Guatemala: Day 5 (part 1)

Day 5: Saturday, 01/06/07

Tom’s birthday!

We woke up early again, this time to the loud sounds of an animal scratching in the roof of our cabin. We poked around, but couldn’t find it or get it to stop, so we gave up and got up! Mike went out in the yard to wait for Dani and me, and he saw what looked to be some sort of oriole. No picture, but he was pretty sure that’s what it was.

We went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, and this time I tried a fruit dish. There was a huge mound of cut fruit, slathered in yogurt and sprinkled with granola. The yogurt is thicker than ours, and the overall effect of the combination was wonderful.

After breakfast, Dani and I went up to the roof to look at the vertical farms on the side of the volcano directly across the lake.

While up there, we saw one of the two hotel cats sunning itself on the roof, rolling around and having a good old time. Until the shadow of a hawk passed over it, or maybe it was an eagle. Whatever it was, there were quite a few of them and they were really BIG! The cat sprang up immediately, crouched and checked out the situation, and then scrambled off the roof as fast as it could.

We waited out front for our morning pickup, and I saw several very young, very tiny stick children go by, with enormous loads of wood on their backs, slung around their foreheads. It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that we would see the results of a lifetime of carrying wood this way.

Tom and Nate stopped by with the van. The first stop was to drop the boys—Hugo, David, Micah, Eduardo, and Julio—at a spot where they could catch buses to the various towns they were traveling to. Then off we went to the vegetable market. What an experience! Pushing and shoving is the only way to navigate, and is totally expected behavior. Tom has several favorite merchants where he knows he will get a good deal and good quality produce. There was not as much haggling over price as in the other markets, but Tom has reason to expect a good deal since he buys so much. We fill huge netting bags and lug them around with us.

Nate and Tom are huge too. There they are in the middle of this shot, with full-sized Mayan women around them. It was extremely easy to keep track of them in the marketplace!

Finally we headed on out to the house. There was still plenty of time to get some work done while the kids did schoolwork, so Mike went off with Tom to do some work on the generator. Dani helped me with finishing up the school books, de-spidering the kitchen, and then helping to prepare lunch. We fixed sandwiches and melons from the market while Nate made coleslaw from produce we had bought. Just as we were finishing up preparations, Tom came in, joking that Mike hadn’t wanted to stop for lunch and he had to drag him back to the house. Probably the reality was that we were all still full from breakfast! The hotel portions were enormous.

Directly after lunch, Deborah called for a few of the kids to go up to the family loft and work on a drama called “The King of Hearts”. Claudia, Sabina, Joey, Edwin, and Dora played the various parts. The kids were preparing the drama for their church service in the plaza tomorrow. Dani and I watched for awhile, and then went down to chat with Susan while she made Tom’s birthday cakes. It takes quite a few cakes to feed that many kids! Mike returned to the generator with Tom, promising to keep Tom busy and out of the kitchen.

Around 3:00, Mike returned to the house so that we could go pick up the ice cream and keep it secret from both Tom and the kids. Only Deborah and Susan are supposed to know about it. Maybe! Anyway, Susan discovered that we had forgotten to buy eggs in the morning, so that was the excuse we used to grab the van and head out.

While Nate and Mike bought and hauled flats of eggs, Dani and I stayed to guard the van. That’s when I saw the terrible long-term results of being a stick person. I saw men who were old before their time, bent completely over with permanently deformed spines from the carrying method they use, their legs badly bowed outwards. They walked with great difficulty. It was terrible and disturbing to see.

There’s not really that much about the Mayan region that was disturbing, really. The people are mostly thin from hard work, but they were not hungry. Susan had told us that people are allowed to have vegetable gardens on government land, so even those who are not landowners have plenty to eat. It was the dry season while were there, so there was dust everywhere, but the men and women were very clean. Even though they dress with a bit more coverage than you might expect for a warm climate (with modesty!), the marketplace is remarkably free from the smell of body odor. The women’s hair is lustrous and clean. The children play in the dirt, but they were not filthy or be-draggled. Just plain grubby, like children everywhere!

At the hotel, we picked up our ice cream and headed back to the house to stow it away for dessert.