Maybe it’s the Rockette in my blood, but I see people moving in unison to music and I become that white lady with the camera, sobbing. This week in Antigua, Guatemala.
Posts Tagged ‘Guatemala’
Antigua parade Summer 2018
Sunday, August 5th, 2018
ShareThisGuatemala. Summer 2018
Thursday, August 2nd, 2018
Something I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have, is the way Guatemala now possesses my heart. I’m here with my kids, so happy to breathe in this place. (Yesterday we visited friends who are weavers in Xenocoj; the photo shows Olivia standing beside them, dressed in their beautiful traje.)
Other photos show the kids eating lunch at Pollo Campero and a bus with balloons and sticky notes. (This week was St. Christopher’s Day, patron saint of travelers and drivers.)
With every trip, my appreciation for this remarkable country deepens.
Fuego and Pacaya
Monday, June 4th, 2018
The footage of Volcano Fuego erupting is mind-boggling. The latest reports state at least 25 dead and hundreds injured. Aurora International Airport is closed, and for miles beyond the lava flow, ash blankets roads, trees, and houses. Our family in Guatemala is safe, thankfully, but so many are not.
Guatemala is home to some thirty volcanoes. As I’ve previously posted, Mateo and I have climbed Pacaya several times; the photos here are from our trip in October 2015. Pacaya is known as “safe” to climb, unlike the mighty and active Fuego, whose name means fire.
Guatemala always is in our thoughts, now especially.
Happy birthday, Rigoberta Menchu
Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
Happy 59th birthday to 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner and K’iche’ activist Rigoberta Menchu. Today is a good day to post a clip from the 1983 documentary she narrated, When the Mountains Tremble. Menchu’s voice throughout is riveting, beginning with these opening sentences–”My name is Rigoberta Menchu… I’m going to tell you my story, which is the story of all Guatemalan people.”
My family owns the DVD, but the film is probably available elsewhere on line.
When the Mountains Tremble is directed by Pamela Yates, who continues to make important documentaries about Guatemalan history, including Granito and 500 Years.
Kallie and Maya
Monday, December 4th, 2017
We met Kallie and her daughter Maya in 2003, as we like to say “on the calle” in Antigua, when Maya and my daughter Olivia were babies in arms and Kallie and I each had moved to Guatemala to finish their adoptions.
Now teenagers, Maya and Olivia remain close friends–”oldest” friends, in fact–and Kallie and I share a bond that’s forever. Our families met up this weekend and remembered those days, and our other dear friends who fostered. xoxo
Childhood cancer in Guatemala, photo-essay
Saturday, November 12th, 2016The Washington Post published this photo-essay by writer Chloe Coleman about an 8-year-old boy from San Cristobal, Totonicapán, with T Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The piece is drawn from Scott Woodward’s documentary film project, “How I Live,” that looks into children’s cancer in resource-limited countries. “The treatment of childhood cancer in the developed world is largely viewed as a success story, with survival rates as high as 80%. By contrast, in Low and Middle Income Countries, the child cancer survival rate averages just 20%.”
To me, the essay is powerful on two levels–first, because of the boy’s brave journey in the face of cancer. And second, because the images convey rural daily life as it is lived by a majority of Guatemalans, in a way not often seen or recorded.
Road trip to Tikal
Saturday, June 25th, 2016
Olivia, Mateo, and I just returned from visiting the great Mayan pyramids in Tikal, which is the reason I’ve been incommunicado. Not even phone reception in some places. I can’t remember when I’ve been so off the grid. We’ve been traveling with another family from our adoption group, Michele S. and her daughter Sofia, and the kids got along great. We drove through 9 departments in Guatemala–departments are like our states; there are 22 total–and saw a part of the country completely different from the highlands, where we usually go. The east and north are very dry and then very jungle.
We spent a night or two in Rio Dulce (details are a blur at this point!), which is beautiful and like I imagine the Amazon to be. We took a boat ride down the river and stopped at a hot springs, where a natural healer named Felix massaged the sulphur sands into my bad knee, and for good measure, the other knee, too. The kids loved soaking in the scalding hot water. An amazing day.
Pastores
Sunday, June 12th, 2016
The town of Pastores near Antigua is known for its leatherwork. The main street is lined with shops where craftsmen custom-make boots and belts and handbags. My favorite wallet, of leather and cloth, was made in Pastores. We visited last summer with a friend whose daughter rides horses, and left with a handsome pair. I stumbled on these photos in an old file, and remember the happy day.
Tortrix
Monday, March 21st, 2016
If you’ve been to Guatemala, chances are you’ve eaten Tortrix–the savory, heavily salted corn chips with a hint of lime that are sold in tiendas and markets everywhere. Ordinarily, I’m not a big snack eater, but Tortrix are my weakness. In Guatemala, a bag always is stashed in my backpack, ready to be dug into whenever hunger strikes.
Of course, Tortrix and I have a history. Back in 2002, when Tim and I visited Olivia in Guatemala City at the Camino Real, we often did a run to a nearby market for stuff we needed or forgot. And there, hanging by the cash register, calling to me, was the display of Tortrix. The iridescent green bag. The bold red logo. The promise of salt and flavor. I was hooked.
Last week, in the US, I visited my parents in San Diego. They’re in an assisted living facility now, 87 years old and as comfortable as one can be at 87 in assisted living. The visits are bittersweet, as my husband and kids understand. Anyway, while I was away, Tim took the kids to a restaurant he discovered, owned by a family from El Salvador. And hanging by the cash register was the familiar display of Tortrix.
It doesn’t take much to make this girl happy. xo
Keep the faith.
Wednesday, March 9th, 2016When I read the headline “Empowering Girls Through Education,” I thought, “OK! Education for girls in Nahuala, Guatemala! Count me in!” The project is sponsored by the international organization CARE, partnered by the personal-care products at Hain Celestial.
Today I must be feeling cynical, because after reading the article, instead of feeling optimistic, I felt my spirit deflate. Will this program really effect any permanent lasting change in the life of these young girls? Will anything?
Some days I wonder. Some days I believe nothing less than a 100% commitment by the leaders of Guatemala–not aid organizations, or corporate America, or any outsider–will change anything. And will that day ever come?
Be assured, my family supports multiple NGOs in Guatemala–which are all doing meaningful work! I subscribe to Mother Teresa’s philosophy: “Do small acts with great kindness.” I remind myself that no one can change the world, but maybe we can change one tiny thing.
Yet some days, like today, I read an article touting a revolutionary new program guaranteed to lift up and empower, and what do I do? I sigh.
Note to self: Shoulders back while marching forward. Keep the faith.
