bye-bye to xela and the amazing folks, land of hippies and bongs made out of bamboo accompanied by didgerydoos, emotional turmoil, antigua and flocks of tourists in matching shirts and wearing florescent tags like over-priced cattle...leaving guatemala for honduras and saying hello to new beer.
friends, times are crazy and whirlwinds remain. sorry for the lack of posts and there will be no effort to compensate, just some random notes for myself and of course you, that eleven-year old from denmark that keeps emailing me urging me to use proper english. fucking danes, tall, smart as hell and proper english and spanish grammar.
at this hour, my grandmother is on her deathbed. no one knows how many more breaths she has in her emphysemad lungs that have failed her for over a decade. she stopped smoking over 25 years ago and for the last three shes been sliding fast, especially in the last six months and in particular, the last two weeks. just a note for now, but she, clearly, is in my mind and im not able to write without thinking of her suffering in kansas surrounded by hospice and grieving family and me down here in the land of funny birds and mad suffering...im not going to plunge into the ramble of life, death, suffering, universiality and all that cause in the past folks have hired me out to ramble on that instead of taking sleeping pills...in short, though, love those you love while you can, no? thats that.
back to avoidance --
i just got a ramble from this guy about since i used to work for a human rights organization i should take up his case to help him attain rights to see his daughter...you know those conversations? that shit is heavy. im on a heavy theme so lets think dreamy, okay, days in lago on secluded beaches, playing lord of the rings but having no villan, hurling myself off rickety docks, crystal waters, love of lanchas and boat rides, breakfast with the most amazing 11 year old ive ever met, sofia of san marcos, meeting benjamin at hotel paz and this cat is beautiful and quirky in the most subdued way i can imagine, dancing late at night to great sounds, running from other shows that sounded like cats mating and if you have heard that you know what im fucking talking about, seeing a jim carry movie, hugh, playing chess, having people rock my soul and feeling it in me toes, getting robbed and having a little of that polar emotional thing going, eating some dank good eats, wandering cobblestone streets alone, feeling really confident wtih my spainsh, the cycle of encounters and smiling faces and hitching random directions and loving men that have fun hair and crazy eyes, power of stars and my fascination with orions belt now that i know more about mayan philosophy, wanting to meet a philosopher of time, journaling in random-ass places, finally being able to have humor come out in another language, ability to start embracing my love for papusas, meeting cristian the biker from switzerland that has been biking for two years and is more beautiful than the peaks he has crossed -- inspirational and funny as hell, bottling peoples laughs, wishing i had a camera cause of the fucking advertisements here...especially a certain beer is only for the beautiful people, finding peace in crazy situations, finding peace while clutching the ohh shit rails on buses and knowing it is alllllll good, seeing cnn for the first time and hearing bush is trying to sell us ports to dubai, what the fuck, ill get more on the flip, yall
love
2.27.2006
¡ROBBED! -- mother fuckers
not much to say on getting robbed other than it is the first time for me and it was a biggy. most important -- my friend arlene and i are not hurt physically -- pockets feel aching pain from malnutrition and emotions dance with the whole thing. im trying to look at it like losing my virginity and naivete and accepting the delicate balance, often forced, that will come with extreme privilege and extreme poverty.
but, there is nothing worse than getting robbed after youve gone to the fucking atm, taking mad bank out, AND paid a ridiculous fee. ON top of that, i was carrying my good friend Arlene´s money as well...but, heres a plug for her AMAZING ART -- http://textanudes.net/
many lessons learned and i aint got no hate, but i aint got no love either...im hand-less for those that remember spike lees do the right thing...
but, there is nothing worse than getting robbed after youve gone to the fucking atm, taking mad bank out, AND paid a ridiculous fee. ON top of that, i was carrying my good friend Arlene´s money as well...but, heres a plug for her AMAZING ART -- http://textanudes.net/
many lessons learned and i aint got no hate, but i aint got no love either...im hand-less for those that remember spike lees do the right thing...
2.17.2006
One Year Later: La Comunidad La Florida and the Campesino Struggle for Justice
The rich, volcanic soil of Colomba in the western highlands of Quetzaltenango is known by coffee connoisseurs and buyers for yielding some of the finest coffee in the world. However, it is also known as a region rife with unemployment, extreme poverty, campesino (worker) struggles for unpaid wages and occupations of land. It is here where a group of landless campesinos occupied La Florida, an abandoned finca ( farm), for 26 months in order to purchase the land and establish a cooperative community rooted in democratic decision making, justice and ecological sustainability.
In 1984, 28 years into a brutal, 36-year civil war that claimed over 200,000 lives and displaced over 1 million Guatemalans, a group of campesinos formed SCIDECO (Sociedad Civil para el Desarrollo de Colomba – Civil Society for the Development of Colomba), a labor union designed to combat the violation of rights and to improve the lives of campesinos. ¨When we started SCIDECO everyone was seeking work. Men and women would leave the house, often with children, to look for work in the remaining, operating fincas in the region. We started our days at four in the morning and hoped to not only find work, but also get paid – which was becoming increasingly rare," said member Rosarara Mejia Rosales.
To make matters worse for activists, many plantation owners established a 'blacklist' of campesinos that were organizers or involved in labor disputes. Blacklisted campesinos would routinely be turned away from work or refused payment for their labor. In addition, according to Lorenzo Acjá, an original member of SCIDECO, "this was a dangerous time to start organizing because the owners said we were guerrillas. But we had to risk it due to the poverty we lived in."
Despite repeated threats and an increasing climate of terror and economic crisis, members continued to work to improve the lives of the campesinos. While SCIDECO grew in size and strength, they were negotiating for land and working in a very harsh political and economic climate. However, in December of 1996 the government of Alvaro Arzú and the four guerrilla forces that united to form URNG (Unión Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca -- Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity) signed the United Nations-backed peace accords which call for a host of reforms, including focus on indigenous rights, health care, education, accountability for the human rights' violations of the military during the civil war, the resettlement of displaced persons and the incorporation of former guerrilla fighters into civilian life.
As the ink was drying on the peace accords coffee prices were dropping to record lows. As a result, owners further decreased the compensation, if at all, of farm workers and many owners filed for bankruptcy, leaving land abandoned and campesinos unpaid. At this time, there was a further concentration of land that remains today with only 2% of the population owning 70% of farmable land. With over one decade of negotiations with the government, members of SCIDECO had not received any land. Moreover, despite the creation of FONTIERRAS, an autonomous government agency tasked to address the call for land redistribution outlined in the peace accords by purchasing and allocating it to poor farmers, only 9,874 families had benefited in the first five years of FONTIERRAS´ activity .
After over two decades of organizing, members learned of La Florida, a very large finca with over 47 acres that was abandoned by its owner in 1994. According to Lorenzo Acjá, "the results of the negotiations were very poor during the eighties and nineties and therefore we knew that we had to use more drastic means to put pressure on the government ."
At four in the morning on October 11, 2002 over 100 members descended the rich hills and occupied La Florida. Due to the lack of work and threats of violence many members of SCIDECO moved to nearby urban areas to find work leaving 22 families, with persons ranging in age from 6 months to 70 years, to make a life out of a finca that had been abandoned for over eight years. The families had huge amounts of land, firewood and access to fruit trees and an ample source of pure water. However, they had no infrastructure or supplies. Without houses or existing structures, they created homes out of scrap metal, nylon, bamboo and anything else they could harness to keep the elements, particularly the violent rains, out of their new homes.
For 26 months these 22 families worked the land for food and collectively designed a community rooted in democracy and social and environmental sustainability. All decisions were made by the group in total where each person had one vote and no one person or group had veto power. They established open committees to carry out the wishes of the community and to address such issues as health care, education, safety, farming, firewood, infant care, economic and legal needs. In addition, they voted for a five-person negotiation team to start negotiations with the bank and the government to purchase La Florida.
Despite constant threats of violence, all those I spoke with that lived in the encampment during the occupation during my weeks in La Florida asserted that the life they were building together was a drastic improvement to the harsh political and economic climate just a few kilometers away. According to Emelia Esperanza Acjá, a mother of four, who gave birth to her youngest daughter in the encampment during the occupation, life was ¨incredibly difficult and required all of our individual and collective strength; but, it was much better, particularly for the women because we have rights, make decisions and we don't have a boss – our lives are free here.¨
The community received logistical help from a host of organizations during the occupation and that support continued with lawyers and financial advisers during the negotiations. Eighteen months into the occupation members were facing various obstacles ranging from a price tag of 12 million quetzals ($1.57 million), a presidential election, a new administration, the daily struggle for survival and constant fear of violence. As a result, the negotiations were at a stand-still.
Consequently, the community decided they needed to amplify their tactics and chose to occupy and live in the heavily trafficked road that connects Colomba to Quetzaltenango, the regional capitol. They agreed to let the government know of their plans and because the community had never threatened a similar action, the government took the threat seriously and rekindled the negotiation process. Five months later, on April 29, 2004 the community purchased La Florida with a governmental loan of 6.5 million quetzals ($843,000 USD) to be paid off in 8 years, without interest – just over half the price originally offered.
This month La Florida will celebrate their one year anniversary and advances of democratic-decision making, utilization of committees and the distribution and rotation of workloads to create the community they have envisioned for over three decades. Members work both cooperatively for the community on communal land and each family has a half acre to cultivate their own crops.
As for the utilization of communal land, with over 47 acres and under 100 campesinos working the fields, they have decided to begin cultivating half of the land that resides at the highest altitude with the most shade. This will help to ensure that all of their coffee is shade-grown. Moreover, members of La Florida have started various re-forestation projects to provide both shade and to ensure that six macadamia trees and six banana or plantain trees are on each cuerdra, or 20 meters squared of land to cultivate three cash crops at once. In addition, the community has been working to attain organic and fair trade certification within the next two years to "ensure that we get a just price for our coffee and we keep the soil and ourselves free of toxins," said Cleminte Basques Samayor, coordinator of the finance committee.
Water is in abundance at La Florida and a channel system flows through the community to a pool, large sinks used for cleaning clothes and dishes, and to all of the clusters of houses to ensure all persons have easy access to potable water. Also, water has been harnessed for electricity and a corn and bean grinder which provides the basic structure of diet for all in the community – tortillas and beans.
At the moment there are no salaries for the campesinos. Consequently, the only source of income for families is to sell what they cultivate individually or what cultivate from their individual land. To help address this, the community, with the help of Danish volunteers Bo Karlsen, whom lived with the community during the occupation, and Emil Birk, has initiated an ecotourism project. "Ecotourism is a way for us to support our families and provide an opportunity for interested visitors to learn the perspective of campesinos, live and learn with us," Cleminte Basques Samayor.
Visitors stay in the casa grande, the house of the former owner, and eat all of their meals with one of the 34 rotating families. Visitors and volunteers can not only live and work with campesinos to get the 'real' Guatemalan experience and perspective, they can also eat honey off the comb on the way to a series of waterfalls, trek through dense forest, climb cacao trees, grind the seeds and make hot chocolate, visit Mayan ceremonial sites on the property, learn each step of the coffee harvest, tend to animals, and learn the medicinal uses of plants. Moreover, there are also opportunities for individuals to contribute their own skills to the community via working in the fields, carpentry, teaching English, and math or adult literacy classes.
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
While I was in La Florida members held a meeting with campesinos from Nueva Florencia, a neighboring finca where workers hadn't received payment in years. A few days before I left the campesinos of Nueva Florencia occupied the finca demanding compensation. As a response, the owner exponentially increased security forces and tensions were boiling.
Though current President Oscar Berger was president during the negotiations and finalized the loan for the purchase of La Florida, he is not known for his support of campesinos. In contrast to the public relations stunt that the Berger Administration orchestrated at La Florida when the community bought the finca, in particular landing on the soccer field, the Berger Administration has been evicting campesinos from encampments at alarming rates. Within his first 6 months in office, Berger evicted 31 campesino encampments compared with just 5 in his predecessor, Alfonso Portillo´s entire 4 years in office.
In particular, the massacre of finca Nueva Linda remains the most noted incident of violence during the Berger Administration and an open wound for campesinos throughout Guatemala. In the early hours on August 31, 2004, 800 agents of the special police force and private security personnel of Nueva Linda entered an encampment of campesinos that occupied the finca for over one year to protest the disappearance of Hecto Reyes Perez, their friend and lead organizer who vanished one month earlier. What started as an eviction turned into an operation of 1,200 armed officers, two tanks and four arms-firing helicopters and resulted in scorched earth, four police officers and eight campesinos killed – five of which, according to the Human Rights Ombudsman´s Office, by extrajudicial killings carried out by the police.
I was curious as to what Cleminte Basques Samayor, a man who negotiated with the Berger Administration and has worked for fincas up and down Central America, thought the future would hold for the campesinos of Nueva Florencia and what role La Florida might play during their struggle. He paused for a moment, looked across the horizon and said ¨this is the same story of oppression and lack of justice that the campesinos have always faced. Campesinos have been killed, as in Nueva Linda, and our friends at Nueva Florencia are in their tenth day of a new chapter of their life-long struggle for justice. We believe our victory and work here helps to create a new model for campesino communities and a new model for the future.¨
Get Involved!
Learn of the history and vision of the future first hand from the people who lived it by visiting or volunteering at La Florida. Visit http://www.websamba.com/laflorida
Chris Michael is a free-lance writer with an insatiable appetite for honey. To read more of his work or contact him, please visit http://chrismichael.blogspot.com
In 1984, 28 years into a brutal, 36-year civil war that claimed over 200,000 lives and displaced over 1 million Guatemalans, a group of campesinos formed SCIDECO (Sociedad Civil para el Desarrollo de Colomba – Civil Society for the Development of Colomba), a labor union designed to combat the violation of rights and to improve the lives of campesinos. ¨When we started SCIDECO everyone was seeking work. Men and women would leave the house, often with children, to look for work in the remaining, operating fincas in the region. We started our days at four in the morning and hoped to not only find work, but also get paid – which was becoming increasingly rare," said member Rosarara Mejia Rosales.
To make matters worse for activists, many plantation owners established a 'blacklist' of campesinos that were organizers or involved in labor disputes. Blacklisted campesinos would routinely be turned away from work or refused payment for their labor. In addition, according to Lorenzo Acjá, an original member of SCIDECO, "this was a dangerous time to start organizing because the owners said we were guerrillas. But we had to risk it due to the poverty we lived in."
Despite repeated threats and an increasing climate of terror and economic crisis, members continued to work to improve the lives of the campesinos. While SCIDECO grew in size and strength, they were negotiating for land and working in a very harsh political and economic climate. However, in December of 1996 the government of Alvaro Arzú and the four guerrilla forces that united to form URNG (Unión Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca -- Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity) signed the United Nations-backed peace accords which call for a host of reforms, including focus on indigenous rights, health care, education, accountability for the human rights' violations of the military during the civil war, the resettlement of displaced persons and the incorporation of former guerrilla fighters into civilian life.
As the ink was drying on the peace accords coffee prices were dropping to record lows. As a result, owners further decreased the compensation, if at all, of farm workers and many owners filed for bankruptcy, leaving land abandoned and campesinos unpaid. At this time, there was a further concentration of land that remains today with only 2% of the population owning 70% of farmable land. With over one decade of negotiations with the government, members of SCIDECO had not received any land. Moreover, despite the creation of FONTIERRAS, an autonomous government agency tasked to address the call for land redistribution outlined in the peace accords by purchasing and allocating it to poor farmers, only 9,874 families had benefited in the first five years of FONTIERRAS´ activity .
After over two decades of organizing, members learned of La Florida, a very large finca with over 47 acres that was abandoned by its owner in 1994. According to Lorenzo Acjá, "the results of the negotiations were very poor during the eighties and nineties and therefore we knew that we had to use more drastic means to put pressure on the government ."
At four in the morning on October 11, 2002 over 100 members descended the rich hills and occupied La Florida. Due to the lack of work and threats of violence many members of SCIDECO moved to nearby urban areas to find work leaving 22 families, with persons ranging in age from 6 months to 70 years, to make a life out of a finca that had been abandoned for over eight years. The families had huge amounts of land, firewood and access to fruit trees and an ample source of pure water. However, they had no infrastructure or supplies. Without houses or existing structures, they created homes out of scrap metal, nylon, bamboo and anything else they could harness to keep the elements, particularly the violent rains, out of their new homes.
For 26 months these 22 families worked the land for food and collectively designed a community rooted in democracy and social and environmental sustainability. All decisions were made by the group in total where each person had one vote and no one person or group had veto power. They established open committees to carry out the wishes of the community and to address such issues as health care, education, safety, farming, firewood, infant care, economic and legal needs. In addition, they voted for a five-person negotiation team to start negotiations with the bank and the government to purchase La Florida.
Despite constant threats of violence, all those I spoke with that lived in the encampment during the occupation during my weeks in La Florida asserted that the life they were building together was a drastic improvement to the harsh political and economic climate just a few kilometers away. According to Emelia Esperanza Acjá, a mother of four, who gave birth to her youngest daughter in the encampment during the occupation, life was ¨incredibly difficult and required all of our individual and collective strength; but, it was much better, particularly for the women because we have rights, make decisions and we don't have a boss – our lives are free here.¨
The community received logistical help from a host of organizations during the occupation and that support continued with lawyers and financial advisers during the negotiations. Eighteen months into the occupation members were facing various obstacles ranging from a price tag of 12 million quetzals ($1.57 million), a presidential election, a new administration, the daily struggle for survival and constant fear of violence. As a result, the negotiations were at a stand-still.
Consequently, the community decided they needed to amplify their tactics and chose to occupy and live in the heavily trafficked road that connects Colomba to Quetzaltenango, the regional capitol. They agreed to let the government know of their plans and because the community had never threatened a similar action, the government took the threat seriously and rekindled the negotiation process. Five months later, on April 29, 2004 the community purchased La Florida with a governmental loan of 6.5 million quetzals ($843,000 USD) to be paid off in 8 years, without interest – just over half the price originally offered.
This month La Florida will celebrate their one year anniversary and advances of democratic-decision making, utilization of committees and the distribution and rotation of workloads to create the community they have envisioned for over three decades. Members work both cooperatively for the community on communal land and each family has a half acre to cultivate their own crops.
As for the utilization of communal land, with over 47 acres and under 100 campesinos working the fields, they have decided to begin cultivating half of the land that resides at the highest altitude with the most shade. This will help to ensure that all of their coffee is shade-grown. Moreover, members of La Florida have started various re-forestation projects to provide both shade and to ensure that six macadamia trees and six banana or plantain trees are on each cuerdra, or 20 meters squared of land to cultivate three cash crops at once. In addition, the community has been working to attain organic and fair trade certification within the next two years to "ensure that we get a just price for our coffee and we keep the soil and ourselves free of toxins," said Cleminte Basques Samayor, coordinator of the finance committee.
Water is in abundance at La Florida and a channel system flows through the community to a pool, large sinks used for cleaning clothes and dishes, and to all of the clusters of houses to ensure all persons have easy access to potable water. Also, water has been harnessed for electricity and a corn and bean grinder which provides the basic structure of diet for all in the community – tortillas and beans.
At the moment there are no salaries for the campesinos. Consequently, the only source of income for families is to sell what they cultivate individually or what cultivate from their individual land. To help address this, the community, with the help of Danish volunteers Bo Karlsen, whom lived with the community during the occupation, and Emil Birk, has initiated an ecotourism project. "Ecotourism is a way for us to support our families and provide an opportunity for interested visitors to learn the perspective of campesinos, live and learn with us," Cleminte Basques Samayor.
Visitors stay in the casa grande, the house of the former owner, and eat all of their meals with one of the 34 rotating families. Visitors and volunteers can not only live and work with campesinos to get the 'real' Guatemalan experience and perspective, they can also eat honey off the comb on the way to a series of waterfalls, trek through dense forest, climb cacao trees, grind the seeds and make hot chocolate, visit Mayan ceremonial sites on the property, learn each step of the coffee harvest, tend to animals, and learn the medicinal uses of plants. Moreover, there are also opportunities for individuals to contribute their own skills to the community via working in the fields, carpentry, teaching English, and math or adult literacy classes.
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
While I was in La Florida members held a meeting with campesinos from Nueva Florencia, a neighboring finca where workers hadn't received payment in years. A few days before I left the campesinos of Nueva Florencia occupied the finca demanding compensation. As a response, the owner exponentially increased security forces and tensions were boiling.
Though current President Oscar Berger was president during the negotiations and finalized the loan for the purchase of La Florida, he is not known for his support of campesinos. In contrast to the public relations stunt that the Berger Administration orchestrated at La Florida when the community bought the finca, in particular landing on the soccer field, the Berger Administration has been evicting campesinos from encampments at alarming rates. Within his first 6 months in office, Berger evicted 31 campesino encampments compared with just 5 in his predecessor, Alfonso Portillo´s entire 4 years in office.
In particular, the massacre of finca Nueva Linda remains the most noted incident of violence during the Berger Administration and an open wound for campesinos throughout Guatemala. In the early hours on August 31, 2004, 800 agents of the special police force and private security personnel of Nueva Linda entered an encampment of campesinos that occupied the finca for over one year to protest the disappearance of Hecto Reyes Perez, their friend and lead organizer who vanished one month earlier. What started as an eviction turned into an operation of 1,200 armed officers, two tanks and four arms-firing helicopters and resulted in scorched earth, four police officers and eight campesinos killed – five of which, according to the Human Rights Ombudsman´s Office, by extrajudicial killings carried out by the police.
I was curious as to what Cleminte Basques Samayor, a man who negotiated with the Berger Administration and has worked for fincas up and down Central America, thought the future would hold for the campesinos of Nueva Florencia and what role La Florida might play during their struggle. He paused for a moment, looked across the horizon and said ¨this is the same story of oppression and lack of justice that the campesinos have always faced. Campesinos have been killed, as in Nueva Linda, and our friends at Nueva Florencia are in their tenth day of a new chapter of their life-long struggle for justice. We believe our victory and work here helps to create a new model for campesino communities and a new model for the future.¨
Get Involved!
Learn of the history and vision of the future first hand from the people who lived it by visiting or volunteering at La Florida. Visit http://www.websamba.com/laflorida
Chris Michael is a free-lance writer with an insatiable appetite for honey. To read more of his work or contact him, please visit http://chrismichael.blogspot.com
2.15.2006
campesino power -- epic weeks with the folks of la florida
first, im trying to write an article about the history and less about my experience with the AMAZING people of la florida, a collective community that occupied an abandoned finca for 26 months and eventually won and know owns (well, in eight years) the finca. below is a stream of emotional notes cause i miss these folks terribly and my experience there was a ´changer´if you will...i cleaned my eyes and my perspective on a lot and feel fresh, though with a touch of dengue.
in short, la florida, more info at www.websamba.com/laflorida and ill finish this splotchy article here quick-like...is a community comprised of campesinos that are from one of the most fertile coffee producing regions in the world -- outside of colomba, guatemala. the environment in these parts is LUSH wiht rolling hills, mountains, volcanoes, LOTS of water and very old fincas checkered-in with dense forests, waterfalls and tens of thousands living in very harsh situations, with poverty and extreme poverty. during the civil war, 66-96, the mere allegation of being an activist of any sort could lead to execution. it was during the war that most of the core community of La florida, which is now 660 persons and 90 families, were organizers with an organization they founded in 1984 to improve the lives of campesinos and their families. HARSH climate to operate in, to say the least. in their view, there were no other options. owners had shifted from an hourly to a weight-based payment system, often never paid workers - some for over a decade - and those that were organizers were blacklisted and couldnt find work. civil war, no land, no payment and extreme poverty comprised the very basic context.
so, these folks were committed to create a new model of existence based upon universal rights, democracy and ecological sustainability. the VERY short of it is that they heard of la florida, a finca that had been abandoned for 8 years and decided to occupy it with a goal of purchasing it. they descended the hills of this MASSIVE finca (im trying to do the math but i get lost after 101) at 4am with nothing and proceeded to create a life off of overgrown land with no houses or infrastructure for 26 months...again, ill write more about this stuff so bounce back if you want.
9 months ago, after a series of very challenging negotiations with one, Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera , an admitted murderer and strong ally of the brutal dictator rios montt, and the other and current president oscar berger whos averaging 8 evictions of campesinos from farms per month, they secured a government loan -- half of what the government originally offered -- and now own (with a 8,500,000 price tag) la florida.
i was writing this yesterday and last night i wrote the article so if yall can just read the article on the blog. good on ya.
yo know i havent meant any Aussies on this journey nor any Israelis and those cats TRAVEL .
entonces, a few images and experiences im working to capsulate from my epic time with these incredibly strong, lovable folks from the hills where leaves are bigger than houses:
im gonna write about chicken buses later but a quick note about evangelical folks here and the HUGE numbers of folks that are ridding that train right now in guatemala and latin america in general, so i hear. anyway, im on a bus for two hours and my skin´s sticking to the vinyl seat and the kid next to me, my knees have put dents in the seat back in front of me cause im a bit of a giant here and to top it off im sitting right about the back wheels which, if you remember your youth, means you bounce like popcorn on us roads, imagine the strawberry on my ass from a off-the path journey...so, im on this bus and this woman gets up and starts to preach. im diggin it and getting giddy when i can understand three or four words and see the nonverbal reactions of folks -- especially when she approached her SECOND hour.
yall, these buses are hella crowded and old. take the chinatown buses in ny, take 20 years off the bus, paint it crazy colors with crosses and then cram three times the people and shit on there and throw some animals and bulk goods on the roof and youve got a taste of the chickenbus experience. add a 60 year old woman preaching the word while a bus lurches and we all hang on for our lives and the equation borders on absurd.
fortunately, that wasnt my ride to la florida, it was in the back of a pickup rolling through some of the most beautiful land ive ever seen -- rolling hills, volcanoes in the background and fincas in the fore. leaves bigger than the cars, waterfalls, huge birds, moist air and an environment of solidarity with other folks that are clutching tight and feeling a bit like kate winslet in titanic -- not the 'i wanna jump part', but the 'hold me leo, hold me part.'
i was with my school and brought my bags in case the community felt like a good place to explore for a few days...or a few weeks in my case. we had a great tour and conference highlighting their history and the history of campesinos in the region and then we had a huge feed.
after we said our goodbyes -- hollah for the danish crew -- i joined rosolio, one of the guides with a smile and use of hands for communication that kept me constantly smiley in his presence and oskar, a beautiful sweede that was my professor of spanish, guitar and the importance of miel -- honey, which means dandruff in sweedish...claire, i know you got a friend named miel so do with that info what you wish...
we went out with the machetes across this water channel system that flows through the community for fresh, potable water and electricity and ventured into the woods for what is the regions version of grass-weed and the only thing cows can munch on in these parts. after my instruction i got a few goes with the steel and did not cutoff my foot -- success for the day, i reckoned.
in these parts you will always see folks of all ages, 6 to 96, carrying firewood, boxes twice their size and this weed-grass by a string that goes around their head. vision a small toyota pickup carrying a semi´s load and that is kind of what it looks like but these folks often dont have shoes and arent just going for a casual few blocks, often they are journeying for a few miles. fortunately for the folks at la florida they have amble wood close by which is incredibly important because it is their only source of fire...
so, i gave a go carrying a load of weeds, not wood, about the size of what a 14 year old might rock as his OR her eighth load of the day and though i snapped my neck and was going to die. i tried to play it cool, which wasnt necessary for a lot of reasons in particularly because the palpable machismo culture often found, well, everywhere was no where to be found in the community...ill drop some words on that later.
night was glorious and i stayed with the family of the community be keeper and his wife that loved to wiggle her fingers in front of her mouth, like all folks there but especially her, to note the need for food, more food or anything related with food. needless to say we got along real well, real well. i mentioned my love for honey and we chatted about bees and how he climbed a tree to snag a hive and started the honey project with the first hive that yielded 5, FIVE, gallons of honey...i have a liter and a half that im travelling with. addicted. yep. addicted.
quickies: hiking through dense forest while eating honey from a slab of comb in my hand and frolicking naked in the woods and swimming under waterfalls with baudilio, a guide and guy that makes you want to rub his tummy and giggle. he might be the first love muffin ive met in guate... climbing cacao trees, grabbing seeds eating em whiile getting eating by mosquitoes the size of those little cars that i cant remember the name of so this note is not all that witty cause its just a run on sentence but its all good, learning about medicinal plants from rene every 40 feet on a hike, searching for odd chirpy things, seeing weeded-over and robbed graves, eating platanos and knowing i need to setup a stand in san fran when i get back, playing with kids and finding out that i do have patience -- maybe only while teaching adorable kids english, attending conferences and seeing real democracy thrive in a region so corrupt you can taste it, meeting doctors that utilize traditional plants to deal with everything under the sun, hearing the stories, particularly of those that lived in teh encampment during the occupation -- PERSPECTIVE.
ill write more when i get the time but i thought yall might want a drip or two of thougths.
much love and hope yall dont get shot by cheney -- bad joke but if youve read this far then i guess its your prize
in short, la florida, more info at www.websamba.com/laflorida and ill finish this splotchy article here quick-like...is a community comprised of campesinos that are from one of the most fertile coffee producing regions in the world -- outside of colomba, guatemala. the environment in these parts is LUSH wiht rolling hills, mountains, volcanoes, LOTS of water and very old fincas checkered-in with dense forests, waterfalls and tens of thousands living in very harsh situations, with poverty and extreme poverty. during the civil war, 66-96, the mere allegation of being an activist of any sort could lead to execution. it was during the war that most of the core community of La florida, which is now 660 persons and 90 families, were organizers with an organization they founded in 1984 to improve the lives of campesinos and their families. HARSH climate to operate in, to say the least. in their view, there were no other options. owners had shifted from an hourly to a weight-based payment system, often never paid workers - some for over a decade - and those that were organizers were blacklisted and couldnt find work. civil war, no land, no payment and extreme poverty comprised the very basic context.
so, these folks were committed to create a new model of existence based upon universal rights, democracy and ecological sustainability. the VERY short of it is that they heard of la florida, a finca that had been abandoned for 8 years and decided to occupy it with a goal of purchasing it. they descended the hills of this MASSIVE finca (im trying to do the math but i get lost after 101) at 4am with nothing and proceeded to create a life off of overgrown land with no houses or infrastructure for 26 months...again, ill write more about this stuff so bounce back if you want.
9 months ago, after a series of very challenging negotiations with one, Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera , an admitted murderer and strong ally of the brutal dictator rios montt, and the other and current president oscar berger whos averaging 8 evictions of campesinos from farms per month, they secured a government loan -- half of what the government originally offered -- and now own (with a 8,500,000 price tag) la florida.
i was writing this yesterday and last night i wrote the article so if yall can just read the article on the blog. good on ya.
yo know i havent meant any Aussies on this journey nor any Israelis and those cats TRAVEL .
entonces, a few images and experiences im working to capsulate from my epic time with these incredibly strong, lovable folks from the hills where leaves are bigger than houses:
im gonna write about chicken buses later but a quick note about evangelical folks here and the HUGE numbers of folks that are ridding that train right now in guatemala and latin america in general, so i hear. anyway, im on a bus for two hours and my skin´s sticking to the vinyl seat and the kid next to me, my knees have put dents in the seat back in front of me cause im a bit of a giant here and to top it off im sitting right about the back wheels which, if you remember your youth, means you bounce like popcorn on us roads, imagine the strawberry on my ass from a off-the path journey...so, im on this bus and this woman gets up and starts to preach. im diggin it and getting giddy when i can understand three or four words and see the nonverbal reactions of folks -- especially when she approached her SECOND hour.
yall, these buses are hella crowded and old. take the chinatown buses in ny, take 20 years off the bus, paint it crazy colors with crosses and then cram three times the people and shit on there and throw some animals and bulk goods on the roof and youve got a taste of the chickenbus experience. add a 60 year old woman preaching the word while a bus lurches and we all hang on for our lives and the equation borders on absurd.
fortunately, that wasnt my ride to la florida, it was in the back of a pickup rolling through some of the most beautiful land ive ever seen -- rolling hills, volcanoes in the background and fincas in the fore. leaves bigger than the cars, waterfalls, huge birds, moist air and an environment of solidarity with other folks that are clutching tight and feeling a bit like kate winslet in titanic -- not the 'i wanna jump part', but the 'hold me leo, hold me part.'
i was with my school and brought my bags in case the community felt like a good place to explore for a few days...or a few weeks in my case. we had a great tour and conference highlighting their history and the history of campesinos in the region and then we had a huge feed.
after we said our goodbyes -- hollah for the danish crew -- i joined rosolio, one of the guides with a smile and use of hands for communication that kept me constantly smiley in his presence and oskar, a beautiful sweede that was my professor of spanish, guitar and the importance of miel -- honey, which means dandruff in sweedish...claire, i know you got a friend named miel so do with that info what you wish...
we went out with the machetes across this water channel system that flows through the community for fresh, potable water and electricity and ventured into the woods for what is the regions version of grass-weed and the only thing cows can munch on in these parts. after my instruction i got a few goes with the steel and did not cutoff my foot -- success for the day, i reckoned.
in these parts you will always see folks of all ages, 6 to 96, carrying firewood, boxes twice their size and this weed-grass by a string that goes around their head. vision a small toyota pickup carrying a semi´s load and that is kind of what it looks like but these folks often dont have shoes and arent just going for a casual few blocks, often they are journeying for a few miles. fortunately for the folks at la florida they have amble wood close by which is incredibly important because it is their only source of fire...
so, i gave a go carrying a load of weeds, not wood, about the size of what a 14 year old might rock as his OR her eighth load of the day and though i snapped my neck and was going to die. i tried to play it cool, which wasnt necessary for a lot of reasons in particularly because the palpable machismo culture often found, well, everywhere was no where to be found in the community...ill drop some words on that later.
night was glorious and i stayed with the family of the community be keeper and his wife that loved to wiggle her fingers in front of her mouth, like all folks there but especially her, to note the need for food, more food or anything related with food. needless to say we got along real well, real well. i mentioned my love for honey and we chatted about bees and how he climbed a tree to snag a hive and started the honey project with the first hive that yielded 5, FIVE, gallons of honey...i have a liter and a half that im travelling with. addicted. yep. addicted.
quickies: hiking through dense forest while eating honey from a slab of comb in my hand and frolicking naked in the woods and swimming under waterfalls with baudilio, a guide and guy that makes you want to rub his tummy and giggle. he might be the first love muffin ive met in guate... climbing cacao trees, grabbing seeds eating em whiile getting eating by mosquitoes the size of those little cars that i cant remember the name of so this note is not all that witty cause its just a run on sentence but its all good, learning about medicinal plants from rene every 40 feet on a hike, searching for odd chirpy things, seeing weeded-over and robbed graves, eating platanos and knowing i need to setup a stand in san fran when i get back, playing with kids and finding out that i do have patience -- maybe only while teaching adorable kids english, attending conferences and seeing real democracy thrive in a region so corrupt you can taste it, meeting doctors that utilize traditional plants to deal with everything under the sun, hearing the stories, particularly of those that lived in teh encampment during the occupation -- PERSPECTIVE.
ill write more when i get the time but i thought yall might want a drip or two of thougths.
much love and hope yall dont get shot by cheney -- bad joke but if youve read this far then i guess its your prize
2.14.2006
earth was good -- mountain time
friends, ahhh how i may i describe my last few weeks. as always, there will be bubbles of thought and bursts and turns because i had coffee and my hands can keep only six sentences, or fragments and run-ons which are my specialty, behind my head. entonces, for those that speak spanish i hope you have the love for entonces cause i rock that like a chair on a porch in south carolina during a rainstorm and with lemonade, spiked of course, in my hand. shall we begin?
so, splitting from a mountainous town, feeling better -- thanks again for the notes -- and heading to the mountain school which is a sister school of where ive been studying for the first two weeks. im rolling with this group of danish women that are like skyscrapers and i feel like the old church that wont get torn down but is always looking up at these folks and feeling a little insecure. fabulous people...we get there and get a brief skinny from the coordinators about how the community is comprised of folks that have struggled for unpaid wages -- many for years -- and for land. those that could stay did and created three communities in an area that has the sixth lowest income in all of guatemala.
i kept the streak alive of fabulous teachers and not so fabulous food and ill take that equation anytime. like my previous professor anna in xela, abbi is studying law and works on the side for womens rights and literacy programs, while working full time and taking a full course load. the woman baffled me often and shared my deep love for hummingbirds and odd sounds from ducks. i learned a lot and my spanish improved exponentially....so, theres the context, heres a few bubbles:
pre-dawn hikes with stars like kansas fields shining the way through an OLD ass finca, coffee plantation, and weaving through banana, platano and avocado trees to a precipice that looked out onto a massive field of coffee plants and in the distance a mountain range nestled behind an active volcano that plumed smoke on the regular -- sunrises of crazy colors because of all the ash in the air which meant background, crazy colors, foreground active volcano and mountains and immediate some rolling finca love with birds darting around to deal with the mosquito problem. epic days there...also, i dont have a camera so that is my picture for ya.
learned a lot about the history of coffee and the region, campesino struggles and updates with regards to some of the successes -- see other article about la florida where i resided for some AMAZING time, many of the losses, murders and continued oppression of the berger administration which is booting campesinos off land at a rate of 8 per month -- not people, fincas, yall. often with force. more info, google nueva linda, guatemala murder.
learned my fourth guitar cord, played the ukulele for a spell, drank strange milk, know ill have to get seven cavities when i get back due to my indulgence of chocolate, learned a bit about medicinal plants, got sick, again, but met an amazing doctor that ALONE cares for 18 communities and got help from the cuban doctors during hurricane stan. also, this cat wrote the only book on medicinal plants in guatemala. amazing. drank wicked good coffee and for those that have been down these parts know the only way you get good coffee is in bougi restaurants or if you are living, working with or buying directly from folks cause all the good stuff gets bounced northbound and to europe, for the most part. played soccer with kids in the street and again was embarrassed and had the flock of ducks (flock?) laughing at me. had midnight conversations with folks while not being able to see their faces and talking for hours and learning about random shit like strange ways to cook plantains. hollah. swung on hammocks, laughed a lot, went on a hike through dense jungle to a waterfall and made a collective sculpture goldsworthy-style. played scrabble in spanish and thought of orli cause this woman was intense and that made me smile cause orli makes me smile.
all in all, great time at the mountain school and big thanks to tim and fallon and all the great danes that made my time there memorable and my ability to match star formations with my mosquito bites. life is good.
so, splitting from a mountainous town, feeling better -- thanks again for the notes -- and heading to the mountain school which is a sister school of where ive been studying for the first two weeks. im rolling with this group of danish women that are like skyscrapers and i feel like the old church that wont get torn down but is always looking up at these folks and feeling a little insecure. fabulous people...we get there and get a brief skinny from the coordinators about how the community is comprised of folks that have struggled for unpaid wages -- many for years -- and for land. those that could stay did and created three communities in an area that has the sixth lowest income in all of guatemala.
i kept the streak alive of fabulous teachers and not so fabulous food and ill take that equation anytime. like my previous professor anna in xela, abbi is studying law and works on the side for womens rights and literacy programs, while working full time and taking a full course load. the woman baffled me often and shared my deep love for hummingbirds and odd sounds from ducks. i learned a lot and my spanish improved exponentially....so, theres the context, heres a few bubbles:
pre-dawn hikes with stars like kansas fields shining the way through an OLD ass finca, coffee plantation, and weaving through banana, platano and avocado trees to a precipice that looked out onto a massive field of coffee plants and in the distance a mountain range nestled behind an active volcano that plumed smoke on the regular -- sunrises of crazy colors because of all the ash in the air which meant background, crazy colors, foreground active volcano and mountains and immediate some rolling finca love with birds darting around to deal with the mosquito problem. epic days there...also, i dont have a camera so that is my picture for ya.
learned a lot about the history of coffee and the region, campesino struggles and updates with regards to some of the successes -- see other article about la florida where i resided for some AMAZING time, many of the losses, murders and continued oppression of the berger administration which is booting campesinos off land at a rate of 8 per month -- not people, fincas, yall. often with force. more info, google nueva linda, guatemala murder.
learned my fourth guitar cord, played the ukulele for a spell, drank strange milk, know ill have to get seven cavities when i get back due to my indulgence of chocolate, learned a bit about medicinal plants, got sick, again, but met an amazing doctor that ALONE cares for 18 communities and got help from the cuban doctors during hurricane stan. also, this cat wrote the only book on medicinal plants in guatemala. amazing. drank wicked good coffee and for those that have been down these parts know the only way you get good coffee is in bougi restaurants or if you are living, working with or buying directly from folks cause all the good stuff gets bounced northbound and to europe, for the most part. played soccer with kids in the street and again was embarrassed and had the flock of ducks (flock?) laughing at me. had midnight conversations with folks while not being able to see their faces and talking for hours and learning about random shit like strange ways to cook plantains. hollah. swung on hammocks, laughed a lot, went on a hike through dense jungle to a waterfall and made a collective sculpture goldsworthy-style. played scrabble in spanish and thought of orli cause this woman was intense and that made me smile cause orli makes me smile.
all in all, great time at the mountain school and big thanks to tim and fallon and all the great danes that made my time there memorable and my ability to match star formations with my mosquito bites. life is good.
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