I went to heaven today. In the back of a red pickup truck; I went to heaven. I held the crossbar like a valiant windsurfer -- riding the air currents like a dandelion seed. Not sure exactly where I am going, yet knowing the soil will be fertile. I feel like I am flying. In the back of a red pickup truck. My open heart is my sail. Fearlessness is my strength. Open heart and Fearlessness: companions. We climb higher and higher. The pothole highway to heaven. Steep green slopes. How did they manage to plant corn way up there? On that slope just inches away from being a vertical line to the center of the earth. Because Corn is god. Yes. I understand. Golden ears cared for with dedication, tenderness, sweat and broken backs. Uncomplaining broken backs. I am high on oxygen clouds. Oxygen clouds that kiss the blue-green celestial lake. Please do not make Lago Atitlán a "wonder of the world," I think to myself. An official "wonder of the world" destination. All of the camera flashes reflecting off the water would be like a terrible storm. And the souvenirs and catchy slogans and monster hotels would disrupt the texture of this heaven in the back of a red pickup truck.
We snake our way up the mountain. Higher. A seed am I. A smiling seed. On my way to Santa Clara. Still, I do not know where I will land. Fertile soil. Coffee. Corn. And children. Children. This is where I fly. This is where I land. Fertile soil. A schoolyard. Three buildings and a central sunshine dirt schoolyard.
Santa Clara. A pueblo in the clouds. A flock of sunkissed children swarm. They are curious. Excited. Ready to learn the dance we have prepared. A choreography we have danced in the evenings before dinner. Exaggerated. Fun. Young Women returning to childhood dance recitals. Shaking our hips and waving our pom-pom hands with inexhaustible enthusiasm. We play. And now. In this sunshine dirt schoolyard, on the top of a mountain, in the corn clouds, in heaven, breathing the blue-green evaporation of the celestial lake. In this sunshine schoolyard, we will teach 50 children this made-with-love choreography for their upcoming performance in the local Gimnasia Rítmica competition. A celebratory dance. To enjoy. To perform. Cumbea. As I dance alongside these children -- jóvenes between 8 and 15 years old -- I blossom like a happy silent clown who receives an airborne kiss from across the circus. A monkey kiss on a mountain top in Guatemala. The children are smiling. The children are laughing. The children are dancing. I am sunkissed, rosy-cheeked, too. Like the children. I am dancing. Saying to myself, "Yes! I want to dedicate myself to this place for the next year. I want to make my life here -- sharing, creating, smiling, growing with the children of Lago Atitlán. I watch Gabi, the founder and director of La Cambalacha, teach the children with confident, joyful composure. She knows how to facilitate beautiful collaboration, creation, art when surrounded by 50 bouncing children in a sunshine dirt schoolyard. I am filled with gratitude. I am content. I, too, dance with enthusiasm and feel heartbeat elation as I watch them dance, remember, smile their way into a final pyramid. A pyramid with 50 children. Cumbea. Remarkable cartwheeling joy. They love us instantly. And we love them. There. In the sunshine dirt schoolyard. We dance.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Burning Hands and Contentment
I am on fire. Lit up with inspiration. Gratitude flows within and without like water. Flowing. Like the blue-green afternoon tide of the lake. Lake Atitlán. Gratitude Abundant. Truly. Where do I begin?
I have been dancing circles here in La Cambalacha for the past two weeks. Like a crazy woman I run from teaching a morning yoga class - to translating a word document - to helping Lola and Angela with lunch in the kitchen (while dancing to the latest evangelical tunes on the radio) - to inventing a thousand afternoon games to entertain the youngsters whose attention span is fleeting - to dressing up in costume and getting in character for a dance/culture class with the 12 and 13 year-olds who are sometimes difficult to motivate - to talking long hours in the night with Gabriela (the founder and director of La Cambalacha who is an extraordinary dancer and has me hooked on learning Hip Hop) and Cambalacha family - to skipping happily down to the lake to bathe body and soul in morning sun rays - to walking arm and arm with María who fills my heart with joy the color of sunshine and rain - to choreographing dances for local children to perform in the upcoming town festival - to riding in the back of a pickup to the neighboring village to share art, music, ecology classes with the students in primary school - to contemplating the reason that children tend to go crazy on rainy days and trample upon your words and good intentions - to being reminded that children are made of rainbow colors -- sometimes dark with disrespect and ungratefulness, other times vibrant yellow and orange with laughter, songs and engaged imaginations. Each day, I arrive at my bedside absolutely exhausted and smiling; smiling at the good fortune of being here in La Cambalacha.
From the moment I returned to the shores of San Marcos La Laguna, I felt a rush of Contentment rise in my soul. Manifesting in a Gracious Smile. A smile that says Thank You to each and every breath that has carried me here. Life is Intense here in La Cambalacha. There is always much work to be done. Not only are we dedicated to facilitating the artistic development of nearly 2,500 children on the shores of Lago Atítlan; we are committed to living in community. On Fire with Intensity. The heartbeat of the day, powerful.
I feel strangely inarticulate as I listen to the evening rain. Swimming in such emotion, amazement, marvel as my life unfolds minute by minute. Two weeks on Fire passing with little opportunity to express in words the rhythms, sentiments, thoughts, emotions I am feeling strongly, like drumbeats, like a rainstorm, in my organs, in my breath, in my smile. A pause from writing due to Burning Hands. Swollen. Red Blistered. An overdose of acidic fruit and sunshine? A mean herb? A caterpillar? Animal Urine falling in the night? A strange spirit? I do not know exactly what happened to my hands. But they swelled up like balloons and put on an ugly mask of blisters and puss. In the healing process, my extraordinary living body generated an entire new layer of skin, allowing the old, dark, burned skin to peel away, piece by piece. Strange, powerful occurrence. When studying the Mayan calendar with a group of beautiful sisters one evening, I see the Tarot card that speaks of my sign and my nahual (animal spirit guide). My hands are in fire. I burned myself the last time I was here. Burned myself in the kitchen cutting Chiles. A down home Virginia girl unaccustomed to cooking with chiles picantes. Que locura.
Please take a look at the website of La Cambalacha. It is beautifully crafted. It gives you a glimpse of what we are doing here in San Marcos La Laguna. How we are singing, dancing, playing, sharing, creating and opening our hearts to the power of art and collaboration. I will be participating in a fantastic Cambalacha Parade on the 15th of September. I am learning to twirl a vibrant golden flag while dancing to the drumbeats of percussion and marveling at the clown faces and fun of the stilt walkers. Singing ... singing ... singing. I will try to write more frecuently. For now -- www.lacambalacha.org
Abundant Gratitude. Love. Learning. And lots of Rain that does keep us from living like Fire.
www.lacambalacha.org
I have been dancing circles here in La Cambalacha for the past two weeks. Like a crazy woman I run from teaching a morning yoga class - to translating a word document - to helping Lola and Angela with lunch in the kitchen (while dancing to the latest evangelical tunes on the radio) - to inventing a thousand afternoon games to entertain the youngsters whose attention span is fleeting - to dressing up in costume and getting in character for a dance/culture class with the 12 and 13 year-olds who are sometimes difficult to motivate - to talking long hours in the night with Gabriela (the founder and director of La Cambalacha who is an extraordinary dancer and has me hooked on learning Hip Hop) and Cambalacha family - to skipping happily down to the lake to bathe body and soul in morning sun rays - to walking arm and arm with María who fills my heart with joy the color of sunshine and rain - to choreographing dances for local children to perform in the upcoming town festival - to riding in the back of a pickup to the neighboring village to share art, music, ecology classes with the students in primary school - to contemplating the reason that children tend to go crazy on rainy days and trample upon your words and good intentions - to being reminded that children are made of rainbow colors -- sometimes dark with disrespect and ungratefulness, other times vibrant yellow and orange with laughter, songs and engaged imaginations. Each day, I arrive at my bedside absolutely exhausted and smiling; smiling at the good fortune of being here in La Cambalacha.
From the moment I returned to the shores of San Marcos La Laguna, I felt a rush of Contentment rise in my soul. Manifesting in a Gracious Smile. A smile that says Thank You to each and every breath that has carried me here. Life is Intense here in La Cambalacha. There is always much work to be done. Not only are we dedicated to facilitating the artistic development of nearly 2,500 children on the shores of Lago Atítlan; we are committed to living in community. On Fire with Intensity. The heartbeat of the day, powerful.
I feel strangely inarticulate as I listen to the evening rain. Swimming in such emotion, amazement, marvel as my life unfolds minute by minute. Two weeks on Fire passing with little opportunity to express in words the rhythms, sentiments, thoughts, emotions I am feeling strongly, like drumbeats, like a rainstorm, in my organs, in my breath, in my smile. A pause from writing due to Burning Hands. Swollen. Red Blistered. An overdose of acidic fruit and sunshine? A mean herb? A caterpillar? Animal Urine falling in the night? A strange spirit? I do not know exactly what happened to my hands. But they swelled up like balloons and put on an ugly mask of blisters and puss. In the healing process, my extraordinary living body generated an entire new layer of skin, allowing the old, dark, burned skin to peel away, piece by piece. Strange, powerful occurrence. When studying the Mayan calendar with a group of beautiful sisters one evening, I see the Tarot card that speaks of my sign and my nahual (animal spirit guide). My hands are in fire. I burned myself the last time I was here. Burned myself in the kitchen cutting Chiles. A down home Virginia girl unaccustomed to cooking with chiles picantes. Que locura.
Please take a look at the website of La Cambalacha. It is beautifully crafted. It gives you a glimpse of what we are doing here in San Marcos La Laguna. How we are singing, dancing, playing, sharing, creating and opening our hearts to the power of art and collaboration. I will be participating in a fantastic Cambalacha Parade on the 15th of September. I am learning to twirl a vibrant golden flag while dancing to the drumbeats of percussion and marveling at the clown faces and fun of the stilt walkers. Singing ... singing ... singing. I will try to write more frecuently. For now -- www.lacambalacha.org
Abundant Gratitude. Love. Learning. And lots of Rain that does keep us from living like Fire.
www.lacambalacha.org
Friday, August 8, 2008
Transitioning
I woke up yesterday morning feeling tense. Feeling nervous. Nervous about money. "How am I going to pay for the next year in Guatemala? If the numbers do not add up, how am I going to dedicate myself heart and soul to the children of San Marcos La Laguna for the next year?" I sat down on the patio next to the fountain and scolded myself for letting money tie me in knots. For letting pieces of paper and unfeeling numbers make a fool of me on this brilliant, quiet morning. "Laugh at me," I say to the fish and the turtle who swim lovingly in the clear water. "Laugh at me. This will help shake me back to a centered place."
I continue with morning yoga practice. Sitting quietly, patiently, trying to understand the knots in my nerves before sending them on their way out the door. "Let go of unserving preocupations," I say to myself. The turtle chimes in. "Teresa - the woman who sells anklets in the park - she has reason to worry for money, niña," he says. "Five children. Five children under the age of 7. Dead husband. She sells anklets for a living. She sells necklaces. Earrings. Teresa has reason to feel nervous about money. You, niña, with good shoes, good health, the privilege of traveling to Guatemala in the first place, the privilege to even think about volunteering in Lago Atitlán por un largo tiempo -- you have no reason to let money move you like a puppet." The turtle continues swimming. I let his words reverberate in my interior. Teresa is there.
Teresa bargains with me because her son, Steven, is hungry. He hasn´t eaten all morning and she is hoping to sell at least one pair of earrings so she can buy him a little something. Ice cream is the cheapest. Antigua is so expensive these days. Food is so expensive these days. I am in Parque Central when Teresa and Steven approach. Juan is there, too. He sleeps soundly on Teresa´s strong, hunched back. She remembers me from 3 weeks back. I show her the anklet she sold me, already fading with adventure - having swum in lake, waterfall and sea. I regret that I have no small bills to offer Teresa. I can see that Steven is hungry. I can also see that he is accustomed to hunger as he lets himself be distracted by the pen and paper that I carry. "Do you like to draw?" I ask him. He looks at me shyly. Silently. Just at that moment, a seed-pod falls from the tree under which we sit. Steven breaks it open and a world of microscopic beauty shows its face. "¡Que magnìfico!" I say expressively. "We should draw it." Steven watches. Silently. Still. I begin to draw. He follows along like an apprentice, curious about the way the pencil moves and leaves a trail of seed-pod details. "Now it´s your turn," I say. This time he accepts. First he draws a house. The house has windows and a door. When I ask him where his room is, he looks at me questioningly. There are no individual rooms in the house. One shared space. When he tires of the house, he draws a bus. Lots of windows, four wheels, a busdriver, an overhead rack where people can put their luggage and market goods. We talk about the bus as he imagines it, delicately touching the pencil to paper. What a fortunate encounter. Afternoon in the park with Steven drawing pictures of the life around us. The afternoon does not feed Steven´s hungry belly. But perhaps it feeds his hungry eyes just a little bit. Perhaps it feeds his smiling spirit just a little bit. This I hope. Hope for Exchange. That the gift he has given me with his deliberate, careful pencil marks and youthful resilience are somehow felt on his end too. We share a parting smile. He runs proudly, drawings in hand, to show his mother how he has been passing the time.
I continue with morning yoga practice. Sitting quietly, patiently, trying to understand the knots in my nerves before sending them on their way out the door. "Let go of unserving preocupations," I say to myself. The turtle chimes in. "Teresa - the woman who sells anklets in the park - she has reason to worry for money, niña," he says. "Five children. Five children under the age of 7. Dead husband. She sells anklets for a living. She sells necklaces. Earrings. Teresa has reason to feel nervous about money. You, niña, with good shoes, good health, the privilege of traveling to Guatemala in the first place, the privilege to even think about volunteering in Lago Atitlán por un largo tiempo -- you have no reason to let money move you like a puppet." The turtle continues swimming. I let his words reverberate in my interior. Teresa is there.
Teresa bargains with me because her son, Steven, is hungry. He hasn´t eaten all morning and she is hoping to sell at least one pair of earrings so she can buy him a little something. Ice cream is the cheapest. Antigua is so expensive these days. Food is so expensive these days. I am in Parque Central when Teresa and Steven approach. Juan is there, too. He sleeps soundly on Teresa´s strong, hunched back. She remembers me from 3 weeks back. I show her the anklet she sold me, already fading with adventure - having swum in lake, waterfall and sea. I regret that I have no small bills to offer Teresa. I can see that Steven is hungry. I can also see that he is accustomed to hunger as he lets himself be distracted by the pen and paper that I carry. "Do you like to draw?" I ask him. He looks at me shyly. Silently. Just at that moment, a seed-pod falls from the tree under which we sit. Steven breaks it open and a world of microscopic beauty shows its face. "¡Que magnìfico!" I say expressively. "We should draw it." Steven watches. Silently. Still. I begin to draw. He follows along like an apprentice, curious about the way the pencil moves and leaves a trail of seed-pod details. "Now it´s your turn," I say. This time he accepts. First he draws a house. The house has windows and a door. When I ask him where his room is, he looks at me questioningly. There are no individual rooms in the house. One shared space. When he tires of the house, he draws a bus. Lots of windows, four wheels, a busdriver, an overhead rack where people can put their luggage and market goods. We talk about the bus as he imagines it, delicately touching the pencil to paper. What a fortunate encounter. Afternoon in the park with Steven drawing pictures of the life around us. The afternoon does not feed Steven´s hungry belly. But perhaps it feeds his hungry eyes just a little bit. Perhaps it feeds his smiling spirit just a little bit. This I hope. Hope for Exchange. That the gift he has given me with his deliberate, careful pencil marks and youthful resilience are somehow felt on his end too. We share a parting smile. He runs proudly, drawings in hand, to show his mother how he has been passing the time.
Exchange. The perfect segue into my next step here in Guatemala. Tomorrow morning, I return to San Marcos La Laguna on the shores of Lago Atitlàn to work with El Proyecto Cultural La Cambalacha. "Cambalacha" means Exchange. "Arte para Todos," dice el sitio web. "Art for All." At the beginning of our travels together, Rachel and I were lucky enough to work with this project for a week. I fell in love with the children immediately. After teaching my first yoga class, I walked around the room, where the children lay in Shavasana, corpse pose, with eyes closed and muscles relaxed. I was speechless. Overcome by the joy and honor I felt being there, with them, in those peaceful morning moments. Beginning the day together. Greeting the sun together. And they followed me so sincerely. A few beautiful giggles because our spirits like to laugh. Otherwise, careful, honest attention. Wow.
El Proyecto Cultural La Cambalacha was founded on the belief that children have the right to creative education. In Guatemala, there are many children who do not have the opportunity to attend school at all. Those who do certainly do not have the suerte to learn music, art, dance, or theatre. I was lucky enough to meet an educator in the Guatemalan Highlands, a woman who also studied music, who helped me understand a bit more about the education system in Guatemala. "Less that 1% of public schools in Guatemala offer arts to students," she says. With 60 children in one classroom and few resources, art does not make the list of important courses for students to learn. As a person who believes that all children are born artists - imaginative, creative, curious - and that art -- poetry, music, theatre, dance, fine arts have an important place in this world, I am feeling called to dedicate myself to La Cambalacha for more than just a passing breath. INSPIRATION is what this world needs. There is enough INFORMATION flying around for a thousand universes, but without INSPIRATION, we wander like robots, ghosts, looking for wholeness rather than creating it. Looking for wholeness among the piles of books, texts, phones messages, emails, advertisements rather than painting it, dancing it, growing it, speaking it, feeling it in the very wind that strikes the morning chimes. And so I go. And so I go to San Marcos La Laguna. Dance. Yoga. Theatre. Music. Acrobatics. Clown. Fine Art. Community. I will go and collaborate with other beautiful people who believe that living art has a powerful place in the lives of children, in the lives of us all. I will begin to understand the ins and outs of El Proyecto in more detail. I will teach what I know of the artist in me and open myself to learning from the Human Exchange of each passing day. Children. Elders. Plants. Animals. Mothers. Fathers. They will all be my teachers. Now is not a time to worry over money. If I am meant to stay here with these INSPIRING children, I will find a way. Mother Earth agrees. Walking through the garden of La Escalonia today, this quote jumped out at me from the friendly horsetails, "Cuando haya pescado el ùltimo pez, envenenado el ùltimo rìo, talado el ùltimo árbol, el hombre se darà cuenta que no puede comerse el dinero." You cannot eat money. One day we will learn this. One day soon.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Quioshi
I am sitting on Guatemala´s Caribbean Coast after bathing body and soul in the sacred convergence of fresh water and sea. They call her ¨The Sweet River.¨ So sweet she is that the slurping mud riverbottom carresses my feet with warmth and kindness. The water is the perfect salinity for flushing out nasal passages. The salinity of human tears. Sacred human tears that wash into the river and out to the sea. Rachel and I sit, here, at La Buga, the mouth of the river, at the fingertips of the Sea, and let the waves wash over our sunkissed legs like young playmates in a tidal pool of pure afternoon love.
We fill our hands with purple seashells and begin to pulse with the rhythm of the waves. Chhhtt. Chhhtt. Chhhtt. Our hands our instruments, salt shakers of the sea. ¨You know there is someone there, across the ocean, doing the same thing we are doing right now,¨I say to Rachel through a quiet smile. "On the West African Coast. On the Southern Tip" We speak the names aloud. "On the banks of the Ganga. On the Florida Coast. In Cuba. In Long Beach. Outer Banks, North Carolina. Stormy Oregon Coast. Nova Scotia. Even in Rainy England." We send salutations to lovers all over the world as we feel the weight of the shells in our hands. Shake. And, in a crescendo of thanks -- gratitude for fresh coconuts and machetes, for sacred convergences and purple seashells, for the way the wind and water connect us all in an intimate Union through salt, seeds, smiles, tears and tangled-hair -- in a crescendo of thanks, we release the shells back to Mother Ocean and thank her for allowing us to feel sweet and beautiful in her stained-glass waters.
He left the scene of our Sweet River Gratitude-swimming with no words spoken. Two young women kissing the sand and seashells with open pores and tangled blond curls. I am not sure he knows how to handle two soul-searchers who respect life enough not to get drunk in the middle of the day. Salt water and river mud offer clean, sweet intoxication without heavy eyes, clumsy feet and stumbling tongue. We did not buy him a drink. We did not buy him a smoke. We were not reach to numb the afternoon with a cold, glass bottle. Perhaps he left disappointed.
We see him again, Quioshi, in the evening. His friend approaches us and hands us two fliers advertising a restaurant down the road, "Free mojitos if you eat dinner here. Excellent food." He smiles. He kisses us on the cheek. He pretends he knows everything about us after sniffing out our white skin and light eyes on the evening breeze. I take the objectification light-heartedly. Why should I expect to by any more than a young, attractive White woman in the eyes of this boy who earns his living by slobbering all over tourists? I am getting ahead of myself. My bias is coming out. My disdain for this young man who treats me as a money-pot, sex-toy and expects me to let him treat me this way because the culture permits it. But ask any Garífuna woman in town: this coastal culture does not permit such disrespect. Why does it bother me so? Because he treats me like I am a stupid woman who will give sex and a free drink to any sweaty local who takes my arm and leads me to the hippest tourist joint. This is what Rasputin wants. I think they are brothers. Quioshi and Rasputin. This is why he fixes our table and tries to massage my sunburned shoulders in between his crude jokes. This is why he pretends he knows everything about me. I feel the tension start to rise in me as he speaks to all the world with proud disrespect. He grows angry that we have not offered him a drink. He grows angry that I do not let him touch me as he pleases. He grows angry that I am not just a "stupid American." I understand why he is spiteful. To him, tonight, I am "Them"-- Rich, Privileged, White Tourist who both gives him a job and makes him irate with anger, centuries deep. The waitress comes and she yells at us. She yells at us because the night is full of misunderstanding and her tourist-trap dogs have not done a good job in inticing us to spend a bundle of money on a fancy dinner. She yells at us because her under-the-table workers slander her with insults as they demand alcoholic compensation. How did we find ourselves here? He latched onto us at the dock. Just recently off the boat. When I ask him a question about Hindu culture here, he responds with spite -- spitting accusations of my ignorance. Maybe I am clueless about the deep-rooted cultural racism, tension, history of coinhabitance of Garífuna, White, Black, Ladino, Indian peoples. This is why I ask the question. Because I would like to know more. I would like to listen to the stories. Because there is more here that interests me aside from discotechs and alcoholic overdoses. I change my tone of voice. "You know, we Americans are just stupid. Forget my question." He asks for a sip of my mojito. "You can have it," I say, feeling dirty, disrupted, distant from the rum filled cup. He gets what he wants in the end. We are left to try and sort through the complicated, heavy weave of racism, history, resentment and jealousy we have become a part of this evening. I cannot pretend to understand the depth of it. I cannot pretend to understand the historical roots of the insults Quioshi fires at the Garífuna passersby. I do not know why it pains him that his father is Indian. Yet, I cannot sit idly while someone shoots his slandering arrows at me in a strange combination of kisses and curses and demands for alcohol. Just as I cannot pretend to know anything about him, he cannot pretend he knows anything about me. But he does. This is where it begins. Tonight, in his eyes, I am a White Sac of Ungrateful Shit Money. His eyes are angry to discover that I don´t carry enough cash to buy him a drink. We walk on
We fill our hands with purple seashells and begin to pulse with the rhythm of the waves. Chhhtt. Chhhtt. Chhhtt. Our hands our instruments, salt shakers of the sea. ¨You know there is someone there, across the ocean, doing the same thing we are doing right now,¨I say to Rachel through a quiet smile. "On the West African Coast. On the Southern Tip" We speak the names aloud. "On the banks of the Ganga. On the Florida Coast. In Cuba. In Long Beach. Outer Banks, North Carolina. Stormy Oregon Coast. Nova Scotia. Even in Rainy England." We send salutations to lovers all over the world as we feel the weight of the shells in our hands. Shake. And, in a crescendo of thanks -- gratitude for fresh coconuts and machetes, for sacred convergences and purple seashells, for the way the wind and water connect us all in an intimate Union through salt, seeds, smiles, tears and tangled-hair -- in a crescendo of thanks, we release the shells back to Mother Ocean and thank her for allowing us to feel sweet and beautiful in her stained-glass waters.
He left the scene of our Sweet River Gratitude-swimming with no words spoken. Two young women kissing the sand and seashells with open pores and tangled blond curls. I am not sure he knows how to handle two soul-searchers who respect life enough not to get drunk in the middle of the day. Salt water and river mud offer clean, sweet intoxication without heavy eyes, clumsy feet and stumbling tongue. We did not buy him a drink. We did not buy him a smoke. We were not reach to numb the afternoon with a cold, glass bottle. Perhaps he left disappointed.
We see him again, Quioshi, in the evening. His friend approaches us and hands us two fliers advertising a restaurant down the road, "Free mojitos if you eat dinner here. Excellent food." He smiles. He kisses us on the cheek. He pretends he knows everything about us after sniffing out our white skin and light eyes on the evening breeze. I take the objectification light-heartedly. Why should I expect to by any more than a young, attractive White woman in the eyes of this boy who earns his living by slobbering all over tourists? I am getting ahead of myself. My bias is coming out. My disdain for this young man who treats me as a money-pot, sex-toy and expects me to let him treat me this way because the culture permits it. But ask any Garífuna woman in town: this coastal culture does not permit such disrespect. Why does it bother me so? Because he treats me like I am a stupid woman who will give sex and a free drink to any sweaty local who takes my arm and leads me to the hippest tourist joint. This is what Rasputin wants. I think they are brothers. Quioshi and Rasputin. This is why he fixes our table and tries to massage my sunburned shoulders in between his crude jokes. This is why he pretends he knows everything about me. I feel the tension start to rise in me as he speaks to all the world with proud disrespect. He grows angry that we have not offered him a drink. He grows angry that I do not let him touch me as he pleases. He grows angry that I am not just a "stupid American." I understand why he is spiteful. To him, tonight, I am "Them"-- Rich, Privileged, White Tourist who both gives him a job and makes him irate with anger, centuries deep. The waitress comes and she yells at us. She yells at us because the night is full of misunderstanding and her tourist-trap dogs have not done a good job in inticing us to spend a bundle of money on a fancy dinner. She yells at us because her under-the-table workers slander her with insults as they demand alcoholic compensation. How did we find ourselves here? He latched onto us at the dock. Just recently off the boat. When I ask him a question about Hindu culture here, he responds with spite -- spitting accusations of my ignorance. Maybe I am clueless about the deep-rooted cultural racism, tension, history of coinhabitance of Garífuna, White, Black, Ladino, Indian peoples. This is why I ask the question. Because I would like to know more. I would like to listen to the stories. Because there is more here that interests me aside from discotechs and alcoholic overdoses. I change my tone of voice. "You know, we Americans are just stupid. Forget my question." He asks for a sip of my mojito. "You can have it," I say, feeling dirty, disrupted, distant from the rum filled cup. He gets what he wants in the end. We are left to try and sort through the complicated, heavy weave of racism, history, resentment and jealousy we have become a part of this evening. I cannot pretend to understand the depth of it. I cannot pretend to understand the historical roots of the insults Quioshi fires at the Garífuna passersby. I do not know why it pains him that his father is Indian. Yet, I cannot sit idly while someone shoots his slandering arrows at me in a strange combination of kisses and curses and demands for alcohol. Just as I cannot pretend to know anything about him, he cannot pretend he knows anything about me. But he does. This is where it begins. Tonight, in his eyes, I am a White Sac of Ungrateful Shit Money. His eyes are angry to discover that I don´t carry enough cash to buy him a drink. We walk on
Epifania
Epiphany is her name. The beautiful African woman whose voluptuous figure, silver jewelry and singing smile disguise the five children she has at home. She is young looking. Turning 29 in just a few days. Her strong, naked thighs greet the night air, comfortably showing themselves below a tiny cut of denim shorts. ¨You know how to dance,¨she says, inviting me into her rhythm and her curves. We are dancing. She is following my movements -- wanting to make the scene beautiful and harmonious. Black and white bodies carressing the night.
I am reminded of a halloween party a few years back when a young, rhythmic, ebony-skinned student caugth my vibration and focused her energy on complementing my movements, enhancing my curves and expressions. I watched her move through the dance floor, offering herself to all of the spiraling bodies, no matter how awkward, off-beat, beautiful, ugly, curvy, boney, drunk, sober. She floated, flowed like a breeze through the dancefloor and beautified the space with her generosity, her smile, her love of making other people feel beautiful and free. Epifania reminds me of this night when she welcomes me into her rhythm. She, with her sensuous curves and high heels, me with my petite musculature and sneakers. We dance. We sing. We admire each other´s jewelry. I silently thank her for dissolving my white skin with her kindness. Here I am, laughing with Livingston locals, happily sitting beside a delightful dirty-old-man whose underbite-smile fills my soul with warm fuzzies and whose shameless story of his sickness, his hernia, makes me both laugh and cry. He pulls down his trousers to show me his hernia. There, in the middle of the bar. And that´s okay. Because he is the loveable, dirty-old-man who has 26 grandchildren and enjoys Saturday night drinks with his family.
I am reminded of a halloween party a few years back when a young, rhythmic, ebony-skinned student caugth my vibration and focused her energy on complementing my movements, enhancing my curves and expressions. I watched her move through the dance floor, offering herself to all of the spiraling bodies, no matter how awkward, off-beat, beautiful, ugly, curvy, boney, drunk, sober. She floated, flowed like a breeze through the dancefloor and beautified the space with her generosity, her smile, her love of making other people feel beautiful and free. Epifania reminds me of this night when she welcomes me into her rhythm. She, with her sensuous curves and high heels, me with my petite musculature and sneakers. We dance. We sing. We admire each other´s jewelry. I silently thank her for dissolving my white skin with her kindness. Here I am, laughing with Livingston locals, happily sitting beside a delightful dirty-old-man whose underbite-smile fills my soul with warm fuzzies and whose shameless story of his sickness, his hernia, makes me both laugh and cry. He pulls down his trousers to show me his hernia. There, in the middle of the bar. And that´s okay. Because he is the loveable, dirty-old-man who has 26 grandchildren and enjoys Saturday night drinks with his family.
Bubbles from the Coconut Sea
I wrote the Compassion post a few days back, hesitating to publish it because an ineptitude to express what is burning in my soul. The Unbearable Lightness of Being on the sweaty busride, by the pulsing sea, sailing through wavelengths of different colors, shapes, textures and frequencies, I am inundated with emotion. Swimming in a sea of moments, I grow gills so that I can keep breathing. A fish who is meeting characters that blow my mind and send me topsy-turvy with love, hope, tear-inducing joy and occassional aversion. Poetry falls onto the page as I blow life-support bubbles to keep from drowning. How to write these moments? Bubbles start to rise as I breathe the coconut sea.
Forty pages of journaling. Where do I begin? When I find myself in this predicament, I always choose to begin with Now. Setting the scene. Morning in Livingston, Guatemala. I open my journal to last night´s scribbling passion:
Casi no puedo escribir por el amor que me siento.
Por la esperanza. Por la buena fortuna.
(A colored-pencil sketch of a boat named ESPERANZA,
an oar, and a coconut tree with gigantic seaside roots.)
While walking the beach, we pass a boat name ESPERANZA. "Hope." The sun sets over the coconut tree while the sea crashes hot-blooded into the shore. The winds of change are blowing. Gypsy wanderers are on a mission to listen. To hear the sacred spirits of this place and taste the wisdom. We walk quickly because we are inspired. We walk quickly because we are not tangled up in words. We prefer silence today. The Universe is overwhelming us in a cascading song of beauty. Inundation. We swim in a Wonderland sea: green snakes dancing, two meters long; shell-inhabiting mollusks moving slowly, delicately, artfully over the slippery rocks of the sacred waterfalls; exquisite vegetables dressed in orange and red and purple and green, beautifying the world and nourishing our tye-dye hands, our bodies, our souls; purifying, crystal water rushing over our bodies as we surrender to the orchestral energy of Los Siete Altares -- seven waterfalls sacred to the Garífuna people.
Growing silent in our blood, moving like graceful, patient, purposeful cats, we stretch our limbs over the rocks, feel the earth under our bare toes and marvel at the way our nerves befriend the textures of infinity. On our eyelids, beneath our belly-buttons, in the drops of water that sneak between our breasts. I love how silent we are! I love how we are silent while the world around us speaks. Loudly. The cascading water; the screaming cicadas; the subtle, salty breeze that reminds us how close we are to Mother Ocean. I listen. I surrender. I let go. I fold my spine over the rock, smoothed by centuries of life, centuries of flow. I let my hair loose so that it can float like a mermaid´s and play tag with the afternoon sunlight that echoes in the forest canopy. I dissolve. I laugh as my hands evaporate. I watch the vapor rise to the green tree-tops and merge with the sunlit echo. I listen to the echo´s laughter as it runs away with my lips, my belly, my submerged earlobe. I am part of this place. I am part of the earth. I am part of all that is. I dissolve. Smiling. My heart bubbles up and kisses driftwood gypsies as they travel on. Anima! Suerte! Buen Camino!
Forty pages of journaling. Where do I begin? When I find myself in this predicament, I always choose to begin with Now. Setting the scene. Morning in Livingston, Guatemala. I open my journal to last night´s scribbling passion:
Casi no puedo escribir por el amor que me siento.
Por la esperanza. Por la buena fortuna.
(A colored-pencil sketch of a boat named ESPERANZA,
an oar, and a coconut tree with gigantic seaside roots.)
While walking the beach, we pass a boat name ESPERANZA. "Hope." The sun sets over the coconut tree while the sea crashes hot-blooded into the shore. The winds of change are blowing. Gypsy wanderers are on a mission to listen. To hear the sacred spirits of this place and taste the wisdom. We walk quickly because we are inspired. We walk quickly because we are not tangled up in words. We prefer silence today. The Universe is overwhelming us in a cascading song of beauty. Inundation. We swim in a Wonderland sea: green snakes dancing, two meters long; shell-inhabiting mollusks moving slowly, delicately, artfully over the slippery rocks of the sacred waterfalls; exquisite vegetables dressed in orange and red and purple and green, beautifying the world and nourishing our tye-dye hands, our bodies, our souls; purifying, crystal water rushing over our bodies as we surrender to the orchestral energy of Los Siete Altares -- seven waterfalls sacred to the Garífuna people.
Growing silent in our blood, moving like graceful, patient, purposeful cats, we stretch our limbs over the rocks, feel the earth under our bare toes and marvel at the way our nerves befriend the textures of infinity. On our eyelids, beneath our belly-buttons, in the drops of water that sneak between our breasts. I love how silent we are! I love how we are silent while the world around us speaks. Loudly. The cascading water; the screaming cicadas; the subtle, salty breeze that reminds us how close we are to Mother Ocean. I listen. I surrender. I let go. I fold my spine over the rock, smoothed by centuries of life, centuries of flow. I let my hair loose so that it can float like a mermaid´s and play tag with the afternoon sunlight that echoes in the forest canopy. I dissolve. I laugh as my hands evaporate. I watch the vapor rise to the green tree-tops and merge with the sunlit echo. I listen to the echo´s laughter as it runs away with my lips, my belly, my submerged earlobe. I am part of this place. I am part of the earth. I am part of all that is. I dissolve. Smiling. My heart bubbles up and kisses driftwood gypsies as they travel on. Anima! Suerte! Buen Camino!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Weight of Compassion
"On Saturday and Sunday he felt the sweet lightness of being rise up to him out of the depths of the future. On Monday, he was hit by a weight the likes of which he had never known. The tons of steel of the Russian tanks were nothing compared with it. For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one´s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.¨ - Milan Kundera
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Imagine If You Had to Hide Your Footprints
In the foothills of the Cuchumatanes Mountains rests the bustling town of Nebaj. A town where car horns sound like fire alarms at 430 in the morning and young voices laugh at the dream-sleepers who cannot figure out just what is going on. We are in the heart of the Western Highlands, home to the Ixil-speaking people, location of heavy fighting during the civil w ar, destroyed by black hearts and bullets during the 1970s and 80s. According to Moon Handbook to Guatemala , 25,000 Ixil were murdered or displaced during these years.
Rachel and I walk up the muddy road that leads out of town into the evergreens and clouds. We pass the cemetery where loved ones pay their respects in flowers and pigs feed on roadside weeds. To the left, two giggling boys eye these two light-eyed, light-skinned women; to the right, a monument. ¨Fueron hombres, mujeres, niños.¨ ¨They were men, women, children.¨ Two columns of names. Los desaparicidos. The disappeared. Juana Rivera. She whispers to me through the stone. ¨I am cold.¨ She was 14, I think. 14 years old with laughter as joyful as castanets, as fresh as a marigold in the morning dew. As I walk through the mountainside, I hear her breathing beside me. I can feel her pulse without touching her skin. She is running. She is barefoot, running fast. We pass a rushing roadside stream. A mountain drainage winding its way through forest, cornfield , eroded path and down to town. This poem comes to me -- bubbling up. Juana speaks through me:
Imagine if you had to hide your footprints.
Imagine if you had to hide your footrprints in the riverbed.
In the riverbed because they were following you.
Following you with sharp teeth and remorseless hearts.
With sharp teeth and remorseless hearts looking for you.
Looking for your footprints.
We walk on. Up the mountainside. Passing men, women and children carrying firewood. Large bundles. They bend over so their torso is nearly parallel to the ground and then support the weight of th ewood with their backs. A strap taut across their forehead holds the bundle in place. Slip-slide. Mudslide territory. One man has three horses. They are better equipped to carry heavy loads of firewood. They stop to munch on roadside greens. Slip-slide.
After a winding, muddy mountainside adventure, we come to the outskirts of Acul, a small town originally established as one of the ¨model villages¨under the rule of Efrain Rios Montt. The mainstreet of the town is eerie. A wide street separated by an unkempt median of zig-zagging grass with a strange barbed-wire decoration running all the way through. Where is everyone? There are children running about. They lighten the strange air of Absence. Especially a sweet-faced toddler who smiles at us and calls out, ¨Hola!¨ over and over again until we are completely out of sight. I honor how shameless children are. They are not afraid to stare. Not afraid to smile at these strangers and chase us down with a combination of delight and curiosity. It feels more comfortable to be acknowledged as ¨other¨than it does to be ignored all together. Wouldn´t I ask the same question. What are these two young gringos doing so far up in the mountains. But then again ...
¨Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.¨ -- Maya Angelou
We kick the mud off our shoes and step into Pablo´s . A small cement building painted purple, yellow and green. Washers and dryers, a topographic map of the area, two wooden chairs, a black and white list of Pablo´s services-- horseback rides, day hikes, overnight hikes, waterfall excursions. ¨Buenas tardes,¨we call to the back door where we hear soft, familial voices. ¨Buenas tardes,¨answers a beautiful young woman, her five year-old daughter peeking out from behind her skirt. Manuela. ¨If we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.¨ We smile at each other. Chat. Share the joy of being women. She tells us of the other foreign sisters who have stayed in Nebaj and says she misses them when they are gone. ¨How long will you stay?¨There is a part of me that wants to say, ¨Long enough to become friends, neighbors, share laughter.¨ ¨A couple of days,¨I say in the end. Manuela is generous with the information she offers us on the camino toward Acul. She does not mind that we will no give our funds to her guide service. She wants to help us on our way. We bathe in kindness. Raindrops running down our cheeks and into our fertile hearts. Flowers bloom. Thank you, Manuela. Thank you, sister. Suerte.
Rachel and I walk up the muddy road that leads out of town into the evergreens and clouds. We pass the cemetery where loved ones pay their respects in flowers and pigs feed on roadside weeds. To the left, two giggling boys eye these two light-eyed, light-skinned women; to the right, a monument. ¨Fueron hombres, mujeres, niños.¨ ¨They were men, women, children.¨ Two columns of names. Los desaparicidos. The disappeared. Juana Rivera. She whispers to me through the stone. ¨I am cold.¨ She was 14, I think. 14 years old with laughter as joyful as castanets, as fresh as a marigold in the morning dew. As I walk through the mountainside, I hear her breathing beside me. I can feel her pulse without touching her skin. She is running. She is barefoot, running fast. We pass a rushing roadside stream. A mountain drainage winding its way through forest, cornfield , eroded path and down to town. This poem comes to me -- bubbling up. Juana speaks through me:
Imagine if you had to hide your footprints.
Imagine if you had to hide your footrprints in the riverbed.
In the riverbed because they were following you.
Following you with sharp teeth and remorseless hearts.
With sharp teeth and remorseless hearts looking for you.
Looking for your footprints.
We walk on. Up the mountainside. Passing men, women and children carrying firewood. Large bundles. They bend over so their torso is nearly parallel to the ground and then support the weight of th ewood with their backs. A strap taut across their forehead holds the bundle in place. Slip-slide. Mudslide territory. One man has three horses. They are better equipped to carry heavy loads of firewood. They stop to munch on roadside greens. Slip-slide.
After a winding, muddy mountainside adventure, we come to the outskirts of Acul, a small town originally established as one of the ¨model villages¨under the rule of Efrain Rios Montt. The mainstreet of the town is eerie. A wide street separated by an unkempt median of zig-zagging grass with a strange barbed-wire decoration running all the way through. Where is everyone? There are children running about. They lighten the strange air of Absence. Especially a sweet-faced toddler who smiles at us and calls out, ¨Hola!¨ over and over again until we are completely out of sight. I honor how shameless children are. They are not afraid to stare. Not afraid to smile at these strangers and chase us down with a combination of delight and curiosity. It feels more comfortable to be acknowledged as ¨other¨than it does to be ignored all together. Wouldn´t I ask the same question. What are these two young gringos doing so far up in the mountains. But then again ...
¨Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.¨ -- Maya Angelou
We kick the mud off our shoes and step into Pablo´s . A small cement building painted purple, yellow and green. Washers and dryers, a topographic map of the area, two wooden chairs, a black and white list of Pablo´s services-- horseback rides, day hikes, overnight hikes, waterfall excursions. ¨Buenas tardes,¨we call to the back door where we hear soft, familial voices. ¨Buenas tardes,¨answers a beautiful young woman, her five year-old daughter peeking out from behind her skirt. Manuela. ¨If we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.¨ We smile at each other. Chat. Share the joy of being women. She tells us of the other foreign sisters who have stayed in Nebaj and says she misses them when they are gone. ¨How long will you stay?¨There is a part of me that wants to say, ¨Long enough to become friends, neighbors, share laughter.¨ ¨A couple of days,¨I say in the end. Manuela is generous with the information she offers us on the camino toward Acul. She does not mind that we will no give our funds to her guide service. She wants to help us on our way. We bathe in kindness. Raindrops running down our cheeks and into our fertile hearts. Flowers bloom. Thank you, Manuela. Thank you, sister. Suerte.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Chichicastenango
Traveling for a few weeks with Rachel before returning to San Marcos La Laguna ...
The market of Chichicastenango begins on the steps of La Iglesia. The Catholic Church, all dressed in white, is home to Mayan rituals, Catholic prayers, ice-cream vendors, chatting gray-haired women, barefoot children selling colorful bracelets, foreign accents and cameras. Rachel and I sit on the white stone of 16th century spirits and children rush to our side. ¨Five Q (quetzales) for this beautiful change purse. The headband, it would look so nice in your hair. What is your name? Where are you from?¨ A seven-year old girl carries her sleeping infant brother, wrapped in cloth, tied to her back. He is dreaming. He is not aware of the busy world happening all around. ¨1Q for a photo.¨She has learned to make a livingthis way. Selling her barefeet, sweet face, sleeping brother to the many tourists who flood this market place.
¨This reminds me of a scene from the Bible,¨ Rachel says. ¨When Jesus walks out of the temple and the townspeople are selling their good right their on the steps. Doesn´t Jesus destroy the temple, or something to that effect?¨ ¨I am not sure,¨I admit. ¨Something like that.¨ The juxtaposition is jarring. Peaceful, white, cold-stone church. Ancient ceremony. And Chichi´s Sunday version of Capitalist economy right outside.
Commerce is overwhelming for me. ¨Stuff¨in every direction. ¨Things¨that we must carry with us, purchase. I am glad my mother is not here to witness this grand carnaval of commerce; she would be handing out bills right and left to the children who run circles around the market, pulling on your shirt-tail and climbing inside your heart. Yes. My sweet mother would be wearing two skirts, three shawls, a handful of necklaces, bracelets and carrying a bag of sewn animalitos and dolls.
Commerce on the steps of the temple. Every Sunday the same. Tourists with their Lands End hats and quick-dry clothing. Chichi natives with their most tantalizing grins. Te doy buen precio! Dios bendiga! Chichicastenango.
The market of Chichicastenango begins on the steps of La Iglesia. The Catholic Church, all dressed in white, is home to Mayan rituals, Catholic prayers, ice-cream vendors, chatting gray-haired women, barefoot children selling colorful bracelets, foreign accents and cameras. Rachel and I sit on the white stone of 16th century spirits and children rush to our side. ¨Five Q (quetzales) for this beautiful change purse. The headband, it would look so nice in your hair. What is your name? Where are you from?¨ A seven-year old girl carries her sleeping infant brother, wrapped in cloth, tied to her back. He is dreaming. He is not aware of the busy world happening all around. ¨1Q for a photo.¨She has learned to make a livingthis way. Selling her barefeet, sweet face, sleeping brother to the many tourists who flood this market place.
¨This reminds me of a scene from the Bible,¨ Rachel says. ¨When Jesus walks out of the temple and the townspeople are selling their good right their on the steps. Doesn´t Jesus destroy the temple, or something to that effect?¨ ¨I am not sure,¨I admit. ¨Something like that.¨ The juxtaposition is jarring. Peaceful, white, cold-stone church. Ancient ceremony. And Chichi´s Sunday version of Capitalist economy right outside.
Commerce is overwhelming for me. ¨Stuff¨in every direction. ¨Things¨that we must carry with us, purchase. I am glad my mother is not here to witness this grand carnaval of commerce; she would be handing out bills right and left to the children who run circles around the market, pulling on your shirt-tail and climbing inside your heart. Yes. My sweet mother would be wearing two skirts, three shawls, a handful of necklaces, bracelets and carrying a bag of sewn animalitos and dolls.
Commerce on the steps of the temple. Every Sunday the same. Tourists with their Lands End hats and quick-dry clothing. Chichi natives with their most tantalizing grins. Te doy buen precio! Dios bendiga! Chichicastenango.
Toilet-Paper Rolls
We use recycled toilet paper here. No chemicals. No dyes. No bleach. Thin brown paper that biodegrates quickly. The kind of paper that many people despise because it falls apart in your hands as you use it. We burn the waste paper. It does not take long. Overhead on the bamboo roof of the porch, toilet paper rolls turn into insects and beautify the space with their tissue wings and pipe-cleaner antennae. We recycle just about everything here. And remind the children that La Madre Tierra does not like when we use lots of electricity and batteries. Turn off the lights when you leave. Blow a kiss to Madre Tierra.
Proyecto Cultural La Cambalacha
She spoke to me with confidence. 12 year old Lucia. ¨Come here. Sit down. I want to braid your hair.¨ She did not have to beg. I love surrendering to the artful hands and soft laughter of a young girl who wields a comb like a magic wand. A universal pleasure among women: exchanging loving touch and small-talk while combing hair.
We sit quietly in the art center among the paintbrushes and afternoon artwork drying in the 5 o´clock breeze. I peer out under the avocado tree and smile at the joyous squeals of children playing. They run barefoot on the earth, so accustomed to this way of walking that they never break a stride, a leap, a cartwheel at the fault of a harmless rock or thorn. I have been here at La Cambalacha for one-week. One-week and I feel at home among these voices, smells, songs. The children. They kiss me hello. They kiss me goodbye. Karina, Jesse, Sabastiana, Santalinda, Manaces, Giovanni, Angelica, Juanita, Lucas, The children.
¨Look in the mirror,¨ she says with a proud smile. I walk into the studio and I am overcome with a wave of radiant energy generated by these children. These children following me so lovingly as I lead a session of yoga. These children imitating my movements with curious smiles as I teach a West-African inspired dance class. I look in the mirror and I see a beautiful woman; beautiful because she is smiling from that place deep inside where the dirty feet and infectious smiles of children plant seeds of joy. Seeds of joy watered each passing day with the hope that young laughter brings.
Children are hope. Some days driving you crazy because they are bouncing off the walls, spinning circles and doing anything but looking you in the eye and listening. Other days, inspiring you with a rainbow of creativity, bravery, tenderness and strength. Days among children are purposeful. Days among children immersed in art, dance, yoga, games, group-building activities, shared chores and community are overflowing with purpose.
I wake at 5:00 in the morning to the jungle birds singing and I feel glad. La Cambalacha. It means ¨exchange.¨ Arte para todos. Art for all. ¨We work for the rights of children and youth to creative education, freedom of expression, and social and cultural participation.¨ This is the mission of Proyecto Cultural La Cambalacha. Located on the shore of Lake Atitlan in a beautiful town San Marcos La Laguna.
I would like to dedicate myself to this project for many months to come. I would like to know the names and faces of the many children who walk up the hill from town five days a week, change out of their fabric skirts and heeled shoes, and move their bodies, hands, minds, hearts artfully as the explore their right to creative education. Theatre, dance, yoga, music, fine-arts, circus arts ... Hay de todo. As I prepare to leave this place-this forest of color and laughter where I feel at home, purposeful, glad-I smile knowing that I will be back in a few short weeks. I came to Guatemala looking for a reason to stay for a while, a community to commit to, a life. I found just that in La Cambalacha.
We sit quietly in the art center among the paintbrushes and afternoon artwork drying in the 5 o´clock breeze. I peer out under the avocado tree and smile at the joyous squeals of children playing. They run barefoot on the earth, so accustomed to this way of walking that they never break a stride, a leap, a cartwheel at the fault of a harmless rock or thorn. I have been here at La Cambalacha for one-week. One-week and I feel at home among these voices, smells, songs. The children. They kiss me hello. They kiss me goodbye. Karina, Jesse, Sabastiana, Santalinda, Manaces, Giovanni, Angelica, Juanita, Lucas, The children.
¨Look in the mirror,¨ she says with a proud smile. I walk into the studio and I am overcome with a wave of radiant energy generated by these children. These children following me so lovingly as I lead a session of yoga. These children imitating my movements with curious smiles as I teach a West-African inspired dance class. I look in the mirror and I see a beautiful woman; beautiful because she is smiling from that place deep inside where the dirty feet and infectious smiles of children plant seeds of joy. Seeds of joy watered each passing day with the hope that young laughter brings.
Children are hope. Some days driving you crazy because they are bouncing off the walls, spinning circles and doing anything but looking you in the eye and listening. Other days, inspiring you with a rainbow of creativity, bravery, tenderness and strength. Days among children are purposeful. Days among children immersed in art, dance, yoga, games, group-building activities, shared chores and community are overflowing with purpose.
I wake at 5:00 in the morning to the jungle birds singing and I feel glad. La Cambalacha. It means ¨exchange.¨ Arte para todos. Art for all. ¨We work for the rights of children and youth to creative education, freedom of expression, and social and cultural participation.¨ This is the mission of Proyecto Cultural La Cambalacha. Located on the shore of Lake Atitlan in a beautiful town San Marcos La Laguna.
I would like to dedicate myself to this project for many months to come. I would like to know the names and faces of the many children who walk up the hill from town five days a week, change out of their fabric skirts and heeled shoes, and move their bodies, hands, minds, hearts artfully as the explore their right to creative education. Theatre, dance, yoga, music, fine-arts, circus arts ... Hay de todo. As I prepare to leave this place-this forest of color and laughter where I feel at home, purposeful, glad-I smile knowing that I will be back in a few short weeks. I came to Guatemala looking for a reason to stay for a while, a community to commit to, a life. I found just that in La Cambalacha.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Birds of Paradise in Antigua, Guatemala
I stumble upon a familiar friend in a secret garden that calls to a street wanderer with its lush green song. "Birds of Paradise!" I exclaim in my head. The last time we met was in a Safeway parking lot in Ventura, California when a kind young man fell in love with my smile for a brief moment and chased after me on his bicycle to gift me this flower to carry with me as I journeyed on. "Como se llama las flores esas, Señor," le pregunte el policia que cuida el jardin antigueño. "Aves de paraìso," me contesta. "Es igual en inglès!" le digo con una sonrisa. I am elated to meet friendly people who tell me stories in this language that is sweet to my ears and delicious on my tongue. It has been three years since I returned from Spain. Three years since I interacted tanto with the woman in me who comes alive in Spanish poetry, street-talk, coffee-talk, music, ambiente. And here I am chatting excitedly with a police officer in an exquisite garden in Antigua, Guatemala and surely he thinks I am crazy for being overly enthusiastic about the birds of paradise that live there. Sigh. "It seems so easy," I say to Rachel. "We simply got on a plane and now we are here, in Guatemala." The convenience of modern day travel is something that takes my head for a spin. It is as if we are sitting on the sofa at home immersed in the most wonderful tale of a far-off land where the people and animals and plants have vibrant names and personalities and suddenly we fall in. Fall in through the looking glass and wind up on the street of a colorful village where women in colorful clothing hope to sell you jewelry and their daughters walk hand-in-hand dressed in their neat and clean school uniforms. I am here. Antigua, Guatemala.It is a beautiful city. Antigua. When I wake up in the morning to sit, breathe, and open to the day, I gather a sense of the depth of this place. A city that has seen so much -- ancient Mayan civilization, Spanish conquest, the birth of coffee plantations, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, violent eruptions, civil war, death, life, lush green, black fire, red blood, blue tears, and white gringo ex-patriot arrival.
Already, my breath is painted a rainbow of colors from all of the experiences I am breathing in and processing with the greatest care I can offer. The hostel where we are staying, El Hostal en 1a Avenida Sur, is extraordinary with an open courtyard with fountain, garden, free breakfast, hammock, lovely shared accomodations that provide homes for many lucky travelers from all over the world. One of the beautiful women who works the front desk is Aura. She lives up to her name with a radiant smile and cooks us breakfast with love after waking before dawn to catch a bus from her village to Antigua to work all the day long cleaning up after people who are simply passing through. I appreciate the moments I chat with her as I boil water for tea. After a light, made-with-love breakfast, Rachel and I hit the cobblestone streets to walk to Panza Verde, a beautiful restaurant that has an exquisite gallery space that doubles as a yoga studio. During the slow, strong, attentive practice, I feel the breeze on my skin and feel grateful to practice in this peaceful space with a diverse group of folks who are dedicated to the cultivation of peace. The class is led by a Danish woman called Christine who makes her life in Antigua working as a social worker in a Rehab Center and yoga instructor in this beautiful jungle space. She is radiant. We are experiencing a particular side of Guatemala these first days in Antigua. We are living in a world where many ex-patriots come to make their lives and live like kings and queens in a city whose cost of living is relatively low. We are walking through the streets of a town whose livelihood is increasingly dependent on tourism. What comes of this? Both beauty and distress. Both lightness and darkness. Both collaboration and isolation. There are ex-patriots here like the mountain-guide who approached us in the park who does not even speak Spanish and says things like "Antiqua is beautiful because of tourism,¨and "Foreign volunteers are responsible for most of the good things happening here." His arrogance is jarring, abrasive, silencing, causing Rachel and I to take out our journals to scribble the negative energy we feel onto the paper where it can find its way to a peaceful ending. At the same time, there are is a thriving arts community, a fantastic education system, and plent of NGOs who are dedicated to what they are doing, ego and arrogance aside. The world is not drawn in black and white. The world is not written in either/or. Right now, I am an observer, opening myself to what this city has to say. I enjoy being quiet, listening, eating a fantastic lunch at a hole-in-the-wall local eatery whose blue walls are engraved with thousands of memories, sitting in the park with Las Sirenas (from the Odyssey) and imagining what they are saying about all the people who gather around them and talk so much of life.
Un gatito just danced across my feet reminding me that life is happening all around me and I am still sitting here typing this message, not knowing quite what to say and thus rambling on in my way. Thanks for loving me through it all. We are beginning ...
Friday, July 4, 2008
My Feet Are Gypsy Wanderers
I am eternally grateful for my feet. After returning from a morning of blackberry picking in a clearcut in Amherst, VA, I sit to pay tribute to the cracked and calloused friends that carry me lovingly through brambles, thorns and beauty. "Can I walk barefoot, Kate?" asks Ru. "I am working on my summer feet." The eight year-old swimming hole seeker braves the gravel with a naked sole, determined to shape his spring-bud feet into sturdy summer companions. "You are exactly like Kate said you would be," he says to me. "You're playful." We approach the water's edge. "Ladies first," Ru motions with his hand. "What a gentleman," I play along and dive into the murky cold without a second thought. "Do you see the scum on the surface?" He laughs. "We will be yellow-green when we get out." I laugh too. "At least we will have our summer feet to carry us home to a hot breakfast and well water for washing."
My feet are gypsy wanderers. I should dress them up in purple robes like royalty. They take me to magical places: sweet blackberry brambles and hidden backwoods swimming holes are milisecond glimpses of the most recent walks in beauty. "I am swimming in love in Virginia," I say when people ask me how I am spending my days. "I am swimming in love in Virginia until my feet carry me to the gateway of the next adventure." I do not know the gate number yet, but I will be sure to wear slip-on shoes so that I can pass through security with ease. In a few days time, I board a plane to Guatemala.
Why Guatemala? Part of me wants to grin, let my eyes twinkle and say, "Why not?" as if the upcoming journey is totally spontaneous and off-the-wall. But that is not true. I have wanted to go to Central America for several years now -- ever since I took Tico Braun's HILA305 Modern Central America course during my third year in college and cried myself to sleep amongst the silent library walls night after night, determined to read every word of the painful stories, human stories, of violence, injustice, inexplicable suffering and the capacity of the human spirit to perservere. I have wanted to reach out and connect on a human level -- beyond empiricism and text -- to connect with a land, a people, a history that has much to share. I have wanted to shed the icky feeling of the armchair anthropologist who sits in her office and theorizes, reads, writes, learns big words and forgets the importance of the warm-blooded human encounter. I have wanted to make this happen -- perhaps a step along the way to "saving the world." Now, as I let go of my attachment to "saving the world" and "being somebody" and realize that being who I am each day anew is the best I can do for any living being ... Now that I realize this, Guatemala opens to me. A window opens, "Would you like to hostess at my restaurant in Antigua?" Kamalesh smiles at my smile as we linger in the Namaste of our final yoga class together. Teacher and Student. Mother and Daugther. "Si! Si! Me encantaria!" My heart does cartwheels in my chest, thrilled at the invitation to fly out the window into Possibility. "You can work there until you get settled and find an orphanage or school where you want to devote your energy. You are wanting to work with children, right?" Oh, she knows me well in just a short time. She plants a seed. I receive it warmly.
Now, months later, I am flying through the open window of a seed planted in the stillness of Namaste. Now, years later, I am reconnecting with the stories from HILA305 and realizing that this journey has always been coming. Now, with a joyous dedication to a daily yoga practice and a steadfast commitment to being a friend to myself, I am living in the Flow and going where it takes me. I am a much better listener these days, now that I am not trying so desperately to "be somebody," "go somewhere" and "do something." I understand the language of the Universe much more clearly since I have released attachment to particular ideas of myself and of the world. Life is unfolding. I walk into uncertainty. I walk with strength, courage and peace of mind into a place that is entirely new to my ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hands. I walk with the willingness to accept that I might not save the world. Or ... I just might, in small ways. I walk with the willingness to accept this, too.
Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
-Rumi
Grounded in a daily practice that draws me lovingly from dreams and opens me to the dawn, I journey forth into the next chapter of my life. Open to all that Is, I go to a land that comes to me in dreams; a land that I know everything and nothing about. I am going to Guatemala. I will write to you from there.
My feet are gypsy wanderers. I should dress them up in purple robes like royalty. They take me to magical places: sweet blackberry brambles and hidden backwoods swimming holes are milisecond glimpses of the most recent walks in beauty. "I am swimming in love in Virginia," I say when people ask me how I am spending my days. "I am swimming in love in Virginia until my feet carry me to the gateway of the next adventure." I do not know the gate number yet, but I will be sure to wear slip-on shoes so that I can pass through security with ease. In a few days time, I board a plane to Guatemala.
Why Guatemala? Part of me wants to grin, let my eyes twinkle and say, "Why not?" as if the upcoming journey is totally spontaneous and off-the-wall. But that is not true. I have wanted to go to Central America for several years now -- ever since I took Tico Braun's HILA305 Modern Central America course during my third year in college and cried myself to sleep amongst the silent library walls night after night, determined to read every word of the painful stories, human stories, of violence, injustice, inexplicable suffering and the capacity of the human spirit to perservere. I have wanted to reach out and connect on a human level -- beyond empiricism and text -- to connect with a land, a people, a history that has much to share. I have wanted to shed the icky feeling of the armchair anthropologist who sits in her office and theorizes, reads, writes, learns big words and forgets the importance of the warm-blooded human encounter. I have wanted to make this happen -- perhaps a step along the way to "saving the world." Now, as I let go of my attachment to "saving the world" and "being somebody" and realize that being who I am each day anew is the best I can do for any living being ... Now that I realize this, Guatemala opens to me. A window opens, "Would you like to hostess at my restaurant in Antigua?" Kamalesh smiles at my smile as we linger in the Namaste of our final yoga class together. Teacher and Student. Mother and Daugther. "Si! Si! Me encantaria!" My heart does cartwheels in my chest, thrilled at the invitation to fly out the window into Possibility. "You can work there until you get settled and find an orphanage or school where you want to devote your energy. You are wanting to work with children, right?" Oh, she knows me well in just a short time. She plants a seed. I receive it warmly.
Now, months later, I am flying through the open window of a seed planted in the stillness of Namaste. Now, years later, I am reconnecting with the stories from HILA305 and realizing that this journey has always been coming. Now, with a joyous dedication to a daily yoga practice and a steadfast commitment to being a friend to myself, I am living in the Flow and going where it takes me. I am a much better listener these days, now that I am not trying so desperately to "be somebody," "go somewhere" and "do something." I understand the language of the Universe much more clearly since I have released attachment to particular ideas of myself and of the world. Life is unfolding. I walk into uncertainty. I walk with strength, courage and peace of mind into a place that is entirely new to my ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hands. I walk with the willingness to accept that I might not save the world. Or ... I just might, in small ways. I walk with the willingness to accept this, too.
Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
-Rumi
Grounded in a daily practice that draws me lovingly from dreams and opens me to the dawn, I journey forth into the next chapter of my life. Open to all that Is, I go to a land that comes to me in dreams; a land that I know everything and nothing about. I am going to Guatemala. I will write to you from there.
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