Again, I´ve been pretty lazy with the posts. Things have been plenty busy, so the time passes much quicker than I realize. The short version is that I´ve been working a lot with family and school gardens, got sick for about a month with various afflictions and I had a wonderful time when Liesl and John came to visit.Now that the rains are back, it´s been good to get back into the ag. work. More than anything, this is one of the most rewarding part of work as I get to spend the days outside working with the families. About a month ago, I got invited to take part in the corn planting. Might not sound like much, but it plays a major role in Q´eqchi culture. We had to go in a cave the night before to give offering to the mountain spirit. The following morning, we started planting and didn´t finish till that evening. What´s interesting is how the people stick to the traditional practices. I had read an anthropologists study on the Q´eqchi from about 20 years ago that studied the rituals of the planting. Surprisingly, much of the traditions have held true over the year. For example, there are strict rules over how to plant, what you can eat, and of course that only men can plant. Marsha, my sitemate got stuck making tortillas in the kitchen, but to her credit, my hands were blistered and I was beat by the end of the day.
As for my ailments, I first got hit about a month and a half ago with awful food poisoning, Unfortunately, it hit me mid bus-ride on my way to the capital and lasted a good 36 hours. I let you imagine what that looked like. Later I got these crazy side-stiches that put me down for a week. Luckily by the team Liesl and John came, I was all better. However, two days into the trip, I managed to fall on a rock as I was getting into swim in Lake Atitlan. The water was Mediterranean beautiful and we were just getting ready to swim when I slipped and took a nice chunk out of my knee. Four stitches later, we were back in the water, so it wasn´t too bad. Also, on the last day of their trip, I got some nasty stomach bug, again, but I´m getting used to those and feeling better now. So the health has been touch and go, but all else has been good.
Liesl and John just took off this past Sunday. They were in for a little over a week and it and we managed to see a good chunk of Guatemala. We started it off posh by spending a night in Antigua before staying in a hotel carved into the cliffs over Lake Atitlan. Besides the whole previously mentioned rock incident, it was amazing. Afterwards, we headed up north to the town of Nebaj. We hiked around with our ex-guerrilla guide Nicolas for a day out to a village. The hike was stunning. The villages are up in the high Cuchumatanes mountains. The don´t look like anything you´d imagine out of Guatemala. The mountains are sharp with green valleys in between, it looked like something out of Switzerland.After Nebaj, we took the long trip back to Coban where we took it easy for a couple days. I´ve gone easy on the detials. Basically, I got treated like a king for a week and I think John and Liesl really enjoyed the trip. It´s rare that we get to spend that much time together between just the few of us. It was a great week and should be encouraging for any other potential visitors our there.
At the moment, I getting back with things at work. It should be quiet for at least a couple weeks. However, today I got a one line email from none other than John O´Connor saying he´ll be here in three weeks. Life loves throwing curve-balls.
