the rest of the trip to San Andrés Itzapa

I decided not to visit the tourist destinations Livingston or Río Dulce, partly because I'd had enough of tourist destinations and partly because I'd heard a couple times that they were fairly dangerous places to be. Which is not to say that they can't be visited safely with basic precautions taken, but I just didn't feel like the bother. So I caught a bus west from the intersection outside Puerto Barrios, towards the capital. On this bus a fellow motioned me to come sit next to him, interested in speaking his basic English with me. He told me his name was Renato, from Italy, had been working on cargo ships for most of his life, and had spent time in Canada and the U.S. I'm amazed by how many people I've met who have worked in the U.S., either legally of illegally, and by how eager they have been to talk to me about it. Renato had been stabbed in Puerto Barrios after telling a thief he didn't have any money, and consequently missed his ship. He was now spending time recovering in a pensión (very cheap hotel) in Bananera, a couple hours ride towards the capital. When he showed me his healing, stitched-up knife wound, I felt even more glad for not having gone through Puerto Barrios to visit Livingston. However I've come to realize that although I face some risks while travelling here, as a white male foreigner with adequate money, I'm safer than any other lone traveler. That I face fewer risks than a solo woman traveler is obvious, especially when I go sharing a room with men I don't really know. That I'm probably safer than latino travelers seems surprising, but I think it's true for a couple reasons. First, I have the money to stay in hotels or families affiliated with the schools I've attended, in safe buildings in the safer parts of town. Additionally, tourism is in the top 3 revenue generators for Guatemala, along with food exports and money sent from family members living in foreign countries. I've heard from a couple local sources that when a local person or latino traveler is assaulted, the police have limited interest, especially if the person is poor. But when a foreigner is attacked, they actually investigate and will try to send someone to jail for it, trying to protect the tourism industry. So if I'm robbed, I've been told repeatedly, just hand over everything the thief wants and I'll be fine. Back to Bananera, where the bus stopped for a rest and I got off with Renato. We went for a beer at an outdoor stand at the bus station. Renato speaks fluent Spanish, and I was a bit of a curiosity in this non-tourist town, and between the two of us we were soon talking to other locals at the cantina. I decided to have another beer, and took my bag off the bus to spend the night in Bananera. Bananera, as the name suggests, is the heart of the Guatemalan banana republic, and the men we talked to here all worked for Del Monte. One fellow who talked a lot told us all about his work, and repeatedly about working 12 hour days without a lunch break. It seemed to me though that the banana workers here were significantly better off than the coffee workers I met in Fátima since the collapse of coffee prices. These workers at least were making the legal minimum wage of Q35/day, and the one I spoke to made Q48 (CDN$8) for each 12/hour day. They have a union, as well. Hanging out with Renato showed me parts of Bananera I wouldn't have seen otherwise - comedores (little restaurants) in people's kitchens where I savoured the wonderful return to fresh corn tortillas and black beans, and a Q15/night pensión. The pensión didn't have any available rooms due to people in town to sell at the weekend markets, so Renato offered to share his room with me, for which the administrator charged me an extra Q15 - a bit excessive I thought, since all they provided me with was a sheet to put on the wood floor to sleep on - however, by this time it was dark and there didn't seem to be a lot of options in town. The room had a single bed and absolutely nothing else inside, and a padlock to lock the door from inside or outside. The shared bathroom consisted of a dirty toilet without paper, and an outside sink. All this was such an exciting and interesting change from the tourist track, even though I didn't sleep very well on the floor with my towel over me as a blanket. The next morning, Renato helped me ask some locals for a cheap bus to the ruins at Quiriguá, between there and the capital. I had no idea what I was getting into. The bus took 3 hours along muddy dirt roads through banana plantations, to reach what would've taken 40 minutes on the highway. But seeing the vast areas of banana trees, bananas covered with plastic bags, with occasional weathered signs warning to be careful of aerial spraying, made it more than worthwhile. I will definitely post some pictures from that trip when I'm able. While asking for directions, a woman in the town of Quiriguá, I got talking for a little while with a woman who told me about her husband being sprayed by an airplane while working, and about both his legs getting broken on the job. I'm repeatedly surprised by how forthcoming various people have been to volunteer their stories of hardship. I don't have much to say about the ruins at Quiriguá at the moment, other than that they were beautiful and that here I saw the first white people I'd seen since La Ceiba, the other side of the ferry ride from Utila. I feel like ruins are better described by pictures... later. Later that day (one week ago), I arrived in San Andrés Itzapa, and found Maya Pedal by asking people on the street if they knew where Mario lived. The first person sent me to the wrong Mario, but that Mario knew the last name of the Mario I wanted. He gave me directions to a non-existent location, but then the next 2 people I asked knew where my Mario lived and helped to get me there. It's a small town, and not visited by many foreigners who aren't here for Maya Pedal. I was thrilled both about the nature of the town, and have my own little room and a kitchen shared with another volunteer, upstairs of a bike and metal workshop. I'm now not totally sure what I think about the relevancy of the project, but still very happy with the living situation and the work. I'm eating at home what are for me the best of Guatemalan food - fresh tortillas, black beans, avacadoes, tomatoes, peas, carrots, ,chiles, pineapples, coconuts, watermelon, other fresh fruit and vegetables from local street vendors, and rice soup with beans and chile. Many of the fresh veggies especially come from small farms immediately surrounding the town, which judging by the worm I found in one cob of corn may be at least partly organic. Anyways, it's delicious. Buenas noches, will write more about here soon.

Utila to San Andrés Itzapa (the real entry)

The humid tropical heat and bright indoor lighting in Utila disturbed my regular, 10pm to 6 or 7am Guatemalan sleeping pattern somewhat. I left Utila on a Friday afternoon, took a ferry and a taxi to a very pleasant $5/night hotel in La Ceiba with a loaded mango tree and trampoline in its courtyard. At around 4pm I lied down for a moment on my bed and promptly fell asleep. I slept until 10, and thanks to the porch light and unexpectedness of such a long sleep, I had no idea whether it was AM or PM or what I was supposed to do. When I finally re-oriented, I realized that it was 10PM, that my taxi driver was going to return at 4:30am, and that I was going to take an 'executive class' bus, 12 hours direct to Guatemala City along the same route that had taken me 2 days coming to Honduras. I was lukewarm about the idea of the executive class bus, thinking yes it would get me back so much quicker, but geez it probably wouldn't be nearly as interesting as taking a slower way. I managed to get a couple more hours sleep before my taxi driver helped make up my mind by not showing up so I missed the 5am direct bus. Instead I caught a 5:30am bus to San Pedro Sula, where I decided to take a different route back through Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.

This route was intriguing but unknown - I had heard one story of someone taking 10 hours just to cross the border here, and the Lonely Planet guide had only one hearsay report of someone crossing here via pickup. But my taxi driver and someone else I had talked to said it was fine and quick, and I had extra time, so figured why not. I waited for the bus from San Pedro Sula to la frontera (border) about 35 minutes, the longest I've had to wait for any of the maybe 30 buses I've caught now in central america. This was a beautiful ride, 3 hours along bumpy, muddy dirt roads through very rural countryside with farms, rainforest, numerous rivers, and one place where we bypassed a broken bridge by driving through the creek. On this ride, the woman I was sitting next to assured me it would take 8 hours to cross the border and I almost got off the bus to change my mind and take the known route. Instead I moved to the front of the bus and talked to the driver and another man, who both assured me I would have no problem or delay crossing the border. I've often found it hard to get consistent advice on directions or travel matters here. I especially felt like I could believe the man at the front of the bus, who I talked to for a while about his time as an immigrant in Denver Colorado, where I was born. So I continued on. The border office was in a little wood shack, where an officer promptly stamped my passport and sent me on my way without a single question. I boarded the back of a pickup along with the rest of the people from the bus, which took us 5 minutes across a rough, muddy road to a highway where a microbus waited to take us to the intersection to the carretera del atlántico which goes to Puerto Barrios to the east and Guatemala City to the west. Here the Guatemalan official stamped my passport, I paid in quetzales again for the pickup, and felt relief to be back in Guatemala, especially craving the fresh corn tortillas.

Grr, the internet cafe is closing, I'll have to continue this tomorrow.

Utila to San Andrés Itzapa

I don't have time for a proper entry right now, so this is just a little notita to let everyone know I made it safely from Utila to San Andres Itzapa, for those who might be worried. I missed my direct bus to Guatemala City, so instead had a very interesting trip involving 9 buses, 2 taxis, and a pickup, 6 hours of dirt roads, driving through a creek, spending the night in Bananera, the heart of the Guatemalan banana republic, drinking beer talking with a bunch banana plantation workers, and sleeping on the wood floor of the room of a ship worker I met. Can't wait to tell you about it. I also can't wait to tell you about the Maya Pedal where I'm volunteering now and the town San Andres Itzapa, both of which I am absolutely thrilled about. Tomorrow, hopefully. I've been very busy fixing bikes and installing linux on a machine in the town's only internet cafe.

a little island humour

Levi's first rule of tropical hotels with low ceilings: 1. Don't take your shirt off directly below the ceiling fan. Top pickup lines used by dive-masters in training who are really doing it to pick up chicks (invented by me, based on observations of a couple such guys): 1. Have you ever seen a whale shark? I've seen many. 2. What's your bottom time? 3. I ate an apple too, while diving off the coast of Tanzania last year. 4. I'm from Canada. I've caught many steelhead in the wild rivers of British Columbia. 5. Can I play with your hair? Oops, I was already. 6. Here, let me adjust your BCD for you. 7. Puedo hablar 7 palabras de español, bebe. 8. Baby, you and I could make beautiful waves together. 9. Since I'll be here for 6 weeks becoming a dive master, I've got my own apartment and a motorbike. Want to see them? 10. Did I already mention I'm becoming a dive master? 11. woman in bar: Are you here alone, or don't you have any friends? divemaster in training: I'm here with you. (I actually witnessed this one) 12. This time next year, let's be laughing together. (The ultimate chat-up line, devised by a panel in Japan after painstaking psychological research. The phrase is meant to imply commitment and mutual enjoyment. The Times, London, 1 November. Thanks for passing this one along, Olivia)

wastin' away in Margaritaville

Utila is an odd little town based on an industry of backpackers and divers. The climate is hot and humid, over 30C every day and very warm even at night. Its population is 2000 locals, 2000 tourists, and 2000 "tourist locals" - non-citizens who are living and working here. There is one main street through town, following the coastline for a couple kilometres, with a few smaller residential streets perpendicular to the main road. The main road is lined with restaurants, bars, dive shops, hotels, 3 churches, 2 banks, a fire station, a theatre, and a few homes. There are 2 beaches, one at each end of the main road. Wanting the full experience of Utila, I decided to stay at the "Margaritaville Beach Hotel" rather than another place with some bland, nondescript name. The traffic here immediately made me think of the Jetsons - imagine going to another world and finding new forms of the appliances and cars, but nothing else is changed. So Utila, instead of car and truck traffic, has 4x4 ATV's, dirtbikes, scooters, golf carts, and the occasional light truck mixed in with the pedestrians and cyclists as there are no sidewalks. I've seen a couple cyclists get annoyed after a motor vehicle passed them too closely - pretty familiar to me as a Toronto cyclist. Arriving here I think I felt a greater culture shock than when I arrived in Guatemala from Canada. The level of cost and affluence is so much greater here: one morning with 2 dives costs $35US, or about Q280 at Q8/US$1. A (male) campesino in the coffee fincas near the Escuela de la Montaña would have to work 12h/day for about 2 weeks to earn this much, a female campesina more like 24 days, assuming of course they didn't have anything else to spend that money on. I probably wouldn't have come, and wouldn't have stayed a full week if I hadn't agreed a couple months ago to meet a friend from Canada here to go diving. However I'm here, and the diving experience is truly remarkable. It would be a wild fantasy if it weren't true. Breathing underwater with the fish, experiencing weightlessness, floating along the edge of a coral cliff that disappears into blue nothingness. All this amongst swimming hoses, balls, boxes, discs, tiny umbrellas that move by opening and closing, fierce-toothed predators, and other curious shapes in black, white, camoflage, red, yellow, the fluorescent blue of those nifty LED Xmas lights, with other colours and bizarre combinations thereof. I'm told by more experienced eyes though that this reef is in very bad shape, and this is an interesting story. The area is heavily over-fished to provide the fresh local fare that visitors to a tropical isle expect, and the fish are actually very few compared to 20 years ago or to other less impacted reefs. In particular, the natural predators of the damselfish: tarpon, marlin, permits, sailfish, barracuda, groupers, and shark have been overfished to the point that damselfish are doing better than ever. Damselfish survive by farming a patch of algae on the coral, and fearlessly defending it from any other algae-browsers. As a result the coral is green, covered in algae, to the extent that the reef itself may be out-competed by the algae and die. The dive shop I attended (Bay Islands College of Diving) has a shark research centre and prides themselves in their environmental awareness, and as a result don't serve any fish in their restaurant. Of course they have all the other meats instead, but do have a few decent veg options too. The island has one recompression chamber, for divers who go too deep for too long and have nitrogen bubbles form in their blood - a fatal or paralyzing condition without a recompression chamber. Interestingly, many users of this chamber have been local fishermen diving deeper and deeper in search of lobster which have been fished out of the shallower waters. One of my highlights here was a specialty course on whale-shark ecology. We had a 3-hour lecture where we learned all about whale sharks, which I had never heard of before. The following day, we motored around looking for whale sharks which the on-board scientists wanted to tag and observe. I saw a whale shark from in the water, with snorkel gear, about 3m (10ft) away. Not to worry though, whale sharks filter-feed mostly on algae, and are not dangerous to humans. One more quick note. A certain local character offers historical tours of the island. I visited him to inquire, and although I didn't take the tour he chatted for about half an hour about the island. He claims it is the island where Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked, and where the fictional story "Treasure Island" took place. He says that looters spent years finding and emptying the treasures on and around this island, while he tried in vain to alert the authorities. Someone else told me he was a crackpot. It deserves further research.

An unusual little post

I´ll make another entry more descriptive of Utila, but it will have to wait another day or two. This is a pretty unusual and personal post, but I just feel a need to get it out of me. Yesterday I saw someone whip a pig with a rubber hose. The pig screamed, really screamed, it was awful. I did nothing, just filing the experience away for the time being. I toyed with the idea of returning at night to free the pig from her little stall, but that seemed like a bad idea for several reasons - such as where would she escape to, and what would happen upon her re-capture? Early this morning, I rented a kayak to try to find a mangrove canal. I found a small one, not the right one, but an interesting paddle nonetheless. I paddled down a narrow aqueous path with thick bush on both sides, through almost total silence at 6am. Further down the canal, signs of intensive human development appeared - cleared and levelled ground, boards stabilizing the banks of the canal, idle heavy machinery, a film of oil coating the water, thick slime beneath the water surface. In this polluted silence, I must have begun subconciously contemplating the human impact on the earth. Then I suddenly remembered the screaming of that pig and tried to imagine that pain multiplied by all the pigs in the world, and by all the 50 billion food animals and realized it was impossible to conceive. The transition of that canal from mangrove to bulldozers became for me a parable for all the suffering and harm to the earth caused by humans. The unusual stillness suddenly and unexpectedly became sadness. I stayed for a while with these thoughts, then turned around and paddled hard back to the ocean, where I could occupy myself with keeping the waves out of the open ports of my kayak. Time to go tutor some more kids or something. Definitely time to move on from Utila.

the bus trip from Xela to Copan Ruinas, Honduras

First a note: I retract what I said earlier about the term "chickenbus" being in common use here. It's only used by gringos, to guatemalans, the so-called "chickenbuses," colourful former school buses, are just buses. The fancier, more comfortable Greyhound style buses are referred to as "direct" buses, as they make fewer stops and reach their destinations faster, but cost maybe 25% more. They're still cheap by our standards, for example I took direct buses for 11 hours from Xela to El Florida at the Honduras border, for a total of about CDN$11. I travelled the Xela - Guatemala city leg with a Danish student of the mountain school on her way to El Salvador. She's finishing her second long trip in Central America, totalling 9 months here, so seemed like a good person to interview about the ins and outs of travelling alone as a woman here. I've had this discussion with a few other women travellers as well, and will post my notes another time. In very short summary, the women I've talked to have had to get used to frequent verbal sexual harassment, but generally feel safe enough and have had a great time here. I transferred buses in Guatemala City, getting whisked to my next bus by a guy hoping for a tip and making it seem like my bus was about to leave. On the Guate - Chiquimula bus I sat next to a Chiquimula resident who was learning English and was happy for a chance to practice and ask questions, like why is it that you get "on" a bus or train, but "in" a car? Any ideas? He also taught me some Spanish slang, including uses of "onda," ie. "que onda?" - roughly, what's up? I arrived in Chiquimula at 5pm and would've called that a day because of the late hour, but my new friend talked to the folks at the Chiquimula bus station and assured me that all would be OK if I wanted to continue on to Copan tonight. It would require transferring at the border, but there was a hotel there if I missed the last bus there, and that all was "tranquilo" at the border village and in the town of Copan Ruinas. I watched a stunning sunset in the mountainous desert between Chiquimula and the border, where I arrived after dark at around 6:30pm. I got my passport stamped and indeed had missed the last bus to Copan Ruinas, but the border guard told me to talk to the police officer on the other side who could probably tell me how to get a ride with a "carrito" - little car. I'll probably get in trouble for the rest of this story, but it's interesting, so here goes. I walked across the Guatemala-Honduras border with a Honduran fellow who began to tell me his story, and spoke to the officer who gave us a name to ask for and pointed us towards a nearby house. On the porch of the house, about 8 people were gathered on the porch eating beans and tortillas, playing guitar, singing Spanish folk songs, and drinking beer. I was decided not to make the trip that night because the guitarist who I thought would be the driver didn't seem sober enough to be able to drive safely, but a few songs later a sober man entered in and waved us towards his truck. A few minutes later, there I was, riding in the back of a pickup into the Honduran night, with 2 strange men in front and 2 more in the back with me. Not exactly "by the book" I though, but I still felt it was going to be OK. My new acquaintance who I had walked across the border with, Jose, told me that he had been robbed in Monterrey, Mexico, and was trying to return to his home in Honduras but had no money left. Not only were his pockets empty, except for his ID card and a few centavos, but he had no bag, nothing with him but the clothes he wore. That really struck me, to be crossing the border with absolutely nothing. At about 9pm, the driver of the truck dropped us off at a hotel in Copan Ruinas which he assured us was good and that he knew the owners, and didn't charge us for the ride since he was going there anyways. The hotel had only one room left, a double. Jose struck me as genuine, so I offered to share my room with him for the night. He pointed out that he couldn't afford to share the cost, which I said was fine, and he very gratefully accepted. The owners of the hotel, a friendly older couple, became like parents and admonished me to be very careful with my belongings since I didn't know him, offered to store my valuables, and told me to knock on their door for anything. I didn't feel threatened by Jose, partly because of his gentle demeanor, partly because he had nothing with him and nowhere to conceal a weapon, and partly because I was so much bigger than him. It also occured to me that he was taking a much larger risk by travelling without money and potentially having to sleep in the streets, and by trusting me for the night. I slept well, both of us turning in around 8:30pm. Jose got up, put his clothes on and left at 5:30am. I offered him a bag of peanuts and some fruit which he graciously accepted, and as he was walking away I also offered him 50 lempiras, about CDN$3. He said "gracias, muy amable (very kind)" and left. I'm only sorry that I didn't give him more - it was early and I was still confused about the exchange rate. But that should be enough to get him at least close to home, which he said was 200km away. Through much of my short experience with Jose, I heard voices of caution warning me "what if he's dangerous," or "what if he's trying to rob you," but the voice that won me over was "but what if he's not?" The hotel owners later gave me some more information which they either picked up talking to him or inferred from his situation. He was trying to emigrate illegally to the united states, which costs $5000, but was robbed in Monterrey, northern Mexico, and had to turn back. Talk about broken dreams. I wish Jose good luck, and really hope he made it back home safely.

a strange goodbye to Xela

I had an unusual experience my last night in Xela, after returning from the mountain school and getting ready to leave for Honduras the next morning. I visited a teacher from the Juan Sisay school that evening to install linux on his computer, although I decided to put it off til I could obtain a better installation CD. I'd like to think that I managed to convince him of the wonders of converting to linux, entirely in Spanish, but I'm pretty sure it had more to do with him having a crush on me. Anyways, I was walking back to my hostel at about 11pm, being particularly aware of my surroundings because people in Xela have been talking about the streets being more dangerous at night lately due to some gangs having moved here from Guatemala City. Guatemalans generally go to bed and wake up early, so by 11pm the streets are pretty quiet. A couple blocks ahead, I saw 2 men push someone to the ground in the middle of the street, his head making a loud cracking sound on impact. It didn't seem safe to go attend to first aid, so I rounded a corner and ran, stopping at the nearest restaurant. I explained to a couple employees what I saw and asked them to call the police for me, since I don't feel very confident about speaking Spanish over the phone. They tried phoning 110 (the equivalent of 911) for about 5 minutes, but just kept getting a message. After what seemed like ages, they gave up and I went back to see what was happening back at the scene of the incident. The aggressors were gone and their victim was still lying motionless in the middle of the street, with the occasional car or truck just driving around him. I talked to the man, who was apparently intoxicated, probably with a concussion, but still responsive. He wasn't interested in my help though, until I flagged down (using English) another gringo riding by on a bike. He spoke perfect Spanish and managed to communicate the danger of him lying in the middle of the street. He let us move him to the sidewalk, where he seemed to be as well off as he was going to get tonight. Right afterwards, a 4X4 roared around the corner right where he had been lying, and the other gringo remarked to me, smiling, "just in time" as he rode off. When I checked for our unfortunate amigo again at 8am the next morning, he was gone. In hindsight, he was probably drunk and his 2 aggressors were some punks who thought they'd show off how tough they were by pushing over a drunk and leaving him in the middle of the street. Ay de mi.

the mountain school, part II

I didn't get to know Georgina or Ariel very well - Ariel was in Xela most of the time and Georgina wasn't very talkative, although I talked with her a couple times while helping with the dishes or collecting water the adjacent community that has a few water taps. She carried the water on her head, but when I imitated this she laughed a bit and showed me how men instead carry water on a shoulder. It seemed less efficient to me, but so I did it. Fatima has no electricity or water taps, because installing a tap from the water system of Santa Maria costs about $500, a sum of money that no one here can afford. In the meanwhile the residents get water from a few minutes walk away from Nuevo San Jose, or from the escuela de la montana. The primary long-term goal of the community right now is to find $10,000 in funding to install a potable water system from a spring up the hill for everyone in the community. These costs certainly put provide a different perspective to the prices of certain things in my own life, especially things which aren't as important as having water. I didn't take any pictures of my family here; I just didn't feel comfortable getting out my little digital camera which is worth almost as much as a water tap would be.

Much of my time in the house was spent playing card games, building houses of cards, or reading to the 6-year-old daughter Dora, who loved playing and having fun. However my highlight of the week in the house was Saturday night when the whole family except for Rosalia went into Xela, and after a week of hardly speaking at all with Rosalia she spent 2 hours telling us stories about the labour struggle which resulted in the formation of Fatima, about how her deceased husband tried to keep working after he lost his eyes when a bomb exploded in front of him, and about her life now. She gets up a 3am every morning to start preparing breakfast and lunch for her son who starts work at 5 at a sawmill. She also help Georgina prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner at at 7:00, 12:15 and 5:30 for the students and the rest of the family, thankfully with an afternoon siesta in between. Dinner is a couple hours earlier here than in Xela, because there's no light to work by after dark. It sounds like a tough life, but she says it's much better than when they worked on the coffee finca before the formation of Fatima - there was a time when she had to get up at 1am to start preparing food for the family, when the men were being sent 3 hours by bus to a mango plantation, leaving at 3am every morning and returning at 9-10pm every night. Her sole income now is from feeding students of the escuela de la montana. I asked Rosalia if hosting students paid sufficiently and she said yes, at least when the students eat "mas o menos normal" (more or less normal), like us. That made me smile, given how abnormal my vegan diet seems to most people.

The community of Fatima operates a small, fair-trade, organic coffee colectiva which would be really neat to visit during the harvest season Nov - Jan. During this time many of the residents work on the nearby big coffee finca, then come home on the weekends and work their own fields. The school took us on a tour of the big coffee finca which has now diversified into growing flowers and avocadoes as well since the big crash in wholesale coffee prices in the last 10 years. It had beautiful but abandoned and rotting 100-year-old colonial home of the dueno (boss), on-site residences and a school which are mostly empty now. Saw a fellow spraying liquid from an insecticide canister on the avocado plants, wearing no protective gear but rubber boots, pants, and a T-shirt. Other students said they had seen this at other fincas as well, and that it's normal practice in Guatemala. Standard pay here for picking coffee here is around Q20/day for men and Q12/day for women (Q6=CDN$1). For a 1-lb bag of coffee that you can buy in Canada, that works out to 2 or 3 cents going to the person who picked those beans for you. It's not a living wage, even in Guatemala, but enough to help one become malnourished a little less quickly than with no job at all. The difference in price between fair-trade and "regular" coffee is caused by the lesser demand and economies of scale for fair-trade coffee, not by the difference in pay to the workers. Something to think about. I'm still thinking about if, when, or how I will eat imported tropical foods when I return to Canada, but I'll probably wait to write about this in my reflections at the end of this trip.

Ah, one other highlight of the escuela de la montana was eating almost every day the fresh, organic bananas that grow on the grounds as shade trees for the coffee plants. They were by far, the sweetest and most delicious bananas I have ever tasted.

studying at the mountain school

Myself and my teacher, Rony, studying under a little thatched roof at
the escuela de la montana.

Maria-Jose and me

Maria-Jose and myself, the kids in my last family in Xela.

My week at the mountain school

I've arrived in Utila now after 2 long days of bus travel with a day at the Copan ruins in the middle. I had a very interesting (and good) experience at the border entering Honduras which I'll talk about later, but I should talk about the mountain school first while it's fresh in my mind.

La escuela de la Montana (sorry no spanish keyboards here, I'm in gringoland now) is about an hour west of Xela, in the heart of coffee plantation country and as a result one of the poorest areas of Guatemala. The school is located next to the community of Fatima, created by the 18 families living there who fired and evicted from the coffee finca (plantation) where they lived and worked after they formed a union. I have a written story of their lucha (struggle) which I'll translate for the blog later - it's an interesting case study in coffee labour struggles, especially for me after having eaten with one of the families for a week and meeting others who were a part of it.

Probably the only drawback of the school is that I lived dorm-style with the other students, and didn't get to speak as much Spanish or get to know locals as well as when living with a family. I had classes every afternoon under an idyllic little thatched canopy, covering one desk for myself and my teacher Rony. Since there was no tutoring, no internet, and not much in the way of other distractions I studied hard, another 4-6 hours a day in addition to the 4 hours of classes.

One other student and I ate with Georgina and Ariel, both in their mid-20's, their 2 children Dora and Wuilver, about 2 and 6 years old, and their grandmother Rosalia. They have a very small rectangular brick house with 2 rooms for Georgina, Ariel and Dora, with Rosalia living across the street. It was another change in diet - soup for all but about 4 meals during the week. For my first time I had fresh corn tortillas with *every* meal which was a real treat, except that they usually tasted slightly of mold. I really enjoyed that at this house, like at my last one in Xela, we all ate the same food - other vegans reading this will be able to relate.

Argh, internet cafe closing, will finish this post tomorrow.

Signing off, levi

spanish-isms

A few funny stories of learning Spanish. Lila invited me with the family to a big BBQ lunch with the neighbors in the next apartment. With about 12 people around the table, someone asked if I was "casado" - married. I heard the nearest word I remembered, "cansado" - tired. I answered no, because I took a long siesta that afternoon, to the great entertainment of everyone at the table. Another time, Lila was ready to make fresh juice of "zanaoria" (not sure about that spelling) - carrot juice. Zanaoria is one of the words that I've had a disproportionately difficult time learning, so Maria helped by explaining I believe that it's a food that rabbits like, after which I asked "you're making rabbit juice?" Again to everyone's amusement, including my own. This one was recounted by my teacher at the Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco de Espanol, in Xela (ps. sorry I don't have a spanish keyboard at this cafe). When she asked one of her students how his trip to San Pedro de la Laguna was, he replied "muy bueno! Yo monté un un gran caballero..." (I rode a big genteleman.) nb. caballo = horse. Some other student confusions I've heard of: Tengo hombre - I have man (tengo hambre = I'm hungry) Puedo prestar tu pene? - Can I borrow your penis? (peine = comb) Cómo estás? Estoy bueno. (I'm hot stuff, although this translates literally into English as I'm good. The intended response was Estoy bien, meaning I'm well. I'll have to write about my experiences at the mountain school in the next few days, as I'm getting ready to head for Utila, Honduras early tomorrow morning for a week of diving. It will be a couple weeks of vacation within a vacation, before starting as a volunteer at the Maya Pedal project.

leaving Xela (from a week ago)

It's overwhelming to try and figure out what to write about. Leaving Xela was sad, especially saying goodbye to Luis, Magda, Brauglio and family - they are the kids I tutored in basic arithmetic 2-3 times a week for my 4 1/2 weeks in Xela. Each afternoon there I'd arrive around 3:30pm, Luis would put a chair in the right place for me, the mom would offer me tea or coffee and sometimes something to eat, and we'd work on sumas, restas, multiplicaciones, and divisiones for 1-1.5 hours. My numbers in spanish are pretty strong now as a result, and I can do basic arithmetic in Spanish without converting to English. After studying we'd head for the park across the street for an hour or two of fútbol, tag, or various other games. They live on the edge of town in a very poor neighborhood, quite different from the other parts of Xela where I lived. Not only was their house not fortified, its door seemed to only be a hanging piece of cloth. The kids were a teacher's dream, genuinely courteous, warm, and eager to learn. It's such a cliché, but being around those kids really was good for improving my hope in humanity. There they were living in fairly extreme poverty, but well-fed, grateful to be going to school (thanks to a scholarship from the Juan Sisay school), kind and affectionate with their siblings, parents, dogs, and cats around the house. They genuinely enjoyed the math lessons and the games afterwards, and just seemed to me devoid of of the cruelties of the great colonial, patriarchal system they're going to grow up in. It just pushes me more toward the feeling that humans start out kind, and under the right circumstances perhaps would stay that way. That Saturday, the whole family and some neighbors were up for a game of fútbol and the park across the street was too crowded, so we played in a bowl-shaped pitch just below the house on a surface of gravel, rocks, litter and broken glass. 3 mothers in traditional dress, about 7 excited kids all under 10 years old, and I all swarmed around a little plastic ball trying to kick it between 2 rocks to score a goal. There were a couple minor scrapes and crying, but nothing much considering the condition of the field and energy level of the kids. After the game I said adios, and amidst all the goodbyes, I started sobbing and couldn't stop til a good 5 minutes down the road. I don't know what's becoming of me, I'm becoming a sensitive guy or something ;).