re-cap.

hi all. i regret to say that i don´t quite have the focus it takes to write a good, thoughtful update on all the stuff that´s happened since i last wrote. so sorry to disappoint. BUT, i will just hit some of the highlights so that you all can ask me later or email me about them so i won´t forget.

from the top....

1) we had a conference last week from a woman who fought with the guerilla from about 90-96 after her father was kidnapped, and ultimately disappeared (the family never found out what happened to him) and her family fled to chiapas in mexico. at the age of 14 she decided to come back and join the guerilla. interestingly enough, she had nothing but positive things to say about her experience. she now lives in the ex-guerilla pueblo i mentioned which i will be visiting this coming weekend. extremely interesting perspective, especially when it comes to discussing gender equality, etc.

2) we also had a conference with a man, enrique, who shared his long, painful experiences trying to get into the US to work as a migrant worker. throughout the 90s he tried 3 times and always was arrested just over the border. he discussed the laborious journey, the fact that he had to turn over the title of his house in order to pay the ´coyote´to take him to the border, and the bad conditions he experienced in US detention centers. again, extremely interesting, especially for those of us who are from the US.

3) me and a couple other girlfriends adventured away from our little next of tranquility this past weekend and headed to Chichicastenango. it´s about 4 hours via 3 buses to get there from our school and was absolutely worth it. chichi is a fantastic little town that is exceptionally touristy but doesn´t necessarily feel that way. we arrived around lunch time on saturday, had an incredible lunch at a restaurant (the first i´ve eaten in since i´ve been here) and then walked to a nearby Mayan shrine/altar, Pascual Abaj. we ended up being really lucky in that the actual shrine was empty so we could take photos, but then there was a group of Maya doing a traditional ceremony for an asian film crew of some kind. so we also got lucky enough to be able to watch the ceremony as well as take photos (which normally you can´t) because they were already being filmed. plus the owner of the nearby mask making shop happens to also be a well educated historian and writer who gave us a SUPER interesting account of Mayan ceremonial masks. all in all, teniamos mucho suerte- we were really lucky. our hostel had good views, we all spent far too much money buying Mayan textiles, and had a really great weekend. very refreshing weekend in order to gear up to another week of school.

4) yesterday we had two conferencias. the first with a man, Don Pedro, who recounted his horrifying 14 days of torture in 1983 for being a suspected guerilla. the fact that he was directing a campesino cooperative in order to get better prices for their communities somehow was equated, in the mind of the army , to being a guerilla. anyway, this was a very painful story to hear. he ended his story with a request that we students be sure to tell our friends and family how things ´really´are in guatemala which he thinks may be different than how guatemala is portrayed in international media. there´s little violence remaining here since the 96 peace accords, but very little has changed otherwise and the poor campesinos are...... really really poor and discriminated against. the second conferencia, much more light-hearted and also educational was with a local community member who works as a midwife. she actually was, in effect, my abuela a couple weeks ago, because i spent my second week here eating with her daughter´s family. turns out family planning options are paid for the government, something i didn´t know. regardless, she was definitely a good fix for my the public health- minded part of myself.

5) on the docket for the coming weeks include the trip to the ex-guerilla community i mentioned, hopefully lago de atitlan - the paradise of guatemala, maybe climbing the volcano tajulmulco, visiting the lovely mark forsberg, and spending a day in antigua before i leave. oh, and learning spanish- did you guys know i was doing that? :)

look forward to hearing from any and all of you because i miss you and also like to hear about the world at home.