The journey of 2-/12 hours gave me an opportunity to talk with Lorenzo, although we spent some of the ride in silence, other parts searching for the radio station signal or some radio station to entertain us on the long ride. It also gave me a bit more insight into the life of some of the highland communities.
It was evident from the first time I entered Lorenzo's house, that this was the home of a returned migrant - or a family that had a migrant relative. While Lorenzo's family is hardly wealthy -- they have an outdoor toilet, and use a wood-burning stove for most of their cooking -- there are the unmistakeable signs of migra-dollars. The house is spacious and has "nice" doors and windows -- by which I meant that the door entrances and the windows have half-circles of multi-colored stained glass above them for decoration (the stained glass is not elaborate: the half-circle is comprised of three equal-sized pie-shaped wedges). The back patio is also generous, and has the largest outdoor sink-washing area I have ever seen (there is a separate house in the back where one of his married sons lives with his family). There are electric lights throughout the house, and a microwave in the kitchen, plus a working pick-up, and another vehicle that needs more repairs than the family can easily afford. The family runs a tiny little store at the end of the property, where the driveway hits the main road into town. I can't imagine that they have extraordinary earnings from the store -- there are dozens almost just like it throughout the town, throughout nearly all towns and even into rural areas. It's little more than a wooden shack, selling soft drinks, snacks, and a few other things.
During the car ride, Lorenzo told me a little bit more about his migrant trajectory. He spent a total of ten years in the U.S, on three separate trips. A lot of people make the journey more than once, but often because they were unsuccessful crossing the border the first time -- although in the way that people tell their stories, unsuccessful attempts don't really count. When you ask, how many times were you in the U.S, the answer is given in terms of successful attempts. But since each crossing is lengthy and costly, the fact that someone has done this repeatedly speaks to determination, desperation, or some combination thereof. I didn't ask for precise years -- although I'm sure he would have told me if I'd asked, since this was a friendly conversation and not an interview. The first time he went to Los Angeles, and worked in a maquila, and then went to the midwest (I now no longer remember whether he went to Omaha, Nebraska first, or to Iowa). I know on the second and third trips, he went directly to the midwest, where he worked at least for a time for IBP -- Iowa Beef Processors, now Tyson Brands (one of the major meat-processing companies). He returned to Guatemala 8 years ago.
Lorenzo's mother and sister live in Barillas, which I hadn't known until we were about halfway there; he mentioned it in an offhand way. It's not surprising that people reveal layers of themselves over time. I am familiar enough with the anthropological literature on "closed corporate communities" (that was Sol Tax's description of the Guatemalan highlands), and the reasons that people -- well, specifically the highland Maya -- tend to keep things to themselves, only gradually sharing personal or familial or community experiences with outsiders. Too often that information has been used against the Maya, and there is no reason on the surface that I should be different from any other gringo who comes under the banner of an NGO, offering to help. So I took this information in stride, and asked if he thought we should stop and visit his mother. He said yes, he thought we should. I responded that I could imagine that she would be very angry if she learned that we had come to visit Barillas and we hadn't visited her, and that he would be paying the price for that for a long time. He replied that his mother loved him very much. He then started to tell me about Barillas, about the divisions in the town before the arrival of Hidro Santa Cruz -- that there had been problems with delinquency, both "delicuentes comunes" (everyday criminals) and those who were tied to organized crime and narco-traffic. Barillas is quite close to the Mexican border, and nearly all of the towns near the border have been affected in some way by narcotrafficking. The town, or at least its Maya population, had been very divided by the crime waves; there were a series of kidnappings for ransom, among other things, and the community rose up -- as has been the case in other highland towns -- and took justice into their own hands against the leader of one of the kidnapping rings, a woman (whose name I now no longer remember), who was captured and killed by local residents.
But then the hydroelectric company came and started to do explorations in the area, and the opposition to the proposed project brought people together -- again, at least the Maya population. Lorenzo explained to me that the population was almost evenly divided between Maya and Ladino -- with Ladinos dominating the town center, the urban area, and the Maya population scattered between the town and the surrounding rural communities. The Ladino population tends to support the company, while the Maya population is overwhelmingly opposed.
Lorenzo hadn't told me previously how deeply the events of May 1 and beyond had affected his family. He explained, as we bumped along the road that was deeply gouged with holes, that his sister's husband was one of the community leaders, and that there was an order out for his arrest. There are about 30 people who are "wanted" -- all community leaders of the opposition -- in addition to the dozen or so who were arrested shortly after the May 1 events, and are now languishing in a prison in Guatemala City; the community and the resistance movement more broadly considers them political prisoners. Lorenzo told me that the army and police had burst into his family's home, searching high and low for who knows what. Their behavior was much like that of the army during the armed conflict: they barged in without any explanation, started throwing stuff around, never saying what they were looking for, and then left without finding anything. It brought back painful memories for his mother, who had lived through the conflict, and was deeply traumatizing for the rest of the family as well. His brother in law had gone into hiding, and remains separated from his family, now 8 months later.
As we bounced along the road, he put in a few calls to his contacts in Barillas, and told me, with a grin, that there was going to be a meeting of community leaders, and that perhaps I would have a chance to interview some of them. As it turned out, I didn't get to to do many interviews, but I was able to witness and even participate in the community leaders' meeting, which was worth the bumpy ride out, and the somewhat more nerve-wracking ride back (nerve-wracking because there were a few uphill stretches that proved nearly impassable on the return).
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Getting to Barillas (via San Marcos y Huehue)
Last year, on May 1, during the fiesta patronal in the town of Santa Cruz Barillas, in Huehuetenango, security guards of Hidro Santa Cruz, a Spanish transnational that has a concession to construct a hydroelectric dam, attacked several leaders of the community resistance to the project, killing one. The community quickly reacted, and the government responded by declaring martial law and sending in troops. More recently, in late December, the community erupted again when word got around that the town's mayor was going to sign a pact with the company, and residents occupied the town square until the mayor backed down. One of the things that was interesting about the May events was that within an hour or so of the declaration of martial law, people starting posting information about this on Facebook and Twitter, leading to a national and international campaign, "Todos Somos Barillas" (we are all Barillas). This was how I learned about the May events, and also the stand-off a few weeks ago. Additionally, the community radio stations had played an important role in getting the word out, since the mainstream media in Guatemala, and particularly a couple of right-wing television stations, have tended to portray those who have criticized or protested government policies. In my mind, Barillas stood out as one of the key communities in resistance against the neoliberal policies of the government (although there are others -- but I knew I couldn't try and visit all).
Barillas is in the northern part of Huehuetenango, not far from the town of Santa Eulalia, where one of the community radio stations that I have been following is located: Snuq Jolom Konob. So when I was planning this trip, I decided that I wanted to spend some time in Santa Eulalia (my previous visit was very brief; in March, I had accompanied a small delegation from Cultural Survival that was delivering some radio equipment to the station, but we really only spent a few hours in the station and then had dinner with some of the staff), and see the radio station functioning over a few days. And, I also wanted to try and visit Barillas, although with a bit of trepidation, since I knew there had been conflicts in the community because of the company and the opposition to it, and the continued presence of the military. I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to get a very complete picture, but I wanted to ... I guess "witness" would be the best term, or "bear witness", or both. I had a suspicion that someone at the radio station probably knew people in Barillas, and so I contacted Lorenzo, one of the members of the junta directiva of the station, and the person who has been the station's main representative to the community radio movement nationally. Lorenzo and I met at the first workshop I attended at the end of June, 2011, and have kept up a friendship since then. He had lived in the U.S. for several years, and always sought me out to practice his somewhat rusty English when we would meet. He's probably about my age -- he has grown children and some grandchildren -- and has been involved with the radio station since his return from the U.S. about 8 years ago. This is what I knew before my current visit.
I had contacted Lorenzo via email and Facebook before leaving the U.S., but of course that wasn't the same as talking to him in person, which I did as soon as I got to Guatemala, although I wasn't certain which days I might be coming to Santa Eulalia. He told me that he had some contacts in Barillas (I didn't really know what kind and how many until today, but I will get to that). Last week I decided that I would come up to Santa Eulalia after the New Year, and so Lorenzo and I were in touch several times, so that he could arrange with folks in Barillas. As he explained and as I had suspected, people in the town are somewhat wary of outsiders, and often reluctant to give information, so he would have to make the contacts and vouch for me and also accompany me.
Thursday (January 3) was the day I originally planned to arrive in Santa Eulalia, but it was a kind of crazy plan, as I had been staying in Olintepeque (near Xela) and I wanted to interview a friend from the community radio movement who had been working with the communications commission of the Consejo de los Pueblos del Occidente (one of the groups that had sponsored the "alternative" celebrations of the Oxlajuj B'aq'tun), who was in San Marcos (about an hour from Xela), and then there was another person from the CPO, Saturnino, whom I wanted to interview who lived in the town of San Juan Ixcoy in Huehuetenango, which is on the way to Santa Eulalia. So, in a fit of insanity, perhaps, I thought I would leave Olintepeque and drive to San Marcos (an hour), interview Edvin (another hour or so), and then drive from San Marcos to Santa Eulalia, stopping in San Juan Ixcoy to interview Saturnino. The drive from San Marcos to Santa Eulalia would have been another 6 hours or so (since it meant back tracking to Xela, and then going from Xela up into Huehuetenango-- passing through the city of Huehuetenango, and then heading up north, into the heart of the Cuchumatán mountains). But Saturnino was in Huehuetenango, and I didn't want to rush the interview with him, so after we finished up, around 6, I decided not to try and drive to Santa Eulalia by myself at night.
That was one of the more intelligent decisions I have made; even in daylight, the road was difficult because it was foggy and lightly drizzling. I had traveled to Santa Eulalia before, but my car doesn't seem quite as peppy as it did in March, and one of the uphill ascents nearly defeated me, just after a small bridge outside the town of Soloma, the road climbs sharply, and the surface was slick, and because the treads on one of my back tires were quite worn down, and I had no weight in the back of the pick up (four or five passengers would have come in handy right about then), the car couldn't get any traction. Eventually I was saved by a kind soul, a migrant who had returned home for the holidays and whose family lived nearby, and who took pity on me and drove my car up the treacherous part of the slope for me. So in retrospect I am extremely glad that I didn't venture out alone at night.
After I arrived in Santa Eulalia, Lorenzo contacted his people in Barillas again and we agreed that we would go today, as Lorenzo had time free and we would need several hours for the trip (at least 2-1/2 each way), since we were going to go and return the same day. We set out early, and the road climbed out of Santa Eulalia and through starkly beautiful pine forests shrouded in mist. We literally were driving through and above the clouds, or so it seemed. There was pavement for several kilometers, and we fairly zipped along as the sky brightened, but then the road turned to dirt and gravel, and it was heavily pocked with potholes, many filled with water, and studded with rocks. It was one of the more bone-shaking and anxiety-producing rides in all my time in Guatemala, but on the way out I was just struck by the beauty and isolation of the area. We could see into Mexico from the crest of the pine forest, and then road dipped and climbed around some steep and lush valleys. We passed through a few towns -- actually, one town and two aldeas. The town was San Mateo Ixtatán. Houses perched on hillsides that were dizzyingly steep, and the road wound down and around and back up again. Lorenzo explained that Santa Cruz Barillas was originally part of Santa Eulalia but broke away and become a municipality on its own, and that the towns were reachable by foot, in about an hour and a half of climbing, while the road wound around a much longer route and took at least two and a half hours. But they were, he said, almost identical culturally because of that shared history.
I learned only about halfway through our ride that Lorenzo has family in Barillas -- his mother and one of his sisters live there. He said, "I'm half from Santa Eulalia and half from Barillas",and he apparently travels there pretty frequently. I hadn't known this, and so it was very fortunate for me that I had reached out to him, because when we got to Barillas, it was clear that not only did he know the town, but that he was known there, which made all the difference in how I was received.
Barillas is in the northern part of Huehuetenango, not far from the town of Santa Eulalia, where one of the community radio stations that I have been following is located: Snuq Jolom Konob. So when I was planning this trip, I decided that I wanted to spend some time in Santa Eulalia (my previous visit was very brief; in March, I had accompanied a small delegation from Cultural Survival that was delivering some radio equipment to the station, but we really only spent a few hours in the station and then had dinner with some of the staff), and see the radio station functioning over a few days. And, I also wanted to try and visit Barillas, although with a bit of trepidation, since I knew there had been conflicts in the community because of the company and the opposition to it, and the continued presence of the military. I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to get a very complete picture, but I wanted to ... I guess "witness" would be the best term, or "bear witness", or both. I had a suspicion that someone at the radio station probably knew people in Barillas, and so I contacted Lorenzo, one of the members of the junta directiva of the station, and the person who has been the station's main representative to the community radio movement nationally. Lorenzo and I met at the first workshop I attended at the end of June, 2011, and have kept up a friendship since then. He had lived in the U.S. for several years, and always sought me out to practice his somewhat rusty English when we would meet. He's probably about my age -- he has grown children and some grandchildren -- and has been involved with the radio station since his return from the U.S. about 8 years ago. This is what I knew before my current visit.
I had contacted Lorenzo via email and Facebook before leaving the U.S., but of course that wasn't the same as talking to him in person, which I did as soon as I got to Guatemala, although I wasn't certain which days I might be coming to Santa Eulalia. He told me that he had some contacts in Barillas (I didn't really know what kind and how many until today, but I will get to that). Last week I decided that I would come up to Santa Eulalia after the New Year, and so Lorenzo and I were in touch several times, so that he could arrange with folks in Barillas. As he explained and as I had suspected, people in the town are somewhat wary of outsiders, and often reluctant to give information, so he would have to make the contacts and vouch for me and also accompany me.
Thursday (January 3) was the day I originally planned to arrive in Santa Eulalia, but it was a kind of crazy plan, as I had been staying in Olintepeque (near Xela) and I wanted to interview a friend from the community radio movement who had been working with the communications commission of the Consejo de los Pueblos del Occidente (one of the groups that had sponsored the "alternative" celebrations of the Oxlajuj B'aq'tun), who was in San Marcos (about an hour from Xela), and then there was another person from the CPO, Saturnino, whom I wanted to interview who lived in the town of San Juan Ixcoy in Huehuetenango, which is on the way to Santa Eulalia. So, in a fit of insanity, perhaps, I thought I would leave Olintepeque and drive to San Marcos (an hour), interview Edvin (another hour or so), and then drive from San Marcos to Santa Eulalia, stopping in San Juan Ixcoy to interview Saturnino. The drive from San Marcos to Santa Eulalia would have been another 6 hours or so (since it meant back tracking to Xela, and then going from Xela up into Huehuetenango-- passing through the city of Huehuetenango, and then heading up north, into the heart of the Cuchumatán mountains). But Saturnino was in Huehuetenango, and I didn't want to rush the interview with him, so after we finished up, around 6, I decided not to try and drive to Santa Eulalia by myself at night.
That was one of the more intelligent decisions I have made; even in daylight, the road was difficult because it was foggy and lightly drizzling. I had traveled to Santa Eulalia before, but my car doesn't seem quite as peppy as it did in March, and one of the uphill ascents nearly defeated me, just after a small bridge outside the town of Soloma, the road climbs sharply, and the surface was slick, and because the treads on one of my back tires were quite worn down, and I had no weight in the back of the pick up (four or five passengers would have come in handy right about then), the car couldn't get any traction. Eventually I was saved by a kind soul, a migrant who had returned home for the holidays and whose family lived nearby, and who took pity on me and drove my car up the treacherous part of the slope for me. So in retrospect I am extremely glad that I didn't venture out alone at night.
After I arrived in Santa Eulalia, Lorenzo contacted his people in Barillas again and we agreed that we would go today, as Lorenzo had time free and we would need several hours for the trip (at least 2-1/2 each way), since we were going to go and return the same day. We set out early, and the road climbed out of Santa Eulalia and through starkly beautiful pine forests shrouded in mist. We literally were driving through and above the clouds, or so it seemed. There was pavement for several kilometers, and we fairly zipped along as the sky brightened, but then the road turned to dirt and gravel, and it was heavily pocked with potholes, many filled with water, and studded with rocks. It was one of the more bone-shaking and anxiety-producing rides in all my time in Guatemala, but on the way out I was just struck by the beauty and isolation of the area. We could see into Mexico from the crest of the pine forest, and then road dipped and climbed around some steep and lush valleys. We passed through a few towns -- actually, one town and two aldeas. The town was San Mateo Ixtatán. Houses perched on hillsides that were dizzyingly steep, and the road wound down and around and back up again. Lorenzo explained that Santa Cruz Barillas was originally part of Santa Eulalia but broke away and become a municipality on its own, and that the towns were reachable by foot, in about an hour and a half of climbing, while the road wound around a much longer route and took at least two and a half hours. But they were, he said, almost identical culturally because of that shared history.
I learned only about halfway through our ride that Lorenzo has family in Barillas -- his mother and one of his sisters live there. He said, "I'm half from Santa Eulalia and half from Barillas",and he apparently travels there pretty frequently. I hadn't known this, and so it was very fortunate for me that I had reached out to him, because when we got to Barillas, it was clear that not only did he know the town, but that he was known there, which made all the difference in how I was received.
Friday, January 4, 2013
At Q'umark'aj
There were a total of four ceremonies to celebrate the Oxlajuj' B'aq'tun at Q'umark'aj, starting in the afternoon of the 20th of December and continuing through the next day. There were countless other ceremonies throughout the country, some more private and others more public. I was at Q'umark'aj starting around noon on the 20th, and so had the opportunity to participate in all four (although I left the next day at around 11, to head to Chichicastenango, where the B'aq'tun coincided with the annual patron saint feast on December 21). Some other friends had gone to Chichicastenango, where there had been ceremonies starting on the 19th and 20th. But I had had the sense that because Chichicstenango is a town that is heavily visited by tourists, and in many ways is dependent upon tourism, that the activity would be somewhat more oriented towards tourists, and that was also the opinion of some of my close friends, including one who lives part-time in Chichicastenango and has a fairly close relationship with the indigenous authorities there. So when my friend Jeanet and I were texting back and forth about our plans for the b'aq'tun and she said that she was going to Chichi, I had a moment's hesitation but decided to stick with my original decision to go to Q'umark'aj. The space itself is very tranquil, in part because it is somewhat "retirado" (out of the way). To get to the main ceremonial space, you walk down a long path lined with tall trees that slope in gently to form a green canopy between you and the sky, a kind of majestic woodland walkway, so that when you arrive at the ceremonial space, which is completely open to the elements, there is really a sense of entrance, of stepping out of the cover of trees and into this open expanse, surrounded by hillocks and remnants of ancient structures. After hearing the commentaries of the people who presided over the ceremonies, who insisted that we not use the word "ruin", I will try to avoid doing so. Their reasoning was that to call the built structures "ruins" is an acknowledgment that the Maya civilization is something that belongs to the past, to history and archaeology and not to the present. Labeling the site as "ruins" means consigning the Maya to museums.
There were several hours of preparation before any of the ceremonies began. People cleaned the space, and prepared altars. There were several truck loads of supplies that arrived and people spread out woven straw mats and sorted out candles and incense, and then brought them to the altars. People spread pine needles around the central altar, and then flower petals over that. Inside the circle, priests constructed the altar. A central element in Maya ceremonies is the sacred fire. Someone lights it at the beginning and at different times throughout the ceremony (depending upon the nature of the ceremony) the priests or participants add offerings to the fire -- usually candles, most often light-colored candles but sometimes other colors. I won't pretend to know enough to say why one uses candles of a certain color at certain times; it might have to do with one's nahual (guardian spirit or "sign" in the Maya calendar system), or what one needs to accomplish. People talked, joked, laughed as they arranged things. The activities seemed to be mostly run by the priests organized by Chilam Balam; there were folks from the CPO and the two groups met to coordinate, but the activities were most of a religious/spiritual nature -- at least as far as I saw. Perhaps the next day, after I'd left to go to Chichicatenango, the event turned more political. But there were messages and commentary interspersed throughout the proceedings, which extended over a period of about 18 hours or more.
There was a marimba set up at one end - I think it was the south end of the space, and also a microphone and amplifier for the people who were presiding over the event. All of us participants were in a loose circle around the altars, although some groups of people were sitting in clusters and kind of spread out on the small grassy hillocks surrounding the central space. Some had clearly come prepared to spend the night, with blankets and bags of food. One family erected two small camping tents, and others had pieces of plastic or tarps, or woven mats.
People arrived throughout the day and night, often entire families came, carrying young child in arms and older ones trudging along. From the huipiles, I could see that there was a sizable group from Joyabaj, and a smaller one from Zacualpa. Of course, not everyone wears "municipal traje" -- traje that is specific to one locale; most women wear "generic traje" -- puffy-sleeved blouses adorned with lace, sequined, beaded or embroidered trim, and cortes that are machine-woven, so it is often hard to tell where people are from simply by the clothing. However, the organizers were asking people to "check in" by community and municipality and several times throughout the proceedings of this day and the next, someone read out the names of all the communities that were present.
The marimba was impressive, not just with their artistry but their stamina. They played off and on from about 5 in the afternoon until who-knows-when the next day; there was a second marimba that arrived in the early morning, so that they could alternate, but the first group of marimberos (marimba players) kept things going for at least 12 hours on their own. They didn't play constantly; during parts of the ceremonies, and especially some of the prayers, there was no music, but throughout, one of the priests or priestesses would indicate that they should start, and they did. There was one slightly older man who played the higher, melodic notes: the way a marimba is arranged, the lower notes are on the right as the audience faces the marimba. There are usually three players, and sometimes a fourth playing a drum. The player to the audience's left carries the higher notes and the melody, and all of the ornamentation and flourishes. The players on the right and at the center play more basic rhythms. Kind of like the relationship between the highest -pitched drum, the quinto, and the two lower-pitched drums (tres-dos and tumbadora) in traditional rumba; the lower pitched drums keep the rhythm and the highest-pitched drum does the fancy stuff. A similar relationship (although not in terms of pitch) exists in ceremonial Afrocuban music: the bata drums are a set of three, and the largest (and thus lowest-pitched) drum, the iya, carries the "melody" and the two smaller, higher-pitched drums, itotele and okonkolo, maintain the beat. So this ensemble of three musicians, and the respective roles of each, is an interesting parallel.
Okay, enough cross-cultural ethnomusicology. Don't expect me to say much more about marimbas in terms of music and playing because I really know next to nothing about the marimba other than that it is the national instrument, that it is autochthonous to Central America, and that it holds a special places in people's hearts and spirits.
The first ceremony started in the late afternoon, before it was fully dark. The priests lined up in two rows, men on one side and women on the other, and started to walk down to the caves, to the accompaniment of the marimba. We were invited to join, and a few of us scrambled to try and take photographs. Many people had camera phones or digital cameras, not just the few journalists who were there for the long haul, and so participants were filming and photographing throughout the ceremony. The sex-separated lines didn't hold up as we worked our way down the steep, rocky path to the caves. At the entrance, the priests had built another fire, and so we all stood behind them as they chanted some prayers. However, after a while some of the priests went inside, followed by others, while some stayed outside. It was a tight squeeze with about 50 people squeezed onto the path leading to the cave, and hard to see what was going on, but eased up once people started to go onside. There were candles placed along the floor all the way to the back of the cave. The cave is a long, narrow passageway, and only at the end -- as I remember it (I didn't make it all the way to the end this time) it widens out a little bit. The time I had previously entered the cave there was no illumination (other than the screens of our cell phones) and it was a bit claustrophobic and eerie.
This time it was relatively well illuminated by comparison, but I didn't go all the way back, mostly because people were already starting to come out, and also at the back it seemed very crowded with people and hard to get close to the "action". I clambered back up to where the main ceremonial site was, and bit by bit everyone else came back up and then the rest of the ceremony started in earnest. It went on for about two hours, and then there was a break before the second ceremony started at 10.
During this break my friend Eunice finally arrived; she had been delayed in leaving Xela as she had work to finish up, and we had been texting each other intermittently, so I knew that around 7:30 she was at Los Encuentros waiting for a bus, and then around 9 she finally made it to the site. I was about to suggest that we go out and get some food - she had called me from the entrance to say that there were some women selling churrascos, but the organizers had brought some large cauldrons of a traditional food called tayuyos. These are a kind of unfilled tamal, but black beans are mixed into the corn meal dough, along with some salt, before the tayuyos are formed and steamed, so they are simple but have an earthy taste from the beans, and are also more nutritious than plain tamales. This was a stroke of luck for me, and so we feasted on a few tayuyos apiece, and luckily Eunice had also brought some water. She is the daughter of one of my good friends, and although she is in her twenties, she and I have also developed a strong affinity and have stayed in touch via Facebook mostly. It was good to have some company, although I felt very welcomed, but I didn't really know too many people. My one-time K'iche' teacher Leonardo, who is also an ajq'ij, was there; his family arrived in the morning, but he spent the entire night. And Mario --a very quiet, soft-spoken man who works with Chilam Balam, was also there. But it was especially lovely to be with Eunice although we didn't talk a lot as we were trying to pay attention to what was going on with the ceremonies -- the last time I was in Guatemala we didn't get to see each other at all. So although the night was bound up with ceremonies and talks and a little time for sleep, it was nice to just be in the same place and share an experience together.
The ceremonies was mostly in K'iche' with a bit of explanation or interpretation in Spanish. The organizers clearly saw it as a teachable moment, and from time to time called out to people who were standing on some of the structures to get down, saying that it was important to protect the remains of Q'umark'aj, but also noting that this was not a spectacle, not folklore, not a performance. That people were welcome to participate but that it wasn't an event for people to just stand on the outside and look and take pictures
But in between the organizers took the opportunity to share some reflections about the significance of the event. Earlier in the day, someone had told me that the previous day (the 19th) some government officials (from the central government) had come to Q'umark'aj, but that they (the organizers) had turned them away, as they didn't want the government to turn the b'aq'tun into a political event, something for their own gain. Someone from Chilam Balam had told me that the government tourist agency, Inguat, had offered to provide lights, sound system and other equipment and supplies for the event, but that they had wanted to control in and so they had turned Inguat down and thus had to scramble around on their own to find the necessary equipment.
The second ceremony -- the one that began at 10 -- went on until about 1:30. During this one, the four additional altars were used, and at one point we were directed to go to the altar of the cardinal point that corresponded to our own nahual (each of the 20 nahuales corresponds to a particular color and to one of the cardinal points: I went to the east and Eunice went to the north).
Meanwhile, probably before it became fully dark, another group, much smaller arrived. They clearly seemed surprised to see that the central ceremonial area was already occupied, but they moved to another flat area about 20 yards behind where the musicians were. They were a pretty mixed group, with a fair number of foreigners. I didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to what they did, other than to note that there was someone who was dressed in a loincloth and with a plumed head-piece, that is, wearing something that looked like a reproduction of a stone carving of an "ancient Maya" -- the kind of costume I have seen people wear in dance performances of the "folkloric" variety -- that is, when school children or others put on a version of the "baile de la conquista" (the dance of the conquest). It was cold, and he had only the skimpy costume and some body paint. He danced at various times during the ceremony -- something I have never seen in other, what I would call more authentic ceremonies. I subsequently asked a friend who was there if he knew who that group was and he said no, but he thought that perhaps some tourists who had come with a tour guide who had promised to bring them to an authentic ceremony.
More... and still more....
There were several hours of preparation before any of the ceremonies began. People cleaned the space, and prepared altars. There were several truck loads of supplies that arrived and people spread out woven straw mats and sorted out candles and incense, and then brought them to the altars. People spread pine needles around the central altar, and then flower petals over that. Inside the circle, priests constructed the altar. A central element in Maya ceremonies is the sacred fire. Someone lights it at the beginning and at different times throughout the ceremony (depending upon the nature of the ceremony) the priests or participants add offerings to the fire -- usually candles, most often light-colored candles but sometimes other colors. I won't pretend to know enough to say why one uses candles of a certain color at certain times; it might have to do with one's nahual (guardian spirit or "sign" in the Maya calendar system), or what one needs to accomplish. People talked, joked, laughed as they arranged things. The activities seemed to be mostly run by the priests organized by Chilam Balam; there were folks from the CPO and the two groups met to coordinate, but the activities were most of a religious/spiritual nature -- at least as far as I saw. Perhaps the next day, after I'd left to go to Chichicatenango, the event turned more political. But there were messages and commentary interspersed throughout the proceedings, which extended over a period of about 18 hours or more.
There was a marimba set up at one end - I think it was the south end of the space, and also a microphone and amplifier for the people who were presiding over the event. All of us participants were in a loose circle around the altars, although some groups of people were sitting in clusters and kind of spread out on the small grassy hillocks surrounding the central space. Some had clearly come prepared to spend the night, with blankets and bags of food. One family erected two small camping tents, and others had pieces of plastic or tarps, or woven mats.
People arrived throughout the day and night, often entire families came, carrying young child in arms and older ones trudging along. From the huipiles, I could see that there was a sizable group from Joyabaj, and a smaller one from Zacualpa. Of course, not everyone wears "municipal traje" -- traje that is specific to one locale; most women wear "generic traje" -- puffy-sleeved blouses adorned with lace, sequined, beaded or embroidered trim, and cortes that are machine-woven, so it is often hard to tell where people are from simply by the clothing. However, the organizers were asking people to "check in" by community and municipality and several times throughout the proceedings of this day and the next, someone read out the names of all the communities that were present.
The marimba was impressive, not just with their artistry but their stamina. They played off and on from about 5 in the afternoon until who-knows-when the next day; there was a second marimba that arrived in the early morning, so that they could alternate, but the first group of marimberos (marimba players) kept things going for at least 12 hours on their own. They didn't play constantly; during parts of the ceremonies, and especially some of the prayers, there was no music, but throughout, one of the priests or priestesses would indicate that they should start, and they did. There was one slightly older man who played the higher, melodic notes: the way a marimba is arranged, the lower notes are on the right as the audience faces the marimba. There are usually three players, and sometimes a fourth playing a drum. The player to the audience's left carries the higher notes and the melody, and all of the ornamentation and flourishes. The players on the right and at the center play more basic rhythms. Kind of like the relationship between the highest -pitched drum, the quinto, and the two lower-pitched drums (tres-dos and tumbadora) in traditional rumba; the lower pitched drums keep the rhythm and the highest-pitched drum does the fancy stuff. A similar relationship (although not in terms of pitch) exists in ceremonial Afrocuban music: the bata drums are a set of three, and the largest (and thus lowest-pitched) drum, the iya, carries the "melody" and the two smaller, higher-pitched drums, itotele and okonkolo, maintain the beat. So this ensemble of three musicians, and the respective roles of each, is an interesting parallel.
Okay, enough cross-cultural ethnomusicology. Don't expect me to say much more about marimbas in terms of music and playing because I really know next to nothing about the marimba other than that it is the national instrument, that it is autochthonous to Central America, and that it holds a special places in people's hearts and spirits.
The first ceremony started in the late afternoon, before it was fully dark. The priests lined up in two rows, men on one side and women on the other, and started to walk down to the caves, to the accompaniment of the marimba. We were invited to join, and a few of us scrambled to try and take photographs. Many people had camera phones or digital cameras, not just the few journalists who were there for the long haul, and so participants were filming and photographing throughout the ceremony. The sex-separated lines didn't hold up as we worked our way down the steep, rocky path to the caves. At the entrance, the priests had built another fire, and so we all stood behind them as they chanted some prayers. However, after a while some of the priests went inside, followed by others, while some stayed outside. It was a tight squeeze with about 50 people squeezed onto the path leading to the cave, and hard to see what was going on, but eased up once people started to go onside. There were candles placed along the floor all the way to the back of the cave. The cave is a long, narrow passageway, and only at the end -- as I remember it (I didn't make it all the way to the end this time) it widens out a little bit. The time I had previously entered the cave there was no illumination (other than the screens of our cell phones) and it was a bit claustrophobic and eerie.
This time it was relatively well illuminated by comparison, but I didn't go all the way back, mostly because people were already starting to come out, and also at the back it seemed very crowded with people and hard to get close to the "action". I clambered back up to where the main ceremonial site was, and bit by bit everyone else came back up and then the rest of the ceremony started in earnest. It went on for about two hours, and then there was a break before the second ceremony started at 10.
During this break my friend Eunice finally arrived; she had been delayed in leaving Xela as she had work to finish up, and we had been texting each other intermittently, so I knew that around 7:30 she was at Los Encuentros waiting for a bus, and then around 9 she finally made it to the site. I was about to suggest that we go out and get some food - she had called me from the entrance to say that there were some women selling churrascos, but the organizers had brought some large cauldrons of a traditional food called tayuyos. These are a kind of unfilled tamal, but black beans are mixed into the corn meal dough, along with some salt, before the tayuyos are formed and steamed, so they are simple but have an earthy taste from the beans, and are also more nutritious than plain tamales. This was a stroke of luck for me, and so we feasted on a few tayuyos apiece, and luckily Eunice had also brought some water. She is the daughter of one of my good friends, and although she is in her twenties, she and I have also developed a strong affinity and have stayed in touch via Facebook mostly. It was good to have some company, although I felt very welcomed, but I didn't really know too many people. My one-time K'iche' teacher Leonardo, who is also an ajq'ij, was there; his family arrived in the morning, but he spent the entire night. And Mario --a very quiet, soft-spoken man who works with Chilam Balam, was also there. But it was especially lovely to be with Eunice although we didn't talk a lot as we were trying to pay attention to what was going on with the ceremonies -- the last time I was in Guatemala we didn't get to see each other at all. So although the night was bound up with ceremonies and talks and a little time for sleep, it was nice to just be in the same place and share an experience together.
The ceremonies was mostly in K'iche' with a bit of explanation or interpretation in Spanish. The organizers clearly saw it as a teachable moment, and from time to time called out to people who were standing on some of the structures to get down, saying that it was important to protect the remains of Q'umark'aj, but also noting that this was not a spectacle, not folklore, not a performance. That people were welcome to participate but that it wasn't an event for people to just stand on the outside and look and take pictures
But in between the organizers took the opportunity to share some reflections about the significance of the event. Earlier in the day, someone had told me that the previous day (the 19th) some government officials (from the central government) had come to Q'umark'aj, but that they (the organizers) had turned them away, as they didn't want the government to turn the b'aq'tun into a political event, something for their own gain. Someone from Chilam Balam had told me that the government tourist agency, Inguat, had offered to provide lights, sound system and other equipment and supplies for the event, but that they had wanted to control in and so they had turned Inguat down and thus had to scramble around on their own to find the necessary equipment.
The second ceremony -- the one that began at 10 -- went on until about 1:30. During this one, the four additional altars were used, and at one point we were directed to go to the altar of the cardinal point that corresponded to our own nahual (each of the 20 nahuales corresponds to a particular color and to one of the cardinal points: I went to the east and Eunice went to the north).
Meanwhile, probably before it became fully dark, another group, much smaller arrived. They clearly seemed surprised to see that the central ceremonial area was already occupied, but they moved to another flat area about 20 yards behind where the musicians were. They were a pretty mixed group, with a fair number of foreigners. I didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to what they did, other than to note that there was someone who was dressed in a loincloth and with a plumed head-piece, that is, wearing something that looked like a reproduction of a stone carving of an "ancient Maya" -- the kind of costume I have seen people wear in dance performances of the "folkloric" variety -- that is, when school children or others put on a version of the "baile de la conquista" (the dance of the conquest). It was cold, and he had only the skimpy costume and some body paint. He danced at various times during the ceremony -- something I have never seen in other, what I would call more authentic ceremonies. I subsequently asked a friend who was there if he knew who that group was and he said no, but he thought that perhaps some tourists who had come with a tour guide who had promised to bring them to an authentic ceremony.
More... and still more....
From radio to radio
With the morning mist I scaled the Cuchumatanes, one of the most spectacular landscapes in a country of beautiful landscapes, to reach the town of Santa Eulalia, way up in the northern half of Huehuetenango, where there is a community radio station, Snuq Jolom Konob, that I visited once last year. As with many of the radio stations, I have met some of the people involved with the station at workshops and meetings and other events, and we stay in touch online between times. I had spent the night in Huehuetenango, the departmental capital, after doing an interview there, and since it was late, I decided not to venture on that road at night -- which turns out to have been a good decision, since I barely made it in the light of day. More on that later.
But now I am safely ensconced in the town, here with my friends at the radio station, listening to the sounds of the marimba and offering a few "mensajes" (messages) to the radio audience (how do I feel in Guatemala? how do I like the sound of the marimba? what else do I want to say to the listeners?).... But now we are going to lunch, with two of the radio broadcasters.
But now I am safely ensconced in the town, here with my friends at the radio station, listening to the sounds of the marimba and offering a few "mensajes" (messages) to the radio audience (how do I feel in Guatemala? how do I like the sound of the marimba? what else do I want to say to the listeners?).... But now we are going to lunch, with two of the radio broadcasters.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Snapshots
it's hard to believe that two weeks have gone by, and I've barely scratched the surface in this blog.The trip has been a bit of a zig-zag, both geographically and in terms of my interests. I've been trying to follow up on the radio stations I'd visited previously and also on the general state of the community radio movement. It's been a year of setbacks, with raids, and the failure of the congress to act on the proposed legislation that would legalize community radio, while at the same time passing a law that grants the monopolies another 25 years' use of the frequencies. It's been a year of intense and stepped up governmental repression, and increase neoliberalization (selling the country off to foreign interests, for one thing), and increased popular mobilization. I've been hoping to get a general sense of the lay of the land, and particular some of the areas that have been the sites of mobilization and repression. Of course, this being Guatemala, no matter how much I tried to set things up in advance, it wasn't always possible. Plans got scrapped, new ones made, and then there were wonderful unexpected serendipities. I passed through Chichicastenango on the 31st of December and was able to witness a very solemn act -- the indigenous mayoralty turning over the legal documents, some dating back to the 1800s, to the incoming "indigenous mayors". Traveling here over the holidays wasn't ideal; a lot of organizations shut down for a few weeks between Christmas and the "Día de los Reyes Magos" on January 6th, so I've had to scale back expectations. And the places and people I wanted to see and talk to, respectively, are pretty dispersed throughout the country (or at least throughout the highlands) and so that means invariably a lot of traveling.
I started out in Guatemala City, then went to Q'umark'aj for the celebration of the 13 B'aq'tun. The following day, December 23, I attended a ceremony at the home of Rigoberta Menchú, celebrating the first sunrise of the new, 14th b'aq'tun. From there I traveled to the hamlet of La Ceiba, in a part of Guatemala known as the "Boca Costa" (the mouth of the coast), although the hamlet is about 40 km. inland from the coast proper. La Ceiba is home ot one of the community radio stations that I've been following, Radio Nojibal, and I spent Noche Buena (the night before Christmas) there, and then on Christmas Day traveled back to El Quiché, where I had lunch with friends in Santa Cruz and then finally made it to my firends' home in Agua Tibia outside Chinique. I spent a few days based in Chinique, finishing up some work for the university and then also visiting Radio Ixmukané, the station where I was most intimately involved, now located in Chichicastenango, about an hour's drive from Chinique. Together with some of the folks from Radio Ixmukané, I visited another radio station, Radio Ixchel, in Sumpango, Sacatepéquez, which is about 3-1/2 hours from Chinique -- we did it as a round-trip, since there are no hotels in Sumpango and my friends wouldn't have had the money to stay in one and I couldn't have afforded to pay for them. Then off to Momostenango, to visit another radio station that I've befriended, on the 30th, and back to Chichicastenango on the 31st, and then back to Chinique that night to pass the New Year with my friends. Up early on January 1st, as a dear friend was being installed as one of the "community mayors" (alcaldes comunitarios) in Olintepeque, a small town on the outskirts of Xela, so I needed to get there for the swearing-in, which was supposed to start at 9. I stayed in the area for the 1st and 2nd, and then today (January 3) went to San Marcos (an hour from Xela) in the morning for an interview, and then from San Marcos came to Huehuetenango, a trip of about 3-1/2 hours. for another interview. Now spending the night in Huehue (as folks here shorten the name of the departmental capital) and will head out in the early morning to the town of Santa Eulalia, up in the north of Huehuetenango (the department), about 2-1/2 hours from here, to visit another radio station.
Although the traveling has been a bit tiring, I actually don't mind driving here, even though the roads are often harrowing and poorly maintained. I don't want to over-romanticize the country, but there is such incredible beauty at nearly every turn of the road. On the road from Xela to Huehue, which I've never traversed before (the other times I've visited towns in the department of Huehuetenango, I've come from the other side, along different roads), there is a point at which everything opens up to these amazing vistas -- huge expanses of mountains that spread from horizon to horizon, so much that it's impossible to capture in a single photograph. In Quiché the mountains are packed closely together, and there are few places where you actually have a view beyond the next mountain or the next curve. I never really saw a sunrise or sunset, for example, in Chinique, because there are mountains all around and by the time I could see the sun it was already pretty bright, and it disappeared in the west without the sky turning colors, as there were mountains and trees on that side as well. each journey by car is a chance for me to experience more of this fiercely, painfully beautiful country, to drink it in and meditate upon it. Sometimes I have company, as I frequently pick people up on stretches where there are few buses, but mostly I am on my own, which I have also come to appreciate (although many of my friends here, especially those who do not travel much outside their immediate area, and particularly women, think it more than odd).
Sometimes it's hard to stop myself from pulling the car over and taking photographs, although I know it's impossible to capture all of it, and I'm often in a hurry to get somewhere. There are images that are burnished in my mind that I haven't wanted or needed to photograph. Children gathering wood into neat bundles alongside a highway. Women walking alongside the road with heavy bundles on their heads. Groups of people bent over hoes and tools in fields, turning over the dead corn stalks so that the next crop can be planted. It's a mixture of the picturesque (a problematic concept) and the grotesque: garbage strewn alongside the road, MacDonald's, billboards advertising Nautica and other upscale brands, in a country where over 50% of the population lives in poverty and most of those in extreme poverty.
The 2015 election has already begun. When I arrived in Guatemala City, driving around the first day, I saw some people painting on the side of a wall, with bright purple paint. When I returned along the same road a few hours later, it was already finished: "Todos" (all of us) in white letters on the purple background. "Unete" (join up). Later, I saw a billboard for the LIDER party -- a photograph of a couple of men giving the thumbs up sign, and the slogan something like "I love Guatemala. XXXX [name of town] is LIDER territory." I did a double-take, because I thought at first it was a holdover from last year, but it looked too fresh. Then I saw other ones, and realized that even though party conventions are a few years off, and the election isn't until 2015, the campaigns have already gotten underway, with the existing political parties starting to put out the faces of their candidates, and probably more new parties springing up.
I started out in Guatemala City, then went to Q'umark'aj for the celebration of the 13 B'aq'tun. The following day, December 23, I attended a ceremony at the home of Rigoberta Menchú, celebrating the first sunrise of the new, 14th b'aq'tun. From there I traveled to the hamlet of La Ceiba, in a part of Guatemala known as the "Boca Costa" (the mouth of the coast), although the hamlet is about 40 km. inland from the coast proper. La Ceiba is home ot one of the community radio stations that I've been following, Radio Nojibal, and I spent Noche Buena (the night before Christmas) there, and then on Christmas Day traveled back to El Quiché, where I had lunch with friends in Santa Cruz and then finally made it to my firends' home in Agua Tibia outside Chinique. I spent a few days based in Chinique, finishing up some work for the university and then also visiting Radio Ixmukané, the station where I was most intimately involved, now located in Chichicastenango, about an hour's drive from Chinique. Together with some of the folks from Radio Ixmukané, I visited another radio station, Radio Ixchel, in Sumpango, Sacatepéquez, which is about 3-1/2 hours from Chinique -- we did it as a round-trip, since there are no hotels in Sumpango and my friends wouldn't have had the money to stay in one and I couldn't have afforded to pay for them. Then off to Momostenango, to visit another radio station that I've befriended, on the 30th, and back to Chichicastenango on the 31st, and then back to Chinique that night to pass the New Year with my friends. Up early on January 1st, as a dear friend was being installed as one of the "community mayors" (alcaldes comunitarios) in Olintepeque, a small town on the outskirts of Xela, so I needed to get there for the swearing-in, which was supposed to start at 9. I stayed in the area for the 1st and 2nd, and then today (January 3) went to San Marcos (an hour from Xela) in the morning for an interview, and then from San Marcos came to Huehuetenango, a trip of about 3-1/2 hours. for another interview. Now spending the night in Huehue (as folks here shorten the name of the departmental capital) and will head out in the early morning to the town of Santa Eulalia, up in the north of Huehuetenango (the department), about 2-1/2 hours from here, to visit another radio station.
Although the traveling has been a bit tiring, I actually don't mind driving here, even though the roads are often harrowing and poorly maintained. I don't want to over-romanticize the country, but there is such incredible beauty at nearly every turn of the road. On the road from Xela to Huehue, which I've never traversed before (the other times I've visited towns in the department of Huehuetenango, I've come from the other side, along different roads), there is a point at which everything opens up to these amazing vistas -- huge expanses of mountains that spread from horizon to horizon, so much that it's impossible to capture in a single photograph. In Quiché the mountains are packed closely together, and there are few places where you actually have a view beyond the next mountain or the next curve. I never really saw a sunrise or sunset, for example, in Chinique, because there are mountains all around and by the time I could see the sun it was already pretty bright, and it disappeared in the west without the sky turning colors, as there were mountains and trees on that side as well. each journey by car is a chance for me to experience more of this fiercely, painfully beautiful country, to drink it in and meditate upon it. Sometimes I have company, as I frequently pick people up on stretches where there are few buses, but mostly I am on my own, which I have also come to appreciate (although many of my friends here, especially those who do not travel much outside their immediate area, and particularly women, think it more than odd).
Sometimes it's hard to stop myself from pulling the car over and taking photographs, although I know it's impossible to capture all of it, and I'm often in a hurry to get somewhere. There are images that are burnished in my mind that I haven't wanted or needed to photograph. Children gathering wood into neat bundles alongside a highway. Women walking alongside the road with heavy bundles on their heads. Groups of people bent over hoes and tools in fields, turning over the dead corn stalks so that the next crop can be planted. It's a mixture of the picturesque (a problematic concept) and the grotesque: garbage strewn alongside the road, MacDonald's, billboards advertising Nautica and other upscale brands, in a country where over 50% of the population lives in poverty and most of those in extreme poverty.
The 2015 election has already begun. When I arrived in Guatemala City, driving around the first day, I saw some people painting on the side of a wall, with bright purple paint. When I returned along the same road a few hours later, it was already finished: "Todos" (all of us) in white letters on the purple background. "Unete" (join up). Later, I saw a billboard for the LIDER party -- a photograph of a couple of men giving the thumbs up sign, and the slogan something like "I love Guatemala. XXXX [name of town] is LIDER territory." I did a double-take, because I thought at first it was a holdover from last year, but it looked too fresh. Then I saw other ones, and realized that even though party conventions are a few years off, and the election isn't until 2015, the campaigns have already gotten underway, with the existing political parties starting to put out the faces of their candidates, and probably more new parties springing up.
Monday, December 31, 2012
More b'aqtun
The invitation from the Consejo de Pueblos del Occidente called for a reclamation of the true meaning of the Oxlajuj B'aq'tun, calling upon all brothers and sisters to help disseminate the message of the true meaning of the B'aq'tun, and to join with them them (CPO) in the sacred sites of Zaculeuw, Iximche and Q'umark'aj, starting at noon on December 21. I had spent the night of the 19th in Xela, which is about 2 hours away from Santa Cruz del Quiché (Q'umark'aj is located on the outskirts of Santa Cruz del Quiché; some of the stones from the destroyed Mayan city were used to build the cathedral that overlooks the central plaza of Santa Cruz). I had breakfast with one of my dear friends in Xela, someone who is active in the CPO, to catch up a bit and pick each other's brains. Sadly, he wasn't planning to arrive until the 21st, his daughter, who is also a good friend, had said she would arrive on the 20th, so I was hopeful I'd have some company for the long overnight haul.
The highway between Xela and Santa Cruz is one of my favorite stretches of road because of the spectacular landscape. The road is lightly traveled once you pass Totonicapán, which is about 20 minutes from Xela -- one time I had to traverse it after dark and that was one of the few times that I have actually been anxious about my personal safety, mostly because there are some stretches with no houses nearby, and so if anything were to have happened, I would have no one to call for help.
Although I hadn't slept much (I don't generally sleep well in Guatemala), I felt refreshed and ready to hit the road. I don't quite know why, but I actually enjoy, in some perverse way, driving in Guatemala. Perverse, because as I've written in earlier blog entries, the roads often have sharp curves around steep mountains, there are almost no shoulders, other drivers -- especially those of trucks and intercity buses -- are maniacs, and there are often places where the road fell away during a rainy season, or on other stretches there are a lot of speed bumps. But around every heart-stopping curve, there is heart-wrenchingly beautiful landscape, so beautiful it hurts. Heading past Cuatro Caminos towards Totonicapán, there is a place where women gather to wash their clothes. It's fed by a natural hot spring, and it might technically be labelled a bathing area (balneario) but I've only ever seen women washing clothing. I didn't stop or slow down, as I wanted to get to Santa Cruz with some time to spare, so that I could sit in the one upscale café and have a latte and think, more than anything else. But I could see the dark-bright colors of their clothing, what they were wearing and what they were washing, as some stood knee-deep in the water and scrubbed, others knelt on the grass near the water, and I could see the steam rising from the water.
An uneventful (thankfully) two hours took me to Santa Cruz, with enough time to get my latte and change my clothes (I had no idea what would be expected and I knew it would get cold at night, but I thought I'd wear a nice dress, to look at little bit less like a tourist). I drove up to Q'umark'aj, found a parking space on the drive up to the site, and went off in look for anyone who looked like they were about to start a ceremony. At the main "plaza" surrounded by some hills and monuments, I saw a man and three women gathered around a small fire in the center. The man had a red servilleta (woven cloth) wrapped around his head, designating him as a Maya priest, and the three young women were all wearing "nice" traje (i.e. clearly not everyday wear but special occasion clothing). There was someone taking photos, who turned out to be a journalist from one of the major radio stations, Emisoras Unidas, and then a few other journalists.
I didn't really know who was going to be setting up for the ceremonies that had been announced by the Consejo de Pueblos del Occidente (CPO) or Chilam B'alam, but I was on the lookout for people who looked like they were organizing SOMEthing. And while this one small group was conducting their ceremony, some other people arrived in a van and started to unload things: this, clearly, was the start of preparations for something on a larger scale. I could overheard some of the conversation between the small group of four conducting their ceremony and the journalist, and so learned that the three women were all "official" representatives of "la mujer maya" -- that is, each of them had won a title in one of the innumerable local and national pageants for Maya women. They are not precisely "beauty pageants" as looks are not the only criterion, and they have been criticized for "folklorizing" Maya culture. However, they've interested me and so my antennae went up.
One of the people who had arrived with the supplies for the ceremonies also participated in the interviews, and then the queens and the man who was officiating at the ceremony took off. I introduced myself to the woman who was directing things, who was from Chilam B'alam;we had met, I think, at an event last year. The person whom I know best from Chilam B'alam, it turns out, was out of the country, officiating at a ceremony in Europe. Later, others arrived, and slowly people started to assemble the elements and construct the altar, in the middle of the large ceremonial space. There were over a dozen men and women who were Maya priests, and others who helped put together the altar. There were several different kinds of incense, pine needles, candles of different colors, flowers, flower petals. Eventually there was a central altar, and then four smaller altars, each at one of the four cardinal points; a total of five altars, and the various priests and priestesses were divided among those altars so that each one had a few people who were responsible for attending to it.
I realized that I hadn't really planned adequately for food, and there isn't really anything near Q'umark'aj... and I thought about driving back to Quiché, but didn't want to lose my parking space, as I knew that people would be arriving throughout the afternoon and evening. So I just figured that I'd work something out (I was lucky: others had brought food to share). The afternoon proceeded pretty leisurely. Eventually, around 2:30 or 3, the compñeros and compañeras from the CPO arrived, and also my friend/colleague Ixchel from Radio Ixmukané, to do some interviews. One of the people from the CPO was a woman named Lola Chavez, She is a well-known activist in Quiché, and suffered a brutal attack by armed men earlier this year when she was leaving a meeting of the K'iche' People's Council of the CPO. I'd never met her but knew her reputation and knew about the attack, and we have mutual friends, so I introduced myself and she was extremely warm and generous with me, and then I later brought Ixchel over and introduced her so she could do an interview. I also introduced Ixchel to the president of Chilam B'alam, who was presiding over the arrangements for the ceremonies. She left, however, in mid-afternoon...
And so I will leave this off for now, and return later to write about the actual ceremonies, finally.
The highway between Xela and Santa Cruz is one of my favorite stretches of road because of the spectacular landscape. The road is lightly traveled once you pass Totonicapán, which is about 20 minutes from Xela -- one time I had to traverse it after dark and that was one of the few times that I have actually been anxious about my personal safety, mostly because there are some stretches with no houses nearby, and so if anything were to have happened, I would have no one to call for help.
Although I hadn't slept much (I don't generally sleep well in Guatemala), I felt refreshed and ready to hit the road. I don't quite know why, but I actually enjoy, in some perverse way, driving in Guatemala. Perverse, because as I've written in earlier blog entries, the roads often have sharp curves around steep mountains, there are almost no shoulders, other drivers -- especially those of trucks and intercity buses -- are maniacs, and there are often places where the road fell away during a rainy season, or on other stretches there are a lot of speed bumps. But around every heart-stopping curve, there is heart-wrenchingly beautiful landscape, so beautiful it hurts. Heading past Cuatro Caminos towards Totonicapán, there is a place where women gather to wash their clothes. It's fed by a natural hot spring, and it might technically be labelled a bathing area (balneario) but I've only ever seen women washing clothing. I didn't stop or slow down, as I wanted to get to Santa Cruz with some time to spare, so that I could sit in the one upscale café and have a latte and think, more than anything else. But I could see the dark-bright colors of their clothing, what they were wearing and what they were washing, as some stood knee-deep in the water and scrubbed, others knelt on the grass near the water, and I could see the steam rising from the water.
An uneventful (thankfully) two hours took me to Santa Cruz, with enough time to get my latte and change my clothes (I had no idea what would be expected and I knew it would get cold at night, but I thought I'd wear a nice dress, to look at little bit less like a tourist). I drove up to Q'umark'aj, found a parking space on the drive up to the site, and went off in look for anyone who looked like they were about to start a ceremony. At the main "plaza" surrounded by some hills and monuments, I saw a man and three women gathered around a small fire in the center. The man had a red servilleta (woven cloth) wrapped around his head, designating him as a Maya priest, and the three young women were all wearing "nice" traje (i.e. clearly not everyday wear but special occasion clothing). There was someone taking photos, who turned out to be a journalist from one of the major radio stations, Emisoras Unidas, and then a few other journalists.
I didn't really know who was going to be setting up for the ceremonies that had been announced by the Consejo de Pueblos del Occidente (CPO) or Chilam B'alam, but I was on the lookout for people who looked like they were organizing SOMEthing. And while this one small group was conducting their ceremony, some other people arrived in a van and started to unload things: this, clearly, was the start of preparations for something on a larger scale. I could overheard some of the conversation between the small group of four conducting their ceremony and the journalist, and so learned that the three women were all "official" representatives of "la mujer maya" -- that is, each of them had won a title in one of the innumerable local and national pageants for Maya women. They are not precisely "beauty pageants" as looks are not the only criterion, and they have been criticized for "folklorizing" Maya culture. However, they've interested me and so my antennae went up.
One of the people who had arrived with the supplies for the ceremonies also participated in the interviews, and then the queens and the man who was officiating at the ceremony took off. I introduced myself to the woman who was directing things, who was from Chilam B'alam;we had met, I think, at an event last year. The person whom I know best from Chilam B'alam, it turns out, was out of the country, officiating at a ceremony in Europe. Later, others arrived, and slowly people started to assemble the elements and construct the altar, in the middle of the large ceremonial space. There were over a dozen men and women who were Maya priests, and others who helped put together the altar. There were several different kinds of incense, pine needles, candles of different colors, flowers, flower petals. Eventually there was a central altar, and then four smaller altars, each at one of the four cardinal points; a total of five altars, and the various priests and priestesses were divided among those altars so that each one had a few people who were responsible for attending to it.
I realized that I hadn't really planned adequately for food, and there isn't really anything near Q'umark'aj... and I thought about driving back to Quiché, but didn't want to lose my parking space, as I knew that people would be arriving throughout the afternoon and evening. So I just figured that I'd work something out (I was lucky: others had brought food to share). The afternoon proceeded pretty leisurely. Eventually, around 2:30 or 3, the compñeros and compañeras from the CPO arrived, and also my friend/colleague Ixchel from Radio Ixmukané, to do some interviews. One of the people from the CPO was a woman named Lola Chavez, She is a well-known activist in Quiché, and suffered a brutal attack by armed men earlier this year when she was leaving a meeting of the K'iche' People's Council of the CPO. I'd never met her but knew her reputation and knew about the attack, and we have mutual friends, so I introduced myself and she was extremely warm and generous with me, and then I later brought Ixchel over and introduced her so she could do an interview. I also introduced Ixchel to the president of Chilam B'alam, who was presiding over the arrangements for the ceremonies. She left, however, in mid-afternoon...
And so I will leave this off for now, and return later to write about the actual ceremonies, finally.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Learning to wish properly - community radio in Momostenango
I write this from the studio of Estereo Maya/La Princesa Ixmukané, a community radio station in Momostenango, Totonicapán, that was founded by a group of 60 or 70 Maya priests about 23 years ago, and is now run out of the home of Don Julian Velasquéz. This morning when I was readying myself to set out from Chinique for the journey to Momostenango it was raining lightly, as it has rained lightly throughout the night, the drops falling rhythmically on the corrugated tin roof of my friends' home. I thought I'd wait a bit to see if it cleared up, and the sun did peek out from the clouds several times, although it got pretty grey by the time I turned off the highway that leads north out of Santa Cruz del Quiché and leads to Santa Lucia la Reforma in Totonicapán; from Santa Lucia, there's another road that goes from Santa Lucia to Momostenango. But these highways, if we can call them that, are nearly all dirt. And not just dirt. They wind up and around the mountains, perhaps not quite as steep as the roads outside of Chichicastenango, and without those deep ravines below, but since there is almost no pavement, and it's the dry season, the curves and ascents are often covered with several inches of loosened sand and dirt. So it's very hard for one's tires to get a grip, especially when it's uphill on a curve.
So I would have done better to have wished for a little bit of rain -- a little rain, not a lot. Because that road is also nearly impassable when it rains a lot -- all those inches of thick, soft dust on the surface turn into thick, soft mud that sucks at the wheels of your car and makes passage even more difficult. But just enough rain, to wet down a few inches of dust and pack it a little, that would have helped.
However, no such luck. And I didn't mention that the road is not only a dirt road, with a lot of steep curves, ascents and declines, but it is also extremely lightly traveled and there are stretches where there is no human habitation visible. That is, it is a lonely, isolated country road. I don't worry about physical safety during the day (this is a road I would absolutely never travel after dark), but I do worry about traveling alone and having some kind of mechanical problem (I don't even want to tempt the fates by enumerating a few possible such mini-calamities) and not being near to anyone who could help.
No mechanical problems, but there was one very steep, dusty ascent that almost defeated me, to the point that I thought i might have to turn back to Santa Lucia de la Reforma and then, I wasn't sure what. There are two other routes to Momostenango, one of which is fully paved. It involves going to Los Encuentros, which is just over an hour and half from Chinique, and then to Cuatro Caminos (another hour), and then going up past San Francisco los Altos to Momos (another hour) -- so about 3-1/2 hours. That was why I'd chose the dirt-road route in the first place. To then have to turn back and drive another 4 hours was a depressing thought.
The road from Santa Lucia to Momostenango isn't marked at all, so I had to rely upon sense-memory, which fortunately worked. There's one real fork, and there was no one nearby to ask, but I sort of remembered that it was the left fork, and then I saw a car coming in the other direction and flagged him down to make sure I was in the right direction. He warned me about the dust, and he was right. I came around a curve, where there was a descent to a small concrete bridge, and then the road wound up steeply, with a sharp curve to the left and then another one higher up to the right. I could see even from a distance that there was a thick layer of dust. At times like this I sometimes think that it would be useful to be religious. Not that it would solve anything, but I could at least feel comforted by crossing myself or praying, or invoking the spirit of an orisha or an ancestor to guide and protect my path.
But I can't really fake it so I had to trust to dumb luck, the constellations, the new moon, whatever. Oh, and did I mention that my spare tire seems to have taken itself off to points unknown? My friend who had been keeping my car thought it might be in the garage in Chinique, the famous Taller VL (but called locally Taller Willy), where he had taken it some time back for some maintenance. He thought they had probably taken the spare out of the pick-up bed (where I usually keep it whenI travel), and he hadn't remembered to get it back from them. I tried calling Willy yesterday to see if he had the spare, but he didn't answer his phone and I got caught up with other things. So I was just hoping that all would be okay, and drove a bit more cautiously than usual. I did have some passengers for part of the trip - having some weight in the back of the pick up helps when there's not a lot of traction - but they had gotten off a few kilometers before this particularly treacherous slope.
So, first time I didn't make it as far as the first curve when the car started to spin its wheels. So I carefully backed down to the bridge (did I mention that I really do not like driving in reverse on a road that curves and slopes and is very slippery??), and a little bit back up the slope leading down to the bridge so I could get a bit of momentum. The second time I made it past the first curve, which was a sharper curve but a gentler slope, and then started to plow my way -- literally -- up the straighter but steeper second curve. The second the wheels started to spin (here they called it skating -- patinando) I stopped. Even more fun going down backwards this time, I assure you, as I was on a slipperier, curvier, steeper part of the road. The third time was no better. I pulled back down part way again, and turned the car off and sat and thought. I called Julian, the person at the radio in Momostenango, but he didn't answer. I couldn't really think of what I could do. Going back was admitting defeat, and it also meant having to do some major rearrangement of my schedule since, as usual, I am trying to fit a lot into limited time.
My original plan was not to come to Momostenango today, Instead, I had planned to set out yesterday for the town of Santa Eulalia in Huehuetenango and a radio station called Snuq Jolom Konob' , but I had also wanted to include three other stops in Huehuetenango, to the town of Santa Cruz Barillas where the townspeople have risen up, so to speak, against a proposed hydroelectric project, to the town of San Juan Ixcoy (which is on the way to Santa Eulalia) and possibly to Todos Santos Cuchumatán. When I called my friend Lorenzo at Snuq Jolom, he told me that the trip to Barillas was two hours at least from Santa Eulalia. I realized that it would be hard to squeeze all of that in, since I was invited to a ceremony on the 31st at the house of friends in Santa Cruz del Quiché. Also -- true confessions time -- I had some grades I still had to calculate. The final straw was that I had wanted to spend some time with my friend Ixchel at Radio Ixmukané - the radio station where I had worked in 2011 and which had launched me, so to speak, into the community radio movement. I have promised to help out as I can supporting Ixchel and Diego -- the coordinator and co-coordinator of Radio Ixmukané -- and when I called Ixchel to find out when we could spend a couple of hours together meeting and working on some plans for next year, the 31st seemed like the best time. So I decided to postpone going to Huehue until I could have several consecutive days, which meant sometime next week (as I don't yet have plans between the 3rd and the 13th), and then figuring out how to fill the time productively.
A quick call to Julian in Momostenango assured me that he would definitely be around today, and then I got the phone number of Glenda, a young woman who had traveled with me, Ixchel and one of the volunteers from Radio Ixmukané to visit Radio Ixchel in Sumpango on Friday. Glenda holds three different titles in the various competitions for "indigenous queen/princess/daughter of the people" -- there are a lot of competitions, at community, municipal, departmental and national levels, so it is possible for one person to hold several titles simultaneously. She had impressed me with her articulateness when we were at Radio Ixchel and so I thought it would be interesting to interview her, since I had formerly been interested in the whole spectrum of "indigenous queen/princess" pageants in terms of the representation of Maya women. She was available on the 31st, so my plan was set, and I spent Saturday (yesterday) taking care of tedious but necessary tasks like grading and cleaning up my hard drive. Labors lightened, of course, by the consumption of a couple of lattes in my favorite upscale café in Santa Cruz (it's the only one, so it has to be my favorite).
So, I was really determined to get to Momostenango. It was already about 10:15 when I stopped my car and sat and thought, and if I turned back I wouldn't be likely to find another station near enough to visit -- even if I could find someone who was able to receive me. So, I looked and saw that there was a very small area that was sort of flat, at the top of the first curve, almost a shoulder, and I pulled back onto it, sat a few minutes, and then mustered up whatever I had, revved the car. I decided to go kind of hell-bent-for-leather, hoping that if I floored it at the right time I'd make it up... and I was right, although there was a moment after the second curve when I thought I was going to backslide once again.
Then another several kilometers of dirt road, with a few small patches of pavement occasionally. About a kilometer and a half after my near-miss, there were two men who flagged me down. I only wished I'd had them on board earlier as the weight would have helped. They went with me as far as Momostenango, and I've been here often enough that I was easily able to make it to the radio station, which is in Julian's home. This is not uncommon for community radio stations, since the stations run on a shoestring, and are mostly staffed by volunteers, so unless there is some institution that wants to donate space (this is the case in Santa Eulalia: the municipality has given the station a small space in the back of the municipal building).
I'll leave it at this for now, and start another entry about radio more specifically.
So I would have done better to have wished for a little bit of rain -- a little rain, not a lot. Because that road is also nearly impassable when it rains a lot -- all those inches of thick, soft dust on the surface turn into thick, soft mud that sucks at the wheels of your car and makes passage even more difficult. But just enough rain, to wet down a few inches of dust and pack it a little, that would have helped.
However, no such luck. And I didn't mention that the road is not only a dirt road, with a lot of steep curves, ascents and declines, but it is also extremely lightly traveled and there are stretches where there is no human habitation visible. That is, it is a lonely, isolated country road. I don't worry about physical safety during the day (this is a road I would absolutely never travel after dark), but I do worry about traveling alone and having some kind of mechanical problem (I don't even want to tempt the fates by enumerating a few possible such mini-calamities) and not being near to anyone who could help.
No mechanical problems, but there was one very steep, dusty ascent that almost defeated me, to the point that I thought i might have to turn back to Santa Lucia de la Reforma and then, I wasn't sure what. There are two other routes to Momostenango, one of which is fully paved. It involves going to Los Encuentros, which is just over an hour and half from Chinique, and then to Cuatro Caminos (another hour), and then going up past San Francisco los Altos to Momos (another hour) -- so about 3-1/2 hours. That was why I'd chose the dirt-road route in the first place. To then have to turn back and drive another 4 hours was a depressing thought.
The road from Santa Lucia to Momostenango isn't marked at all, so I had to rely upon sense-memory, which fortunately worked. There's one real fork, and there was no one nearby to ask, but I sort of remembered that it was the left fork, and then I saw a car coming in the other direction and flagged him down to make sure I was in the right direction. He warned me about the dust, and he was right. I came around a curve, where there was a descent to a small concrete bridge, and then the road wound up steeply, with a sharp curve to the left and then another one higher up to the right. I could see even from a distance that there was a thick layer of dust. At times like this I sometimes think that it would be useful to be religious. Not that it would solve anything, but I could at least feel comforted by crossing myself or praying, or invoking the spirit of an orisha or an ancestor to guide and protect my path.
But I can't really fake it so I had to trust to dumb luck, the constellations, the new moon, whatever. Oh, and did I mention that my spare tire seems to have taken itself off to points unknown? My friend who had been keeping my car thought it might be in the garage in Chinique, the famous Taller VL (but called locally Taller Willy), where he had taken it some time back for some maintenance. He thought they had probably taken the spare out of the pick-up bed (where I usually keep it whenI travel), and he hadn't remembered to get it back from them. I tried calling Willy yesterday to see if he had the spare, but he didn't answer his phone and I got caught up with other things. So I was just hoping that all would be okay, and drove a bit more cautiously than usual. I did have some passengers for part of the trip - having some weight in the back of the pick up helps when there's not a lot of traction - but they had gotten off a few kilometers before this particularly treacherous slope.
So, first time I didn't make it as far as the first curve when the car started to spin its wheels. So I carefully backed down to the bridge (did I mention that I really do not like driving in reverse on a road that curves and slopes and is very slippery??), and a little bit back up the slope leading down to the bridge so I could get a bit of momentum. The second time I made it past the first curve, which was a sharper curve but a gentler slope, and then started to plow my way -- literally -- up the straighter but steeper second curve. The second the wheels started to spin (here they called it skating -- patinando) I stopped. Even more fun going down backwards this time, I assure you, as I was on a slipperier, curvier, steeper part of the road. The third time was no better. I pulled back down part way again, and turned the car off and sat and thought. I called Julian, the person at the radio in Momostenango, but he didn't answer. I couldn't really think of what I could do. Going back was admitting defeat, and it also meant having to do some major rearrangement of my schedule since, as usual, I am trying to fit a lot into limited time.
My original plan was not to come to Momostenango today, Instead, I had planned to set out yesterday for the town of Santa Eulalia in Huehuetenango and a radio station called Snuq Jolom Konob' , but I had also wanted to include three other stops in Huehuetenango, to the town of Santa Cruz Barillas where the townspeople have risen up, so to speak, against a proposed hydroelectric project, to the town of San Juan Ixcoy (which is on the way to Santa Eulalia) and possibly to Todos Santos Cuchumatán. When I called my friend Lorenzo at Snuq Jolom, he told me that the trip to Barillas was two hours at least from Santa Eulalia. I realized that it would be hard to squeeze all of that in, since I was invited to a ceremony on the 31st at the house of friends in Santa Cruz del Quiché. Also -- true confessions time -- I had some grades I still had to calculate. The final straw was that I had wanted to spend some time with my friend Ixchel at Radio Ixmukané - the radio station where I had worked in 2011 and which had launched me, so to speak, into the community radio movement. I have promised to help out as I can supporting Ixchel and Diego -- the coordinator and co-coordinator of Radio Ixmukané -- and when I called Ixchel to find out when we could spend a couple of hours together meeting and working on some plans for next year, the 31st seemed like the best time. So I decided to postpone going to Huehue until I could have several consecutive days, which meant sometime next week (as I don't yet have plans between the 3rd and the 13th), and then figuring out how to fill the time productively.
A quick call to Julian in Momostenango assured me that he would definitely be around today, and then I got the phone number of Glenda, a young woman who had traveled with me, Ixchel and one of the volunteers from Radio Ixmukané to visit Radio Ixchel in Sumpango on Friday. Glenda holds three different titles in the various competitions for "indigenous queen/princess/daughter of the people" -- there are a lot of competitions, at community, municipal, departmental and national levels, so it is possible for one person to hold several titles simultaneously. She had impressed me with her articulateness when we were at Radio Ixchel and so I thought it would be interesting to interview her, since I had formerly been interested in the whole spectrum of "indigenous queen/princess" pageants in terms of the representation of Maya women. She was available on the 31st, so my plan was set, and I spent Saturday (yesterday) taking care of tedious but necessary tasks like grading and cleaning up my hard drive. Labors lightened, of course, by the consumption of a couple of lattes in my favorite upscale café in Santa Cruz (it's the only one, so it has to be my favorite).
So, I was really determined to get to Momostenango. It was already about 10:15 when I stopped my car and sat and thought, and if I turned back I wouldn't be likely to find another station near enough to visit -- even if I could find someone who was able to receive me. So, I looked and saw that there was a very small area that was sort of flat, at the top of the first curve, almost a shoulder, and I pulled back onto it, sat a few minutes, and then mustered up whatever I had, revved the car. I decided to go kind of hell-bent-for-leather, hoping that if I floored it at the right time I'd make it up... and I was right, although there was a moment after the second curve when I thought I was going to backslide once again.
Then another several kilometers of dirt road, with a few small patches of pavement occasionally. About a kilometer and a half after my near-miss, there were two men who flagged me down. I only wished I'd had them on board earlier as the weight would have helped. They went with me as far as Momostenango, and I've been here often enough that I was easily able to make it to the radio station, which is in Julian's home. This is not uncommon for community radio stations, since the stations run on a shoestring, and are mostly staffed by volunteers, so unless there is some institution that wants to donate space (this is the case in Santa Eulalia: the municipality has given the station a small space in the back of the municipal building).
I'll leave it at this for now, and start another entry about radio more specifically.
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