CTYLERJOHNSON & CRIS ELDER'S I-BLOG

Willa & Mo

2008-03-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a collection of photos of our wards, Willa and Mo. We inherited Willa from the previous owner when we bought our house in Indiana in August of 2007. Later that fall, in November, we adopted another cat, Mo, from the humane society.

Signage around Guatemala

2007-06-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

These are some of the interesting and often humorous signs that we've seen on our travels around the country and also right here in Xela.

To view the slideshow, click the photo below. When it transfers you to a Picasa photo album, click the "Slideshow" button in the upper left corner.

Enjoy,

Tyler

Signage around Guatemala

You Better Belize It!

2007-04-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

"You Better Belize It" was the motto of our spring break vacation spent in Belize, Central America the first week of April during Semana Santa (Holy Week). Eve flew out from Portland, Oregon to meet up with us just hours after we arrived to Belize City from Guatemala. Eve's friend Collin (also from Portland) met up with us two days later. We spent the first four days of our vacation on Cayo Ambergris, an island located just a 45 minute boat ride from Belize City. The last three days were spent in the Belizean jungle at Chaa Creek, near the Belize/Guatemala border. To see pictures of our latest adventure, please click on the photo below and then select "Slideshow". (You may need to click on "captions" at the bottom.) Enjoy!

Cris and Tyler

You Better Belize It!

POTUS (President of the United States) Visit

2007-04-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Often times when working abroad, especially for the government as, say, a Peace Corps Volunteer or an English Language Fellow, one often has unusual and unique opportunities that one wouldn't have back home in the States. For example, while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, I met First Lady Hillary Clinton while assisting White House staff with her visit to the country. Well, conicidentally, during the month of March, Tyler and I were asked by the US Embassy to assist with events during President George W. Bush's recent visit to Guatemala. Our main responsibilities included escorting the American press to and from the tarmac at the Guatemalan airport, setting up the Press Filing Center at the hotel where the press were staying, and escorting the press to and from the National Palace where President Berger of Guatemala formally welcomed President and First Lady Bush. It was a whirlwind of activities, volunteering long hours to make sure everything went off without a hitch. As the staff from the US Embassy in Guatemala City is rather small, we had help from US Embassy staff from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama. Our team effort paid off as President Bush stated at the press conference and reiterated through White House staff that the trip to Guatemala was one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences for President and First Lady Bush during Bush's presidency. Of course, I also contribute this to the hospitality and spirit of the Guatemalan people.

Please click on the photo below (and then on "slideshow") to see additional photos we took during the POTUS visit:

POTUS Visit

Amy and Jason's Guat Trip

2007-03-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

In mid-February, Amy Burge and Jason Beloso, two friends from graduate school, came to Guatemala for a one-week visit. With such a short time to travel, we were sure to take advantage of every minute and planned an itinerary that would keep us moving to a new place each day. Three of our local Guatemalan friends strongly suggested that we go to a place in central Guatemala called Semuc Champey, a place well off the popular tourist circuit made special by its preserved environmental beauty. Brenda (Cris’ director) offered us a car for the week since Semuc Champey was difficult to access. So how could we say no?

Saturday & Sunday / Guatemala City & Coban

We picked up Amy and Jason at the Guatemala City airport and, after spending the night in town, headed north toward Alta Verapaz (the region where Semuc Champey is located). We traveled for several hours by car through an extremely arid region when we detoured onto an unimproved dirt and rock road and started noticing some strange Dr. Seuss-looking flowering plants that seemed out of place in a desert climate. Then, almost instantly as we crossed a dry, dusty, rocky mountain range (crowned with the remains of a forgotten cow) fog appeared, and along with it, Spanish moss, ferns, bromeliads, and other dense vegetation. The hot dry air was suddenly replaced with cool moist air, reminiscent of the central coast of California - one minute we were hot and sweaty and the next, out came the fleece and beanies. It seemed that all of the trees were host to more bromeliads than they could possibly hold, and some trees succumbed to the weight of the little squatters, falling over and sending thousands of the bromeliads spilling down the hillside. As we traveled toward the city of Coban, the capital of Alta Verapaz, coffee plantations appeared everywhere, on valley floors, climbing up the steep hillsides, and the cool fog and mist continued. (Although Guatemala is renowned for its coffee, it is often difficult to find a good cup of java as most of the best beans are exported. The same is true for chocolate.)

Upon finally arriving to Coban, we quickly found the grooviest place in town - Hostal d'Acuña, where we had an excellent lunch and sat surrounded by orchids, wood thrushes, and ceremonial masks. Lunch was followed by scouting hotels around town for a place to sleep. However, after examining our choices, we ended up returning to the comfort and quiet of Hostal d'Acuña for the night.

Monday / Semuc Champey

The next morning we loaded up the car and headed east for Semuc Champey. Numerous low mountains and coffee farms dominated the landscape and the drive on the new and improved road was very pleasant. Eventually, we had to leave our smooth, paved road and detour onto a VERY rough, very steep road cut directly into the bedrock, which slowed us down to a few miles per hour. The slower speeds allowed us a bit more personal contact with pedestrians, who greeted us by whistling rather than waving, a custom we quickly adopted and used for the next several days.

That evening we stayed at a dumpy little backpacker-style hostal called Las Marias, where the service was friendly but the food and accommodations were grim. The big advantage of Las Marias is that it is within walking distance of an elaborate system of caves that tourists can swim through and explore, which we did that afternoon. Our tour guide was a 15 year-old who led us on a one-hour tour of the labyrinth of caves, through which a small river runs quickly and loudly, connecting great pools of water filled by underground waterfalls. During most of the tour we were able to walk up the river through the cave, but in several areas we had to swim for 20 - 50 yards until we could touch the floor again. Amy, Jason and Cris had brought little Petzl headlamps, making swimming easier, but I (Tyler) was equipped with a candle, obliging me to swim with one hand above the water or swim with two hands in the dark. There were several areas of the cave that involved climbing ladders and ropes, which we agreed would under no circumstances ever be possible in the litigious USA. It all seemed very dangerous at times, but it was way too interesting to want to turn back.

Tuesday morning / Semuc Champey

The next morning we went about a mile to Semuc Champey National Monument, which is a bizarre system of waterfalls and hundreds of individual pools of water at the floor of a near vertical canyon. Anyone interested in geology should visit this place as there are many unusual geological features packed into a small area. We walked around for about an hour looking at steaming turquoise pools emptying into one another, and we reached an area where we could hear a lot of water moving very quickly through a small area. A park employee showed us down to a limestone shelf where we observed a large river disappearing beneath us into a small cave. The water was moving so quickly and violently that if you were unlucky enough to fall in, you wouldn't have to worry about drowning as you'd be instantly crushed by the rapids throwing you against the boulders. We realized that all of the pools of water we had been exploring that morning were actually directly over this massive underground river, which surfaced above ground again farther down the river valley. Before leaving Semuc Champey, we climbed up the side of the canyon to a lookout platform to get a view of the whole system from above. The whole experience was spectacular. The site is the cleanest and best-preserved that we’ve seen in Guatemala. Informational signs along the hiking trails warn of the causes of environmental degradation and ask visitors to do their part to protect the area. As Cris predicted, the last sign along the trail indicated the park was a joint effort between Guatemala, USAID, and the US Peace Corps.

Tuesday afternoon / Cuchumatan
Mountains

We left Semuc Champey in the late morning and our next destination was Chichicastenango.
To get to Chichi, we had to travel back through Coban and then continue west on a dirt road through the Cuchumatan mountains for about 8 hours. The climate again turned hot and dry and the scenery was excellent. As we traveled through the mountains near Uspantan, we saw numerous villages with new adobe houses - many of them currently under construction. The neatly built mud-brown houses and terra-cotta roofs blended in perfectly with the green coffee farms on the valley floor and the rocky mountains in the background, creating a modest yet picturesque landscape. In our 6 months in Gautemala, Cris and I have seen many adobe buildings, but they are all old, often in disrepair, but still visually pleasing. New construction, on the other hand, is almost exclusively made with cinderblocks, which is not an aesthetically pleasing building material. Cinderblock construction dominates the contemporary Guatemalan landscape, so we were pleasantly surprised by the adobe construction in Uspantan.

Wednesday/ Chichicastenango and Xela

After driving all day through the Cuchumatan mountains and spending the night in Santa Cruz del Quiche, we quickly left town and made our way to Chichicastenango, a quaint little town in the western highlands famo

us for its Thursday and Sunday markets. We spent the day walking around, hanging out, and admiring the handicraft-like quilts, fabrics, masks, bags, dolls, etc. Amy and Jason scored a bedspread made of huipiles (the traditional blouses worn by Maya women) sewn together, and we all bought wooden masks, like those used in traditional Maya ceremonies.

From Chichi we drove to Xela, stopped by Cris` workto say, and then relaxed at home where we cooked and ate.

Thursday/ Lake Atitlan and Panajachel

The next morning we picked up the same theme,staying home, cooking, and eating some more. We still long for more of Amy ’s Dutch babies.) We packed up the car and made our way to Lake Atitlan where we stayed at the comfy & luxurious Villa Santa Catarina, just a couple miles outside of Panajachel, the tourist hub of Lake Atitlan one. We also stopped in at th. Our shopping adventure in Chichi must have gotten us in the capitalist spirit, because we ventured into Panajachel to take a look around, and before we left, Cris and I had bought 5 large handmade wool blankets, while A&J also boughte nearby Sololá market, possibly the most colorful place I've ever been due to the men and women dressed in traditional traje, but we escaped without spending any money.

Friday / Antigua

With the trunk of our car stuffed with blankets, we drove onward to Antigua where we checked in to the absolutely spectacular Casa Santo Domingo

http://www.casasantodomingo.com.gt/english/index.html - navigate by clicking the arrows under the photo). The hotel structure is a converted convent and the property occupies about 3 city blocks, which includes many gardens, a candle-making shop, a pottery shop, an art gallery, and a museum. In keeping with the tradition of a convent, at dusk a man with censer walked through all of the buildings spreading the smell of incense, and the staff lit several thousand candles throughout the hotel grounds, giving the whole place a peaceful ambiance. We ended Amy & Jason's last night with a pleasant dinner at the hotel restaurant.

Saturday/ The Return Home

The next morning, Amy and Jason caught a shuttle to the airport in Guatemala City, and Cris

and I drove back to Xela along the coast road. It was tough saying goodbye to such good friends and fellow travelers. We’ll have to wait until July, when we’re back in the Pacific Northwest, to share each other’s company again.

Weekend Trippin’ Around the Western Highlands

2007-03-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

Chicabal

During Dixon’s two-month Spanish study in Xela, we had the opportunity to go on a school excursion to Chicabal, a volcano with an eponymous lagoon within its crater. It was a one-hour drive and a two-hour hike up to the top of the volcano. However,

we were rewarded with incredible views of the neighboring volcanoes and an intimate look down into Chicabal’s crater. After eating lunch up top at the volcano’s mirador, we descended the four hundred or so steps down to Chicabal’s lagoon and beach. Lester, our Guatemalan guide, explained that the lagoon is a sacred site (therefore no swimming allowed) where many Maya come to perform traditional ceremonies. He told the following story of what makes Chicabal a traditional site: In the past, the lagoon

now found in Chicabal’s crater once was located closer to Xela. The lagoon was fed by the rains, and the lagoon, in return, sustained the people. However, the god that lived in the

lagoon became angry over time as the local population littered the lagoon with their trash, human waste, and detergents from washing. As a result, the story goes, the lagoon dried up and was no longer. The Maya walked the surrounding hills and valleys until many

years later they found where the god had taken their original water source – to the crater of Volcan Chicabal. To this day it remains a protected and well preserved area. We could have spent the whole weekend lying on the warm sands of the quiet beach surrounding the lagoon.

Momostenango

The weekend before Dixon’s return to the States, Brenda (Cris’ director) and her family took the three of us on a one-day excursion to Momostenango, about an hour north of Xela.

Ana Laura, Tyler, and Alejandra explore the sandstone pillars.

Momostenango means “the place of the altars”, which may be a nod to Momos strict adherence to Maya tradition. Momos sits atop a hill forested with pine trees and is home to many sheep. For hundreds of years the local Maya population has formed their own type of cooperative through which they care for the pine trees that blanket the hill top, knowing that the trees are necessary to their survival. The wool from the sheep is used to make beautiful rugs, scarves, and blankets, decorated very simply or with elaborate quetzal bird designs. We spent our time in Momos climbing and exploring Los Riscos, the sandstone pillars located on the northern edge of town. We ended the day by drinking hot chocolate and eating fondue at a Swiss-owned restaurant set atop Cerro Candelario, overlooking the city. The hot chocolate was excellent and went well with the light rain that began to fall that night.

Vuelta de Guatemala By Cris and Tyler

2007-02-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, February 12^th marks exactly two months since my Dad arrived to

Guatemala

(and two days from which he returns to the States). During his time here, my Dad has been staying at his favored place downtown, Casa Mercedes, just one block from his school, Celas Maya. http://www.celasmaya.edu.gt/ My Dad has enjoyed his stay in Xela so much that he plans on flying south again next winter.

The first two weeks of my Dad’s stay in Guatemala began with a vuelta (or trip) de Guatemala and Honduras. After waiting for what Tyler called my Dad’s “adventure travel gear” to arrive from its three-day layover in Houston and for Tyler and I to renew our 3 month visas at immigration in Guatemala City,we hopped on a mini-van for a bumpy, five-hour ride to Copán, Honduras. As a result, my Dad was quickly “broken in” to the luxuries of traveling by crowded private (or public) transportation in Guatemala. The border crossing from Guatemala to Honduras was uneventful and simply required a small payment of 10 quetzales (about $1.30). (The Central America Four agreement allows one to travel across the borders of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador without a visa for each country. This is, of course, very convenient for those travelers just passing through. However, now that Tyler and I have already renewed our visa once in Guatemala City, we’ll be required to head to Mexico or Costa Rica to renew our visas again in March, since the above agreement does not allow for visa renewals within the Central American Four.) The bruises from our sardine can-ride were quickly forgotten as 15 minutes just past the Honduran border we were met by the very friendly people of the small town Copán Ruinas. We were immediately charmed by the smiling faces of young kids; the cobblestone streets; impressive, tropical plants; red-tiled roofs; absence of trash; and excellent food. We immediately decided we’d be staying longer than we had originally planned, just as our guidebook warned might happen.

The small town of Copán Ruinas is located just a mile from the archeological site of Copán. This “southernmost center of Maya civilization” (Rough Guide to Guatemala) was just a short, pleasant walk down a country road. Upon arriving, we hired a knowledgeable guide to show us around the central part of the massive, 24-square kilometer site. This was the 8^th abandoned Mayan city that Tyler has visited, and while the architecture, symbolism and ornamentation have become familiar, Tyler states it has never gotten dull.

We learned that Copán’s location in a long broad valley made it quite suitable as a site to build a city. The small river running through the valley floods during the rainy season and brings nutrients to the flat valley floor, perfect for growing crops. Also, the two nearby outcroppings of stone in the surrounding hills made for excellent quarries. Sometime around 100 AD construction at Copán began, only later to be abandoned in the 9^th century AD. The best guesses as to why the Maya abandoned the city include over development, over-exploitation of resources, and war. (Again, another opportunity for us to learn from history.) If you’re in the neighborhood, Copán is not to be missed.

After our two-day stay in Copan, we returned to Guatemala and headed for the Caribbean Coast. We arrived to the ugly industrial port of Puerto Barrios, the main port from which the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Banana) exported its goods to the U.S. and the rest of the world. We only stayed in Puerto Barrios long enough for my Dad to use the restroom at the brothel I accidentally escorted him to and to take the 30 minute ferry ride to Livingston, a coastal town only accessible by boat.

Livingston (population 6,000) is an interesting little town on the Caribbean coast at the mouth of the Río Dulce. As there are no roads connecting Livingston to the rest of the country, all goods must be brought into town in small boats. Unlike Puerto Barrios, there are only low docks that do not allow for large, industrial deliveries. Although there is a minimal road system in the town itself, there is very little motor traffic. A taxi driver told us that there are 80 registered cars in Livingston, as 80 was the limit of car permits the city allows. Pedestrians and bicycles rule the road here. This was definitely our kind of town.

Livingston’s isolated location probably allowed the distinct Garifuna culture of the town to thrive despite being surrounded by the dominant Guatemalan culture. The Garifuna have much more in common with Belize and the Caribbean Islands than with Guatemala. The Garifuna are ethnically a mix of African, Carib, and Arawak peoples and their language is today a mix of Arawak, Carib, French, English and Spanish. The Garifuna men and women use distinct dialects of the same language, which may be a result of pre-Columbian ethnic wars in which the males of the losing side were dispatched and the women were taken as captives and later companions by the victors.

The obvious cultural differences that you see walking around town are the slower pace of life and the music. Reggae, punta, and soka music displace synthesized merengue and traditional marimba ensembles that are ubiquitous in the rest of Guatemala. The main tourist activities in town are eating and chilling out.

While in Livingston, we stayed at a small resort on the sea a couple of kilometers north of town. We took a taxi about three miles from the dock where we arrived to the edge of downtown where the road ends. From there, we walked about a mile along the beach to get to our resort. The resort was composed of a group of several cabins made from lath walls and palm roofs, with a central large open palm roof structure that served as a restaurant and dining room. The first night we unsuccessfully slept through a major offensive launched by the local mosquitoes; however, the second night our mosquito nets acquired from the resort’s caretaker foiled these menaces’ blood-thirsty plans.

Our first day on the beach we spent listening to the rain pound the palm roof of our cabaña, which deafened the sound of the Caribbean Sea lapping on shore just 20 feet in front of us. The following day the clouds broke, the sun filled the sky, and we hiked north along the beach to Siete Altares (Seven Altars). Siete Altares aptly describes a nearby river that runs out over smoothed, limestone rocks, turning into a series of waterfalls and shallow pools. It was a treacherous hike for Tyler as he was barefoot, but even he agreed the gain was worth the pain as you can see from the photos. There were orchids growing on everything and the river was crystal clear.

As the three of us walked there from our resort, we avoided the crowds that often arrive to Siete Altares by boat together from downtown Livingston. Will, a local who had just moved back from New York, taught us how to climb up the face of the waterfall so we could jump off into its deep, pleasant pool. On our way back from Siete Altares, some of the local Maya kids spotted our camera and asked us to take their pictures.

Obviously they have learned from previous tourists that if they stand long enough to pose, they will be awarded with a glimpse of themselves on the playback screen of the digital cameras. I did, however, have to draw a line in the sand to prevent the kids from continually moving too close to the camera’s lens. J I learned this trick from our friends Mark and Bev with whom I sailed to Tonga where we also met enthusiastic local subjects.

In the evening, as the temperature inside our cabaña rose, Tyler and I took our pillows and sheets outside, set up a couple of the resort lounge chairs on the water’s edge and went to sleep to the gentle rolling of the shore onto the beach. We moved back in to our cabaña only as the rain of the days before returned.

The next day we arranged for a boat-taxi to take us from our cabin on the sea back to Livingston. As we were in a very remote location and had spent our last quetzales on breakfast, we notified our “lanchero” that we would have to pay him for the boat ride once we arrived back into town and could get some more money. Once back in Livingston, we learned that there was no cash in either of the two ATMs, that they weren’t expecting any more cash for a couple of days, and our credit cards were useless at the banks but could be used at some restaurants to buy lunch.

As we wondering how we were going to pay the lanchero, Carlos, the Argentinian owner of the jungle eco-resort Finca Tatín, the next resort where we would stay, pulled up to the dock. As he was there to retrieve us, we explained to him our situation, and he quickly lent us the money to pay the lanchero and to get a cup of coffee while he did some grocery shopping before returning to the finca.

Having paid our debt and filled up the small boat with provisions, we all climbed in and turned south up the Río Dulce. Although it began to rain on us in our open “lancha”, we hardly noticed as we were captivated by the numerous birds and 300 feet high, vertical canyon walls that surrounded us as we motored toward the finca. Upon our arrival to Finca Tatín (http://www.fincatatin.centramerica.com/mainE.htm), we immediately knew we were going to like this place. Tyler, my Dad, and I were assigned a comfortable, quaint cabin right on the river’s edge, with a complete bathroom and single bed downstairs for my Dad and a double bed upstairs for me and Tyler. All over the swampy ground of Finca Tatin - around our cabin, around the common areas, etc. - there were thousands of tiny blue crabs slowly crawling around and threatening each other with their 1” long claws.

The common area at the resort was filled with hammocks, books for trade, and handmade scrabble, backgammon, and chess boards. The menu listed good, healthy options for breakfast and lunch while dinner was communal, bringing everyone at the resort together at one table. Everything eaten or enjoyed at the resort was based on an honor system.

The resort kept a book in which each guest had his or her own page where one kept track of one’s meals, drinks, kayak trips, etc. At the end of the stay, one’s total was added and then paid. We added a couple nights stay, a kayak trip to the Biotopo Chocón Machacas (a government protected manatee reserve), and a couple of T-shirts to our tab before moving on up river to the town of Río Dulce. The town of Río Dulce wasn’t much more than a crossroads where we withdrew money from the ATM to pay our hosts on the river and catch our bus northwest to the town of Flores, seven hours away.

Flores, the town nearest to Tikal, the most important ancient Maya site in Guatemala, is a touristy but cute little town built on an island in Lake Petén Itzá. The town is basically looped by one cobblestone street and is connected to the mainland by a human-made bridge. The cobbled streets are clean, the restaurants generally decent, the motor traffic minimal, the people friendly, and there’s always a view of the lake. We were still dealing with a shortage of cash as we quickly learned there were no ATM machines in Flores, and those ATMs in Santa Elena, the town on the other side of the bridge, did not contain any cash. However, we got lucky when an armored car arrived as we were standing outside the third bank we tried and the ATM was restocked. After withdrawing as much as we could, we returned to our pleasant, air-conditioned rooms.

On our second day in Flores, my Dad took the day off and chilled out in town while Tyler and I took a hired sardine can/mini-van to Tikal. We got there relatively late in the afternoon, found a guide, and took an express tour of the ruins. We got really lucky with our guide, who grew up just a few miles from Tikal in Uaxactún (sounds like Wa-shing-ton, seriously), and was extremely knowledgeable in medicinal plants, botany, biology, and local history. Our late arrival turned out to have an advantage; there were no tourists to distract our enjoyment of the park. We climbed several pyramids to find that we were the only ones on the structure. The views from the tops of the pyramids were spectacular, and the forest was busy with spider monkeys, parakeets, parrots, wild turkeys, oropendolas, woodpeckers, brown jays, hummingbirds, and much more. We saw many groups of leaf cutter ants carrying little green flags across the footpaths. The ants put their leafy treasures into fermenting holes and later eat the fungus that grows on the rotting leaves. We learned from our guide that these ants are basically mushroom farmers.

Our third day in Peten (the northern Guatemalan state or “department” where Flores and Tikal are located) was spent visiting Ixpanpajul, an overpriced park with suspension footbridges and tree canopy excursions located not too far from Flores. The staff at the park keeps the paths in good condition, and the long suspension bridges offer nice views of the park and surrounding area, but we felt the $25 entrance fee per person was a bit steep for a hike through foliage similar to that found at Tikal. While Ixpanpajul did offer the sounds of howler monkeys miles off in the trees, it lacked the magnificence of the ruins and flora and fauna of Tikal, for which we paid the equivalent of $7.00 each. On our way out of the park, I politely told the woman at the front desk about our disappointment at being charged so much for so little.

Our next destination from Peten was the old colonial city (and former capital of Guatemala) Antigua, about 45 minutes outside Guatemala City. We had two options for making the trip to Antigua: 1. Take a 9.5-hour bus ride from Flores to Guatemala City, then a shuttle to Antigua, or 2. Take a 1-hour plane ride (for about $100.00) from Flores to Guatemala City, and then a shuttle to Antigua. It didn’t take long to make that decision. We flew at night and the whole country was dark; only a few times were there a few lines of dim street lights indicating a village below. Suddenly we came over a mountain range and the orange-yellow lights of Guatemala’s capital spread out to the horizon. We arrived at our hotel in Antigua, an elegant colonial style building with a courtyard and garden, at about 11 pm and quickly went to sleep, dreaming of the next day’s adventures.

We woke up in Antigua on Dec 24^th, had our complimentary breakfast, and took a stroll around town. Our only plan for the day was to find the best coffee and pastries in town, an admirable goal for which Tyler happily takes credit. As it turned out, Christmas Eve was not the best day for pastry hunting as many shops were closed; however, we were able to find some acceptable cheesecake and cappuccinos.

On Christmas Day we had lunch at the Swiss owned Mesón Panza Verde. The three of us agreed that this was the most significant culinary experience we’d had in a long time. Tyler tried to take note of all the subtle and perfectly balanced flavors so he could try and recreate them later in his tiny kitchen in Xela. Beginning with our incredible arugula salads with a homemade dressing, we knew we were in for a culinary treat. My Dad and I went for the traditional turkey dinner with mashed potatoes– the best I’ve ever had (sorry mom!). Tyler had salmon with baked squash and yams. We were in ecstasy all the way through to the arrival of our chocolate mousse and apple streudel desserts, and even then we were not disappointed.

As we walked off our lunch around town, we happened upon a Christmas parade. We were enjoying the antics of the masked parade-goers and marimba players so much that we followed them for a couple of blocks. Later in the evening, Tyler and I went out in search of dessert and came upon a fusion Thai restaurant called Café Flor. We enjoyed the live piano music that was playing, but I was a little put off by my chocolate brownie made from corn flour, and we were both put off by the host/pianist’s peddling of music CDs at our table when the bill came.

On December 26^th, we headed back to Xela from Antigua by bus. We were glad to see the landscape change to pine trees and feel the air change to the cool mountain climate of the Western Highlands. After two-weeks traveling around Honduras and Guatemala, we were happy to be back at our home away from home.

El Día de Todos Los Santos by Cris

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

November proved to be a very busy month here in Guatemala.

Halloween came and went without a trick or a treat. Although Tyler and I had bought a bowl full of Hershey Kisses and gum wrapped like gold coins, not one trick-or-treater found his or her way to our front step. Perhaps it was the scary music Tyler had playing outside through hidden speakers?

However, November 1st, All Saints Day, was much more lively. On this day we headed down to the local cemetery where we witnessed a sea of colors. Flower vendors, kite sellers, and fruit hawkers were lined up outside the cemetery while young boys walked around the graves selling cotton candy. Rather than a day of mourning, it looked much more like a day at the fair.

In Guatemala, as in some other Latin American countries, while All Saints Day commemorates the saints (as its name implies), November 2nd, All Soul's Day, remembers those unfortunate souls stuck in purgatory. During these two days, the souls of the underworld walk among the living. If family and friends don't bring offerings to their passed loved ones, the living may be punished by illness, crop failures, tax auditings, and a pimple on the end of their nose. (Okay, so I made up those last two.) People may also decorate their houses and leave a sort of offering of liquor, food, candles and flowers on a shrine. While I did see these shrines in Mexico when I lived there, I did not witness them here in Xela. Customs range somewhat from country to country and even from village to village.

In Quetzaltenango, it is a happy coincidence that the winds pick up in November, and as most cemeteries are flat and devoid of trees, the conditions are ripe for kite flying. The Maya village of Santiago Sacatepequez has become famous for the 10-20 foot bamboo and tissue paper kites that are flown in its cemeteries during these first two days of November. The tradition began back in 1940 when three young men built the first large kite to entertain the families as they swept the dirt off grave sites, trimmed overgrown grasses, painted weather-faded tombstones, and layed flowers on headstones. It has now turned into a competition to see who can build the largest kite. As is written in Culture and Customs of Guatemala, Kenneth W. Smith, an anthropologist who spent time studying the kite flying tradition in Sacatepequez, "believes that the practice became a way of attracting single, young women of the town, who were generally inaccessible during most of the year, as virtuous women should not be seen conversing openly or flirting with men" (Shea, 2001, p.42). For our single friends out there, forget Internet dating. Go fly a kite. It sounds like more fun.

The following weekend Tyler and I headed to Guatemala City for the NTC (National Teachers' Conference) put on by IGA-Guatemala (the administrative headquarters for the school I work for in Xela). The conference took place over the course of three days with about 900 people in attendance. This made for 150-180 participants in each of my four workshops. Luckily Tyler was there to assist me as I tried to arrange the crowd into groups of four. However, it wasn't all work and no play. Tyler and I had the pleasure of sharing a cocktail or two and swapping stories with Monterey Institute professor Kathi Bailey who was also presenting at the conference. In addition, we shared a very nice evening at IGA's cultural center where photographs of Native Americans taken by Edward S. Curtis were on display. The exhibit, "Sacred Legacy", (of which there is a book of the collection by the same name) is sponsored by the Public Affairs and Cultural Affairs sections of the US embassy here in Guatemala. As I understand, one purpose for the exhibit is to celebrate the beauty and traditions of indigenous people and to introduce Guatemalans to the native people of the US. Examples of these incredible photos can be seen at the following website: http://spanish.guatemala.usembassy.gov/curtisfotos.html

Just five days after returning from Guatemala City, I began teaching a four-week, 60-hour teacher training course for 12 pre-service and in-service English teachers from Xela and the surrounding areas. The course covered topics ranging from first and second language acquisition, to cooperative learning, to grammar in context, to using authentic materials. Tyler even cameoed with two workshops on speaking and listening activities. The course culminated in each participant presenting a lesson plan and teaching part of the lesson to the other course participants. I am happy to report that everyone involved felt it was a very worthwhile, informative experience. I, personally, am thrilled to now know 12 more people in Xela.

From left to right, back row to front: Brenda (Director of IGA-Xela, http://www.igaxela.org ), Jorge, me, Glenda, Irma, Tyler, Javier, Veronica (in pink), Ana, Lilly, Astrid, Rufino, and, Cesar. (Miryam and Claudia were not present.)

With the NTC and the teacher training course now under my belt, Tyler and I are leaving once again, on the 4am bus, to meet my father at the Guatemala City airport on December 12th. Our next posting should be of our exciting trip through Honduras and Northern Guatemala as we visit different Maya ruins and howler monkeys. Stay tuned, and happy holidays!

Work, Play, and the United Fruit Company by Cris

2006-10-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

Work: It’s hard to believe it’s already been a month and a half since we arrived in Guatemala. I’ve been keeping very busy at work observing teachers and writing up observation reports, working with teachers and administration on testing students and placing them into levels, evaluating and choosing student textbooks, and facilitating teacher trainer workshops. My office is downtown at IGA-Sede (http://www.igaxela.org) . (Sede means central seat or office.) Here classes are offered in the mornings before work or school from 7-9am and in the afternoons from about 3-7pm. It is also the home of the bilingual secretary program for girls in grades 10-12.

The building where IGA-Sede is located used to be a private house and then a hotel. The rooms are arranged around a central courtyard, as is typical in Spanish architecture. Saturdays are the busiest days at IGA when both university students and elementary kids come to study for 3-6 hours. Therefore, most of the teachers at IGA Sede teach six days a week. I only go in on Saturdays when I have to observe. Having the weekend off is one of my cultural customs I’m clinging on to.

Although IGA-Sede is non-denominational, it coordinates and runs the English programs at two local Catholic schools: Liceo Guatemala, the boys Catholic school, and Maria Auxiliadora, the girls Catholic School. Both schools are Kindergarten through twelfth grade with the 10-12th graders specializing in a profession. The boys are offered careers in Computation, Graphic Design, Medicine, and Sciences. The girls are offered a career in…being bilingual secretaries. IGA-Sede is currently working on getting a teaching program for the girls approved by the Ministry of Education; however, it is currently an uphill battle. Of course other options are available to both male and female students if they study in a bachillerato or college prep program and continue on to college.

I don’t work so much with students but spend most of my time with the teachers. They are a really great, hard-working group, most of them teaching both at IGA-Sede and in the Liceo and Maria programs. Brenda, the Director of IGA-Xela (which includes Sede, Liceo, and Maria), was a Fulbright scholar in the States and has a background in non-governmental organization (NGO) administration. Before directing IGA-Xela (a non-profit organization), she was both a teacher and worked for the NGO Save the Children. She runs her programs very professionally and, at the same time, treats her faculty and staff like family. I have told Brenda that I feel as if I have won the English Language Fellow lottery, having been placed under her direction. Needless to say, I am really enjoying my job.

Play: As one can note from his previous posting, Tyler’s mission in life here is to find the best mountain biking trail and something more diverse to eat. Just recently Tyler participated in a night race, 4km (about 3 miles) almost all up a steep slope. He has become a familiar fixture at the local bike shops. Tyler also scored for us yesterday when he bought a 2 pound bottle of Tahini from the local restaurant owner of Café Babylon. Tyler has been a big support to me both at home and at work. This week we team facilitated a workshop on Teaching Grammar in Context.

The weekend of October 7th Tyler and I finally took a trip out of town to Panajachel (Pahn-ah-ha-chell) with an American, Scott, who works at IGA-Sede and who has been living in Xela for the past seven years. Panajachel is a small village located on the beautiful Lake Atitlán, about a four-hour trip on one of the local chicken buses if the road is clear. (Hurricane Stan caused a lot of damage last year, so bridges are being built where roads were washed away.) Panajachel was once populated by the Tz’utujil until they were defeated by a rival Maya group, the Kaqchikel, with the help of the Spanish conquistadors. Panajachel is a quaint little town with cobblestone streets, but it has long been discovered by gringos. Therefore, much of the businesses along the main drag pander to foreign tourists. As a result, the spectacular views of Lake Atitlán and the surrounding volcanoes are somewhat spoiled by aggressive locals selling their wares and services.

Lake Atitlán is a spectacular sight; however, it has faced it's own share of environmental degradation. One of the islands the lake surrounds is a nature preserve to protect the local species of grebe from extinction as the island consists of reeds that are necessary for the birds' survival. Unfortunately, however, with the introduction of black bass not native to the lake's ecosystem, the birds were unable to avoid their tragic fate as the carnivorous fish feasted on the small grebe offspring.

Panajachel and the villages of Lake Atitlan are the first places we have seen where Maya men still wear the clothes of their ancestors. Due to the prejudice against the Maya, many Maya men who had to deal with their European brethren found it easier to do business if they succumbed to wearing the clothes of westerners. However, many Maya women in both the larger cities and smaller villages honor their traditional heritage by weaving and wearing the multi-colored huipil (blouse) and corte (woven wraparound skirt), the skill of which has been passed down through hundreds of years. Maya men and women wear only the colors and patterns of textiles that represent the region where they are from.

The central plaza in Santiago Atitlan is a meeting place for both young and old. The plaza is where you'll find the local shool, church, and market. It is the cultural center of town.

A common sight in the streets of towns and cities in Guatemala is the large loads Maya women carry on their heads to and from the market. I never cease to be impressed by how much they can balance on their heads.

Keeping one's shoes cleaned and shined is a serious business in Guatemala. Most of the shoeshiners are young boys who will offer their services for 2 or 3 quetzales (about 30-40 cents). It's somewhat controversial engaging in commerce with such a young person for their are two sides to the coin. On the one hand, by taking advantage of his services you could be supplying the shoeshiner with much needed quetzales in order to get something to eat. On the other hand, one wonders if one isn't encouraging him to stay in the streets to make his living (rather than going to school) and encouraging his parents to send him out into the street to earn for his family.

Our afternoon in Santiago Atitlán ended with the 20-minute boat ride back across the lake to Panajachel. Our small lancha was occupied by Americans, Europeans, and a few Maya locals. The Europeans shared with everyone the small, sweet bananas they had just bought, and I couldn't help thinking how such large cultural and language barriers can so simply be crossed with a piece of fruit. Of course the irony is how much conflict was also brought to the country of Guatemala over bananas. Anyone who has studied the history of Guatmala, especially the years which led up to the bloody civil war only 10 years past, knows what a significant role the United States played in Guatemala's very recent conflict.

United Fruit Company: In 1931 Jorge Ubico was elected president of Guatemala. According to Maureen Shea's Culture and Customs of Guatemala (2001), for thirteen years he ruled "with an iron hand...tolerating no dissent." Paraphrasing Shea, Ubico was able to keep the Guatemalan economy from total collapse by courting, largely, US investors and through exploiting the Maya people as a labor force. In order to maintain power, Ubico continued to grant US investors, particularly the United Fruit Company, with the most fertile lands, lands that were often already being cultivated by Maya, in return for US support of his "illegal, fixed reelections" (ibid). Ubico permitted the United Fruit Company to continue to exploit the Maya workforce and made the company exempt from import duties and property taxes. Nine years after Ubico's first election, 90 percent of Guatemala's produce was being sold directly to the US. During World War II, as many educated Guatemalans became aware of the ideals of freedom being espoused by the US, many students protested and were joined in a strike by laborers during the October Revolution. As a result, in 1944, Ubico, the largest landowner in Guatemala, was forced to resign.

The period from 1944-1954 following Ubico's resignation is known as "The Ten Years of Spring". A provisional government run by two military officers and a civilian governed until Juan Jose Arevalo, a progressive, was elected, largely with the help of student support. Although Arevalo brought about reform in literacy and voting rights, it was not until his successor Arbenz Guzman, elected in 1950, was the issue of land reform addressed.

In order to decrease Guatemala's economic reliance on the US and bananas and in order to improve the conditions of the Maya people, Guzman "attempted to diversify crop production and establish alternative institutions to compete with those that United Fruit dominated" (ibid). In 1952, the Guatemalan government passed into law the Law of Agrarian Reform which called for the redistribution of unused or underutilized land to the landless Maya people. "Lands that were to be redistributed were public lands, those that were not farmed or those in excess of 488 acres, with exceptions made for those that were efficiently farmed" (ibid). The elite landowners saw this as a threat to their wealth and power, as did the United Fruit Company which only utilized 15 percent of its landholdings. Also, the Board of Directors of United Fruit were "angered by the provision that the value of their land would be determined by what they had reported for tax purposes, since they had misrepresented this value for years" (ibid) and that they were required to pay $10.5 million in back taxes for the International Railway Company in operation in Guatemala, a branch of United Fruit. As a result, the United Fruit Company began a smear campaign in the United States during the McCarthy era and labeled Guzman and his government as communist. John Foster Dulles, then US Secretary of State, and his brother Allen Dulles, then head of the CIA, had close ties to the United Fruit Company, and they were able to persuade President Eisenhower that United Fruit was "being victimized by the communist regime in Guatemala" (ibid). The Catholic church in Guatemala, itself a landowner and ally to the landowners and conservatives who supported the clergy, also protested the land reform measure and cried 'communism'. "In short, the Catholic Church, the United Fruit Company, and the US governement formed a powerful alliance and began to pressure the military" (ibid) which resulted in a CIA-led military coup in 1954 of a democratically elected president, ending the "Ten Years of Spring". Guzman was replaced by Castillo Armas who led the invading forces into Guatemala City and who, shortly thereafter, "annulled the 1945 Constitution, did away with the Law of Agrarian Reform and returned the expropriated lands" (ibid). Shea has named the period that followed the coup the "Era of Darkness" from which arose the bloody Guatemalan civil war that would last until 1996. One cannot help wonder what life would be like now for Guatemala, especially for the Maya, if the reforms Guzman had put into place had been allowed to stand. It sure makes once think twice about buying bananas from United Fruit Company, now known as Chiquita.

Bicycles & Food

2006-10-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

Biking:
We’ve had many opportunities to mountain bike in the month we’ve been here. Cris has been out a few times, and I’ve been riding about 10 times since we arrived a month ago and put a good coating of mud on the xtracycle. So far, we’ve ridden with: our doorman, Santos; Cris’s colleague from IGA (http://www.igaxela.org) , Hector; the owner of a local bookshop, Colin; and a group of guys from 2 different local bike shops.

The terrain here is quite different from mountain biking in CA or WA, where rolling hills are most prevalent and you’re constantly switching from climbing to descending. Here, if you go on a 2-hour ride, you spend the first hour and 45 minutes climbing up one side of a mountain and the remaining 15 minutes descending the other face. I’ve only seen one descent where I had to think about what I was doing so I didn’t crash. Otherwise, the biking is not technical as most trails are built for daily transportation rather than for extreme sports entertainment.

Food highlights:

Tortillas:
The tortillas are excellent, thick, and very filling. And there is a shop on almost every city block where you can buy tortillas hot off the fire. But best of all is watching 2 or 3 women “tortilleando” at the same time. They get a ball of corn dough, flatten it out, and then they slap it back and forth from palm to palm – all three women in near unison – slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap. Making tortillas makes a sound that took me only a few instances to recognize without looking, and now I already feel nostalgic for that sound because I know I won’t be hearing it for much longer. The bad news is that I’ll never be able to eat another tortilla from a supermarket in the US – or maybe that’s the good news.

Batidos & licuados:
It seems Latin America was the birthplace of the smoothie, which they call batidos and licuados. They’re usually simple with relatively few ingredients, usually just one fruit blended with milk, but the selection is broad. Papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe, banana, mango, strawberry, and more.

Food lowlights:
After a month in Xela, the food situation is improving. During the first week, we mostly ate at restaurants, which is hit and miss in any new city. Weeks 2 and 3 were pretty rough because I started cooking, or rather, trying to cook, but I was constantly missing key ingredients for many dishes that I often make. I couldn’t get sushi rice, Japanese ingredients, Chinese ingredients, Middle-Eastern ingredients, Mexican ingredients, Thai ingredients, Kalamata olives, good baguettes, etc. There just aren’t enough immigrants here! All the foreigners are gringos and they open restaurants rather than markets.

By week two, I was getting desperate. I noticed a Chinese guy selling pastries on the street in front of a store. Here was my chance: I closed in on him and started with 20 questions about where to find Asian food. After about a minute of peppering him with food complaints and questions, he got a glazed look and I realized that his Spanish was marginal to non-existent as he tried to reply with one-word answers. Sorry I asked. Never mind.

There’s no phone book for Xela, so you can’t just flip it open to “Grocers” and find out where the groovy grocery stores are. We’re learning that in order to get what you want, you have to know the right people who have gone through the same hassles that you’re going through now.

For example, at the main farmer’s market, you can find garbanzo beans, lemons, garlic, olive oil, and now you just need tahini so you can make hummus. Good luck finding tahini, right? Well, one day, while I was talking to a cook at a restaurant, I mentioned that tahini was impossible to find and he offered to special order me a bottle of tahini from Guatemala City. I’m supposed to pick it up tomorrow.

A colleague of Cris’s from IGA, Scott, told us where to get sushi rice, soba noodles, miso paste, wakame, and many other Japanese products. You should have seen me. I looked like I was preparing for Armageddon because I bought so much food. This market, incidentally, was about a block from “Almacen Zhang” that I mentioned above, but you’d never know it was an Asian market judging by the front of the shop. Maybe I’ll stop by Zhang’s place and let him know.

I only found Mexican mole sauce by chance when I stopped at a place that was selling unrelated foods. The mole was sold in plastic bags tied with rubber bands. They looked like little bricks of opium. We also went to a café and had a coffee and pastry, and as we turned around, there on a shelf were 6 or 7 Chinese food products. A café is not the first place I think of when I need to get oyster sauce and black bean paste, but now I know. “Yes, I’d like the raspberry and mango tart, and a bottle of super-hot sesame oil.”

Another time, I was across the street buying eggs and tortillas and (again) complaining that I hadn’t been able to find fresh fish. The 3 women who run the shop invited me to go shopping with them the following Friday where you can find the best fish in town at…get this…THE MAIN BUS STATION, OF COURSE! Why didn’t I think of that?

So, one-stop shopping is out of the question. Four or five stops seems pretty reasonable.

Satellite Photos of Xela

2006-09-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a series of photos from Google Earth showing the exact position of our house among seismic events and volcanic neighbors.

Guatemala City to Xela

2006-09-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

C&T in Guatemala City, September 1- September 7, 2006

Well, our week in Guatemala City was definitely one of luxury. In addition to our king-sized bed with six pillows at the Marriott, Zone 10 (where our hotel was located) gave us access to the best restaurants in town. One of our most memorable happenings occurred by chance: Embassy personnel had clued us in to a great Pan-Asian/Latin American fusion food restaurant called Tamarindos (see photo right). However, as we were still on West Coast time, we showed up about an hour earlier than the restaurant opened. As Tyler and I were standing on the sidewalk, disappointed, trying to decide what to do next, a woman came up from behind asking in English if we needed help. Before turning around, Tyler jokingly said, “Well, you could make the restaurant open an hour earlier for us.” As we both turned around, we saw the woman who had addressed us standing in her chef’s jacket and Dansko clogs. Just the shoes alone told us she was a woman to be reckoned with. As it turned out, Titi, our chef, invited us in and sat us down at the bar of the restaurant. As the restaurant had not opened for the day yet, we were the only patrons there. But that didn’t stop Titi. Three different times she left her kitchen to personally deliver to us three incredible appetizers: Vietnamese spring rolls, crab wontons with a ginger and plum reduction sauce, and avocado and mole egg rolls (see photo left). We were definitely staying for lunch. Tyler and I both ordered tuna, mine peppered, his with Titi’s own barbecue sauce. Based on the food, we of course had to order dessert – a chocolate and raspberry mousse (see photo right). The food we had at Tamarindos was some of the best food we’ve ever had, anywhere. Best yet, Titi has family in Xela, where we will be living, and promised to come over to our place for dinner when in town. Also, she said if we wanted, she could arrange to have fresh fish delivered to us in Xela. Therefore, as you can gather, Titi is the most important person we have met in Guatemala thus far. (No offense, Mr. Ambassador.)

When we weren’t sampling the food, Tyler was museum trekking while I was meeting the administration and teachers of IGA (Instituto Guatemalteco-Americano) Guatemala. IGA-Guate is the main binational center that, in addition to the US State Department, is sponsoring my Fellowship. As IGA-Guate is better staffed and more established (they’ve just celebrated their 60^th anniversary), it was decided that I would provide support to their satellite campus at IGA-Xela (http://www.igaxela.org) . However, before leaving Guate, I spent about five days familiarizing myself with the chain of command and the infrastructure of IGA. I also had the opportunity to observe two classes. IGA’s greatest challenge is one I suspect any school in the US wished they had. They are having a hard time meeting the demand from students for English classes. The main reason is that there are not enough well-trained or educated English teachers in all of Guatemala to teach them. Anyone in Guatemala who speaks English well is most likely from an affluent family. Therefore, anyone who speaks English probably expects to make more money than what an English teaching position can pay. However, there are some English-speaking university students who wish to make a little extra money on the side, so they look for teaching jobs at IGA. While this does help IGA solve their teaching shortage, it is usually only for a short time – until these students finish university. My job in Xela, then, where they hire a similar pool of teachers, is to observe these students in their English-teaching roles, provide feedback, and arrange for bi-monthly teacher development courses. While I applaud IGA’s creative and efficient way of supplying themselves with better-trained teachers, I’m interested to see how receptive these student-teachers will be to teacher development, especially if teaching may not be their chosen profession. We’ll see!

IGA is definitely on the forefront of English teaching in Guatemala. In addition to the one-on-one training and smaller workshops they provide for their own teachers, they also hold an annual, national English teaching conference. I was really impressed with the line-up of plenary speakers they have coming who were seminal authors in our studies at MIIS: D.H. Brown, Kathleen Graves, and the Monterey Institute’s own Kathi Bailey! Tyler and I will be in Guatemala City for the conference in November as I, too, will be presenting, so we hope to show Kathi our favorite food spots. From what I have seen at IGA-Guate, I expect to have a satisfying and challenging professional experience here in Guatemala.

Quetzaltenango (Xela), September 7-September 14, 2006

We made it! Tyler and I are now settled in Quetzaltenango, the largest city of one of Guatemala’s 22 ‘departments’ (or states). Quetzaltenango is Guatemala’s second largest city, with a population of about 300,000, and is the capital city of the department with the same name. Luckily for us, locals call the city Xela (Shay-luh). However, as we have been instructed, Xela only refers to the city, not the department.

Xela looks like many Latin American cities in that its downtown is a grid of single-wide, one-way streets with “Avenidas” running north and south and “Calles” running east and west. Some of the streets are still paved with cobblestones, which, in addition to their narrow width, is a reminder that the streets were not originally made for cars. On many streets, cyclists and pedestrians alike must press themselves up against the wall to avoid having their toes run over. Or, if crossing the street, you are sure to be honked at if you are not moving out of the way quick enough. But that’s life downtown. In this photo I took of Tyler (right), the steps leading to the Teatro Municipal (Municipal Theater) are on the left. The street the Mitsubishi van is heading down on Tyler’s right is Avenida 14-A, the avenue where IGA-Xela is located. The conical-shaped volcano in the distance is Santa Maria. Regan, Shelley and clan (The Candelarios) may be interested to know that the mountain all the way to the left is Cerro Candelaria.

Beginning with our stay in the “Baby Adoption Hotel”, our lives continue to be filled with ironies. My mom got a big kick out of hearing that Tyler and I are now living in the suburbs of Xela, in a gated community. We have now lost any footing to tease her about her lifestyle choice. And, the closest restaurants to our house include Burger King and McDonald’s. This photo is a shot of the street that runs in front of our gated community. The following photo (below, right) shows a picture of Tyler standing at the gate leading into our residential area, “Las Fuentes”. As you enter the ‘compound’(see photo below, left), the first looped driveway on the right is where you’ll find our house sandwiched between, Don Jaime’s house, the architect who built all the houses in the complex, on the left, and his office to the right. Further down the main road is all the other houses in the complex. Therefore, even within the compound, we are somewhat segregated from our neighbors – affluent Guatemalans. Below is a photo tour of our new home away from home and the surrounding grounds.

One of the 'fuentes' for which the neighborhood is named:

Tyler in front of our house:

The patio off the guest bedroom:

Tyler in the living room/dining room.

Our home office:

Our bedroom:

The Master Bath:

The guest bedroom (hint, hint):

The not-Tyler's-dream-kitchen and breakfast nook:

The view out our front door (from the living/dining room:

Independence Day weekend in Xela, September 15-17, 2006
This weekend is a long, three-day weekend here in Xela (and longer still for students). The country celebrated Independence Day on Friday, September 15^th, but Xela makes a week’s holiday of it. Beginning on Monday, the 11^th, starting with the primary students, school marching bands parade through the streets of Xela. (It’s the only time you can safely walk through the streets and not get honked at.) Each following day, an older group of students from different schools march through the streets, some accompanied by their school’s "reina de belleza" (beauty queen). The week culminates in the crowning of Queen

Guatem

ala

and hordes of people make their way to the ‘Feria’ for food and rollercoaster rides. The streets downtown and around our neighborhood are eerily quiet at this time (as noticable in the street photos above).

Tyler and I decided to take advantage of most people being at the fairgrounds to do a little grocery shopping at the “Mercado La Democracia”, the largest open air market downtown. Try to spot the meat department, the fish market, the spice aisle and the produce section in the photos below.

Pick up trucks make for impromptu market stalls. You can find everything from plants, to underwear, to stuffed animals...

There are soooo many wonderful photo opportunities at the market, but we are always cautious when taking photos. Either we take photos of people not looking at us, or we take photos of people after having asked their permission (and a number don’t grant us permission). We are particularly cautious about taking photos of children as many Mayans believe white people are there to steal their children. This may have some truth to it in that, as we mentioned before, there is some question as to the origin of some of the adopted babies coming out of

Guatemala

. The issue goes back to the time of the Civil War in

Guatemala

(only ten years past) when army personnel and others found it lucrative to sell kidnapped Guatemalan babies to foreign adoptive parents. Of course, the adoptive parents most likely had no idea the children had been taken from their families. They only knew (or believed) they were ‘rescuing’ children from the horrors of war. I heard one woman say, as Tyler and I were walking by, to a small child accompanying her who was getting a little out of hand, “Be careful. They’ve come for you.” She smiled at me, making me believe it was a disciplinary tool. So as we can ascertain, we are perhaps the Mayan equivalent of the boogie man. However, most people we have had interactions with, once they realize we speak Spanish, have been friendly and accommodating. But who wouldn’t want to photograph Guatemalan kids? They’re just so darn cute with those big brown eyes, long eyelashes, and wide smiles.

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Portland to Guatemala City

2006-09-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

As always, we enjoyed the past several days hanging out with our guide to local food in Portland, Eve. We put our stuff into a storage unit, ate lots of food, packed our luggage for Guat, and ate lots of food. We made sure to have plenty of Mexican, Thai, Indian, Italian, and,of course, locally grown organic at one of Portland’s finest restaurants, The Farm, knowing that the form these foods come in may be completely different in Guatemala or simply unavailable. (Yes, Guatemalan food is quite different from Mexican.) Thursday, August 31 We left the US with A TON of luggage (see photo). We checked a total of 6 items, one of which was oversized, 3 of which were overweight. (Kind of like how we were feeling after grazing through Portland’s eateries.) Tyler’s bike box was just 1 pound short of having to pay an additional $100 – SHAZAAAM! High 5! Thanks to Eve’s neighbor Susie for lending us the bathroom scale. We ended up paying $400 bucks to ship all the extra luggage, but we expected it. You either buy new stuff, or schlep your old stuff to the new place. And, the cost of shipping personal items was covered in Cris’ stipend. ☺

The flight from the US to Guat was uneventful. We like uneventful when we’re flying. The crew ran out of customs forms on our plane, so we were told to get some at the airport. Allrighty, then. Upon disembarking, we collected our 409 lbs. of checked luggage, and pushed a groaning cart toward the exit. Two customs officers asked us for our declaration form, which we were hoping to get from them. They sort of looked at each other, looked around on their empty counter, shrugged, and waved us through. KA-CHING! Did someone say, “No waiting”?

We were met at the airport exit by US Cultural Affairs Officer Erica Thibault who accompanied us to The Mariott of Guatemala City, known locally as “The Baby Adoption Hotel”. We’ve been here for less than 24 hours, and we’ve seen between 20 to 30 foreign couples in the lobby holding little Guatemalan babies. Guatemala has no laws regarding adoption by foreign parents. So, for example, while the average number of Mexican babies adopted each year is around 50, the average in Guatemala is 2000. However, what first appears as a warm and cozy proposition (Oh, look at the cute babies. Isn’t it great they’re getting a home!) actually turns out to be one of Guatemala’s most pressing human rights issues, with little protection for the birth parents and allegations of some babies being stolen for adoptions. (For more information on the topic, check out the following site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/879859.stm) So, anybody who knows us and knows our position on having kids, the irony is not lost on them that we have randomly ended up at the principal staging area for “Operation Adopt a Guatemalan Baby”.

Friday, September 1, 2006
Cris met with Erica Thibault and Public Affairs Officer David Young. Later in the afternoon, she met with the US Ambassador to Guatemala, James Durham, in his palatial home. Meanwhile, I meandered through the city to do some bicycle recon. I would have gone directly to my destination, but despite having a map, I got lost several times, causing the meandering. The city seems fairly normal: For example, there’s a big-city bustle, there’s a major pollution problem, drivers are aggressive toward non-motorized traffic. The architecture and behavior of drivers is familiar if you’ve visited Latin America. What surprised me was the amount of heavily armed guards, not those in front of banks but standing in the parking lot of Wendy’s with a giant shotgun or guarding a typical-looking office building with heavy firepower, for example. For a look at the typical type of shotgun you’d see in the streets here, take a look at this photo I pirated from someone else’s site.

One of the most common tree plantings here along city streets between the sidewalk and street is a giant ficus. If you don’t have a ficus benjamina in your house, then you certainly saw one on your last trip to the dentist’s office (see photo right). But imagine this same tree 20-40 feet high. I also saw a schefflera arboricola (see photo left) which I’ve only seen previously in pots, and here they grow with trunks 2 – 3 feet in diameter with root systems 10 – 15 feet wide that rip up the sidewalks and streets. AWESOME! (Stories of street crime have prevented us thus far from taking our cameras out onto the streets to take our own pictures. We’ll be much more at ease once reaching our town of Xela.)

We also met journalist and English Language Fellow Karen Macklin for lunch at Sophos Café (also the best bookstore in town). They had sencha! And lapsang souchong! We had really yummy smoothies – check this out – yogurt, banana, cardamom.

We travel to Xela this Wednesday and we'll post another entry shortly after then.

Moving and Packing

2006-08-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting packed into uniformly sized boxes (apple and banana). Here’s our itinerary for the period of time just prior to our departure to Guatemala:

Aug 11 – 14: hang out with friends Amy & Jason in Seattle
Aug 15: fly Seattle – Washington DC
Aug 15 – 18: Cris has predeparture training/orientation in DC while Tyler takes advantage of the museums
Aug 19 – 20: hang out with friend Evan in DC
Aug 21: fly DC – Seattle
Aug 22 – 24: return to Guemes Island and sort our junk into 2 piles: going to Guatemala & staying in USA
Aug 23: our going away party at Tony & Susie Fox’s house (on Guemes)
Aug 25: pick up moving truck in Anacortes, pack it, & drive to Portland, move our junk out of Eve’s basement, etc.
Aug 25 – 30: hang in Portland with Eva y los weens
Aug 31: fly from Portland to Guatemala
Sept 1 - 7: briefing at US embassy, regional training and orientation in Guatemala City, visit IGA main campus in Guat City.
Sept 7: travel from Guat City to new home in Xela (Quetzaltenango)

Washington DC English Language Fellow Orientation

2006-08-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

From the 15th to the 18th of August, Cris is attending an orientation in Washington DC for all of the English Language Fellows that are being sent all over the world. The English Language Fellow Program promotes English language learning around the world, and fosters mutual understanding between the people of the United States and people of other countries. Read more at: http://elf.georgetown.edu/

Here's some info about her assignment:
Country: Guatemala
City: Xela (Quetzaltenango)
Host institution: Instituto Guatemalteco - Americano
Website: www.iga.edu/

Project Description The EL Fellow will conduct teacher training courses, assist in curriculum development, oversee newly offered teacher training courses and provide workshops through IGA-Xela to ESL professionals teaching in local academic institutions.