following the prints: Companions make this world go round

The Gallo beer team mascot at the bike race...

Although I tend to be a fairly independent person, there are some adventures that really just cry out for a partner in crime. Like when was walking down 20th Avenida this morning (which, by the way is a rather prominent road), and two ladies with styrofoam cups were walking their 3 goats and selling fresh milk by the cup. Or also this morning when I went to visit one of my favorite juice vendors to buy a bag of fresh squeezed orange juice (they don't have cups to go) and the guy before me ordered his with two eggs inside (evidently that's normal because she looked at me funny when I denied her offer). Or, a few weeks ago when I got off the bus only to discover that the Tour de Guatemala bike race had a stage ending in Xela and found myself in the middle of the festivities... including two 20something men with a cart full of banana leaves walking the cart until they hit a hill and the cart suddenly began walking them pushing them, out of control, down the hill. Or, finally when I am in my room with my two oldest host sisters learning a dance to Hannah Montana's Hoedown Throwdown and listening to them attempting to sing along in a foreign language, clap, and dance all at the same time. I guess my coordination isn't much better... so it's great confidence building and fun :) for us all.

It seems like just when I find myself REALLY WISHING that those companions were here, I get really pleasantly surprised. I may find a letter in the mail holding inside it a picture of "Jesuss" drawn by Alexander from College Place Pres. Or, I may receive other letters from my Great Aunt Betty, high schoolers in Walla Walla, or a Halloween Card mysteriously signed by my dog. Then, there's the really cool days when nieces of friends from the states who live here call and Hannah and I get to have coffee and just chat it up (and, might I add, drink coffee that isn't instant... the choices of cafe drinks in this country really hurt my heart...). Or, like yesterday, when I'm checking my email and Kelsey Beckmeyer from CPPC walks in the coffee shop and we get to talk for almost an hour about life, her research with the Vagina Monologues throughout Latin America, and shared memories from Walla Walla.

During our hike around the Finca at the river...I really like rivers and friends... :)

Then, there are the really special times when all of us in our program get to come together for a retreat. These happen every 4-6 weeks, and we had our first one this past week. It was truly phenomenal. Although I really love my host family and my school, I really appreciate the time that I get to spend with the four other YAVs and Marcia - we have amazing conversations, laugh really hard, and I've come to respect them all as beautiful people and really good friends.

Trajes on the line drying at our house in Pajac

The focus of this retreat was the history of Guatemala. This past month, we read "Silence on the Mountain" (a book that I totally recommend if you have ANY interest in Latin American history and politics) and also "Nunca Mas" (a book that is also printed in English but I can't remember the name... maybe Never Again? Anyways, I totally recommend it in small doses or with a punching bag and box of tissues next to you because the stories of people make you really mad and sad).

Santa Aguito - an active volcano. The books quoted
the wise people in the villages saying, "as long as the
mountain is smoking, we know that we're okay"

Now that I'm done with my recommendations... back to the subjects. The books were about the 30 year civil war that took place between the mid 1960s to 1996. It was a part of the Red Scare and there were thoughts that the land reforms that were proposed and allowing the Mayan people to have land of their own outside of the plantation were all a part of the communist movement. As the pride and pains of humankind spiraled, it turned into a bloody war of Military versus Guerrillas, often resulting in forgetting the tolls on human life. Thousands of people died, and the fear is still palpable today, as is the racism. As an example, yesterday in staff training at the school we were talking about racism and the kindergarten teacher said that she went to a dance club last year and a woman in traditional traje was denied access to the club.

Juli, Tina, and I with her family at her birthday party

The women who make scarves and are widows from the war

It's really hard for me to think about racism in this way. I ride the bus every morning with people from a town up the mountain and I am often the only woman not in traditional dress on the bus. Tina's family (pictured with us at her birthday party to the right) is a traditional Mayan family and her mother and extended family all wear Trajes. Three of my five host moms have worn traditional dress. The women we visited when we were first here who are almost all widows from the war and have come together to make scarves now for a living all still wear the trajes. The resolve these women have to wear their traditional clothes despite the persecutions they often face today and the history of their family's persecutions is very admirable, and I imagine the results may be so incredibly painful. Yet they continue to wear them because it's important. They believe that their culture is important and they hold to it. They teach their children K'itche, Ma'm, or whatever their dialect is (fortunately the government is recognizing the importance of language now and is requiring it for school). However, many still do not talk about the violence, and it's understandable because the ones who do talk have painful stories. The director of my school who had to seek asylum in Mexico after getting a death threat (in the form of a dead body on his lawn) and losing a lot of his friends because they united as activists is an example. As is my host dad who watched his dad get beheaded when he was seven. His family was so scared that they left their home town and culture and don't speak Ma'm any longer and live in the coastal lands that are prominently Ladino.

Part of our hiking adventure

As I processed through this painful and troubling history and began to look at the pain I've been seeing and the fear I feel through these people, it was really good to be with friends and we could all process together; shared experiences have incredible power.

But our retreat wasn't all work. We had a lot of fun! We got to pick cafe, go on an incredibly gorgeous hike, laugh some more, and eat really good food. With those powers combined, I think it's safe to say that it was an amazing weekend.