Saber

Rocking la JEM

2006-11-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

La JEM is known to rock the boat. Its rocker attitude makes them rebels, crazies, creative. They wear KORN hats with ripped jeans and spray painted t-shirts. They carry around guitars and sing in public. They have Christian rock concerts where they sing about the environment. They wish to be more crazy than they are but don’t know how.

In August la JEM began collaborating with Young Achievement, a non-profit aimed at teaching business skills to young adults. One of the small businesses created was a café, Rockafé, aimed at young music lovers. I first was called upon to help create a sign for the street, which you see in the above photo, but I also learned that Rockafé had other problems. Since it’s run by sweet, immature 16-year-old girls—who can’t cook and who adore the light pink walls—they have little rocker business. Not only did I teach them a few recipes in the kitchen and serve as a facilitator and role model within the complicated dynamics of the group, I also designed paintings for two of the largest walls. The resulting murals gave me the opportunity to show la JEM that I understand it and love it.

Girls tending to the café asked if I could paint some fruit and a lush green landscape. I cringed. I’m not a rocker, but I did live in New York. I was joined by two aspiring JEM painters, who took advantage of the paint to do their own original pieces on other walls. We created a small artist community with frequent coffee breaks and blaring music.

Ian posed for the protest piece, and we used repeated messages of la JEM to proclaim its ideals to all clientele. The sign of the figure in the middle reads “Para un mundo más justo,” or For a more just world. The squatting figure below holds a placard, “Hay mucho que decir pero mejor lo vamos a hacer,” or There’s a lot to say but better yet we’re going to do it. In the left corner one silhouette holds high the JEM logo, a rockerized drop of water and its slogan, Unidos por el Aqua, United for Water and next to it reads “Aprender haciendo y hacer pensando,” or Learn while doing and do while thinking.

The next painting shows a Williamsburg-type landscape with a red forest foregrounding a white and yellow sky. Below, a blood red background illuminates a rock-band sketch, which plays while break-dancers visually confuse the viewer.

After the first day of painting the jóvenes threw us a going-away party in Rockafé. About 60 friends from all different communities came to send us off and it was fun to see the viewers’ initial responses to my bewildering work. A good friend told me when asked what she thought, Why does it have to look so weird?
But the president of la JEM, Ever, exclaimed upon arriving, Now it’s Rockafé! and a visiting marimba player recognized the message of waking youth finding themselves in an unjust world and commented that he had never seen before in Tacaná anything with such energy.

During the meal many people got up to toast to our presence and to say good-bye. Every comment was moving and sad, but the most unexpected and unforgettable moment came when Nancy, our host sister, got up to speak. Nancy studies and lives in San Marcos, so we haven’t gotten to know her well. She’s a sweet-hearted and hard-shelled rocker with long dark hair braids who has been known to punch men who whistle at her and who tends to make fun of people when they cry.

She stared past me at the paintings and said thoughtfully, with bright red teary eyes: Wow, Brooke, I’ve been looking at these paintings and I see myself in them. I see all of la JEM in these murals. I don’t know if everyone else sees what you’ve done here, but it’s phenomenal. I know what’s it’s like to live in someone else’s house and be in someone else’s culture because I’ve done it and I know it’s hard. Thank you. I consider you both to be a part of our family, the Velásquez Pérez family, and I don’t know you as well as I want to, but I consider you my siblings. This is just the beginning of a long friendship.

Since la JEM plans to use the extra rooms in Rockafé as office space and the café area to have concerts, I know the works will be seen my many and that they are an important moment in the development of their organizational philosophies. I also know that the JEM members will continue painting these walls and others with their own images and ideals. All year it has been a struggle to understand one another, and this last project gave me the opportunity to communicate myself to them—through art—that I get them, that I love them.

Viveros, Cuá and Linda Vista

2006-11-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

Four JEM communities have tree nurseries, which hold an important role in getting teenagers involved in reforestation projects. Time unfortunately only allowed me to work in two of these viveros, in Linda Vista and Cuá. What you see here is creative signage that calls attention to their work. I contracted the carpentry skills of a JEM member to cut the wood, which we then transported to the communities where we had discussions and painted the signs.

In Linda Vista (Pretty View) I arrived in the middle of a community meeting, which was perfect since it made the project really collaborative. Many had suggestions about the use of the signage and gave their input on what it should say. Throughout the day adults came to oversee the work of the teenagers and later helped find posts and raise the sign. We gave the sign double purpose, using it at the entrance to the community and as a way to call attention to the youth’s nearby tree nursery. The wood was cut into the silhouette of Volcano Tacaná, mimicking the same view seen from Linda Vista. In the image you can see the difference between the community’s original sign and the one we made with the materials from ArtCorps. The sign reads, Welcome, Center of Integral Formation, Linda Vista and Forest Nursery, Jóvenes en la Misión, Nature—to be dominated—should be obeyed.

For Cuá I designed a sign made up of two trees that would hang over the narrow entrance to the tree nursery, which you would walk underneath. The youth decided to not place the sign in this location, but in a more visible area near the street. Unfortunately my busy schedule at the end of my residency didn’t allow time for me to return to see it hung up. The kids painted in the large colorful trees, and after brainstorming they voted on what they wanted it to say. It reads, Youth Tree Nursery, Jóvenes en la Misión strengthening our mountains with more trees and Cuá, the place of water, Let’s Conserve It!

¡Cultiva la Vida! Muraling in San Pablo

2006-11-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

Within the painting work I’ve done with the JEM, I’ve been thinking about various muraling processes and have experimented with different techniques. Some projects are more collaborative than others, depending on the focus, be it process or product.

From January to April I worked with a group of teenagers in Cunlaj, where we developed drawings and painting about Hurricane Stan and then created a community mural to remember the experience and bring hope for the future. Each week we discussed various issues regarding Stan, and by the time we were ready to paint in public each participant had created a final painting. I helped design the mural using their drawings, but my role was mainly limited to mixing paint and giving advice. I did little painting, and there was a large sense of ownership in the work. Some days the painters arrived at 5 AM.

In El Vergel in September, I had a one-day workshop with the 5th and 6th grade classes, and at home I used their drawings and my own to design the 60-foot mural. The kids helped me during the nine days of painting, but I was the main artist doing the piece. The school kids and community members were thrilled about the mural as a product, and it was a very successful short collaboration. But it didn’t create the same ownership as in Cunlaj since we didn’t focus on a long-term and in-depth process.

My intention in San Pablo, where the mural you see here was created, was to re-create a similar experience I had in Cunlaj, but with kids. Once a week for three months I worked in the elementary school in San Pablo, giving painting classes to the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade classes. The product of these classes was to be a mural. Since these were kids I had to design and coordinate the content of the mural, but I planned on using exclusively their drawings and paintings to create it. I had the fourth-grade classes draw and paint animals, the fifth-graders birds, and the sixth-graders designed and painted trees. The kids democratically voted on their favorites and then worked in groups to paint them on large poster board and develop the images even further. From these I designed what you see here, with the exact drawings of the kids painted onto the wall.

Collaboration is about learning and I learned, for the 50th time, that communication is the most essential element of working together. I started working in the school in San Pablo at the end of the school year and didn’t anticipate the flurry of exams and odd schedules that complicated my classes and the planning of the mural. A lack of communication on both my part and that of the school director left me starting the mural the last day of classes. The kids were excited and thrilled to be painting once they left their classrooms giddy and filled with energy, ready for the vacation months. I thought it was going to be a perfect time to have each child fill in their drawing, but I quickly learned that when there’s no school there’s no reason to come to town. The next day and for many days after a few stragglers came and went, but by and by the mural was left with large white spaces where the kids hadn’t arrived to paint in their drawings. The few participants that lived in the center begged to finish the works of others, but I was intent on saving them for their original designers. During graduation I hoped kids would come back to town and remember the mural, but few extras came to help out. We did have an exhibition of the paintings on graduation day, and the community was able to see the bright paintings and creative work of the students. In the end about 20 of the 60 kids came to paint the mural, and I was forced to finish it two weeks later with Ian and a handful of children and teenagers.

This was is an example of where the process was thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding, with many weeks of classes and positive interaction, but the product was left behind and lost in the collaboration. I couldn’t help wishing that we hadn’t created the mural, since I wasn’t interested in copying and painting the kids’ drawing myself, and instead would have preferred (if I had known I was going to be working mainly by myself) to have created a better product since in this case the product didn’t add to the process.

But all experiences help cultivate our lives, and I know that the mural was an exciting activity for those that participated. Some kids were thrilled to see their own work translated onto the wall and exclaimed proudly to their parents and friends, That’s my bird! or I painted that tree!

shared thoughts, Hurricane Stan

2006-11-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

From January to March of this year teenagers, adults, and kids in my painting workshops were given the opportunity to express their experiences and thoughts with regard to Hurricane Stan, which hit the region during the first few days of October, 2005. In the municipality of Tacaná, 144 communities were affected; 84 people died or disappeared, 1,610 houses were destroyed or rendered unlivable, and 9,000 people were left homeless.

The drawings show us dark skies with heavy rain, dirty rivers filled with fallen trees, landslides, houses buried in earth, people toting their belongings and abandoning their houses, women praying, children crying, and more.

On one page the author writes us a small story, “EL NIÑO QUE VIO QUE NADIE VIO,” or THE BOY THAT SAW WHAT NO ONE SAW. In a family there was a señorita who was sad because the rain continued. It had been three days that she hadn’t seen her boyfriend. And a teenager who wondered how it was going to be after the storm. And a little boy who looked out the window. The mom felt that he was sad and went to console him and the little boy said, “Look, mama, how pretty the rainbow that Hurricane Stan came to bring us.”

In another, titled “Pensamientos,” or Thoughts, the 28-year-old author from Linda Vista writes 16 ideas he wishes to share about the Hurricane and life in general. In one workshop we developed a conversation about service and solidarity by using this page to provoke our discussion.
I slept and dreamed that life was happiness, and I woke up and saw that life was service, I served and saw that life was happiness.
To love is not to look at one another, but to look together in the same direction.
Don’t wait until you can spread your light far away. Be happy and illuminate the corner in which you live.

In spite of the destruction the communities have demonstrated faith and hope, which has helped them continue moving forward to reconstruct what was lost. Their histories are inspiring and show us the necessity to continue fighting for better lives and to learn to be prepared for future storms and natural catastrophes.

The book was left with la JEM to share with visitors and to keep as a record of the stories, horrors, and courage of their people. Twenty blank pages were included in the back of the book in order to allow more participants to share their experiences.

dusty light and light-hearted kites

2006-11-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

November 2
Our time in San Pablo is drawing to an end, and I’m noticing more and more what I’ve missed. There are still so many people to visit, so much atol to drink, and so many paths on the other side of the valley I haven’t felt under my feet. I’ve finally begun to put community before work, chatting with young girls hauling weeds for the goats, taking my time in sipping hot coffee over the open fire, and sketching the faces of young kids in my notebook. During our first few months I missed many community events and instead worked at home or in a different community. Now I’ve come to see the value in showing up for these cultural moments. My presence makes me more a part of the community, an invaluable element when working collaboratively but even more important in developing understanding and love.
Everywhere we go I observe. Yesterday—in the house of a neighbor—light peaked in through the cracks in the boarded up window. It poured inside in thin strips like the light in my memory of St. Peter’s, exposing the dusty air quickly moving its way around the stillness of our bodies, continuing on in the never-ending stream of the present moment. I don’t want to go, I tell myself, looking up into the blank face of the grandpa, covered in black flies. There was one on his nose, and he didn’t even blink. In the afternoon I went to sit on the roof of the school to watch the sunset, to burn the image of the mountains onto the fabric of my mind. On one side, towards San Marcos, a low dark horizon of clouds passed over the silhouette of the mountains. On the other, towards Mexico, celaje clouds fluttered like baby blue and pink butterflies, showing off faraway fields filled with elegant yellow weeds.

Tuesday was the school graduation, and they presented both Ian and me with diplomas of recognition, to thank us. I had so much to say and wasn’t prepared at all. I produced a few words to explain my grief and joy, and then later, with the graduates, allowed tears to slip from my eyes. These weren’t just tears of sadness, but also of happiness, for having made it all the way to graduation, for having survived a difficult year in a place I still barely understand.

Today is Day of the Dead, a time to honor those you’ve loved and lost. The tradition here in Guatemala is to visit the cemetery, bringing candles, food and corn atol to the spirits that arose at midnight the night before. Then, there’s a kite-flying contest on the highest peak in town. I watched the colorful homemade kites slowly glide in the wind, floating souls taken to the free air, and thought of Grandaddy. I don’t want to go home, I tell myself, but I’m ready.

Sustainability and Silk-screening

2006-11-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

Part of the sustainable work I was hoping to implement with la JEM included a t-shirt making business. Because of its isolated location, Tacaná has few fashionable clothing options, and I hoped to provide witty and popular environmental silk-screened t-shirts. We began with the JEM logo, and for a short period of time members of la JEM came to help with the tedious job of printing. After printing around 40 we began selling, with much success, but then no one came to print anymore. Because the work I do here is collaborative I decided not to print the remaining t-shirts by myself. July was a difficult personal month, and I wasn’t around much. When I returned, la JEM was about to embark on a program with Empresarios Juveniles, a non-profit aimed at teaching youth the world of business. La JEM was given the opportunity to create four small experimental businesses.

I suggested starting a t-shirt silk-screening company. It seemed like a perfect fit because of the market, because we had extra supplies and because I was there to support the creative process. I was thrilled at this possibility that I could create sustainable work with the business aspect entirely supported by another organization. But the jóvenes passed off on the idea for whatever reason. I continued attending a few Empresarios Juveniles meetings, but my presence wasn’t wanted, so I butted out. Later, I was told that the four companies had merged into three; two planned on creating cafés, while the third was going to produce, package, and market a tea.

Last week I showed up to the presentation of the products, and I found that the two cafés had merged into one and that the third company is a t-shirt silk-screening business. They had three or four basic text designs on dozens of t-shirts. I learned that their plan is not only to sell t-shirts, but all kinds of art, including paintings and handicrafts.

This group has a professional artist working for them—dying to help them—and yet they said nothing and didn’t ask for help. I don’t understand.

The particulars of working collaboratively can be difficult. It’s probable the t-shirt business would never have occurred without my initiative in making JEM t-shirts and in suggesting it for a model company. But without the extra creative angle the product fell flat, and during their product presentation the group sold few t-shirts. Persuading your partner that you can be of assistance is difficult. Collaboration must start from the very beginning and both partners must be on the same page, understanding that they’re going into an experience where their expectations may not be fulfilled. La JEM didn’t understand the mission of ArtCorps and thus was confused during the first few months of my residency. Because their expectations didn’t come to full bloom and they never got comfortable with the new mission, I often times feel like I’m the only one collaborating.

I talked to the head of the t-shirt company to offer my help. I told him I leave in three weeks, but that I would be happy to do a day or two silk-screening and design workshop. He seemed very interested and appreciative, but now my time has come down to a week and a half. He still hasn’t called.

Theater Festival: The Mysterious Tree

2006-10-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

October 13th was our theater festival, and it was a huge hit. With a live seven-piece marimba band and two one-hour plays, we were the event of the week. An audience of 150 was polite and quiet as we abandoned the microphones and had them sit through pitch-black transitions. We went all out with sound effects and lighting—having earlier recorded fireworks and later performing part of the night with shadow-theater—to make it a unique experience for all. While the house filled, the marimba band Voces de Selva played for an hour. The first play, El Árbol Misterioso (The Mysterious Tree) was performed by Tercero Básico (equivalent to sophomore year in high school). And the second, Ayer y Mañana (Yesterday and Tomorrow), was performed by Quinto Bachillerato (seniors in high school). We ended the night with a nervous energy converted into screams of joy, more marimba, coffee, and corn on the cob slathered in ketchup, mayonnaise, and hot sauce. Coming home at one in the morning, I was brimming with pride in the students and their accomplishment. I was worried the whole event would fall apart since we pulled the plays together only the week before, but on performance night the students rose to the occasion and I was pleasantly surprised.

El Árbol Misterioso
A rural community is faced with corrupt leaders who allow a mining company to cut down its enchanted forest. But a special, magical, mysterious tree can’t be cut down, and as they pound its trunk with their machetes its shadow grows larger and larger, before it begins to drop seeds. Accompanied by the sounds of a live flute in the background, the forest grows back stronger than ever. The shadows of the cardboard props bounce up and down and the audience giggles in delight. The humans try to destroy the forest again, this time with dynamite, and again one-by-one the arbolitos fall. Mother Nature exploded into bits and pieces. But in the morning the humans find that not only have the trees grown back, but the mysterious tree has overtaken their house when they wake alongside the birds, high above the land. The mining company abandons the project and the people are drawn towards the mysterious tree, trying to understand Mother Nature and its capabilities. They think that if they eat the fruit they too will have magical powers, and one by one they declare their dreams of building a house, creating a tree nursery, becoming a singer, and building a better community. But it turns out that the tree’s fruit didn’t have any magical powers: the play ends with the insightful voice of the tree explaining that the humans—just like the tree, the worms, potatoes, and everything else made by the creator—all have the same inexplicable energy and power infused in their souls. They just didn't realize it.

Yesterday and Tomorrow

2006-10-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

A money-hungry salesman sells the land, air, and water to three unassuming devotees of these natural resources. But after becoming possessions, these treasures are mistreated by the humans and the fight begins. Boxing to “The Eye of the Tiger,” the actors show the continuous struggle between humans and the environment. After each fight the natural resources explain how they’ve been abused: by cutting down all the trees, burning diesel fuel, and throwing trash in the river. Then, the humans begin to be beaten, and they complain about the poor air quality, the lack of fertile land for their crops, and the bacteria in the polluted water. All of a sudden, with a fury of lights, smoke, and commanding music, Mother Earth, Grandfather Air, and Grandmother Water arrive. They share their knowledge with the audience, questioning a society where one would have to pay for water or air. They explain the equilibrium of the universe and invite the audience to participate. The narrator reveals that in Mayan culture life is represented in the exhalation of the breath and requests the audience to try it, to breathe deeply, to enjoy its freshness and purity. Then, he asks them whether or not the human beings deserve another chance and the audience enthusiastically responds, Sí!

sacred mayan temples and enormous active anthills

2006-10-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

After working constantly to finish the mural in Vergel, I took off with Ian to pick up our good friend, Greg, and head off to Tikal, one of the most well-known and largest Mayan sights in the jungle of northern Guatemala. The ancient world spoke to me in long smoky whispers too hard to understand beneath the centuries of life that have overtaken these once inhabited spaces. Ambitious vines sneakily and slowly strangled massive trees; dancing roots fanned out across the earth and pulled upwards, twisting and twirling up towards the sky. I looked up to see monkeys and hear parrots, and I trod massive anthills larger than whales. My attention was drawn to the life of the jungle more than to the ruins, which were impressively intimidating. We arrived late afternoon and didn’t see anyone for an hour until a guard accompanied us up Mundo Perdido, where we basked in the sunset, listened to the toucans, and sat stupefied by the grandeur of the pyramids sneaking over the jungle. That night we uncomfortably enjoyed sleeping in hammocks while trying to distinguish each whistle, rustle, and stir. Was that a howler monkey or a jaguar? I asked myself. In the morning we were again blessed with a day without tourists, and one-by-one the pyramids were scaled and the rich environment of the jungle enjoyed.

A two-night stop in Finca Ixobel in Poptún blessed us with romantic treehouses and delectable food—the best I’ve had in Guatemala! Then we set off for Río Dulce to meet up with my sister artists, Aryeh and Kay, and get recharged with their support and love. Check out their websites to learn about the amazing work they’re both up to! Aryeh’s blog ,Kay’s blog . We met an amazing 62-yr-old hippie living in Costa Rica and traveling by herself, and we all took a trip out on the water for the day, paddled through mangroves and got lost, dipped in the hot springs, and came back to eat and swim and delight in each other’s company. Since my surgery this was our first (and last) vacation and it was certainly one of the best, hard earned and relaxing.

El Queztal y la Milpa, Mural on school wall, Vergel: In Process

2006-10-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

Even after eight months of working in Guatemala, where I have a hard enough time just getting to the next town, I continue to underestimate the time it will take to complete a project. On top of four other projects I recently added an ambitious mural on the side of a school. What I thought would be a two-day side project blossomed into my main focus for three weeks. From it has emerged a passion and energy for muraling I didn’t know I had.

Xochil, a young student in the painting workshops I held in Tacaná, saw me working on the mural in the town hall one day and offered to help. She asked if I could assist her in painting the name of her school in Vergel on its outdoor wall, and I decided that alongside the signage we should also do some small paintings about the environment.

That conversation somehow developed into what you see here (see post below for final images), a 60-foot-long mural filled with colorful images of corn and tortillas, landscapes and birds. I visited the 5th and 6th grade classes one hot Thursday and held a three-hour drawing workshop. I gave them eight poems from Humberto Ak’abal, a Quiché poet, two Mam prayers having to do with the corn cycle, and the legend of Guatemala`s national bird, the quetzal. They used these written resources to make beautifully detailed drawings, which I brought home to play with and design the mural. For three full days we prepped by painting the lines, and then for two days the kids filled in the colors, running back and forth to my plastic nylon sheet covered in paint cans and begging for another assignment. Afterwards I returned daily to fill in the details and work with straggling kids and community members. Each day was a blessing, filled with long hot hours of painting followed by a filling lunch and torrential downpours, which cooled off everything and gave me time to do the painstaking work of cleaning the brushes and pallets.

When finished we invited the parents and held an event with the student body, during which Ever Velásquez, the president of la JEM, came to talk about the organization. I had the kids read the poems and other resources that we used as inspiration and then held a discussion about the themes and meanings in each part of the painting. The teachers were really appreciative and wanted more, saying the other side of the wall needed such beautiful drawings as well.

All in all, it was a great experience that facilitated community participation and involvement, cultural and artistic awareness, and, of course, promoted the imaginative ideals and environmental messages of la JEM. The kids were wide-eyed when they saw their own drawings painted life-size on the wall, empowering them within their educational development and improving their creative capacities. Instead of promoting individualism and self-centered goals, muraling promotes a sense of collaboration and neighborliness, which goes hand-in-hand with democracy and compromise. While it beautifies a community and gives people pride in their spaces, it also invites cross-generational participation. The more people that paint—even if it’s only for three minutes—the more people the messages will reach. After all, people pay attention to products they help create.

El Quetzal y La Milpa, Mural on school wall, Vergel: Final Product

2006-09-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

La Leyenda del Quetzal
A la mañana siguiente la flor despertó y, en efecto, ya no era flor. Hallábase convertida en un bello pájaro que volaba muy alto. Y ese pájaro en el cual amaneció convertida, por buena, por espiritual, por delicada, y por bella, es nada menos que el Quetzal. !El Quetzal! Francisco Barnoya Gálvez

Si un árbol se mueve

Si un árbol se mueve
de un lado a otro
es que el fruto
le está haciendo cosquillas,

y sus flores se caen
muertas de la risa.

Humberto Ak'abal

painting workshops

2006-09-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

coming home in a box

2006-09-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Cuá
September 17, 2006

I rush down the path, past the filthy river, past the woman turning back to examine me, past the landslide that killed his wife’s parents. I’d never been to the house of three of my best students—who, when I once asked what they wanted to do after school, responded in unison, Our path leads to the US—but now I’m arriving to share my regrets for their older brother.

The house is set back in the milpa, barely visible now that the stalks reach well past seven feet high. It’s new, painted white cinder block with high ceilings and a front porch. Everyone knows that all houses like this were paid for with the sweat of an illegal immigrant, with the American dollars sent home by a family member.

Since he left—eight years ago—there’s been a whole in his mother’s heart. For years the pain was eased with the money he sent back to pay for the food, the gas, the schooling of the kids. But now, after the accident on Thursday, she wonders where the money will come from. What will the family do? The whole in her heart is deepening, widening, settling in for a lifetime. They’ve requested that his body be sent home, that it be buried near his family, and so that they can visit his grave. The cost will no doubt be another worry, another bother. His 10-year-old daughter giggles when she sees me and gives me a kiss. She doesn’t remember him, nor her mother, nor her younger brother and sister who were born in the US. Later, I notice her staring at his photo as if examining him for the first time, trying to know him before having to bury him.

I sit with his mother on the front porch in plastic chairs and watch the rain, looking in the corn stalks for the right thing to say, for the answers to an economic problem that tears families apart. A problem that makes their children strangers, that makes them dependent on remittances, that makes them wait on their front porch for the body of their son, their brother, the uncle, their father, not knowing when or whether or not it will arrive. In a place that lost 46 people under a year ago because of Huricane Stan, there is more suffering, more pain. The sacrifice of the new house, the filling meal we eat for lunch, the education of the family’s teenagers I’m friends with—all of it is deep. I wonder whether it’s worth it, I wonder if they see it. I wonder what the teenagers would say now about their futures.

Community Love

2006-09-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

Slowly we’re becoming a part of the community here, not just a part of la JEM. We spend a lot of time with one single mother, Maura, and her family. They all have the best smiles, contagious loving smiles that’ll warm your soul. Even the grandpa, who never leaves the house, lights up like a firefly in the night, flashing his dental implants and making us feel giddy. We laugh and talk about simple things, share our differences and bring each other treats. They come with canned peaches and coffee, and we bring over our lentil soup for them to taste. Instead of staring at us like we’re aliens, the kids hang on our shoulders and tickle our sides, helping us with our Spanish and putting their dimples to good use. It’s a magical experience; it almost feels like home.

This feeling has extended itself outside of San Pablo, too. Saturday night we stayed in Linda Vista since I was working close-by, and so we went to visit a family we’ve stayed with before. On our way we were invited into the house of another family we know, and there we all exchanged thoughts on health, money, politics, and recipes while chowing down on Connecticut-quality apples, buttery avocados, and tomato salsa. They were elated to have us in their home and we felt honored to be there. Again, the smiles filled us with happiness and we went onto to our final destination where again we ate dinner and happily responded curious questions about ourselves. We went to bed and woke up satisfied, content, loved. We’ve stayed at many houses and conversed with lots of people, but somehow now it seems different, more open, more real, more like family.

Pageants and Contests

2006-09-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Current readers, possible readers, late-night readers, early-morning readers, ladies, gentlemen, respected teachers, honorable director, kind judges on the panel, children, teenagers, contest participants, students, for everyone in the audience, Good Afternoon.

When we first arrived back in August, Ian and I were judges for a kids’ singing contest here in town. I worked all day with the kids making the set, a mix of colorful and tacky flowers, which was a huge hit. To start off the night we pumped up the music full blast and danced merengue with the audience members. The event went until one in the morning, when we finally and slowly announced our verdicts. Needless to say, the audience was not happy with our decisions and thus we created quite a buzz around town. We had a blast, though, and it was amazing to see the courage and talent of these kids.

This past week there were daily celebrations for Independence Day, which falls on September 15th, and every community had its own beauty pageant, one for the teenagers and one for the little girls. I was asked to do the sashes for San Pablo, which I labored over for three days and did not enjoy at all. The girls in the pageants, though, labor over their outfits and details of the event for weeks. While sexist and ridiculous, the pageants are very popular with the men and women alike; I’ve never seen so many people come out for an event!

They first come out in traditional indigenous clothes from all over the country; some tote water jugs, others a lit candle with which they make the sign of the cross from their knees, usually right in front of the judges. Then they show off sports wear. Many use this as an opportunity to come out in a bikini, pretending to know how to swim or play volleyball. Here in the freezing cold mountains it’s quite a sight and the crowd goes wild. The only other sports we’ve seen are weight-lifting and rhythmic gymnastics (read: cheerleading), which are sad. Lastly they come out in a formal gown and the announcers tell us about their favorite colors and lifetime dreams. Most hope to graduate college, and some want to be doctors or engineers. This is my favorite part, where the possibilities are endless and I actually feel like the event is adding to their confidence and development as an individual, where they are striving to be beautiful and intelligent women.

Then, though, they make a speech about violence and peace, about the need to develop and better the country. The little girls recite words they’ve never heard before and with the teenagers, too, it’s obvious they have no idea what they’re saying. After the girls are crowned little boys in white shirts and bowties come one by one to take them away, bowing to the public and holding the hand of their lady.

Tepeuy

2006-08-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

EL ABUELO
-¿Qué cosa es ese ruido?
-Un reloj.
-¿Y para qué sirve?
-Para medir el tiempo.
-¿Y a quién se le occurió
semejante cosa?
El tiempo sólo es.
Humberto Ak’abal

Today I had the opportunity to speak to a wise and generous man, Oscar, who helped me better contextualize Mayan culture so I can incorporate its teachings and traditions into the plays I am writing for my theater classes in San Pablo. He taught me that our breath represents the essence of life and the essence of a spiritual energy within our souls: Take a deep breath and feel the energy during your exhalation. This is the closest the Maya come to having a god.

They do not worship “gods.” Instead, they revere Tepeuy, which is this breath, and Mother Nature, the physical. The Popol Vuh (the Mayan creation myth) says Tepeuy united with the materials of Mother Earth to create humans and all living animals. They did this by loving each other, by interlacing their arms and legs, and all that they formed were infused with the spiritual energy of Tepeuy. So, when the Maya look at the world they see this spirit in everything, from an inching worm to the rising sun.

Oscar spoke of the equilibrium of the cosmos and of our role in that system. The Maya believe that the actions of any given individual help or hurt the balance of the universe. Human action has a direct effect on the extinction of animals and the polluted environment. The Maya honor a different Nahual every day, representative of components of our lives. They include: fire, reciprocity, the string of history, water, obedience, work, free will, intelligence, suffering, oracles, air, time, and word. Instead of being seen as gods, the Nahuals are represented as grandparents, who during ceremonies are called upon to remind participants of their beliefs and values. In this way the culture continues on in the knowledge and wisdom of the elders.

The youth group I work with is hesitant to embrace these cultural beliefs. Here in Tacaná, many teens are two or three generations separated from their indigenous roots; instead of having direct knowledge of their ancestors’ way of life, they rely on history books and cultural stereotypes. These prejudices make the teens associate cultural history with uneducated Indians, which runs counter to what they hope to be: successful and knowledgeable Ladinos. In Guatemala the indigenous wear traditional clothing and speak a native language, and the Ladinos wear modern clothes and speak Spanish. While most Ladinos in Guatemala have Mayan roots, they do not consider themselves Mayan. They look away from the past and instead strive to be more modern, admiring western culture’s entertainment, money and clothes.

Through the two plays I am writing I hope to raise awareness of both modern and traditional views of the environment. In Ayer y Mañana (Yesterday and Tomorrow), a salesman sells the sacred earth, air, and water to three happy and unsuspecting people. But once these natural treasures become possessions, the humans mistreat them, forgetting the spiritual energy in all things. The humans burn trash and use diesel fuel, cut down all the trees and pollute the river. But the humans, too, begin to suffer. They are ill. They cannot breathe. They are hungry for a lack of crops. While they complain, Grandpa Water, Grandma Air and Mother Earth arrive to share their wisdom with the actors and the audience, talking about the necessary equilibrium in the earth and the importance of seeing oneself as only a small part of the cosmos.

Only now, after seven months of living here, have I had the opportunity to integrate these important cultural themes into my work. My work has hit a new level of depth and importance, and I hope the cultural research I am doing now will philosophically support the work of la JEM. ArtCorps’s mission touches upon the importance of conserving traditional values and art forms, but in most cases the artists have implemented workshops and programs within their frame of reference, like painting murals or building puppets, two art forms that didn’t exist in traditional Mayan culture. In a place like Guatemala, where a rich artistic culture is slowly passing, it seems unreasonable and foolish to impose something new and different. Instead, a focus should be placed on breathing modern life into traditional forms of expression that reflect the multiculturalism of Guatemalan society. While I am introducing new theater techniques into the community, our performances build on the Mayan tradition of storytelling. And while the students are thrilled to be acting out a script written by a westerner, they will also be learning about their own past. Here in San Pablo, months after my arrival, I feel I have just begun to breathe.

To the Bus Stop

2006-08-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Up, up, up. I haven’t been climbing the hill recently. Today’s the first time I’ve done it alone in months. Everything has changed here on the path—as it does daily—since before my surgery. The thick dust of the dry season was packed down by rains in May, turned to mud by June. Small rivers from daily showers have moved the fallen logs and broken branches. Turned sandy mounts into richly covered mossy banks, flanking the path. Red poppy flowers grow up the vines of the black bean plants, encircle the milpa and grow towards the celeste sky. Distant cousins of the dandelion crunch under my feet; violet dots fill the hillside. Just weeks ago, these colors didn’t exist on the palette of San Pablo. Everything is in process of development, of growth.

I stop for water, for a breath, and think about last night. I question why expressing one’s opinion is looked down upon, taken personally. A room full of teenagers and two leaders whose job it is to lead them, put weight behind an idea. And the rest, hesitantly and obediently, concur. Carefully, I suggested giving the pros and cons of all the ideas. But I am told that I do not understand.

Glassy eyes, a runny nose, dry throat. I am on the steep incline of the shortcut now, and stop for more water. Vibrant lime-green three-leaf clovers descend over rotting brown pine needles, once orange and red, lighting the path with passionate energy. I do not understand. They have tried the same idea before and had success. I know, but what about going through the motions with the other ideas? No, I still don’t get it. That would be a waste of time. The two leaders want this project, not another.

I am on the road now, only 15 minutes to go to the bus stop. Still, I have seen no one. The tip of the volcano flirts with my eyes and the dogs lay still. It’s midday, not their usual barking hour. Their manuals were printed in Guatemala, but written in the United States. The business scheme is plainly gringo, highly organized and full of sensible and rigid guidelines, advice, and activities. My comment reinforces the order of the meeting, the purpose of brainstorming, the goal of arriving at the perfect product. But I still do not understand. I shut up. I think to myself, Why am I here, where my presence is consistently thanked, but my ideas, my talents, and energies are rarely used?

At the bus stop are men I’ve never seen before. They squint in my direction and ask me if I’m leaving for San Marcos. No, just to Tacaná for market day. The volcano rises high above the forest in the distance and has moved on to flirting with the clouds. The ground is dry; the flowers in front of the store are covered in dust. It hasn’t rained heavily in weeks. Later—when I lunch with Ever—he wonders out loud what that means, what kind of rains await us now?

Las Ventanas y Piedra Partida

2006-08-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours from San Pablo has a car and we’ve been able to take a couple of excursions now and then to the other side of the valley to explore the cool rock formations and enjoy the sunset over the volcano. It looks cold in the photos, but I promise it’s a lot colder in person.

Regreso

2006-08-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Love measures our stature: the more we love the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man wrapped up in himself.
— William Sloane Coffin Jr.

When we first arrived in San Pablo in January I became immediately frustrated with the way work was going. La JEM and I had distinct expectations of what was to take place during my stay and neither had enough experience to know how to manage the situation. Both sides plowed through the dusty, sunny days of the dry season, knocking over each other’s emotions, losing pride, and trampling any existence of understanding, compassion and love.

I have been apart from San Pablo for a month now and have had substantial time to think. First I went home to celebrate Grandaddy’s life, and then I had a tonsillectomy in Guatemala City. It was during the long recovery period that Ian and I were both able to reflect, and it wasn’t until just a few days before returning that we realized some of our mistakes and have made a conscious decision to be different.

Somehow along the way I became depressed and self-absorbed, trying to accomplish as much as possible and ignoring the important personal relationships that are necessary in working in a team. My lack of experience in dealing with unorganized youth NGOs in remote villages made it difficult to know what to do, and I was still caught up on not having been placed with a professional and “successful” institution. But I was putting too much weight on my expectations. What about theirs?

The people of San Pablo don’t have an easy go of it. Love of family, God, and an earnest struggle for survival make people seemingly content. Many argue that people in poverty feel more, love more, live more. It’s true that the happiness may be more joyful because it comes less often or the tears may be more painful because the loss is greater, but is this really something to desire? They have it hard. With few opportunities and constant rain that accompanies consistent disappointment, failure, and desertion, people are sad. Depressed. When la JEM thought of having an artist to live their community, they weren’t hoping for a depressed one. It’s not what they had in mind. It’s not what I had in mind, either.

Ian and I struggle to see the path our lives will take in the future … graduate school, jobs, internships, exhibitions, publications? On the other hand, we question what we’ve learned here. What is success? What is happiness? Obviously we’re not money-hungry, but are we instead success-hungry? Do we dream of the same prestige in our work that for others comes with money? Is that our vice? What we’ve learned in the past two years of living in third-world countries has nothing to do with degrees, bylines, or reviews. It has to do with life. Experience and growth, and most importantly, love. With a simple smile and lots of love my first two days back in San Pablo have been the most productive and satisfying up to this point.

Mercado del San Francisco El Alto

2006-06-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Verde

2006-06-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Mother nature has been hiding her goods, covering them with thick white fog and constant rain. For two months she’s been working hard. But yesterday and today she gave us a glimpse of the harvest, pulled back the curtain and shined light upon her masterpiece. It’s lush and thick, overgrown and chaotic. Most of all, it’s green. Leaf green, sap green, hooker’s green, emerald green, viridian, plain old olive green, crayola green. Green. Any kind of green your black and white dreams can dream. It makes me feel refreshed, this chlorophylled world. I have a gurgling energy growing in my spirit. Of what color you might ask? The same as the floppy leaves of the ubiquitous sprouting corn. Green!

Sketchbook, Part 2

2006-06-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

lo que sea!

2006-06-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

At the end of May Ian and I met my parents and bro in the Yucatán to celebrate my brother’s college graduation. Congrats, Cort! We saw many great Mayan sites, went swimming in a cenote (natural sandstone sink hole filled with water), and did some yoga on the beach. It was a luxurious vacation for us and a good time was had by all. As always, lo que sea was the phrase of the week.

Tree Day

2006-06-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

La Jem celebrated tree day on a small hill in Cuá, with a wooded forest on one side and the sad view of the landslide on the other. (Cuá lost 46 people in this landslide during the hurricane in October. For more information, read my post on Cuá). Two days before, I had stayed over in Cuá to prepare an artistic component to the event. We created informational and artistic banners to hang on the trees, and later, during the event, we read poems and I led a theater activity, which was a huge success. There were about 60-70 participants, crammed on this tiny hilltop. It was a beautiful day, filled with original music, spoken word, laughter, a raffle, and a filling snack. Most of the tree nurseries were heavily damaged during the hurricane so there were only a few symbolic plantings. The young boys in the last photo are toting around the trees, looking for some good spots.

Don Pedro

2006-05-31T14:19:00.000-07:00

The week before last my dear friend Shekinah came to visit and brought along her new beau, Peter, a wonderfuly funny, sensitive, and very hip guy. We found ourselves inspired by their newfound love and we wish them the best as they begin to dream up the adventures they will share. We were also inspired by their active lifestyles and climbed our second volcano in Gautemala, Volcán San Pedro, on Lago Atitlán.

Rain! Hail?

2006-05-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

Last week the rain started. The noise on the metal roof of our small home was already drowning out the music we had blasting on the speakers and then nothing—a power outage. All we could hear was the incessant dominant static of the rain, and a commanding silence in the dark shadows. After months of talking with my students about Hurricane Stan, I still had been unable to empathize with their experiences. But this night filled me with the fear they have related to me; it filled the volume of my body with the knowledge that I am small and powerless. And it makes me afraid, afraid of what the rainy season holds. Some of the youth say they have dreams where the rain never ends, where the consequences are much worse than that of Stan, and that it’s just another reason to go to the U.S. One of the rooms in our house leaked water through the roof. Our friend, Doug, was taking a nap when he felt the water dripping in on his head, all over the bed, the paintings and furniture. My heart pounded with excitement at the mini-emergency taking place in our house, and I could understand just a little bit more the life of these mountains. When we looked outside we discovered, though, that the rain had brought more than we expected. Hail. Our front yard was covered in ice. In the morning we discovered small piles of what seemed like snow. Just yesterday, on my bus ride back from Xela, we drove through yet another fierce hailstorm. The newly planted harvests, sitting patiently on the terraced mountains, were colored white. Saber what the rainy season has in store, but I hope it’s not always like the strength of that first night, when we dined by candlelight and sang songs to keep us busy.

Mural in Cunlaj

2006-04-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent three days and three nights in Cunlaj, a town on the other side of Tacaná. For three months I have been traveling there every Wednesday for a three-hour painting class, and finally we were ready to do a public piece. Our theme was Hurricane Stan, and each participant did months of thinking, drawing, and painting, until he or she arrived at a final piece. Thus, each section of the mural comes from a different painting. The first day we painted the kiosk wall white, designed the mural, and started sketching it out. The second day we started at 5:30 AM in order to evade the crowds that arrived at 9 for the multi-community sporting event and celebration. We had quite an audience, but this provided more support, publicity, and got even more youth involved. By the end of the second day, about 12 hours later, we had completed the bulk of the work and the third day was left for the details. The mural reads "EL FUTURO DE LA COMUNIDAD ESTA EN NUESTRAS MANOS," or The Future of the Community is in our Hands.

The large hands that flank each side of the mural came from a 16-yr-old female student named Minerva. During early conversations with her regarding her experience of the storm, she said she most remembered the image of her grandfather's hands in the grass, struggling to pull himself off the ground and away from the rising water behind his house. It took 2 months for her to focus just on the hands, but the final product was breathtaking. Another student focused on solidarity, showing the positive aspects that come from such a disaster. This student's brother worked on images of their vivero in Cunlaj, the tree nursery where they are growing saplings to reforest what was lost. A teenager named Hector did drawings of the construction workers rebuiling the homes that were lost. His painting is in the top middle of the mural, showing a celebration after the completion of one such home, complete with a señora making tortillas. Doranelia wanted to focus on women and their role in the after-effects of Stan. She drew women walking far off to the river to wash clothes or collect water for cooking. Cunlaj was without potable water for approximately three weeks after the storm hit.

Dia de la Tierra, Part 3: El Parque

2006-04-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

Dia de la Tierra, Part 2: El Salon Municipal

2006-04-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

The hand-painted logo of la JEM hung at the entrance, while the rest of the banners hung from the rafters or on stage. I was envisioning a United Nations type thing, with large banners all in rows. We didn´t have enough, but it was impressive nonetheless. We started the event off with some activities, including dynamicas and a large banner of handprints in order to remember the event. We painted a quick banner to hang outside, inviting the people in from the packed market in the street.

People were invited to sign Jem´s promise, which states, I will plant a tree for the pure air of tomorrow, I will take care of the water so that tomorrow thirst will not be known, I will pick up a piece of trash to give hope to my community. In return they received a green and blue bracelet.
This is the banner from the jóvenes in San Pablo, it reads For an eternal kiss of water in pure mountain, I will have in mind that thirst is quenched with water.
The banner from the kids (ages 5-12) in Linda Vista. Because of it´s size and the shape of the globe used for the painting, it was one of the most eye-catching banners.

Near the stage, we did more dynamicas, danced, sang, and listened to the talented muscians do there thing. The leaders of la JEM spoke about the importance of taking care of the environment and I said a few words, too.

Dia de la Tierra, Part 1: Preparation

2006-04-24T15:19:00.000-07:00

In order: 1: Kids in Linda Vista working on their banner for Earth Day, 2: Youth in Tacaná working on a recycling theme, 3: Kids in San Pablo helping me to paint the globe, 4: Nametags printed with an image of a tree with roots, created by a potato stamp, 5: Youth in Cunlaj working on a large painting about reforestation, 6: Two young women painting the banner for Linda Vista, 7: An example of the posters that I made for the event; this one hangs in the town hall

Agua: el buen negocio del futuro

2006-04-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

A woman fills her truck with containers full of fresh water in the nature reserve of Agua Azul, Chiapas, Mexico.

Querida aqua,
Cayendo lentamente,
Ya no te vayas.

Water is the most common substance on Earth. It covers more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface, and yet only three percent is fresh water. There is enough for all 6 billion of us, but we don’t treat it respectfully. Since rain doesn’t fall evenly on the earth’s surface, some areas are wetter than others, and many areas that do have water pollute it or are unable to distribute it. In Guatemala’s history the country has been covered by water three times, and yet in some villages only a few drops trickle from the faucet. In San Miguel, a town not so far from here, a Canadian mining company used up all the water, and the community has been left with nothing. A recent Prensa Libre article claims that in 20 years all the water in this country will be polluted. Cristian, the founder of the JEM, tells me optimistically that’s it’s not true, but on my way to my workshops I notice—in every town—a small brook inundated with trash. Instead of pure, translucent H2O, a small dribble of dark substance makes its way through the plastic bottles, dirty toilet paper, and who knows what else.

The river Coatán makes its way through this region and into Mexico, bringing with it the rubbish and detritus of one country to another. In Cunlaj, where I have a painting workshop every Wednesday, a whole mountainside leading down to the river is covered in trash. Tacaná’s town hall used it as their dumpsite for years until last spring, when a few international NGOs took notice. There was no clean-up process proposed, and when Hurricane Stan arrived it spread the garbage all over the place, including down into the river. As my students paint pictures of the river during and after Stan, thick dark brown strokes of paint are set apart from the blue sky. Houses, horses, people, whole trees, and piles of garbage float on by.

The organization I work for, JEM, has centered its environmental concerns around water. Their slogan is United for Water, and they use as their logo a drop of water hitting the surface. They see water as the center of the conversation concerning all other environmental topics. In March, three members of the JEM were accepted as participants in the World Water Forum. It took place in Mexico City, a place that used to be an island surrounded by four large lakes but that now has a grave water shortage. (The Spanish, after conquering the city of Tenochtitlan, didn’t know how to maneuver the dam system and drained all four lakes.)

Upon his return, Cristian recounted his experiences. One particular discussion, about whether water should be publicized or privatized, stuck out in his mind. The topic was the most controversial at the Forum, and the delegates tried to make their points in a variety of ways. For example, one banner read, Water, the lucrative business of the future. It wasn’t obvious if the banner was ironic or not. At the end of it all, though, the final person to take the podum said: Why does it matter if it’s public or private? What matters is that people pay the fair price.

Can you imagine? Fair-trade water. Imagine, you, a first-world consumer, buying your water like it was coffee. Instead of Starbucks, there’d be H2Obucks. But here in San Pablo, far from the lavish American life, we feel more connected to the water we receive straight from a nearby mountain spring. And while the tubes break once in a while and we have a wait a day for them to get fixed, it’s nothing like the village up the mountain, where the water pressure is nonexistent. Woman haul water jugs on their heads and donkeys cart large containers filled with the precious substance. Even after potable water systems are installed, sometimes there just isn’t any water.

Here, the balance of my relationship with water has shifted and it has demanded my honor and appreciation. Instead of a daily 10-minute shower, I take a bath of heated water, approximately 8 or 9 gallons, every three days. Instead of a couple loads of laundry a week, I wash my clothes by hand, but only when they’re really dirty, being aware of every container worth of water I splash over my pants and socks. This stuff has changed its relationship to my being. I no longer see it intertwining itself in every moment of my life, constantly running through my fingers. Instead, it is treated cautiously, because one may never know when the faucet might run dry.

home sweet home

2006-04-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

Everything in my mind says go, go, go! Oaxaca, Spain, Japan, India, South Africa, the American West, and more. But my body has been telling me to slow down. Carsickness, heat sickness, diarrhea. No more traveling! it tells me. Take your coat off and stay for a while. Sit still. It seems my body aches for a certain stillness, one where my roots run deep into the ground, a place where my life is intricately tangled.

We have finally moved into our casita here in San Pablo, right in time for the celebration-filled week of Semana Santa. I am hoping that growing a few short roots here in making a home will redress the balance of my tired muscles. Today Ian and I put up posters. Now we’re thinking about making furniture. Next week we’ll be helping to build our bathroom. And there’s always the stove that needs to be carted up the mountain from the center of town. Here we have a beautiful view of the valleys and peaks and it’s cozy and warm at nighttime. Currently I’m in the front yard, listening to the breeze push the trees around, watching the few meandering clouds drift over the landscape. A lavish turquoise lizard suns itself on the rocks next to Ian, who is lost in the words of his journal. The ground is soft and there’s room to plant the stillness I need to rebuild my weary stomach.

Mexico

2006-04-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Last week we traveled to Chiapas, Mexico, home of the Zapatistas. Our trip started off by crossing the border standing in the back of a pick-up truck, illegally. Nine forms of transportation, one night over in Comitán, and one nervous run-in with Mexican military later, we finally arrived in the artsy and super-relaxing city of San Cristóbal de las Casas.

The highlight was Taller Leñateros, a cooperative art workshop (of the indigenous Tzotzil Maya) that produces elegant hand-made paper, provocative silk-screens and woodcuts, and hand-sewn books. They are most well known for their magazine, La Jícara, which always has unique and extremely creative editions filled with original art pieces, poetry, and politics. It was a dream, and one that I am beginning to envision in my own future. The pictures show a Tzotzil woman plucking dried flower petals for the paper and an example of their artwork.

We also took a couple days and traveled to the ancient city of Palenque, one of the top Mayan sites. The Maya civilization reached its period of greatest development about A.D. 250 and continued to flourish for hundreds of years. They produced exceptional architecture and sculpture, made great advancements in astronomy and mathematics and developed an accurate yearly calendar. And, they were one of the first peoples in the Western Hemisphere to develop an advanced form of writing. Today descendents of the Mayas live all over Mexico and Central America, speaking more than 20 different languages and dialects that developed from the ancient Mayan language.

Palenque sits in the Lancandona jungle of Chiapas. It had 19 governors over the course of 700 years, from 100 A.D. to 804 A.D., and housed approximately 8,000 people near its end. It is thought that the lack of resources in food, water, and housing in this over-populated city forced the Mayas to abandon it. This being my first experience with the Mayas, I was most impressed with the designs of their writing system and the intricate relief sculptures. It was ancient candy for my artistic eyes.

Similar to my visit to the Incan ruins of Peru, I felt an other-worldliness here. The temples and palaces are so high up, entirely vulnerable to the sky, and placed in relation to one another that calls attention to the negative space of the air between the structures and to all the air above us, that we cannot grasp, but we can only hope will swoop low enough for us to experience. Modern buildings are tall, but closed off, with compartments and small spaces that confine and constrain. These temples confidently and fully expose themselves to the sky, like they’re not afraid of the gods, as if they have some secret insight.

lava!

2006-04-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

Guatemala has 33 volcanoes, 3 of which are active. At the end of March we climbed one of the active ones, Pacaya, and we got to see a river of lava! Our guide told us the climb was 90% safe.

From the sketch book

2006-03-31T16:14:00.000-08:00

Comida

2006-03-29T16:53:00.000-08:00

It’s mango season and the streets are filled with the rich colored balls of deliciousness. Kids and adults alike meander around town sucking on these tasty treats as if they were ice cream cones or lollypops. They start at the top, making a small slit, and then squeeze the juice up to their mouths. The second phase commences by pealing off the skin and sucking the stringy bits attached to the pit and shell, until they’ve stripped it of all its possible goodness. The last phase—for me—requires floss. In Tacaná, the pits cover the ground like a storm of ladybugs, and the bright yellow and orange skins paint polka-dots in the dusty streets.

This past Saturday was Ian’s birthday and I made tomato sauce and pasta. You know we’re in the middle of nowhere when tomato sauce and pasta is a special treat. The normal fare is black beans (boiled, refried, or blended), scrambled eggs, maybe rice, and always tortillas. Our host mother makes a simplified version of vegetable soup, fried rice, and chow-mein with soy meat, so it doesn’t get too monotonous. But generally we eat what there is, gathering around the stove and not talking about the possibilities but eating them. Last night we ate boiled potatoes, leftover pancakes, plain pasta, and the rest of Ian’s cake, which was actually a very elaborate meal. There are always either corn tortillas or tamales, which are palm-sized masses of fresh corn meal each wrapped in a large banana leaf and steamed. Sometimes they stuff them with meat. Guatemalans can eat five or more with their meal, but Ian and I tend to eat only one since they’re heavy and, honestly, tasteless. New fruits and veggies for us have been güisquil (a large green wrinkly vegetable which inside looks like green melon, but it’s hard and tastes like a tastier potato), nances (marble-sized yellow fruits, each with three little hairs), and sonsas (violet and silky fruit, watery and sweet).

24-years-old

2006-03-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

March 8th was International Woman's Day, a good time to honor women and their bodies. Here in the third world physical and emotional pain for women is a way of life. In a recent conversation with our host mom, Doña Mímí, we learned that her mother gave birth to 11 babies, always alone. She would shoo the kids and husband out the door until it was over. Doña Mímí remembers being at the fire in the kitchen when her mother would appear with the baby wrapped in her skirt, still connected by the umbilical cord. The mother would boil water to wash it and then cut away the cord and placenta, tossing them into the fire. Three of the 11 didn't survive long after being born, a common occurrence in Guatemala. While the infant mortality rate in the United States is 6/1000 babies, here it is 35/1000, a number that seems low to me given the number of women I've met who have lost a child. I dedicate this year's women's day to all of the women who have gone through months of pregnancy only to lose their child. We celebrate this day for the mother of our host mom, for our neighbor, for the woman in Linda Vista whose daughter died when she was 20 days, for the mother of Teresa who lost her first baby only an hour after being born, and for Teresa, who has lost a lot.

Her name isn't Teresa, but I am able to remember how to pronounce her name because it rhymes with Arsenio, as in Arsenio Hall, the late-night show host. Not that I see her that often, but I’ve been thinking about her a lot. When she was 18 she went to work in Mexico to help out her family financially. Even though three immediate members of her family work in the U.S., eight siblings are expensive. But being an 18-year-old female far from home is tough, and soon she found herself raped and impregnated by her boss. He paid her off so that she would leave and shut up. She did and along the way became the mother of a beautiful shy little girl. Being a victim of rape made her unwanted by most, but in three years time she found herself in love and engaged. She became pregnant, and three months in the baby's umbilical cord choked it to death. Then, the fiancée presented her to his family, who questioned his reasoning for wanting to marry a poor woman from the country. They refused to bless the union. The couple planned to marry regardless, but he disappeared. A few months later she stopped going to visit, stopped calling, and stopped having hope. Her smile is tired, and I can tell that it's a lie. I don't know her that well and we're not friends, but we are the same age.

trabajo

2006-03-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

I am teaching nine art workshops a week with about 180 students in total, 60 of whom are kids. My week starts on Tuesday when I travel to Linda Vista, named “pretty view” because it overlooks Tacaná and the Tacaná volcano. After at least 2-1/2 hours of travel, my day begins with four teachers in the school, a workshop I’m really excited about because I know that what I teach them will get passed on to their students, making it immediately sustainable. We are currently working with a map theme, and we’re developing ideas for murals with the hope of having the families of the students participate. After the teachers, I have time with about 30 kids, ages 6-13. The first time I gave them paper and crayons and told them to draw, they looked at me widly and pretended not to understand. Everything here regarding art is concrete and exact. The teacher shows everyone how to draw an ideal flower, and they all churn it out as if they’re factory workers. It's always the same mountain setting with the same houses, trees, and animals. This past week we read from the Mayan bible, the Popol Vuh, and I had them each try to draw the images they had in their heads while listening to the stories about human beings made of mud and wood. Later, in the afternoon, I work with teenagers, and while we’re learning about drawing and painting principles, we’ve begun some really important projects. In all of my communities we’re working on community books regarding Hurricane Stan. I’ve distributed pages to everyone in my workshops in the hopes that they will fill them with drawings and text about their experiences and also talk to those around them to record their thoughts. All the pages that have so far been returned are fuerte, and I’m really learning a lot. Recently someone handed in a poem they had written about a little boy talking to his mother, telling her about his excitement regarding how the hurricane had left behind rainbows. In these more formal workshops with the youth we’re also developing ideas for murals about Stan and the messages they want to communicate with their communities. They range from no longer believing in God to wanting to plant more trees in order to avoid erosion. Tuesday nights Ian comes to Linda Vista to teach an English class and keep me company (this is the only night during the week that we sleep away from San Pablo), and then in the morning he travels home while I move on to the next community of Cunlaj.

2006-03-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

our backyard!

Cristian, our good friend, a leader of la JEM, and an aspiring musician.

Alongside the baby chickens

2006-03-02T16:25:00.000-08:00

alongside the baby chickens
they flee
aware of the danger
the pain
the complicated emotions
he poisons the air they breathe
putas
ordering them to leave his land
the teenage girls vanish
abandoning her
she tries to fend him off
the drunken belligerent
love of her life

This is the story of my friend, a friend who recently was drawing and talking and in an instant, everything changed. This is the story of a friend who lives in a machista third-world country, without opportunities, possibilities, resources, or contacts. She has dreamt about leaving, but poverty doesn’t poke air holes for its prisoners. Seemingly, there’s no way to escape. All her life, she tells me, she has hoped for just one normal father-daughter conversation. She’s wished that maybe he would say something nice, something supportive, or something to show that he recognizes her presence. She tells me it’s not right to have to live with such violence, but when faced with the opportunity to make it end, she decided not to do to him what he has done to her. Instead, she lives with the back pain, the emotional anguish, and the thought that maybe things would be different if she had not been born.

2006-03-02T16:03:00.000-08:00

ink drawing of the house below

Dust

2006-02-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all who have written me and sorry for being MIA. So that you know I plan on posting once a week and from now on I am going to make it more informal.
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It´s everywhere. A thick layer resides on my clothes, in my hair, on my skin. I wrap my head in my scarf to protect myself from the clouds that sweep over us like monstrous waves. The buses are stuffy and we duck behind the seats when they stop to pick up more passengers, letting in the hideous substance that has invaded our lives. I stare out the window at the lush green forests turned light brown and the muted images of the people walking by.

There´s a tristeza here, a rough melancholy, that I am beginning to understand. Today we visited the community of Cuá. An enormous hole in the mountain has created an enormous hole in the hearts of the people. On October 6, 2005, Hurricane Stan caused sixteen houses and fourty-six people to be buried when the mountain fell on them with explosions and waves of earth. We walked across the site and I tried hard not to think about the eleven cadavers that have not yet been found. My hopeful side imagines them dreaming as they sleep while the other part of me sees them screaming in claustrophobic fear. A young student on his way home from school walks by on the well defined paths. Past the facade of where the school used to stand, past the empty shell of the catholic church, past old toys, broken chairs, and half-buried dishes.

Perhaps it's the Spanish or perhaps it's the intensity of this event, put I am unable to put myself in their place. I imagine the hole in the mountain constantly and try to burn a hole in my heart in order to fully empathize, but this image comes and goes as I teach my classes and hang out with friends. For those I visited today this image does not disappear. It confronts them every morning when they wake and every night before laying down to sleep. They are strong--and they appreciate my visit, but they don't need me to entirely understand.

We walked together back down the mountain, commenting on the dust. It is everywhere and has muted the colors of the earth, our clothes, and perhaps even our emotions.

Vacation, Day One

2006-02-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

the view from our hotel room
waiting at the dock for a boat-taxi

Panajachel is also known as “Gringotenango” because of the influx of ex-pats and trinket-buying tourists. The pasty Americans and Germans create startling silhouettes against the rich Prussian blue of Lago Atitlán. We came here on vacation for the week, but our first day has been revealing. All I can think about is work, la JEM, and art.

In search of a romantic B&B for Valentine’s Day, we stumbled upon an art gallery instead. An art gallery! My excitement waned after meeting the stuffy, stuck-up, and rude German owners. They say they run the oldest gallery in Central America—35 years old—and were too busy setting up an erotic exhibit for V-day to answer questions or ask why I was around. They had an extensive collection of work from foreign and Guatemalan artists and bragged about once having a Picasso and a Max Beckman. On display were works made in the style of VitroMache, especially stained-glass lamps, mirrors, and sculptures, some made from discarded bottles, all put together with a mixture of glue, paper-mache, and cement. I was intrigued by the technique, thinking it would be excellent for a large sculpture/memorial I am thinking about for one of the communities in which I am working, and I asked where I could learn more. They sent me to the studio of Patric, where VitroMache began, just a few doors away.

A Mexican hippie, Patric came to Guatemala five years ago as a volunteer, teaching people how to make art out of garbage. After going broke and becoming disillusioned he started charging for his workshops. It was only then that he began to see results. Working against what he calls “the paternalism” of the U.S., Patric thinks charging hefty sums for his workshops is the only way that Guatemalans will be serious about working. Then, he reasons, they will have skills which they can use to pull them out of poverty, without having to rely on the foreigner. He implies economic freedom is the only true freedom. Patric refused to teach me if I didn’t then turn around and charge others for the same knowledge. He was appalled at how little my students are paying and was convinced that they had the money to pay but were looking for a handout. He thinks volunteerism is a gigantic farce because it perpetuates the expectation that someone else will do the work for you.

Our friend, Doug, who recently finished two years of Peace Corps service in the mountains of Peru, referenced this in regards to his village when he explained to us that the native people would tell the different NGOs exactly what they wanted to hear so that they could benefit from more programs and funding. Also, a professor from Williams, Peggy Diggs, urged me to do ArtCorps but also questioned whether the program was merely promoting Western values (environmentalism, children’s rights, etc.) in the face of traditional values and cultural mores, possibly leaving the communities forever changed in the long-run.

I don’t know. La JEM decided long before I arrived to focus on the environment in order to save their land and their future; a foreign NGO didn’t tell them that was important. That said, my mere presence here in Guatemala does promote Western values. I am unable to say that I am from a brother country like Colombia or Nicaragua; I cannot improve the relationships among Latin American countries and teach the children in the market about my country, because they already know, or think they know. Every once in a while, when I explain that I once lived in Venezuela, some children look at me and ask, “What is Venezuela?” I am from the country that is the envy of all, the place most everyone wants to go, and my presence, my culture, my clothes, and my beliefs—including the way I think about, make, and teach art—it is all very Western.

Patric questions the foundation of why I am here in Guatemala. I imagine my participants from the first week of workshops and ponder whether they are serious, whether they will continue, whether I am perpetuating the paternalism of the U.S. On the other hand, I resent the stereotype and the idea that as an American I can only further damage this place. And yet again, I do not know exactly what I think I’m doing here. It’s insulting that Patric immediately assumed I can’t help, and that he, as a Latin American, has the ability to so easily crush my optimism, but it’s worse that I have lost confidence in my myself, in my mission.

Gringotenango isn’t a real place, though. It’s where the tables fill at sunset to watch the lake disappear into the darkness, where foreigners sip overpriced beers, where the streets are always full of indigenous women and children trying to hawk artesanía in broken English, where there are health food stores that sell bagels, hummus, and sushi. This place is not real—it’s easy. It’s easy to live off the foreigners and hang out with hippies that have the same relativist ideas. It’s a small touristy island in the middle of a country wrought with poverty, struggle, and no, I don’t know what else.

I do know that San Pablo isn’t disillusioned and that the jóvenes aren’t expecting me to fix all of their problems. I may have some students that think I can teach them how to paint in three weeks, but I know the base of la JEM knows how little an imprint I can and will make. Don Feliciano, our gracious host father and the founder of the progressive school in San Pablo from which la JEM was born, is very wise. I saw this as he introduced us to his village in church the first Sunday after our arrival; minutes before calling us up to the microphone, he made the point of saying that Sólo el pueblo puede levantarse. Only the people can lift themselves up.

Heading North

2006-02-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

Only 19 years old, Alex is most times a man of few words, sensitive yet stern, attentive and yet entirely oblivious. Around the ladies he grins and flirts, sometimes he even lets loose and throws his arm over their shoulders, wistfully prancing down the path, giddy. Then my guide returns to my side, concerned with how the altitude affects my breathing. He goes ahead and checks the buses to see if there are seats, and he always calls ahead to our destinations to make sure everything is ready. Yesterday in San Marcos at the banquet for the awards ceremony for the JEM, he came over to my table to talk about the lunch because they were going to be serving meat. He advised me to push the chicken aside and just eat the side dishes.

Alex hasn’t seen his brother in four years and his father in six. His little brother has never met his dad and his mother went through cancer and surgery while her husband took odd jobs up north. They—the brother and father—have encouraged Alex to come to North Carolina, saying that they’ll help him get the papers and pay for the passage. He was having trouble of some kind in school last year and was seriously considering leaving when the boys convinced him to stay and be my guide for the year.

Alex’s brother and father, two cousins of Waner, the mother of Angelica, the father of Ever, two uncles of Cristian, and on and on. It seems everyone has been there, is there now, or wants to go there. At the planning meeting in Conlaj, before talking about art they asked about English. Edger told me that it was essential for them to learn English since they all wanted to go north. One boy in the meeting spoke perfect English because he and his family lived in the U.S. for seven years. Ian met a rancher at church who had been there for six months. We both were sitting on a stoop in front of the studio of an artist when a big-bellied man with a coarse voice and perfect English struck up a conversation about his time in Carolina. A man with gold stars in his front teeth approached me in the plaza of Tacaná. He had spent 14 years working in McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Florida and Tennessee and in a few months plans on returning.

After hearing Don Feliciano, Cristian’s father, talk at the school assembly about those that go to the U.S. earning money but remaining ignorant, I knew that there was room to express my own thoughts. I nonchalantly expressed my feelings to Alex in regards to him going north and I naively tried to explain that the U.S. can’t solve all problems. He responded, Hay que cuidar a su familia. One must take care of his family. I then tried to steer him away from the idea of working the fields up north by talking about the dangers, mistreatment, and racism, and I told him that studying or trying to find a grant could get him a student visa. He looked at me with wide eyes and didn’t respond, absorbing what I had said and shrugging it off at the same time. I realized that I have no idea what I think. Perhaps my privileges do not allow me make judgments or give advice. The people here, like the decisions they are forced to make, are genuinely complicated, scraping at the door of a global economy that forgot Guatemala was on the map. Then again, they are straightforward and simple. Here there are no jobs, no infrastructure, no money, and hence, no options. Except to head north.

On Being Sick

2006-01-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

I often times feel more alive in the third world. Without the comforts of the U.S., life is more raw and rugged. My body and mind are challenged to deal with the daily necessities of being human. These challenges force me to do and think things that are founded on new lengths of myself. Perhaps I am constructing the path as I go; or, more likely, I am using extensions of myself that existed but before were never reached. This latter idea—that we have undiscovered foundations, multiple strengths and traits—is why the challenge is such a thrill. The ruggedness of the third world is bursting with life, forcing you to confront your every emotion, from ecstasy to fear. Somehow it is bewilderingly romantic.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of facing a challenge: being sick in the third world. Saturday morning after our hike up the mountain I started feeling queasy, but it wasn’t until after our three-hour trip to the village of Majadas, an hour presentation about myself and my work, a greasy meal of beans and eggs eaten with our hands, and the three-hour trip back to San Pablo that I started vomiting. My body was sick of going up and down while still trying to adapt to a new climate, new food, and a new schedule.

All I wanted was a clean tiled bathroom floor and a plush bathroom mat. Well, that, along with a clean toilet, ginger ale, indoor heating, saltines, Jell-O, television, comfortable pillows, a bath, and English. I didn’t think I was going to survive the comfort food of Guatemala, but I did. I didn’t think I was going to survive walking down the stairs and outside into the cold and dark every time I needed to use the toilet, but I did. I didn’t think I would last through the eyes peering down at me, whispering their advice and comments in Spanish, but I did.

I realize, though, that I brought to Guatemala an invaluable tool to help with these challenges. It is not something I have created myself or something that previously existed in my personality, but it is the best possible thing in my life. Ian. Perhaps it is he that builds these new planks for me to walk on, and perhaps it is he who long ago created these foundations of strength where he knew I would need the support.

Transporte

2006-01-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

We have now been here in San Pablo for eight days and it feels like months. I’ve been traveling each day to different communities to meet with jóvenes and people who have an interest in art workshops. Alex, my guide, and I start out at about 7:15 each morning, slowly making our way to the bus stop, 45 minutes uphill. We have regularly scheduled breaks at the different turns in the path and while I go through a full Nalgene of water a morning, trying to make up for the lack of oxygen, Alex breathes calmly and doesn’t take a sip of anything until his coffee at lunch.

From the bus stop I can overlook the surrounding communities and on the other side of the road the peak of the Tacaná Volcano invites one into the next set of valleys. The bus comes only once an hour, never on schedule, so sometimes we wait two minutes and other times we wait more than 60.

How I dread the chicken bus. Old recycled U.S. school buses—painted various outrageous colors and as rickety as can be—are called this because people actually bring their chickens with them. Yesterday a tired old woman carried a tired old rooster in a raggedy canvas bag upon her lap, as if it were a well-groomed poodle in a Gucci dog carrier. The dust is outrageous and flies into my eyes and mouth, the music is going to make us all deaf, and the roads might as well qualify as class-five rapids. On Wednesday, on the way to the village of Conlaj, Alex and I were sitting in the back of the bus when a foul smell and dark smoke started from below us. I asked him if we were going to explode. He shrugged and said moments later, lleva coraje, be brave.

The ride back from Conlaj is tricky. You can leave the town with public transport only twice in the afternoon, at 1:30 or 7. We missed these combis, but with luck we flagged down a truck making its way up to Tacaná. So had everyone else, it seemed. The truck was full of young students, and I held on tight to the rail with my right hand while my left attempted to keep me from falling into the young girls practicing their English and sending me furtive glances. When the raindrops started falling I felt content, somehow finding the breeze, the coldness, and the adventure comforting. Our transport to Linda Vista yesterday took an hour to show up, but even as we were crowding four people into the front I took pleasure in the fact that there was a roof over our heads.

Today I am not making any visits and the best part of this is there is no going anywhere, no hiking breathlessly uphill, no white-knuckling the seat in front of me. Instead, I sit in bed and look out our panoramic window over the mountains. All of the communities I will be working in are far away, between two to three hours, one-direction. It has been suggested a number of times that our residence should be in the city of Tacaná, closer to all of the locations. But as I glide back down the mountain each day, quickly watching my steps and feeling accomplished, I realize that I am anxious to get home. Somehow, I have fallen in love with San Pablo and its people, and I guess I’ll just have to put up with the transporte.

Katharsis

2006-01-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

January 20, 2006

Blown away. We were blown away, we told them in English, unknowing of how to express our amazement in Spanish. Katharsis: a 5-person band of jóvenes, with songs they’ve written themselves, including a feminist one about the women killed in Ciudad Juárez a couple years ago. They played song after song as our jaws dropped lower and lower, tired from our long journey and in awe of their talents. They have an intense excitement about the world that is contagious, inspiring, and unprecedented.

Francisco, the director of programs at the IUCN, the umbrella organization for JEM, told us on the 2-1/2-hour drive here that these mountains aren’t places for people to be living. But San Pablo has done everything in its power to make this is a paradise nestled in the valleys and peaks that erode with human development and fall as landslides when hurricanes pass. Twenty years ago they started planting trees of all kinds and penned in their animals so they didn’t eat the seedlings, and they’ve been able to create what looks like the greenest mountainside from here to San Marcos. They have greenhouses for roses, tomatoes, and new arbolitos (small trees), organic compost trenches, and terraces for their crops. While Hurricane Stan passed by here this fall, creating a three-day period of fear and anxiety, no one in San Pablo was lost, and the way the boys describe it, the whole community went from house to house helping the elderly evacuate and collecting valuable items for the families to save. Landslides occurred on each side of the main plaza, on each side of many of the houses, but only and few houses, an animal pen, and a greenhouse were destroyed. They thank God (San Pablo is 99% Catholic) and they pray to the two-foot, cement-molded Virgen Mary that looks over them, set into a crevice of the rocky mountain above.

But the community isn’t successful just because of its environmental and religious philosophies (not all of which are universally practiced), but also because of the faith they have in their kids. The Instituto teaches 180 kids in the mornings and 100 in the afternoons, with grades all the way through high school. Cristian, our host, reads Nietszche and calls his family sentimental, with corazones de pollo, hearts of chickens. His father tells us that they created the Instituto for three reasons: to give their kids good values, to teach them how to be professionals, and to instill in them the spirit of volunteerism. The jóvenes here don’t only have values and the spirit of service, but also an intense passion to make art. Cristian said upon our arrival that when you are an artist you need to find an outlet, you need to find a way to get the thing out. They look to the future, with hopes of a virtual library, a philosophy school, and perhaps someday their own university.

Yesterday I spend the afternoon giving an informal drawing class to our guides for the day, Waner and Alex. They hung on my every comment, my every word. We basked in the yard, the colorful greenhouse, and in the bonsai garden, drawing flowers and grass and rocks. Earlier in the day they brought us around to meet some of the people and see the sights. A general store with art supplies that also functions as an ATM machine, a food store with a wide selection of veggies, a pharmacy, an internet café with 5 compus, a tailor, a Catholic church, soccer and basketball courts, and more. Everyone was so pleased to meet us and said it was an honor to have us and that we were now part of the family. On Thursday when we arrived and about 20 jóvenes met us in the plaza, each one spoke with a genuine kindness and sincerity about our arrival and his or her excitement. Some said they had been waiting months for the arrival of an artist; others, their whole lives.

Today I’m going to be meeting with a large part of JEM in the closest medium-sized city, Tacaná. They tell me there are 1,200 kids in the area that are part of JEM and 300 are very active, going to meetings every 15 days or so and involved in lots of activities. Here in San Pablo there are 100 jóvenes and about 40 that are very active. It is obvious that they want me to have an effect on all of them and that they are dying to become artists themselves. Cristian and I have talked a bit about planning and he seems open to my ideas about how we could possibly reach all these kids, and I think it’s going to be a great place, a lot of work, and a really altering experience.

Desde la Ciudad de Guatemala

2006-01-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

January 16, 2006

Monday morning at 5:30 we hop in a taxi, decide the meter would be more economical than the $45 flat rate, and race off to JFK for our Taca flight to Guatemala City. Four blocks in our driver stops abruptly and hustles his way into a conversation with a man and his luggage heading to La Guardia. Thirty-dollars he hollers. Get in, get in! My 5:30 a.m. mood takes over and I lean over to tell him my opinion. This is my last taxi ride in the US, my last bit of private straightforward service. We pay for your time and gas and you bring us where we want to go. Easy. As I saw the quality yellow-cab service razed before my eyes I knew the trip had begun.

For those that might not know I am here in Guatemala for the next nine months working for ArtCorps, a program dedicated to changing the world through arts communication. Currently the three other artists (two of whom will work in Guatemala and one in El Salvador) and I are hanging out in Guatemala City, getting a feel for the place, for each other, and for our plans. I will be working with a youth group, Jóvenes en la Misión (JEM), which is a project under the wings of the World Conservation Union, a large international environmental organization. Ian and I will be living in San Pablo, a small mountain village of about 400 that sits a half hour’s walk from the closest marketplace/city and close to the Mexican border.

Cristian, a 23-year-old coordinator of the youth group, has been communicating with me since early November. His emails have been a support, an uplifting reminder of why I want to do ArtCorps—to give individual and collective voices to others through the power of making art. He is exactly what I expected, hesitant yet eager. He has hope and tells me that the most notable characteristic of the community is that it is visionary. What a difference their excitement makes in my own thinking. Blanca Estela—my local program coordinator here in Guatemala City—tells me that they are thrilled about my arrival and can’t wait to show me around the mountains and bring me to meet the jóvenes, all in different villages.

On fears: I stared off at the beige-colored wall in the lobby of the temp agency back in November and pondered my future together with the jóvenes. But things are always more perfect in the ideal circumstances of my daydreams. I expect it to be difficult. I am concerned I won’t be able to communicate the hidden subtleties that art demands and all will be lost from the beginning. My relationship with Spanish is still a budding one, learning to take root, and I must recognize that the first month will be challenging. I must find other ways to communicate the intricacies of our lives, by being more direct, or by using silence to guide us. But just by speaking some today and listening I am only concerned with my own expression, and that will come. My tongue jumps over words and skips to the point, leaving everyone lost and my idea incoherent. The other artists are all older and have lots of experience doing this kind of thing. I am the young married one—they must think I was too fearful to come by myself so I tied the knot for security reasons. Really, I look forward to learning more about them and sharing strategies and techniques. As one told us about the racism workshops and ancestral theater pieces she recently developed, I saw that I have so much to learn. So currently I am observing, feeling my way, and am confident, strong, and so proud of myself for hopping that Taca flight and coming down here.