The Secret Garden

After having graduated from college, the most common questions that I am asked are; “What’s next?” and “What are you going to do?”  After I was accepted into the San Lucas long-term volunteer program, I was able to give a partial answer to that question: I’m going to volunteer in Guatemala.

“Great… but, what are you going to be doing?”

In response to this question I would either throw together some answer based on the programs that I knew the parish ran, putting emphasis on the ones that seemed most productive: teaching, working on coffee processing, working with reforestation… things that seem valuable and worthwhile to the American mindset.  Or, I would simply reply that I would not know until I arrived. 

            Well, I have arrived, and in previous blog posts I have described the projects that I have made myself a part of, and the kind of work done in each of those projects.  However, I haven’t described the actual work that I am doing up until this point because, well, it seemed a little boring or pointless to mention.  Maybe even a waste of my time.  Maybe even a waste of my “volunteer” experience here in Guatemala.  However, over the last couple of weeks I have gone through a series of emotions that have helped me to recognize the true importance of doing work that to many may seem pointless, and to me has become monotonous.

            First, I will explain what a typical workday looks like for me.  After breakfast at 8, I walk down to the vivero where Efraim and Julio work, and let myself in the door.  After greeting both men, I gather my milk crate, shovel, and plastic bags and settle myself down in front of the huge pile of dirt that never seems to get any smaller.  For the next three hours, I repeat this process over one hundred times: Scrape some dirt down from the pile, rub it in between my hands to break up clumps of dirt, meticulously pick out every rock bigger than a pea, then shovel the dirt into a little seedling bag.  At noon I head out to wash my filthy hands and eat lunch, then return to do the same work until four in the afternoon.  If the sea of little seedling bags around my seat gets too big for me to reach to add more, I bring a wheelbarrow over, carefully fill it with bags, then find an empty aisle in the garden to line them up in little rows of five to wait for Efraim to plant something in them.

My office in the vivero

Seedling bags that I have filled and Efraim has planted a new little life in

            So, I do this every single day.  After about a week, I was filled with questions:  What am I accomplishing here?  What good is this for the Guatemalan people?  The answers?  More complicated than you might expect.

            What I am accomplishing may seem trivial.  I am slowly filling little bags of dirt that will eventually house little plants.  Those plants will move on to bigger bags and eventually, when they are big and strong enough, they will be taken out to be planted at one of the parish projects.  I’m not saving the world or educating the poor masses.  I am playing a small role in making some parts of town more beautiful.  In a town so stricken with poverty, alcoholism, malnutrition, spousal abuse, and homelessness, this feels like a silly job.  However, I have come to realize that what I am really doing is what every other poor Guatemalan lucky enough to have a job does every single day, year after year.  I am putting my hands in the same earth that produces all of their food, firewood, and sacred plants, and I am working with that earth over and over and over again.  It is the same thing that Efraim has been doing everyday for years upon years.  It is the same thing that his partner, 65-year-old Julio, will continue to do until he can barely get out of his bed in the morning.  I don’t have a right to come into their town and do work that I think is more important or valorous than theirs, to attempt to change their lives and save them in some way.  The most that I can ask for is the privilege to be giving this ability to work alongside them, in solidarity with them, and learn from them.

Years upon years of work have produced hundreds of rows of plants just like these.

Even with limited resources, Efraim uses the earth around  him to cultivate his garden.  For example, a sunshade made of sticks and bamboo

Efraim does all of the work in the garden by hand, as exemplified by his handwritten signs.

            I’m learning a lot too.  As I sit on my milk crate and dig, often Efraim will sit down and chat with me, playing with the dirt in his hands as he talks.  He asks me a lot of questions about where I come from, and shares the traditions of his own life.  We talk about everything from the price of a bottle of Coke to holiday customs to social injustices around the world.  Efraim shares his life with me openly, and if conversation gets sad or depressing, he always knows how to lighten the mood.  He has a simple way of stating the things that are so rarely said back home, things that, while powerful, would be seen as simple or silly if said out loud in English.  When I talk about my struggles in learning Spanish, he will respond with “Somos todos humanos, todos comiten errores”.  We are all human, we all make mistakes.  When talking about social injustice, he smiles and says “En el fondo, somos todos hermanos, somos todos hijos del Señor”.  In the end, we are all brothers and sisters; we are all children of God. This is a man I can learn a lot from about living.

The simple things: a small harvest of garden fruits

Just a few of the plants that are so sacred to Efraim

            When everything else seems to get me down, when my back hurts and my fingers are scraped from digging up rocks, I also have one more, absolutely magnificent, gorgeous joy that I can get out of my job.  I can stop for a minute, get up and walk around the garden and be amazed at the beauty of this place.  Often Efraim will see me walking and walk alongside me, teaching me about his flowers and showing his great love for the life that he has cultivated.  I wouldn’t have my experience any other way.  

Pictures can never tell the whole story, but I hope that these help you to experience in a little way what I experience every single day:

Weekend Adventure

This weekend I traveled with four other girls to visit Antigua, a nearby city that is hugely different from San Lucas.  While San Lucas is very traditional and conservative, a very Mayan community where most of the women wear traje, Antigua is very modern and European.  Although very touristy, Antigua is a great place to go if you need a breath of fresh air—and great restaurants, shopping, and nightlife.  I also have a friend from college, Brianna, who lives in Antigua and is currently volunteering with Common Hope. 

            Before we could enjoy the luxury of our vacation, however, we had to endure a mode of public transportation that many Guatemalans use every day: the chicken bus.  Chicken Busses (or camionetas for non-gringos) are old school busses that have been painted over brightly and run routes between various cities in Guatemala.  To get to Antigua, we had to first catch a bus to the city of Escuintla, which is about three hours away by bus.  The bus ride, which only cost about two dollars, was by far the cheapest and most uncomfortable journey that I have ever taken.  When we boarded, there were already two or three people in every seat, so we all had to split up and sit on the edge of seats that already had two passengers in them.  The man in charge of collecting fares stood in the back of the bus and kept urging us back, so that we had to push through people that I had no clue we could fit between, especially with our backpacks.  I was soon to find out that this was not even near the maximum amount of people that would fit on the bus.  By the time we had gone through a few more stops and left town, every seat on the bus had three people sitting in it, and two people stood between each set of seats.  It was so packed that I was essentially sitting on the lap of the old man next to me, and the girls in the aisle next to me were sort of sitting on my shoulder.  With the afternoon came rain, which is when I learned that Guatemalans, like cats, will go to any length to avoid getting wet, even if it meant closing all the windows on a bus packed with more than 100 passengers.  Needless to say, we were ecstatic to switch busses in Escuintla and move into a bus with only two passengers in each seat.

Once we arrived in Antigua, night had already fallen, which combined with a lack of street signs created a struggle in finding our hostel.  After about 10 minutes of trying to orient ourselves and find the center of town, we randomly ran into some friends from San Lucas who work in Antigua.  They graciously walked us to our hostel, which was located right in the center of town.  After quickly freshening up, we walked to a restaurant nearby called Sobremesa that is known for delicious, rich food and exotic ice cream flavors.  The tiny (two table) restaurant was staffed only by the owner and head chef, who chatted with us all night while we idled over a 4-hour dinner.  I enjoyed tomato bisque soup, spinach and mozzarella stuffed steak, new potatoes, vegetables and ice cream for about fifteen dollars.  After dinner we had intended to meet up with Brianna and go dancing, but we were so stuffed full and tired from our journey that we could barely muster up the strength for our 4 block walk back to the hostel.

Tired out at the hostel!

Día De Los Muertos

This Monday was a very special holiday in Guatemala, a day when families gather joyously to remember those who have died.  There has been a lot of preparation all week as vendors sold fresh flowers and paper wreaths to be used to decorate the cemetery.  Around 4 or 5 a.m. on Monday morning, the townspeople gathered at the cemetery to decorate the tombs that their families have been using for many generations.  The tombs varied based on the wealth and status of the families, ranging from the large mausoleums along the main road to simple square cement blocks to simple mounds of dirt on the ground.  Every year the families prepare for the holy day by repainting the cement tombs in different bright colors and then decorating them with flowers, pine needles, and paper wreaths.  

           

            Once the families have gathered at the cemetery, they are prepared to spend the entire day there.  Many families bring enough food to last for the whole day, such as a large pot of ceviche or a basket of tostadas.  For those who do not bring food, a lot of vendors set up just outside the gates or even walk around with large pots of food to sell to the families as they sit all day.  There was a mass held in the center of the cemetery from 1o to noon that many people left the tombs to attend, but other than that, most people enjoyed the company of the people at neighboring tombs all day. 

San Lucas: 2 Weeks In!

Two Weeks and Counting!

            This weekend marked the end of my first two weeks living in San Lucas Tolíman, Guatemala.  It is hard to believe how much has happened in my first two weeks here.  Between arriving during the second most important holiday of the year for the people of San Lucas, and coming when the entire volunteer community was in flux, I have yet to experience more than 3 days in a row of “normal” San Lucas life. 

            When I arrived in San Lucas on Friday, the volunteer house was full, so I lived away from the other volunteers in a hotel.  After Gus, one of the other volunteers, left on Tuesday, I was able to move into the volunteer house.  The volunteer house is a big five-bedroom house referred to lovingly as the “youth hostel” by the volunteers because it constantly houses about five long-term volunteers for the mission.  The house has a shared bathroom, a big living room, and a “kitchen” with a sink (but no stove or refrigerator).  My room is the smallest by far, with only one bed and no closet.  I cut a deal with the other volunteers that if I live in this room for six weeks, I get to move into the only room with a private bathroom after one of the girls moves out.  Right now my roommates are three other girls, Kelly, Lily, and Katie, and one guy named Chris.  Below is a picture of our garden:

            The first week that I spent here was unique because it was feria, a big carnival in celebration of the feast of St. Luke, the patron saint of San Lucas.  The feria consisted of two huge ferris wheels that spun on steel cords about three times as fast as a normal ferris wheel, a ton of street food, carnival games, vendors, and children’s rides.  Because of the feria, there was no work the first week that I was here, and we just enjoyed the feria.  I dove right into the world of street food and luckily did not get sick.  Some of my new favorite street foods include gringas (tacos with meat, salsa and cheese), rellenitos (little balls of fried banana filled with black beans), and fried chicken and fries with hot sauce!  I also braved the ferris wheel a fair number of times.  

This is a picture from the opening day parade.  Each of the secondary schools sent out their marching bands and cheer squads:

There were also clowns on stilts:

Lots of food!

Pageantry seems to be a big part of the celebration:

Sort of terrifying dancers: