soccer field in the small town by the caves "muc´bil ha´" (Hidden water). Here I had a nice conversation with a man by the town.
I like this picture.
At Tikal. Spectacular.
host cousin Maynor, host brother Selbil, and closest, cousin Marvin. We went swimming two or three times in this pristine river near where we live. Now I like to takes runs along the river, though I am a little afraid of snakes.If WalMart had started out as a do-good NGO with the purpose of providing food and other household projects at a cheaper price while freeing up their time by reducing shopping time, would we consider it today a hugely successful attempt to help and attend to the needs of ordinary people?
And secondly, if WalMart had really started out with high minded intentions, would it have been nearly as successful as it is today. Instead of a hugely successful capitalist enterprise, would we think of it as a being disturbingly communist-like in its huge big-blockness, destruction of individuality (especially with its destruction of small businesses), and its big picture central planning. And instead of having hordes of minimum wage workers, would it maximize its efficiency with smiling volunteers, knocking down prices everyday.
If washers and dryers had been taken up as a cause by womens liberation groups to free women from having to slave away hand washing clothes, would anybody today be using them? Or would whatever organization have handed out a few thousand and found that then, most women wouldn´t except washers and dryers, being something that they didn´t need, and therefore unable to accept as a hand out.
Why don{t most large businesses "have a heart"? And more importantly, why don{t we demand that businesses have a heart?Jordan
And for the record, I try to avoid WalMart, but maybe that is just because I have enough money to afford disdain for it.
Ps. I already have written a post on what I actually do here, so look for that soon.
me at "hidden water." Looking cool. I finally found a cord and got some pictues onto my USB, so I´ll also probably post some more pictures soon.
I just read in a Spanish paper (El Pais) about Obama´s announced plan to build high speed rail roads in the US and I am super excited about it. We have all been waiting for one in California for a long time. I just hope that it stops in Fresno. But maybe I am just being selfish. I never had a model train, built a train, or have any cualifications for being a train enthusiast, but I have always held a romantic view of train travel. Even the brutal Newton to LA route holds a place slightly mushy space in my heart. Besides Imagine not having to deal with traffic coming into SF or LA.Imagine getting there faster than ever. Ok Ok, obviously in some ways train travel isn´t as convenient as car travel, but, especially if the city you arive at has a good public transportation system, I think it would work out great.
Obama just had talks with Mexico about drug trafficking.
Not long ago the Mexican president (Calderón) said somemthing to the effect of the United States being to blame for drug trafficking and all the violence it brings along with it, because all the demand comes from the United States. At first I agreed pretty whole heartedly with the Mexican President. The United States certainly can´t ignore the fact that drug trafficking wouldn´t exist if we weren´t such a lucrative market for ilegal drugs. Upon further reflection though, I thought, you know, supply and demand is a two way street, supply can cause demand, and demand can cause supply. And we are talking about chemically addictive (that is except for marijuana) drugs here. The larger the supply, the easier it is to get more people hooked and thus create more demand. Remember the Opium War… a Little something about England calling for FREE TRADE with China (to sell opium), China being upset about England selling their people opium, a short war, and China ending up divided between many western powers. Is the Opium war China´s fault now?? Those silly Chinese and their protecthinist ways **tisk tisk**.
Speaking of free trade, I a reading about Africa right now. England opened up Africa in the name of eradicating slavery, starting comercial enterprises (most important), bringing in Christianity, and civilizing the natives. They thought of it as a rightous effort… but free trade ended with European domination that had Africans in virtual slavery anyways. Destroying trees in order to obtain rubber and killing elephants for tusks. The current author I am reading, does little to talk about these failures of the righteous efforts of Europeans.
Back to today. I just read a Little article with some students (An advanced group with which I will read advanced news articles) about water in Latin America. Not long ago countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia tried out privatizing water, and the results were not good.
Not to get on an violently anti free trade kick or anything.
With the students, I stressed that I felt that these examples showed us that we should always be on the lookout that business organizations (especially big ones) are not being destructive, but are being productive and providing some kind of service to others. There are examples of mining companies in Guatemala and the rest of Latin America that destroy local wildlife (uglify, if you will), use up poisen local water supplies, provide only a few jobs, and sell gold or whatever material it is northward. So it doesn´t work out very well for Guatemalans.
But how did my original idea of a post which had a the idea of ¨let´s not just blame America and the west¨suddenly take a turn the other direction???
Maybe that is just easier (I could still go on),
Not that that does not make it incorrect,
Jordan
ps. I have got a couple of blog posts I have already written that will be coming soon! Puzzling questions. And finally, a post on what I actually do!! oh yeah, and some pictures once somebody lets me borrow their cable.
Saturday I stayed home and went with my host younger brother (Selbil) and two host cousins (Marvin and “pescado”) to Las Islas, which is a natural pool in the river that flows through carchá. El pescado (fish)… as we said is not a very good pescado. He does not know how to swim. So we tried to teach him a little bit, but mostly he enjoyed standing in shallow parts and sliding down a slide where I would catch him before he went under water. It was a lot of fun and charming to have such fun with the pescado. I actually don´t know his real name. My host mom said that yestday, the day I returned, he kept asking about when I would get home.
So anyways, Sunday morning I left home early and passed by a Catholic procession on my way to the bus station. I got to Coban and ran to catch a microbus that was heading in the right direction. I got dropped off at a place called “mucbilha´” which is “hidden water” in Kekchi. It is a community run tourism thing. I got a tour through two huge caves and after lunch went back to one of them and had a lot of fun being on my own at the entrance to a huge cave with a stream coming out of it taking pictures and making noises or singing into the dark cavern. I visited the small community next door, 60 families strong, and hung out with a guy there looking at the tiny Catholic church. The have a large soccer field with horses and a bull grazing, and goals made of round wooden posts. You can´t reach the village by car and the area is protected so you are surrounded unmolested forest.
I left early in the morning, hitched a quick ride to a crossroads where I got on another microbus to Sayaché, crossed the river by boat, and got on another bus to Flores. Floresis the closest town to Tikal (ancient Mayan pyramids). Flores is an island in the center of a lake, a very cool tourists spot with lots of restaurants along the shore. It is also much cooler because of the lake (literally cooler I mean, Flores is in the Peten which is a terribly hot place, like Cambodia with its humidity). I ate at the side of the road in St Elena, the surrounding town, visited flores for just a bit and then hopped on a bus to Tikal. There I got into the park after being usuccessful at finding a place to stay (because of people with bad directions). There I walked about35 minutes to the tallest tower where there was a group gathered to watch the sun go down. Despite some annoying French girls, it was nice.
The pyramids are spectacular, so tall and steep. It is quite amazing.
I went back and found where I meant to stay, and rented a tent for the night. I bought an orange juice and then a watermelon juice and then 1.5 liters of water to try to satisfy my thirst. My main source of water earlier had been just a bag of mangos I had bought. I think these were the principal cause of the stomach problems I had this night. I made three trips to the bathroom before I took on of my magic pills I have had in my little green bag since I bought it. The next day, despite some weakness, I explored the Mayan ruins, at first very pleasantly on my own and then with a group of a German, an Englishman, an Israeli, and a Norweigen.
We left the park around luchtime as it was going to start to get hot (Though it was a fabulous day to visit, as a cold front had just come through). I ate a disappointing hamburger and booked a ticket to get back to Flores. I had planned to do more with the pyramids, but I wasn´t feeling great and just wanted to rest.
So I got back to Flores around 4:30 and found that the only hostal in Flores was full because of a HS group from Texas. I looked around a little bit and briefly toyed with going to a friend of a friend in Flores who I met once but instead went back and rented a hammock wich the hostal has in its social area.
For dinner I went to the place which is owned by the friend of a friend (friend of Galan and Phyllis who used to work either with MCC or with EMM and now lives there and runs a café bar by the lake). I ordered a cinnamon role and a coffee sat alone for a while before getting into a conversation with a hippish looking Guatemalan woman who sat at the table next to me. It was a good conversation and I later ordered a sandwich and fries which I had to take home partly in a doggie bag. As I was heading back to the hostal I crossed a couple with whom I had shared waves with before and they invited me to come watcha movie with them back where I had just been. I said yes. He was from Norway I think and she was from Italy and we all spoke good Spanish. It was fun and we enjoyed a depressing documentary about the Zapatistas in Mexico.
We also watched another catholic procession go by. The blaring horns are great.
I returned to the hostal to play jenga with some English, one of which was the same as I had hung out with earlierin Tikal. Three of them I shared a van with back to Coban the next day.
Over all it was avery fun trip. Though I have to report the disturbing loss of every singlie container of water that I either carried with me at the beginning or bought on the way.
I am now happy to be at home with my own bed.
The last couple days I enjoyed relaxation, reading, and trips to the river to swim with my host family
Jordan
A snippit from Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father by Richard Rodriguez.
"So I ask my friend at Oxford what it means to him to be an Indian.
He hesitates. My friend has recently been taken up as amusing by a bunch of rich Pakistanis in London. But, facing me, he is vexed and in earnest. He describes a lonely search among his family for evidence of Indian-ness.. He thinks he has found it in his mother; watching his mother in her garden.
Does she plant corn by the light of the moon?
She seems to have some relationship with the earth, he says quietly.
So there it is. The mystical tie to nature. How else to think of the Indian except in terms of some druidical green thumb? No one says of an English matron in her rose garden that she is behaving like a Celt. Because the Indian has no history – that is, because history books are the province of descendants of Europeans--- the Indian seems only to belong in the party of the first part, the first chapter. So that is where the son expects to find his mother, Daughter of the Moon.”
Thank you Richard Rodriguez. I live with “Indians” and while the Q´eqchi´ might be more spiritual than I am, while some still believe that there are Mayans (they have heard their music) in the untouched parts of the forest, while corn might still be holy... these are all still parts of a culture that have come right along with everyone else into the 21st century. The Mayans are now protestants who go out to villages to pray for those in times of trouble. The Mayans are now my host mom who cooks over a wood fire and would like to have a car so she didn´t have to walk so much. The Mayans are my cousin who is exchanging her huilpil and corte (clothes enforced long ago by Spanish occupants) for modern clothes from America made in Guatemala or SE Asia. If you still want to call the Q´eqchi´ Mayans, then the Mayans are cutting down there own forest and trashing their own rivers,
If you want to find the old Mayan spiritual practices, you still can. It is even on display at some touristy places like Chichicastenango. I am sure it is much stronger in small villages. In fact I hear there is a bit of a revival going on right now. Corn is still holy. I was super excited to hear stories about people hearing the ch´ol cuink ("heart men" or the mystical Mayans that some blieve still live in the forest) and my librarian buddy talking about the mountain God. Despite reservations as a Christian (a Christian brother to them, as they are Christian too) more than anything I was just interested to hear about beliefs these two had that are a continuation of religious beliefs that were here before Christianity. There is something impressive about that, and besides, I have not been here near long enough to argue spiritual points with people here.
But I am not going to regret the loss of ancient culture. It is a choice for them to make. I will regret changes that, along with changes Europeans made long ago, lead towards unhealthy relationships with our surrounding world and can lead towards harmful things such as global warming. I don´t want to see Q´eqchi´ people cutting down the forest, but not because they are “betraying the traditions that run in their blood,” but because they are taking part in an almost completely modern problem that could have bad results for all of us. I regret that while many might shed a tear for the loss of ancient culture, we deny that that culture, being stuck in the first chapter of history books, has anything to teach us today.
My friends Enrique and Adolfo (Qeqchi (decendets of the Maya!!)) celebrating Obamas victory. Maybe there "spiritual connection to the Earth" told them that Obama would be better than Mccain.... I don{t know....
Jordan
ps. I actually bribed them with cake.
