WARNING: This post is 6 pages, single-spaced. You´ll probably want to skim it. If you want to attempt the whole thing, I suggest printing it out and leaving it on the toilet tank.
Hi, dears!
Once upon a time I had this great idea to set up a blog before leaving the country, so that I would be all ready to regularly post interesting, insightful, and maybe even witty entries about my travels, in a format that people could choose to read or not. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, I left Philadelphia on October 24th without having set up any such thing, and, in the three months since then, have proven myself incapable of starting one on the road. Instead, I’ve done a spotty job of updating people who I’m pretty sure are interested and/or concerned (cough, mom and dad) via short, rushed emails sent from crowded internet cafes across Central America. If you haven’t received these messages, which have been sporadic and often bordering on unintelligible, I promise you haven’t missed much.
Today, though, I find myself with some peace and quiet (I’m on a small farm), a computer (Seth’s parents sent theirs down), and a little time on my hands (it’s Sunday and these farmers don’t mess around with the whole day of rest thing). So, I’ll try to write the type of email I wish I’d been writing all along, and briefly fill you in on what we’ve been doing down here for the last few months while you all have been busy, I’m sure, acknowledging the existence of and living in the real world.
The first book I read on this trip was The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux, a travel novel about his journey from New York to the southern tip of Chile, all by train - thanks to Ruthie’s cousin, Andy, for the recommendation. In it, he talks about the importance of enjoying and thinking about the journey to a destination, rather than what happens when you get there. (He never “got” anywhere in the book, just took trains and more trains…or at least as far as I know – the Pacific ocean carried away my copy when I had a few chapters left.) With that in mind, I want to share something that happened on the very first day of this trip, while I was still in the old US of A. (Then, I promise, I’ll really zoom through the rest.)
The Dallas airport is big and cold, with a quiet, Jetsons-esque tram (futuristic by Philadelphian standards) linking its terminals, and is successfully following the national trend of trying to be as much like a shopping mall as possible. In other words, the setting of our half day layover there was utterly unremarkable. Enter a small, wiry man, in shorts, high socks, and a baseball cap, undoubtedly Texan, with American flags and other assorted patches framing his fanny pack, tapping me on the shoulder as Adam, Seth, and I waited at Gate Whatever for our flight to Mexico City: “Excuse me folks, but I just wanted to let you know that a plane full of our soldiers coming home from Iraq just landed and they’ll be deboarding in a few minutes, passing through this skyway right up here. If you don’t mind standing and applauding as they walk by, we’ll all show ‘em just how much we appreciate what they’re doing for us over there.” – or something along those lines. We were definitely in Texas. We responded with vague, noncommittal nods, and he eagerly moved on to the next group of weary, bored travelers, with the same request. I’m not a big fan of the military nor of what we’re doing in Iraq, but I saw no harm in welcoming home the people who, for one reason or another, are caught up in it. Still, I thought I’d participate only as a spectator. Baby steps.
I waited, interested, as people all around me stood up in anticipation; this visible and unabashed patriotism was relatively new to me. A few minutes later, a boy in sand-colored fatigues and combat boots with a green sack slung across his shoulder came into view above, followed by another, and then another. Soon, the single file line of young men and women in uniform, most of them my age or younger, stretched the length of the glass-encased skywalk thirty feet above us. Everyone in the terminal was on their feet, looking up at the passing soldiers, clapping and nodding appreciatively. There was an occasional shout of “Thank You!” from the crowd around us, though the parade of soldiers above probably couldn’t hear it through the thick glass. I got to my feet initially out of peer pressure – in Texas, I thought it safest to at least give the impression of patriotism at all times. But soon, I was on my feet because I wanted to be. Most of the soldiers were staring straight ahead, on a stoic march to their next gate or maybe even to their waiting families. But some, maybe one in ten, looked down at the clapping crowd and beamed. They looked proud, in the best way. Some waved, others seemed embarrassed by the attention. One even threw up a peace sign…I found irony in this that probably wasn’t intended.
Fifteen minutes later, they were gone, and we sat down, our palms buzzing from the clapping marathon. People went back to airport behavior, munching on McDonalds and becoming islands in a crowded, high-ceilinged room, once again. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what the last year had been like for those soldiers, most barely out of high school. Was this their first tour? Their fourth? I thought about what their lives had been like before the army, under what circumstances they had joined, and what their lives would be like afterward. I wondered why some people’s lives land them on a plane to Iraq in a uniform, when others find themselves at the airport in spandex, waiting with friends to embark on a pleasure trip through Latin America.
Our flight to Mexico was smooth and mercifully uneventful. I spent the whole flight chatting with my seatmate in Spanish – for me, welcome practice indeed. He was a Mexican American who spoke fluent English but was kind enough to pretend like it still made sense for us to converse in Spanish. He told me the story of his solo border crossing at sixteen, running at night and catching cat naps in ditches when he could. Twenty five years later, he is a U.S. citizen, married with children, and was on a short trip to be with his family in Mexico after the death of an aunt there. I was becoming more and more convinced that Theroux was onto something.
We spent about three weeks in Mexico, which was no where near enough. We began in Mexico City, where its superb subway system can make you forget that it boasts the largest population of any city in the world…last I heard. We visited churches and cathedrals, watched gas industry protests in the huge zocalo (central plaza), toured Frieda Kahlo’s house, and, most importantly, ate. We ate tacos and quesadillas, tortas and tamales, gringas and floutas. This was my first time eating real Mexican food, and as someone who was already content eating relatively crappy Mexican cuisine in the Estados Unidos, it was an amazing surprise. Quesillo, fresh string cheese that’s a staple of Mexican food, became my new best friend.
Next we visited Cuernavaca, where we spent a few days with Cathy, a friend of Adam’s family. She’s an anthropologist who’s lived, studied, and worked in Cuernavaca for the last 35 years. She amazed us with stories of life in Cuernavaca when it was a home base for progressive intellectuals like Ivan Illich, Gustavo Esteva, Paulo Freire, and their contemporaries. She described wedging herself into the back of a packed classroom to hear Illich speak - he was quite popular with the ladies, as she recalls. After eating the only Mexican food I didn’t like (corn smut – should have guessed) and climbing up to ruins in Tepotzlan, we headed to our next stop, Oaxaca city. We spent Day of the Dead there, visiting a gigantic tree and some Zapotec ruins (Monte Alban is in great shape – hardly in ruins), and eating whenever and wherever we could. Soon we were itching to visit a beach, so made our way down to the Pacific beach towns of Puerto Angel and Zipolite.
The couple of days we’d intended to spend there turned into a week of swimming, sunning, reading, snorkeling (I saw a piranhas and a puffer fish all puffed!), perfecting our hammock skills, and chatting with ex-pats from the U.S., Italy, and all over who had come to Zipolite six months, four years, ten years earlier and never left. They say that Zipolite is the place you come to do nothing, and all evidence indicates that they’re right. My favorite ex-pat: Boogie, a native of northern Florida who quit his job in 2005, sold his belongings, and drove in his pickup – yes, drove – to Zipolite, having no idea where he was going. “I used to be what they call a Republican, but nowadays, seems like they just mess stuff up so bad, we’re better without’m! I think’m turning into something of – of an Anarchist!”. Boogie has been working as a bartender in Zipolite ever since his arrival, but speaks next to no Spanish. As he slams two beers down in front of Mexican customers: “Heere’s dooos fer ya!” We never got to meet his best friend in Zipolite, an ex-pat from London, Crazy Horse Invincible – his legal name.
Sunburned and weary of doing nothing, we moved onto Guatemala. (Note: I don’t mean to belittle the act of doing nothing. The second book I read, The Sex Lives of Cannibals, is written by a man who lived on a tiny atoll in the equatorial Pacific for two years without a job or any real commitments. He teaches that idleness is an art.) After crossing the wall of Dole Fruit trucks that line the Mexico-Guatemala border, we rode three hours into the chillier climate of Guatemala’s western highlands on a standard issue Carlisle County School District bus – identical to the ones we know, but with a few added flames and crucifixes. We reached Quetzaltenango aka Xela (Shay-la), tired of chicken busses and all modes of transportation, and after less than 24 hours there, decided to stay a while. We were tired of living out of backpacks, and of meeting great people for a day or so, then losing them. We got an apartment in central Xela, found a couple of great organizations to volunteer with, and discovered that our apartment building hosted an ever changing, but never disappearing group of gringos and gueros who were spending time in Xela for a host of reasons – working, applying to grad school, hiding from loans, getting over break ups, painting or writing in peace. We quickly realized that, in this atmosphere, despedidas (going away parties) were central to social life among extranjeros (foreigners) in Xela. We had no choice but to do our part, attending Going Away or Welcome Back parties at least twice a week. We devoted our days to three main endeavors: 1) relaxation (reading, writing, going to markets, cooking, sunning, and watching Dr. House or La Ley y el Orden: UVE – House and SVU, respectively.), 2) working with a shelter for abused women and their families, and 3) working on a small permaculture farm in an aldea outside the city.
The Nuevos Horizontes shelter, which provides safety and services to women escaping domestic violence, is one of only a few of its kind in Guatemala. Our first day there, a woman arrived with her children from Guatemala City (5 hours from Xela) with both eyes blacked and the demeanor of a street dog who gets kicked constantly and shows it. She had been unable to find a safe shelter in the capital – Nuevos Horizontes was the nearest she could find. We did some writing for the organization to improve their grant seeking capacity, and spent afternoons playing with the kids at the shelter and at the nearby daycare, which provides free or low cost childcare to families in transition from the shelter to independent living.
The farm, called La Granja Permacultura Ixchel, is situated on a steep hill overlooking a tiny winding river, which had recently been rerouted by a government development project – unfortunately, the new route completely bypasses the town, of which it had once been the main (and only) source of water. Oops. The farmer, a man in his thirties named Joel, is part of a cooperative that provides seeds to families across the region. All of the families agree to farm – mostly beans, maize, and medicinal plants – following principles of sustainability, without any chemicals, and in adherence to Mayan farming traditions. We worked on what ever Joel needed: a chicken coop made from bamboo we cut down on the farm, a retaining wall made entirely of dirt-filled plastic bottles that we collected from the polluted remains of the river below, a two meter deep hole for composting.
I liked the work, but Joel – his past, his knowledge, his wisdom, his laugh, his songs, his pony tail – was the real draw. He knew all too well about the US’s past involvement in the lives of Guatemalans, and spoke openly and honestly about it with us. His father, a glass workers union leader, was kidnapped and killed in the Epoca de Violencia, one of the many euphemisms that Guatemalans employ when talking about the five decades of civil war they endured after the US-backed coup ousted Jacobo Arbenz, a leader whose social policies and land reform threatened the holdings of United Fruit Company - now known as Dole. (Other common names for the era: La Guerra, Los Anos Duros, La Epoca de Pena.) When Joel was seven, his village was attacked while he was at school, and his immediate family was forced to flee (to Mexico, eventually) without him. He lived with an aunt as long as he safely could, but was eventually forced to go into hiding in the mountains with his “mountain family”: five young men, five young women, and two dogs. For years they lived in the mountains, eating whatever they could find and, when there was no other source, drinking water squeezed from fruitless banana trees (they yield no fruit in a mountain climate). They always walked in a single file line, with the dogs in front. This way, if the dogs failed to sniff out a land mine, fewer people would be injured when it went off. On one of our last days in Xela, we were having lunch at a cantina, when two men approached our table, gesturing and muttering incomprehensibly. Joel clearly knew them, and embraced them both. Through a combination of Joel’s explanations and their pantomimes, we learned that these men had been in the mountains with Joel, but had lost their hearing when American helicopters dropped bombs around them. They were left completely deaf, barely able to speak, and missing fingers. Remarkably, these men, like Joel, were cheerful and open, seeming to begrudge us not at all the actions of our government. We grew close with Rolando, Joel’s best friend, whose entire family had been murdered in one day – stories like his were everywhere. But in all our tearful discussions about the past, Joel always reminded us that it is of the utmost importance to remember and talk about the past, but useless to harbor resentment or be angry today. He welcomed us entirely, and explained that he saw us as people, not a government, a distinction I was grateful for, but which I never felt we completely deserved.
After Christmas, we reluctantly but excitedly prepared to wrap up our time in Xela – but not before my mom and Eva visited! We spent time in Xela, visited the farm, and saw some of the country’s scenic gems – Lago Atitlan, Pacaya Volcano, and the beauty that abounds on any chicken bus ride through rural Guatemala. In early January, we made a quick hop over to Honduras to see the ruins at Copan, then embarked on a two day bussride through Salvador and Honduras into Nicaragua. We spent some time in Leon, sledding down volcanoes – okay, only one – and swimming on empty, black sand beaches. We met a young man in the Nicaraguan Navy, Ernesto, who spent a day at the beach with us. He didn’t want to swim (his gun was tied around his ankle) but guarded us while we did against an unseen enemy. He stood on the beach, fully dressed with arms akimbo, scanning our surroundings for anything that seemed off. As we walked for an hour down the beach, he pointed out the remains of bombed Samoza mansions, and current Sandino mansions, saying he preferred to look toward the coast rather than to the sea. Ernesto’s been in the Navy for ten years, since he was 14, and has spent 4 of every five days on a boat since then, hunting Colombian, cocaine-filled boats bound for the U.S. His father was killed by the Contras, and his mother died of cancer shortly after. With no family and nowhere else to go, he joined the Navy, though he had never swum a day in his life. Now, a 24-year old senior Lieutenant in control of 9 men, he’s tired of cocaine boats, tired of watching his friends die, tired of pointing mounted, automatic weapons at strangers on boats, tired of the sea. We asked why he didn’t retire, and he looked at us with a puzzled look. “What would I do? Where would I go?” he asked. He has no family, no skills other than those used to hunt Colombian lanchas, and no friends that aren’t in the Navy – he’s grown up in the Navy and knows no other existence. That, together with the fact that service in the Nicaraguan armed forces is a shamed profession because of lingering associations with the murderous Guardia Nacional, was enough to bring Ernesto to tears more than once in our two days together. Again, as with friends in Guatemala, he held none of the crimes of our country against us, only wanting to know our story and for us to know his. Sometimes it feels like we’re on a tour of U.S. imperialist conquests and interventions, rather than a Central American pleasure tour.
Finally, for you faithful readers who are still with me, we are up to the present. We are living and working on Las Mercedes farm, just outside of Ocotal in Northwestern Nicaragua – cowboy country. There are cowboy hats, belts, and boots, and they have special laws regarding damages paid in the event of car-livestock crashes on the highway. (If you’re wondering, the animal owner pays the car owner). Two brothers own the tomato farm where we’re staying: Roy and Roger…getting the picture?
We rise early, but not as early as the other workers on the farm, and spend long mornings clearing land and digging holes for a future building project. It’s hot and sunny, and every living thing in the plant kingdom comes covered in inch long thorns. Here, the thorns have thorns. Seriously. The ground is hard and dry at the surface, and only gets tougher as you dig deeper. Yesterday we abandoned a meter cubed hole we’d been digging to get dirt for adobe bricks, because the soil was too tough. To reiterate, the dirt was TOO HARD to make BRICKS out of. We “dig” by swinging pick axes and jamming long, pointed, 40 pound steel rods into the ground. Shovels are only used to clear the dirt once it’s loosened. If you’ve ever read the book, Holes, that paints a pretty accurate picture.
That may not sound fun, but it is. The head worker’s family lives on the farm, and his kids provide endless entertainment, as do the dogs, horses, cows, goats, and geese. It’s quiet and breezy, and each night is ripe for star gazing. It’s only a half mile off the Pan-American highway, but it feels a world away from anything. We go to bed early and wake up early…and whenever else the roosters feel like crowing throughout the night. There are cold showers, no phones, a television that gets only one channel – the telenovela channel, luckily – and no mirrors at all on the property. We play baseball, the national sport here, in the corral when the cows are grazing at a field down the road. It’s fun, though I play terribly, and I doubt that cow manure is the turf of the future. My harmonica is coming in very handy – every afternoon I play duets with Luis, the 9 year old son who’s getting over the chicken pox. He wears the same shirt most days - red, with a volcano on it. Printed at the bottom is a message in English that I´m sure noone in his family has ever read: “Lava Lava Island: Where Jesus’ Love Flows”. If it weren’t for little reminders like these, it would be easy to forget that the farm and the family living on it are effected by the outside world. It seems isolated and independent, but when we asked why they only grow tomatoes, the owners explained that that’s what WalMart tells them to grow. Years ago, USAID set up a farming cooperative in the area, funding small farms across the department. Roy explained to us that this cooperative was completely dependent on sales to US companies, and today, WalMart constitutes the entire market for these farmers, and, as such, can dictate products and prices. I’ve forgotten to mention that WalMart has been following us on our whole journey; in Guatemala it’s called La Dispensa Familiar, in Salvador it’s La Union, and here in Nicaragua it’s Pali. The names are different, but the products, brands, and employee vests are the same.
If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations and thank you. I’ll try to write less more often, so you don’t have to use a bookmark to read my emails. I miss you and want to hear how you’re all doing. If you want to come down and meet us, holler. So where to next? Probably to Costa Rica then Equador and on down to Bolivia. I don’t think there are any WalMarts in Bolivia…
Abrazos, Laura
