Chimaltenango

Yesterday, unexpectedly, I went with Mike to one of the little villages north of Antigua where a new school is going to be built in a few months. We set out at 8/30 am)if you see strange signs where other signs should be it's because the computer at Probigua doesn't work very well) and went to Chimaltenango where PAVA has it's office. There we picked up Adam, a Peace Corps volunteer, and Luis who both work for PAVA. We went to San Martin )about 80 km) to meet with the mayor of the town and the region. From there we went on dirt roads for another 30 km to a tiny village of 25 families. We were greeted by a group of men from the villages and by fire crackers - that's the local tradition. The school is now a shack made of sugar canes and one teacher teaches grades 1 to 5. They are all in the same room: first grade in the first row, second grade in the second row, and so on. The teacher was an amazing person - I talked to him for a few minutes using my newly acquired Spanish words. The mayor came a few minutes after we came, with his body guards and someone representing the government police - a man with a rifle who was overlooking our meeting. The kids were let go on a break and we and the men from the village were sitting outside and all were talking about the new school and how the PAVA will contribute half of the cost of building the school, half will be provided by the government and volunteers will help the families build it. After the meeting we were invited to an everyday meal of the families: tortillas with salt and chicken soup. For desert everyone was given a piece of sugar cane, which had to be pealed off and cut into pieces and could then be chewed. I tasted some of the sugar cane: very refreshing and not too sweet - I was told there are different kinds, some less sweet then the others. Only sugar cane because I got food poisoning the night before (abuelo Herb invited me to taste the best paella in town, since he was returning to the US the next morning; I will never have another paella in my life) and wouldn't be able to hold anything in my stomach anyway. This whole trip was a very interesting one. Mike told me that the villages are very poor and I was preparing myself emotionally to see this poverty but I have to say it looked much better than the cities I was passing by on my way to Panajachel. Like in Chiapas in Mexico people seem rather happy. They work very hard, true, and they have very little. The houses are made of sugar cane or any other material which may be handy. There's not much in the houses. Men work in the fields and women take care of the families. Women's lives are especially hard. It's amazing how much dry wood for cooking they can carry on their heads. In places where there's no water they travel many times a day for miles to bring water home for cooking. Everything they wear is made of fabric the women weave (and some second-hand clothing which come from rich countries - men wear t-shirts with emblems of various US universities, advertising some luxury articles, medical conferences, etc). There's no entertainment and no vacations here. There's only the daily life of providing what is necessary to survive. We, westerners, would not endure one day of such life. Ann told me there is this saying here which people often say "The world owes me nothing." I was reading in the morning this book on meditation which I got from Tomek and a thought came to my mind that we the people coming from the richer countries, where the society puts so much fake rules and obligations on us and make us believe we deserve something or are entitled to something, making us people living in the past or in the future, we need to meditate and practice yoga, and search for the meaning of live while the people here don't need to do any of this, they don't look for the meaning of life at all - the meaning of life is for them their daily existence. This is exactly what we are trying to do with all these various classes, therapies, etc. They never loose touch with reality and what is truly important - their relationships with family and people in general. They do everything slowly - there's no need to move fast, to do certain things which will bring them toward some goal set for a distant future. There is no goal - the goal is to survive today. There are no "underachievers" here. No one has to be more than what they are. Only when they come to the cities, they start to want things and fall into eternal chase for things. So in the cities people have more, but are less happy. This seems to be the pattern... the more things people have, the more miserable they are. Of course, it's a different story with people who have so little that they starve or die of diseases or because of war. It may be true here as well, when the crops are destroyed or there's civil war going on... On our way to St. Martin we visited a newly built school which consisted of three rooms for three different age groups. Kids were in all of them but there is so far only one teacher - the government has to contract two more. The teacher was teaching in one room and kids in the other rooms were talking quietly, some were drawing. I couldn't believe how nicely they behaved, in comparison to Polish and American kids )that's the only comparison I have). Polish and American kids would be ripping their heads off if left alone for 10 minutes!

Yesterday evening Rob and Rubber Head stopped by Luna Maya, just as I was having a tenth cup of te de manzanilla'cammomile tea to cure my poor stomach. Rubber was very compassionate and was giving me one paw to pat after another, looking in my eyes lovingly. I really love this dog. He also has something of an elephant in him... Maybe he is a Ganesh? I will go to see a movie tonight with Rob, The Passion, and Rubber will have to stay home but I will visit them in the park where they spend afternoons earlier.