house. I think he’s only staying here about a week though. He says he wants to live somewhere that is more socially active. This place is a bit of a wallflower as far as that’s concerned. I like it that way though.
Friday morning Lupe’s got me up and supply shopping again. I was supposed to go to Espunpuja, but I told Lupe about the troubles I was having there, and she basically decided to cut out losses and told me not to go anymore. If this isn’t their thing, this isn’t their thing. We’re just going to waste money and time and my patience trying to change it. So I played hooky on espunpuja. I’m a bit relieved about it. Hugh, Sylvia, Lupe, and I, with Marvin still driving, ran around town getting ribbons, beads, and leather together. We came back and worked feverishly until we couldn’t stand it anymore. It’s frustrating, though. Lupe has examples of jewelry she wants to reference for new design ideas, which I’m all about, but as we were shopping, she made it a point to buy the exact-to the T-materials that were used in the examples. Same leather, same beads, same ribbon, same colors. It’s scaring me. I’m not into that. We get back and she starts more or less going at it. She has an idea in mind, but doesn’t have the means to follow it through. It’s kind of what I went to school for, so I was pretty successful with it. I don’t think she quite understands the creative process. Coming up with an idea, which is where she’s at, and she’s good with that, but then brainstorming, refining, thinking through the details of it. Sketching, playing, working, getting to know new materials. It’s difficult! Making jewelry out of textile is general is difficult, unbelievably, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to do it myself for something like 2 years now, unsuccessfully. She started cutting and stitching and gluing, and I could tell she was really unhappy with how it was going. I got myself some clear thread and that ribbon, and I’m kind of excited with what I found out I could do with it. I think what Lupe was working with-the original weavings-is a good plan, well representative of the region and culture, and will work, but will be really hard and take some time to figure out. I’m up for the challenge, though. What else I’ve got going on with the ribbon, though, I think will take on a different life. I major part of Maya culture is maize, corn. The Mayans figured out a way to grow and prepare fields so that they could harvest the same fields year round without tiring out the soil. It’s an involved process that has been difficult, since, to reproduce, but benefited them by making it, literally, so that they only had to work 3 months out of the year to provide all the food they’d need. This then allowed the Mayas the extra time and freedom for religion, art, cosmology, study of the heavens, and abstract though in general. The science museum in Richmond has an upcoming project with this farming method that Ben (Lupe’s husband) has a part in, and HSP is planning some events in correspondence with it. Soooooooo, I’m thinking about this jewelry having some design element of the corn leaves in it. We’ll see how it goes. Lupe seemed ok with that. I couldn’t tell if her lack of excitement was directed at the project in general not going the way she wanted it to, or frustration for her unsuccessful hours of gluing weavings (trust me, it was hard to watch that beautiful hand woven fabric get cut and glued and cut some more. I’m about to do the same things to it.. I’m sorry, weaving gods, don’t punish me!)
I went to school after that, in no mood to put up with any crap. I couldn’t help but feel like I was being treated like a preschooler by Rosario. She had me read this book about the sun, and another about the rain, which were meant for kids. I understand this concept, I did it with Carlos. I’m on a gradeschool reading level, here, so I’ve gotta read gradeschool books. It’s the commentary provided with it that killed me. “And the sun makes the water in the oceans turn into clouds!! I don’t like thunder storms, they’re scary! Don’t you think so?” Yep. I did have a science class when I was in 3rd grade. And please talk to me with your adult voice. Claudia called Olga to tell her about Vlad, who’s going to be a new student, and I think told her I was unhappy with me teacher. She asked me, quietly if I was happy with my last two weeks, and I told her not really. I’ll tell her the full story of it sometime, but there’s never really any privacy. I actually still have one more class left since I missed the one on Thursday. I hope I can take it with someone other than Rosario. She’ll probably just try to get me to fix more jewelry. She offered, very emphatically, to come to the house and teach me here. She really, really wanted to do it. She tends to be of a lazy nature, being a hamster and all, so the only way I can figure why she would want to come over so badly is so she’s close to all my jewelry equipment. She wants desperately for me let her be in my class, she likes shiny things so much, and she’s so emotionally involved in my repairs to the things she’s brought me. I think it was a strategy. Anyway. I think I’m done with her.
After class we came home and I left again for a voyage throughout Guatemala that had me jumping in jungle lakes with all my clothes on, among other things. I’ll have to write about it another day, it’s too late now and I’m too tired, but there will be pictures of our adventures on Flickr. So you can check those out before you get the full commentary if you want.
La Semana Hasta Miercoles
I feel like I’ve been pretty busy so far this week, but I can’t remember doing anything. I haven’t had a chance to get online since Sunday, so not much in the way of updates. Right now it’s Wednesday night, and I’m writing this in a document to post later when I can wrangle some internet. I might have to put it on a zip drive and go to the internet café. We’ll see what happens.
Saturday: Hugh and I got up and made a big breakfast. I made the world’s most perfect hashbrowns that have ever existed. And some so-so eggs. Then we went out to towards the parque to see what there was to do. Hugh especially wanted to go to the English-language bookstore because he was out of sleazy thrillers to read. I guess everyone needs a break from cultural ethnomorphagraphy. Hugh is the type of person that when he needs to choose something, he does it carefully, and he weighs it out long and hard before anything of importance happens. So we were in the bookstore for a good long while. In case you’re curious, I bought The Flounder, by Gunthar Grass, which I am enjoying very much, probably because it’s one of the weirdest plots I’ve ever tried to follow, and another very odd looking book, a fiction about Halley’s Comet. On the back there is a quote from Tom Robbins saying “Wow! This book would melt the top ice off a bucket full of stars!” I decided to go with my gut and trust Tom. Hugh got the Phantom of the Opera, and something terrible about 50’s style gangster sleuths in Old Time California. Or something. After that we came home. Hugh spent up all his energy with decision making. I went out by myself and got some produce (3 plantains and a pound of tiny native pears for 10Q, pound and a half of tomatoes and a red pepper for Q7.5 [that 8 year old that was keeping shop was a hard bargainer, she totally ripped me.]) and I went up to the second story of the market because I was looking for a skirt. All that packing and I didn’t bring anything nice to feel pretty in! One pair of sneakers, flip flops that I don’t wear outside the house, 4 pairs of pants, 4 or 5 tee-shirts, 3 long sleeve shirts, and various types of accoutrements for cold weather. Really, with all the traveling I do and dust I breath, that’s hardly enough clothes to successfully get me through a week before I need to pay for laundry. I try to wait 2. The whole ground floor of the market is temporary stands full of cheap crap and food, the second floor is more empty, more calm, and permanent shops mostly of the touristy persuasion. Lots of scarves and weavings and carvings that say “Remember Guatemala” in Spanish. I got what I thought was a wrap skirt, got home, and it ended up being wrap style pants. A little odd, but very comfortable. I’ll have to take a picture later. It’s winding into the rainy season now, so I actually doubt I’ll get a chance to wear them.
The rainy season here is the real deal. It’s not what I thought it would be. I imagined what you read about with rainforests.. Every day in the afternoon there’s a big crazy deluge, with perfect unclouded sun and warmth before and after. No. It’s more like there’s wet haze all morning, in the afternoon it starts raining around 1, and then it doesn’t stop until 8, if it does even then. It’s moderate from June to August, with what I can only describe as an unreasonable and unexplainable 15 day dry spell mid Augest, and then from the end of August to November, it’s rain all day every day. No haze in the morning, just rain. The air never dries out, your wet towel stays that way for a month. Your clean laundry in the closet is cold and damp when you put it on. Oi. I’m a little concerned about it.
Sooooo, I have come to decide that the one pair of shoes that I have here that I am willing to wear outside the house, some $20 sneakers that I bought for the sole reason that they were exactly the same color as the dust I remembered from Espunpuja, are just not going to cut it. One, once they’re wet, they might never be dry again, and they’re only cloth, cheap cloth at that. Two, once those dirt roads in Xeavaj and Espunpuja get wet, well, they’re more slip n slides than roads after that. So I have a distinct feeling that my classes will commence in those places only after I complete a mud hike to get there in the first place. I’m on the hunt for hiking boots.
Sunday when I wake up, the one thing on my mind is boots and I can’t sit until my need is satisfied. We went up to the park at around 9:30, so I could see the church procession. It’s a full out formal affair, I had no idea. First a well dressed crowd assembles around the mouth of the church courtyard, then you start seeing musicians dressed in tuxes and beautiful latin banners with silver embroidery, and they start filing onto the street, parade style. And then, from behind the tall walls, comes 12 men carrying a platform, pall-bearer style, with the gilded throne of Jesus, complete with velvet, flowers, the heavenly corona chased from sheet thin gold, the works. There’s also two people carrying a life size angel that reminds me of a doll. When the puppet-masters stop sharply, her joints move as if she’s walking. It’s kind of creepy. The procession starts when the 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, and a couple 10 year old drummers start their processional, and the whole thing goes ever so slowly, all the way around the park. The whole thing. Every single Sunday. Apparently there are also other types of platforms that the men carry. Hugh saw this two weeks ago, only instead of Jesus on the throne, it was some sort of silver knight! After we watched that for a while (I’ll have pictures of it up soon) we went to the Maya Café for desayuno (breakfast) and had some good eggs and black beans, tortillas, plantains.. it was good stuff. With that in our bellies we headed off to Democracia to look for my boots. I heard there was a mall there called Paiz, and I figured that would be a better bet than one of those creepy dudes in the street to try to buy some quality boots at. It’s about a 20 minute walk, and we had to pass through the open air market, which is massive and impossibly crowded. I get kind of worried in places like that. It’s easy to get distracted and lose, or “lose” important, and expensive, items… such as money… and cameras… so we tried to get out of there. I went to every shoe store in Pais, practicing my very best Espanol: (Yo busco las botas… para caminar en las montanas.. Tienes?) I understand if you’re a salesperson, or a Spanish speaker in general, you have to work really hard to understand what I’m trying to get at. I think sometimes they told me no just so they wouldn’t have to deal with me. So no boots in Democracia. I even tried to look in the market stores there, the ones that are actually in buildings, but I got really creaped out. My comfort zone is not bartering in Spanish, and usually they’re not much interested in having me understand everything they’re saying or doing anyway, it’s easier to just give me a number and not let me leave. On the way back to Xela, about 3 blocks from the Parque, on the other side as our house, we passed a very reasonable and safe looking shoe store where I saw many boots through the windows. I wandered in, and a very helpful and easy to understand woman showed me what they had, understood what I was looking for, and by god, I found me some boots. And she even took 50Q off the price when I told her I needed to go home to get more money. I need to work on this bargaining thing. Anyway, mis botas are wonderful, though they desperately need to be broken in. They’re heavy and leather and very comfortable despite being stiff, and they were probably about half here of what they would be in the U.S. Hoo-rah.
Monday we went grocery shopping and went to school. Not a whole lot to speak of. I still dread Rosario as if her name were Mrs Clemmer and she was teaching sixth grade world geography…
Monday night I had a nightmare that I was shot 3 (or 6?) times in the stomach, and had to find someone to drive me to a tienda here so I could buy minutes for my cellphone, because I knew I was dying and I wanted to talk to Hugh one last time.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a nightmare.
Tuesday Hilda and I went to Cantel, and Hugh stayed around here. It’s my last class there before we get silver and start going at this jewelry thing for real, so I threw my last techniques at them, inspected all their work extra carefully, and had them make the exact replica of the most complicated earring, substituting crap for silver wire. That day, Hilda said she was caught up on work, so she sat in and I taught her quickly too. I guess she’s been watching everyone else for a long time, cause she just picked it up and did it right away. If only everyone were as good with their hands as my boss and my driver! She’s also a rampant perfectionist apparently, too. She didn’t make any that she thought were good enough, though they were completely perfect. Olga and Dilma, of course, are always flawless and bashfully modest, and Juana, oh Juana, she tries so hard. She’s so much better, but she’s still not consistent. I’m finally better at communicating, and being less intimidating, and being more friendly and open minded and complimentary, so she’s being more respectful and open minded of me and my teaching style too. After class, once again, I hardly have time between getting off the bus and school to eat lunch, much less do homework. 5 long hours of rosario. This time she tried to give me all her ideas for “Liiiiiinda!” jewelry that I should design. Things that she tried to convince me no one’s ever thought of before, and insisted that I should invite her to the US so she could design a line of jewelry for AlterNatives… I wanted to stab myself in the eye with my pencil. I want to learn Spanish! Not watch you draw zigzags for 3 hours! Spanish!
This morning, Wednesday, my class is here in Xela. I really didn’t have anything left for them to do. I get my materials tomorrow when we pick up Lupe (which should be pretty exciting) and they’re learned everything I’ve got, so I gave them all the different kinds of beads I had and told them to play. I think they might have been kind of bored. I know it’s kind of a waste of their time. But I can’t cancel a class, they need regular practice with their hands to be able to remember fine movements, so I know it was to their benefit to be here even though it was pointless. They didn’t complain or anything, but they weren’t all that excited either. I ended class probably an hour early, and afterwards there was all kinds of action going on in the house, trying to get ready for Lupe’s arrival. Apparently Lupe is bringing a guy named Vladimir with her, someone who went on the week long vcu trip this year and is returning, though I don’t know what for. The plan is that me and Sylvia (the director of the sewing project here in the house) are going to leave here at 4:00 am to drive up to Guatemala City to retrieve Lupe. We’re going in the truck, and this guy Marvin, who I remember from my first trip here a year ago, is going to drive us. So Marvin is staying here tonight, and tomorrow night we’ll have him, Lupe, and Vladimir too. It turned out that the best thing for us to do is to rearrange room situations so that Lupe stays in the room I’ve been in, Vlad and Marvin are in the room next to my old one, and I get a new bedroom. My new room is a manse. It’s huge. It’s for 4 or more people usually, I guess for if AMA has a lot of renters or a lot of volunteers. It even has it’s own attached bathroom, though the sink only turns on and off by the valve at the base of the wall, and the shower doesn’t get hot water. So really, I’re not exactly benefiting from that part. It’s also on the side by the street, so it’s rather loud. At this point, between the fireworks and the loudspeaker cars, I’m kind of immune to traffic noise, though. My only complaint is that the room smells bad. Musty. Hugh said while I’m gone tomorrow he’s going to buy some incense. I hope that makes it better. I’m wary of incense as a cure to stink, it’s usually rather the cause. Anyway, we’re picking up Lupe tomorrow, and she’s got lots of ideas for new jewelry designs that don’t use any metal, only fabric. We’re going to look in one store in Guatemala City that exclusively sells well made textiles made for Guatemalans by Guatemalans, and then we’re going to Antigua for similar materials, I think. I’m not sure. I’m just happy to have my materials tomorrow, much less get to play with more! The only problem with the arrangement is that I have to miss class on Thursday, which is ok in one sense because I can make it up on Saturday, and terrible in another sense because it extends my time with Rosario by 1 more day. I ran into Carlos on the street today and he asked me how I was liking class. I told him, truthfully but mildly, that I didn’t like class with Rosario much, that I didn’t think I was learning much. He didn’t act surprised at all. He’s not the type to badmouth his co worker, but he did offer to meet with me other times to practice and talk and get more help if I wanted, which I do. Augh! I need to sleep! This thing took two hours to write almost!
(This was written wednesday night and I just got around to posting it. My weekend was crazy. More later.)
Saturday: Hugh and I got up and made a big breakfast. I made the world’s most perfect hashbrowns that have ever existed. And some so-so eggs. Then we went out to towards the parque to see what there was to do. Hugh especially wanted to go to the English-language bookstore because he was out of sleazy thrillers to read. I guess everyone needs a break from cultural ethnomorphagraphy. Hugh is the type of person that when he needs to choose something, he does it carefully, and he weighs it out long and hard before anything of importance happens. So we were in the bookstore for a good long while. In case you’re curious, I bought The Flounder, by Gunthar Grass, which I am enjoying very much, probably because it’s one of the weirdest plots I’ve ever tried to follow, and another very odd looking book, a fiction about Halley’s Comet. On the back there is a quote from Tom Robbins saying “Wow! This book would melt the top ice off a bucket full of stars!” I decided to go with my gut and trust Tom. Hugh got the Phantom of the Opera, and something terrible about 50’s style gangster sleuths in Old Time California. Or something. After that we came home. Hugh spent up all his energy with decision making. I went out by myself and got some produce (3 plantains and a pound of tiny native pears for 10Q, pound and a half of tomatoes and a red pepper for Q7.5 [that 8 year old that was keeping shop was a hard bargainer, she totally ripped me.]) and I went up to the second story of the market because I was looking for a skirt. All that packing and I didn’t bring anything nice to feel pretty in! One pair of sneakers, flip flops that I don’t wear outside the house, 4 pairs of pants, 4 or 5 tee-shirts, 3 long sleeve shirts, and various types of accoutrements for cold weather. Really, with all the traveling I do and dust I breath, that’s hardly enough clothes to successfully get me through a week before I need to pay for laundry. I try to wait 2. The whole ground floor of the market is temporary stands full of cheap crap and food, the second floor is more empty, more calm, and permanent shops mostly of the touristy persuasion. Lots of scarves and weavings and carvings that say “Remember Guatemala” in Spanish. I got what I thought was a wrap skirt, got home, and it ended up being wrap style pants. A little odd, but very comfortable. I’ll have to take a picture later. It’s winding into the rainy season now, so I actually doubt I’ll get a chance to wear them.
The rainy season here is the real deal. It’s not what I thought it would be. I imagined what you read about with rainforests.. Every day in the afternoon there’s a big crazy deluge, with perfect unclouded sun and warmth before and after. No. It’s more like there’s wet haze all morning, in the afternoon it starts raining around 1, and then it doesn’t stop until 8, if it does even then. It’s moderate from June to August, with what I can only describe as an unreasonable and unexplainable 15 day dry spell mid Augest, and then from the end of August to November, it’s rain all day every day. No haze in the morning, just rain. The air never dries out, your wet towel stays that way for a month. Your clean laundry in the closet is cold and damp when you put it on. Oi. I’m a little concerned about it.
Sooooo, I have come to decide that the one pair of shoes that I have here that I am willing to wear outside the house, some $20 sneakers that I bought for the sole reason that they were exactly the same color as the dust I remembered from Espunpuja, are just not going to cut it. One, once they’re wet, they might never be dry again, and they’re only cloth, cheap cloth at that. Two, once those dirt roads in Xeavaj and Espunpuja get wet, well, they’re more slip n slides than roads after that. So I have a distinct feeling that my classes will commence in those places only after I complete a mud hike to get there in the first place. I’m on the hunt for hiking boots.
Sunday when I wake up, the one thing on my mind is boots and I can’t sit until my need is satisfied. We went up to the park at around 9:30, so I could see the church procession. It’s a full out formal affair, I had no idea. First a well dressed crowd assembles around the mouth of the church courtyard, then you start seeing musicians dressed in tuxes and beautiful latin banners with silver embroidery, and they start filing onto the street, parade style. And then, from behind the tall walls, comes 12 men carrying a platform, pall-bearer style, with the gilded throne of Jesus, complete with velvet, flowers, the heavenly corona chased from sheet thin gold, the works. There’s also two people carrying a life size angel that reminds me of a doll. When the puppet-masters stop sharply, her joints move as if she’s walking. It’s kind of creepy. The procession starts when the 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, and a couple 10 year old drummers start their processional, and the whole thing goes ever so slowly, all the way around the park. The whole thing. Every single Sunday. Apparently there are also other types of platforms that the men carry. Hugh saw this two weeks ago, only instead of Jesus on the throne, it was some sort of silver knight! After we watched that for a while (I’ll have pictures of it up soon) we went to the Maya Café for desayuno (breakfast) and had some good eggs and black beans, tortillas, plantains.. it was good stuff. With that in our bellies we headed off to Democracia to look for my boots. I heard there was a mall there called Paiz, and I figured that would be a better bet than one of those creepy dudes in the street to try to buy some quality boots at. It’s about a 20 minute walk, and we had to pass through the open air market, which is massive and impossibly crowded. I get kind of worried in places like that. It’s easy to get distracted and lose, or “lose” important, and expensive, items… such as money… and cameras… so we tried to get out of there. I went to every shoe store in Pais, practicing my very best Espanol: (Yo busco las botas… para caminar en las montanas.. Tienes?) I understand if you’re a salesperson, or a Spanish speaker in general, you have to work really hard to understand what I’m trying to get at. I think sometimes they told me no just so they wouldn’t have to deal with me. So no boots in Democracia. I even tried to look in the market stores there, the ones that are actually in buildings, but I got really creaped out. My comfort zone is not bartering in Spanish, and usually they’re not much interested in having me understand everything they’re saying or doing anyway, it’s easier to just give me a number and not let me leave. On the way back to Xela, about 3 blocks from the Parque, on the other side as our house, we passed a very reasonable and safe looking shoe store where I saw many boots through the windows. I wandered in, and a very helpful and easy to understand woman showed me what they had, understood what I was looking for, and by god, I found me some boots. And she even took 50Q off the price when I told her I needed to go home to get more money. I need to work on this bargaining thing. Anyway, mis botas are wonderful, though they desperately need to be broken in. They’re heavy and leather and very comfortable despite being stiff, and they were probably about half here of what they would be in the U.S. Hoo-rah.
Monday we went grocery shopping and went to school. Not a whole lot to speak of. I still dread Rosario as if her name were Mrs Clemmer and she was teaching sixth grade world geography…
Monday night I had a nightmare that I was shot 3 (or 6?) times in the stomach, and had to find someone to drive me to a tienda here so I could buy minutes for my cellphone, because I knew I was dying and I wanted to talk to Hugh one last time.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a nightmare.
Tuesday Hilda and I went to Cantel, and Hugh stayed around here. It’s my last class there before we get silver and start going at this jewelry thing for real, so I threw my last techniques at them, inspected all their work extra carefully, and had them make the exact replica of the most complicated earring, substituting crap for silver wire. That day, Hilda said she was caught up on work, so she sat in and I taught her quickly too. I guess she’s been watching everyone else for a long time, cause she just picked it up and did it right away. If only everyone were as good with their hands as my boss and my driver! She’s also a rampant perfectionist apparently, too. She didn’t make any that she thought were good enough, though they were completely perfect. Olga and Dilma, of course, are always flawless and bashfully modest, and Juana, oh Juana, she tries so hard. She’s so much better, but she’s still not consistent. I’m finally better at communicating, and being less intimidating, and being more friendly and open minded and complimentary, so she’s being more respectful and open minded of me and my teaching style too. After class, once again, I hardly have time between getting off the bus and school to eat lunch, much less do homework. 5 long hours of rosario. This time she tried to give me all her ideas for “Liiiiiinda!” jewelry that I should design. Things that she tried to convince me no one’s ever thought of before, and insisted that I should invite her to the US so she could design a line of jewelry for AlterNatives… I wanted to stab myself in the eye with my pencil. I want to learn Spanish! Not watch you draw zigzags for 3 hours! Spanish!
This morning, Wednesday, my class is here in Xela. I really didn’t have anything left for them to do. I get my materials tomorrow when we pick up Lupe (which should be pretty exciting) and they’re learned everything I’ve got, so I gave them all the different kinds of beads I had and told them to play. I think they might have been kind of bored. I know it’s kind of a waste of their time. But I can’t cancel a class, they need regular practice with their hands to be able to remember fine movements, so I know it was to their benefit to be here even though it was pointless. They didn’t complain or anything, but they weren’t all that excited either. I ended class probably an hour early, and afterwards there was all kinds of action going on in the house, trying to get ready for Lupe’s arrival. Apparently Lupe is bringing a guy named Vladimir with her, someone who went on the week long vcu trip this year and is returning, though I don’t know what for. The plan is that me and Sylvia (the director of the sewing project here in the house) are going to leave here at 4:00 am to drive up to Guatemala City to retrieve Lupe. We’re going in the truck, and this guy Marvin, who I remember from my first trip here a year ago, is going to drive us. So Marvin is staying here tonight, and tomorrow night we’ll have him, Lupe, and Vladimir too. It turned out that the best thing for us to do is to rearrange room situations so that Lupe stays in the room I’ve been in, Vlad and Marvin are in the room next to my old one, and I get a new bedroom. My new room is a manse. It’s huge. It’s for 4 or more people usually, I guess for if AMA has a lot of renters or a lot of volunteers. It even has it’s own attached bathroom, though the sink only turns on and off by the valve at the base of the wall, and the shower doesn’t get hot water. So really, I’re not exactly benefiting from that part. It’s also on the side by the street, so it’s rather loud. At this point, between the fireworks and the loudspeaker cars, I’m kind of immune to traffic noise, though. My only complaint is that the room smells bad. Musty. Hugh said while I’m gone tomorrow he’s going to buy some incense. I hope that makes it better. I’m wary of incense as a cure to stink, it’s usually rather the cause. Anyway, we’re picking up Lupe tomorrow, and she’s got lots of ideas for new jewelry designs that don’t use any metal, only fabric. We’re going to look in one store in Guatemala City that exclusively sells well made textiles made for Guatemalans by Guatemalans, and then we’re going to Antigua for similar materials, I think. I’m not sure. I’m just happy to have my materials tomorrow, much less get to play with more! The only problem with the arrangement is that I have to miss class on Thursday, which is ok in one sense because I can make it up on Saturday, and terrible in another sense because it extends my time with Rosario by 1 more day. I ran into Carlos on the street today and he asked me how I was liking class. I told him, truthfully but mildly, that I didn’t like class with Rosario much, that I didn’t think I was learning much. He didn’t act surprised at all. He’s not the type to badmouth his co worker, but he did offer to meet with me other times to practice and talk and get more help if I wanted, which I do. Augh! I need to sleep! This thing took two hours to write almost!
(This was written wednesday night and I just got around to posting it. My weekend was crazy. More later.)
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