Xelajú, aka Quetzaltenango

Xelajú, shortened to Xela, is my hometown for this month, which in K´iche, means ¨under the ten¨. The ten most likely refers to the surrounding moutains, or it could mean that its always feels like 10 below. It is frigging cold in this city, and in reality, this morning it was 32·, and in buildings with no heat or insulation, you definitely feel the chill. In fact, in my bedroom, I have a wool blanket, a down blanket, and some sheets keeping me warm and I never want to leave it in the mornings.

Xela is the 2nd largest city in Guatemala and is home to a plethora of Spanish language schools. Its been great so far because its not as touristy, from what I´ve heard, as Antigua, where there are also a great deal of schools.

I asked my teacher today about life in Xela and she told me that it is very peaceful and relaxed here. The people are warm and welcoming. After 1 1/2 weeks here, I agree with her and am happy to be living here. Picture of Xela

Its a small glass world afterall

The school has an activity planner, who organizes various outings and activities for the students, which is an added bonus. This past Saturday, we went to Copavie, a place that is known in the area as a recycled glass factory.

Its a great business because its a center of not only recycled glass, but they also recycle newspaper. The workers break up the glass and then melt it in this huge oven. Then they take these long, hollow metal poles and dip it in the vat of liquid glass, which begins the making of glass objects. The process involves blowing the glass a little bit, and then redipping it in the liquid glass and forming it into the shapes desired. Its fascinating to watch them work because they work together without the need to speak to each other. Everyone knows what to do and when to do it. When the glass is ready to be placed in a wooden mold, there is wet newspaper in the casing to cool down the glass. So in a way, they recycle the newspaper, even if it isn´t reusable after. Its wonderful to see a business thriving on recycled products, since there are many things that are not recycled here. To some extent, this is understandable since the funding and infrastructure is not present and the government is preoccupied with more pertinent issues.

While I was perusing the glass goods, two people entered the room and I did a double take! There was a classmate from UVM! It was totally bizarre to be in this random glass factory on a Saturday morning and run into someone who I knew. He has been here for the past 3 weeks, doing a similar program as me. When I recounted the story to my host mom, she commented, ¨what a small world.¨

Host family

This is the fourth host family that I´ve stayed with over the past several years and things have been going well thus far. I had an interesting experience with my Peruvian host family, mostly with my host mother who seemed to be running more of a business rather than providing a home. Also, it was my first experience with hot water being heated by electrical wires coming out of the shower head.

This prepared me for the electrical rigging of my current shower, but this one is a bit more tricky. When the water is turned on, which is only during the day, and off after 17:00, and I turn the shower on, the ¨heating¨machine makes a loud rough noise. In order to maximize the hot water, I have to turn the dial just right, so that I elicit the loudest noise possible. If I hear the noise dying out, it means that there´s cold water acoming, which is painful, when its surprisingly cold here. Since we are at a pretty high altitude, the weather is relatively cold in the mornings and evening. I realize its nothing compared to the winters in the NE, but there´s no insulation or heating here, so I´m usually wearing jeans and a sweater most of the day.

My host family has been great so far. There is Amanda, with her daughter Karen, and her grandson, Luis. There is also another Guatemalan student living there, who is studying law. Amanda´s son also lives nearby and she babysits her 4 year old grandaugther Wed-Fri who looks like the little girl from Monsters INC, so adorable. The other night, we watched ¨El Patito feo y yo¨ which means ¨The Ugly Duckling and Me.¨ A cute story, about a rat who inadvertently ¨adopts¨the ugly duckling and raises him.

I was placed with this family because Amanda has had a whole bunch of vegetarians, and she is quite the cook. Although, the meals tend to be carb overloaded with rice, beans, tortillas, bread, pastas, but I can´t complain because its all good and I get my full servings of vegetables.

Romero and Sunday

Last evening, the Spanish school that Im enrolled in, Miguel Angel Asturias, showed the movie ¨Romero.¨ Its a film that I´ve seen a few times, and wanted to remind myself again about this extraordinary man´s life.

Raul Julia, of Street Fighter fame, plays Archbishop Oscar Romero, a prominent figure in El Salvador in the late 70s. Before he was elected to Archbishop, he had been a relatively quiet, passive figure in the church, which was he was placed in a leadership position. He superiors thought that he would not ¨cause any waves.¨

At this time in El Salvador, there was a great deal of turmoil and the poor were suffering. Some priests advocated for economic justice for the poor and that these people should not have to wait for heaven for salvation, but that salvation can be found on Earth. These priests were labeled as communists and the military and government tortured, kidnapped, and killed many of the people who were speaking out and organizing the masses.

Romero eventually saw the reality of the situation and began to use his influence to speak out on behalf of the poor. The once passive priest was transformed into an active, vocal, and impassioned man. This is a person that I admire and respect, who has been a huge influence on me. One of his quotes has stayed with me ever since I heard it, ¨Be a voice for the voiceless.¨

In the United States, its easy to forget that the Catholic church exists, but like most countries in Latin and South America, the Catholic church in Guatemala has a prominent presence. Most of the pueblos and cities have main plazas where there is a church and its interesting because many of the Mayan beliefs and artificats have merged into Catholic traditions here.

This past Sunday, I was wondering the streets of Xela, when I happened upon a huge procession, with about 50 people carrying a huge casked with Jesus on top, carrying a wooden cross. Here are some pictures.

Cabón

I only stayed the night in Guatemala City because many of the things that I had read said get out A.S.A.P. To be fair, the hostel guy told me that the archelogical museum is one the best muesums in the country and that there are plenty of things to do in the capital. On the otherhand, another hostel guest, who was a bit questionable himself, advised me to be careful. Regardless, I took a morning bus to Cabón, about 4 hours north, which is set in a higher altitude and is famous for coffee growing and Semuc Champey, a limestone formation over a river.

I visited a coffee farm, which was conviently right next door to my hostel. It was originally started by some Europeans, which transformed the region into a major producer of coffee. I opted for the Spanish tour, hoping to practice and it ended up being not too confusing. Most of the coffee plants had been there since when then farm started and they just keep trimming the plants.

Originally, I was planning to cut across to the west to Nebaj after Cabón, but there had been some major mudslides recently and the road was no longer open. Bummer, but part of traveling is going with the flow and I decided to travel up further north to Tikal, a major Mayan site, instead of going there at the end of March.

This left me with an extra day to explore the surrounding area. Since I was short on time, I went with a tour group to some local caves and Semuc Champey, which was gorgeous.

More pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/semaj187/Guatemala

Estoy aquí

So I never formally finished my blog. I had been meaning to post that I returned to the U.S. and am finishing up my last year of school, but things got in the way and I was too lazy to let you know that I made it back home. For all I know, you might think that I´m still in Bangkok, since that was my last entry.

The past several months have been great, reconnecting with friends, making new friends, living with my mom for a while, and continuing my education. I´ve been fortunate to make it down to Guatemala for a little bit of travel and a medical Spanish rotation in Xela.

I flew into Guatemala City (which is shortened just to Guatemala by the locals) last Thursday and stayed in a hostel 5 minutes away from the airport that is run by a Guatemalan woman and her American husband. He and I chatted for a while, telling me about some of the interesting stories of running a hostel. I thought that one in particular had a good lesson about doing work abroad that I´d like to share with you. A Canadian church group came down to Guatemala with huge bags of gifts for a local village that their Pastor had arranged. They were all excited about the upcoming week and ready to share their gifts. A week later, they returned to Guatemala and the preceding energy had clearly dissipatedand many members of the group were quiet and reserved.

The hostel owner asked one of the members what had happened. She recounted the week´s events with disdain. She explained that they held a big party in the local school, had a nice cake, and gave out all the markers, books, pens and other gifts to all the children of the village. While the Canadians cleaned up after the party, the families left for the weekly market. Upon leaving the school, the Canadians were shocked to see all their well-intentioned gifts spread out on blankets with families haggling over the items!

The church member proceeded to express how disappointed she was that they were selling the gifts and not using it for their education. He pointed out that many of these families are more concerned with eating, rather than learning. She replied that education is important.

All in all, I think while this group had the best of intentions, there´s something to be said about finding out what the local needs are before coming down, instead of imposing what we think is best for them. More often than not, we base our humanitarian actions on our own beliefs and experiences and assume that everyone else also has the same needs and desires. But, as this little story points out, the families pointed out their priorities.

They sure do grow up fast

Do you remember those two little rascals, Wei-En and Wei Min, my nephews, in Bangkok? Well, they both have grown considerably, especially Wei-En. When I last saw him, he was cruising around in his stroller, chewing on his shoelace fascinated with empty plastic bottles. Now, he's walking around, chatting it up with everyone and has 2 nicknames for me, he has renamed Uncle Jimmy as: "Go Me" and "Jimmy-ah" (imitating my Aunt Nancy in a Chinese accent).

As with Wei Min, everyone talks to Wei En in a combination of Chinese, Thai and English. Wei En can correctly identify and say: Flamingo in English, Dog in Chinese, and Elephant in Thai. At first, I thought oh my gosh, that kid is going to be confused when he gets older, but the more I thought about it, the more it seems appropriate. It'll all get sorted out and then he'll be tri-lingual like Wei Min, which is fantastic!

Wei En, following in the footprints, or should I say hoof prints of his older brother , by riding a pony. Wei En is also very into applauding !Wei Min, Wei Min and Uncle Jimmy

Catching up

After 2 1/2 weeks of traveling in China, I have a much needed respite with my relatives in Bangkok. Dealing with all of the logistics of getting four people through China, while fun and exciting, can be a bit stressful. It feels like I've come full circle since leaving last year. I started my adventure in Bangkok and am now ending it here.

After we left Xi'an, we went to Chengdu (成都) in Sichuan (四川) Provence to see the Pandas! This is the same Provence where the tragic, devastating earthquake happened, but Chengdu was not effected. Pandas are cute, but they are pretty lazy. Most of their day is consumed with eating because their bodies can only absorb a fraction of the nutrients from bamboo, so they have to spend about 80% of their day eating. Its a hard knock life for them.

We also made a day trip out to Leshan (樂山), where the world's largest buddha is located. This place also happens to be the birthplace of my father, who I thought was born in Chongqing, but was recently informed otherwise. His Chinese name carries part of his birth place, Le (樂), which means "happy."

After a couple of days in Chengdu, we made it to the Yunnan (云南) Provence, which is an area that is worth exploring in China. The scenery is breathtaking and the old towns of Lijiang (丽江) and Dali (大理) are a refreshing change of pace from the generic Chinese cities, especially, since there's hardly any pollution. Also, we hike Tiger Leaping Gorge which was an amazing hike. My mom was a super trooper and hiked the incredible difficult trail without any assistance, namely from the 2 local with horses who were trailing us in hopes of one of us tiring and paying money to ride the horse to the top.

Anyhoo, that's brief recap of our travels, which concluded in Hong Kong with a four day extravaganza of eating, shopping and seeing relatives.

Zach, Jen and I at Tiger Leaping Gorge
The Fam:
Click here to see some cute panda cubs, the world's largest Buddha, and more!