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.