coffee.mill

    Temperature hit 109 Thursday.

    Hot even for me, but I ain't complaining.  Drops down into the low 90s by bedtime, and I have a fan if I need it.  Usually stays a little cooler inside my house...of course since it's block it also retains the heat well into the night.  Still wouldn't trade it for 20 below and ice.

    Having mentioned ice, I have to mention a phenomenon long associated with my travels.  It seems whenever I'm in warmer climates, especially when I was attempting to escape from the deep freeze of the Midwest in mid-winter, the phrase I would often here was, "You know, it almost never gets this cold here."  But darned if it didn't go ahead and get that cold as long as I was there...and then slowly warm back up after I left.

    So on Friday, I heard the wind start to whip up a storm in Benque, at least that's what I would think was happening, although I'm still not to good at reading the weather here.  But I closed the shutters on my office window, as the wind was threatening to blow not only my papers away, but my computer as well.  I had to make a run for Hanna Meat, one of my advertisers, as I hadn't clarified his ad for the May issue of El Chiclero and I had to get the copy to BRC Printing by 5:00.  Caught a ride over to his business, got caught in the cloudburst walking (running) back.

    Hail.

    That's what we had Thursday in Belize.  Hail.

    It's difficult here to even get ice in drinks, and we had it dropping from the sky.  Thursday I had a Coke with my rice & beans.  Ice-cold out of the chest cooler.  Before I finished my meal it was not cool, but hot.  So was the bottle. On the up side, so are toilet seats.

    Councilor Constance Hyde took videos from her front porch.  It's not that she'd never seen hail.  She had, once about 30 years ago.  I wasn't anywhere near Belize at the time...I swear. 

    Global warming has nothin' on me.

    One other note...we had ground breaking for the bank in Benque yesterday, something Mayor Nick has been working on since he was elected 2 years ago, and for the 3 years he was a councilor before that.  Huge for Benque.  Very difficult to create business opportunities or encourage entrepreneurs when you have to travel out of town to deposit checks, cash checks, use an ATM...any of the things you take for granted in most towns in the U.S., and even most towns in Belize. 

    But after years of lobbying, and finally connecting with a banker who saw the potential here, Heritage Bank Limited should be opening its doors here in 6 or 7 months.  So we celebrated some yesterday, and I had one of those moments of integration that warmed my heart.  A couple of glasses of wine into the food and discussion, Councilor Ana Melita turned to me and asked if I knew Dionicio's last name.  Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but for me, it created a great big smile.  Because when I first came to Benque and met Dionicio, I mangled his name badly and often, to much amusement.  Now, one of the Town Councilors who has lived in Benque most of her life was asking me if I knew his last name.  And I did.  Felt pretty darn good.

Easter

.  Disclaimer: Views presented in this blog are those of Roger German.  They do not represent the views or opinions of the U.S. Peace Corps or the Government of the United States.

            Benque Viejo has a strong Catholic heritage that emerges from the quiet background of small town life during two seasons in particular; Christmas and Semana Santa, or Holy Week.  On Palm Sunday the Catholic Church, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, stages a procession into town at 8:30 in the morning, with a young man representing Jesus riding a donkey to the church.

            On Monday night, women “cargadoras” wearing black, with their heads covered by black mantillas, carry a platform with a statue of Mary in a silent procession through the town.  On Tuesday night, two processions leave the church, one with statues of Mary and St. John, the other with a statue of Jesus with his cross.  They travel different routes through town, then meet up on George Price Boulevard in a symbolic reference to the 4^th Station of the Cross, “Jesus Meeting His Mother.” 

            Good Friday is the busiest day of the week, with many households, organizations and businesses creating colorful sawdust tapestries (alfombras) in the street, with themes relevant to the Passion.  The mats cover the streets along the principle routes of the Friday night procession “Santo Entierro,” which reenacts carrying the crucified body of Jesus to the tomb.

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Leveling sawdust to start an alfombra in front of Our Lady of St. Carmel Catholic Church

Young boy working on dyed sawdust design in front of church

Front of church with finished alfombra

            It was Josefina Salas who brought the tradition to Benque 10 years ago.  She had seen similar mats in Guatemala years before, and she and her children created one in front of the church in 1986.  But she hadn’t thought about them at all since then, until she had a dream that she was making the carpets, and that she should continue it for 7 years.  So she did.  It has grown from the single alfombra in front of her house, to more than 70, all along the route of Santo Entierro.

            When I interviewed her for “El Chiclero,” she said after the 7 years she was tired of it and ready to stop.  She had to raise money to buy the imported dyes and all the sawdust, she showed people how to make the molds and forms to create the intricate patterns, she even organized food to keep everyone going from 6 in the morning until mid-afternoon.  “But then I dreamed I was still doing it,” she said, and that she is.

Looking west down Baron Bliss street from the top of a ladder....

...guys holding the ladder while I took the picture from the top...toes of my shoes sticking through

            Most folks take a break from laboring on the alfombras to follow the drama of the Passion of Christ, reenacted by about 40 members of the church community, and played out in the streets and homes of Benque from 10 a.m. to noon.  With the heat, and the dusty, rocky streets, it’s not too hard to find realism in the simple production.  The fine white dust chokes sweating spectators, and when the man portraying Jesus falls, he falls hard, on sharp rocks.  Even what doesn’t go well works.  When the Centurions hoist the two thieves and Jesus up onto their crosses, it’s hard work, the bodies are slippery, the bolts don’t easily find the holes to attach the crossbeam to the post.  Jesus’ crown of thorns comes off and is pushed roughly back on his head, and the thorns are real.

A Benque woman portraying Veronica wiping the sweat from Jesus' face...

            But as the crucifixion drama unfolded, I found myself thinking of the Centurion and the common soldiers whose duty that day was to execute 3 criminals.  Soldiers who had probably done the same thing many times, who just wanted to get it over with, go home or to their barracks and have a strong drink.  Execution duty was doubtless a thankless task, and probably not for the rising stars of the Roman Legion.  Two thieves and a political prisoner killed by unknown soldiers in the name of government, while their leader washed his hands of that blood.  Politics has to be the deadliest disease known to man.

            At noon in Benque, it is finished.  The crowds break up, some to home, some back to work on their alfombras.

            At 6 p.m. the Santo Entierro begins, and three platforms or “andas” process through the town, carried by “hermandades”, walking on the carpets so laboriously crafted throughout the day.  The andas with the representation of the body of Jesus is huge.  And heavy.  It takes 40 men, 20 a side to carry it through the streets.  There is a replacement platoon of men to relieve them, as the procession winds along for more than 3 hours.

40 men carrying the "andas" bearing symbols of the crucified Jesus

            I mentioned to a friend, one of the hermandades, that it seemed quite a lot of work, carrying the andas.  He said it was good penance.  That registered at a Catholic level, and I thought it a good response.  When another friend of mine, another Peace Corps Volunteer, commented similarly on the amount of work those men went through, I responded with his comment.  She said, what’s this all about then?  I thought (Jesus) went through all this pain and suffering to forgive sins.  If sins are forgiven, why is he doing penance?  He should be celebrating.

            Hadn’t thought of it quite that way, I had to admit.

Chopping Palms

 

.  Disclaimer: Views presented in this blog are those of Roger German.  They do not represent the views or opinions of the U.S. Peace Corps or the Government of the United States.

            I got the chance to get out in the bush Friday, and I jumped at it.

            Councilor Marcos Kotch asked if I’d help cut palms Friday morning for the Palm Sunday service at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, so I was ready to go at 6:30 a.m.  We loaded a pickup with about 9 of us and headed out 8 or 10 miles on the Hydro road where his uncle owns some property.

            I would have missed the crease in the bush alongside the road that indicated the path, but Marcos knew where he was going, and we unloaded the machetes, some provisions and hiked in about 15 or 20 minutes.

            There are several types of palm trees in the bush, and the one we needed has fronds that splay out like a fan.  Down south they call it a Bay Leaf Palm and they use it to thatch their houses.  They also use the Cohune Palm for thatch, but it only lasts about 20 years, while the Bay Leaf Palm roof lasts about 30.  Made me think of how many homes I built early on with 15-year shingles, then 20-year shingles.  The Cohune fronds are enormous, as you can see by the picture, while the Bay fronds are smaller and require a different weave for thatching.

Marcos Kotch cutting a Bay Leaf Palm frond

Note the man at the base of the Cohune Palm, fronds arching above him

            But up here in Benque, Marcos calls the palm that we were harvesting Cohune.  So, I’m confused, but that’s normal.  It’s easy to tell them apart, but seems to be some regional variation on the name. 

            Anyhow, we needed about 150 of the fronds before they fan out, so they could be stripped out and used for Palm Sunday, and woven into crosses and other designs.  So we had to cover a lot of bush…these palms are few and far between.  There were about 14 of us, and we broke down into smaller groups and then into a buddy system of pairs.  As we unloaded from the truck, Marcos dug in his pocket and handed me a garlic clove.  Said his mother had given some to him, to keep away snakes.  I put it in my pocket.

            I was thinking vipers as we hiked in, then I got a text from my good friend the mayor, telling me to watch out for the Anacondas.  Now, my grasp on geography and fauna pretty much limits Anacondas to the Amazon Basin, and I’m sure it was a joke, but I did check my pocket for the garlic.  I wasn’t sure whether I was to throw it at the approaching snake, or feed it to him, but I wanted to keep my options open.  Didn’t see a snake all day, so I guess it worked.  Will have to pass that on to the Boy Scouts.

Marcos and I with some of the fronds we cut

            The hills here are steep, and covered with loose rock, which is in turn covered by layers of slippery leave, all protected by a reasonably dense tangle of vines, trees and shrubs.  Which meant that I spent a fair amount of time with my feet spun out from under me, reaching for something to limit my travel down the slope.  Which wasn’t always a good idea.

            Most of the plants here are very capable of defending themselves with spines, thorns and the occasional poisonous sap, so I tried to survey my options quickly as my feet slid.  I figured to grab a rock, then thought of the snakes, and tried to opt for a smooth-barked, non-poisonous tree.  Most of the time.  Some of the time.

Spine-covered tree

Beautiful, soft ferns, armed to the teeth

            All this was complicated by the fact that bush we were chopping through was tough stuff.  And if a vine wrapped around your foot, you were not going to merely break yourself free.  You either needed to back up and unwrap, hack it with your machete or see if you could get a room for the night.  I have to admit I did try the break free option; I’m quite sure it looked like a badly choreographed fight scene from a low budget kung-fu movie, and the bush won.

Me, pointing into the bush...glad it was dry season and the bush wasn't as lush

            But I did get my share of the palm fronds; not what Marcos and his cronies came up with, but not bad for a first timer.  We rode the back of the pickup to town in a billowing cloud of fine dust which kind of evened out the color barrier.  I checked on the two projects underway at work, then headed for home, for a cold shower and a nap.  Yup, a nap.  Didn’t even mind that it was mid-afternoon and the temperature in my house was in the mid-nineties. The bush flat wore me out.

            ....so I was able to upload some  pix...think if it works I'll throw a couple into the last blog too...might calm the nattering nabobs

language class

    For the past week Tracy and I have been in Flores, Guatemala in school.

    I've been trying to improve my Spanish since moving into Benque Viejo, but it has been slog.  So we decided to try an immersion class, and it has been keeping my brain bubbling.  

    Flores is really an island in the middle of Lake Petèn Itza, connected to the mainland by a manmade roadway.  It is remarkably beautiful.  We stay with a family in San Miguel, about a 5 minute ride north across the lake in a locally made, heavy, flat bottom boat.  Linguists among you will note that I have not been including hyphens in hyphenated words.  I would like to say in my defense that I cannot find the hyphen key on this keyboard, although it does conveniently include ñ, ç and è which are very hard to find back home.

On the Lancha from San Miguel to Flores, Flores in the background

    ...OK, so I just found it accidentally, and if I find it again, I´ll use it.

    Anyhow, my instructor, Pedro, is 22 years old, and a student at the the University of Guatemala in Santa Elana, back across the umbilical link to the mainland.  He´s quite patient with a fossil like myself, and as we stumble through conversations, I´ve learned that once a Guatemalan student passes the entrance exam to college, tuition is 100 Quetzales.  The Quetzale trades at about 7.5Q to one US dollar, so it´s a little less than $14 US.  He said that somewhere around 5 to 6 out of 10 students pass the test.

    He lives at home, and supplements his income for the tuition and books by teaching English at Dos Mundos language school.  These are government schools of course, like the land grant universities in the US, and being still myopic in my perception of other countries I will entertain the thought that a US education is probably intellectually more rigorous.  But resident tuition and fees at UNL amount to  $7,312 while non resident comes in at $19,940.  

    Most of the students here would prefer a US education, probably.  I didn´t ask.  But for $14, a person has to think that the Guatemalans do want any child who wants an education to have that opportunity.  He plays some football, bongo drums, and a bit of guitar, likes good poetry, philosophy, pretty girls and the writings of Albert Einstein.   Doesn´t mind throwing back a beer or two.  

    Of course, with my limited grasp of Spanish, we didn´t wander too far down any particular road.  He had me reading out of a 5th level Spanish school book, probably used for 10 or 11 year olds.  I snuck out with more of a Sesame Street level book and found I could understand it quite well...the 5th level was another story.

     Of interest though was the content I could grasp out of the 5th grade book.  The literary quality of the writing and the ethical and moral lessons imparted were at a level I don´t think we hit in the US until perhaps junior high, maybe even high school.  It included poems by Josè Marti, renowned Cuban poet, and short stories from Mexican author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, all of a higher literary level than I remember when I had to fend off dinosaurs to get to school.

    Marta, the mom at the family we stay with, cooks us breakfast, lunch and dinner, part of the package for the language school.  Her husband, Oscar Tun works on the house/hotel, and ferries us across the lake.  The shower doesn´t drain well, there is no hot water and none was promised of course, cold milk for cereal means room temperature and the lights are temperamental.  But the coffee is Guatemalan and hot, the service is friendly and faster than what we're used to in Belize and the room is clean and comfortable.  

Tracy, Oscar and Ocar, with San Miguel behing

    Flores is a tourist town, no doubt about it.  But it still retains a local charm and the shop keepers will show you their wares and wave a friendly goodbye even when you don´t have money to spend.  The town is littered with backpackers...German, Chinese, American, Canadian, Irish, and some accents and languages I just couldn't quite place.  Most of a generous and convivial nature, and we've had good conversation and beer or two over pizza with several.  Which did lead us to discover that the last boat across the lake leaves at about 1030 p.m., and it can be cold on the edge of Lake Petèn Itza, waiting in the rain for the last boat to San Miguel.

We spent a little time in an Catholic orpanage for girls in Santa Elena; Tracy found some new friends.

We took a local shuttle back to Benque; this is how you get 22 people in a 15 passenger van.