I only cut my finger once, but don't tell Tat Lu' that!

This week has been lovely for the most part. I made my first basket of the year with Tat Lu’ whose teaching method is to do the work for me. Hopefully by the end, I’ll be making baskets completely on my own from splitting the cane to putting the rim on. Maybe. I’ve been learning a lot about their family and it’s amazing how different their family is from the one I stayed with last year. Last year I kind of resented the lack of nitpicky care I got from my family, but this year I appreciate it. The family this year takes such good care of me that it makes me feel bad and stifled all at once. No longer do I burn my tongue on the food or drink, I am always at home before 9:30 else they come looking for me even though they know where I am, I am not allowed to help with dishes or cleaning (though I do get to make tortillas and take the kernals off the dried corn-cobs) and my bucket baths are nice and luke-warm. Sometimes I think they think I don’t know how to care for myself, and I get annoyed. Then I remember that they are thinking of my family back in the States and want me to get back just the way I came. So no worries mom and dad. They have let me do my own laundry which makes me at least feel slightly autonomous. I decided to live with a different family to get a different experience. I’m definitely getting what I wanted.
Last week I had a wonderful birthday. I made pizza with Yohana, my host-sister from last year and we invited all the students over (all four of them). They also made a small dinner complete with roasted chicken, broccoli, and yucca was it? We also had the pizza, and they surprised me with a cake! Yummy. This was the first year that I actually was subjected to the mordida tradition were the poor birthday girl’s face is pushed into the side of the cake. It was all very fun. Who doesn’t like having whipped cream all over their face?
Last week I also started really working again with Lucia and her group. Right now they are mostly doing crochet, so I’m learning how to do that. They actually let us work with them and with their materials even though there is no way that my stuff is good enough for sale in the market. Who wants a crocheted cell-phone bag made by a gringa anyway? Actually, Chad is also learning to make baskets with Tat Lu’ too, so we have big plans to make our own set of a dozen baskets to take to the market to sell. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t sell any, but it would still be fun(ny). On Saturday I went with Craig to San Marcos, a town on the edge of Lake Atitlán that is a prime spot for tourists. It’s always a shock going to tourist areas after being in the communities even if it’s only been two weeks. We were only there a few hours to see a friend of his and pick up a newspaper clipping (unbeknownst to the other students at the time, they were in the Diario for being tourists at Tikal. I was already in Santa Clara. It’s ok. I’m not that jealous). Anyway, for some reason the pot-smelling, long haired tourists made me nervous. Small pathways, lots of people. Why was I afraid they would touch me? No idea. It would be more logical to be nervous in the place where I’m the odd-ball. Which reminds me that a man that was slightly drunk came up to me in the street yesterday asking me something about Venezuela and telling me they were all wonderful people and that I should love them too. He then said in the politest way that he could that they didn’t want anything from the United States in their town. “Bueno,” I said with a smile and walked home. Slight paranoia ensued, but it was all forgotten in a couple of hours.
I also have been having crazy dreams about home and people I haven’t thought about since high school. Why? Maybe it means something. Maybe it’s the tortillas. Anyway, I want to go back to San Marcos one day and jump off the huge rock that’s there into the lake. Most everybody’s afraid to jump off of it. I’m pretty sure it’s no higher than the second platform at Candler. No biggy. I’m going to wow them all with my fearlessness.
As far as everything else goes, I’m way far behind in my coursework and getting things typed up. Typical. Oh, and last night was the first big rain since I’ve been here. The water was streaming in through the windows in the kitchen, flooding the floor a bit. The sound is always deafening. We have to shout to hear each other and the little girls kept talking to me. They are hard to understand anyway, so I just smiled and nodded.
I forgot that last week we also went to the election of the queen of La Salle, the school that I learned to weave at last year. Each candidate had a short dance that they did with others of their age-group as an introduction. One of the girls’ groups reenacted a Maya ceremony and actually sacrificed a chicken by dramatically chopping off its head. The kid who was acting as the priest then poured the blood onto his face and danced around. At the end when they were cleaning up, they left the head out in the middle of the basketball court where they had danced. “The head, the head,” everyone shouted. Eeew. We heard that the director of the school though it was inappropriate. It was cool though. The other dances were pretty typically traditional with marimba, incense, and baskets of corn and other greens.

Well, that's all there's time for this week. Stay tuned for next weeks grand adventure in basket making!

First Post from Guate

Titles are so stinking hard to come up with. There's just so much pressure.
So it's my birthday. Well...the news...or maybe first an explanation of exactly what I'm doing this time around since I didn't really explain it last year, so a lot of confusion insued. Basically, I'm continuing my basket research to hopefully write something publishable or presentable. I'm going to apply for folklore programs when I get back, so I'm focusing on the significance of the basket (I'm more interesting in material culture-dance, music, art-than the english type of folklore). This year is slighly different because I am the facilitator for the group of students that came on the Guatemala field study program. There are four, in random order--Chad, Jessica, Craig and Aaron. They each have their own research project that they are working on. Now to my doings...
I got here fine last Thursday the 1st after taking an all-night flight of sorts. I left at 7:40 from Utah, then left again from LAX at about 11. I left again from LAX at about 2. We had been up about an hour when they told us there was a problem with the engine and we were running on auxilary power or something, so we were going back. 'That's kind of scary,' I thought, then promptly went back to sleep. I didn't even get to see anyone famous, so it was definitely not worth the trouble.
A really nice family who worked with the field study when they were in Nahuala (we had to move locations last year) picked me up from the airport, fed me pizza and dropped me off at Km 148 to take the bus in to Santa Clara. I arrived in the pouring rain taking a bus that charged me double "because of my suitcases" and a tuk tuk that charged me cuadruple because they were a couple of punks. I didn't care to argue too much because I was getting wet. In transport, I only lost my bag of mini snickers in the tuk tuk. I would have been ok with it except those little twerps charged me too much. They didn't deserve it. :)
The next few days were spent with my host family (Tat Lu's family who taught me how to make baskets and to embroider last year) and visiting old friends. I was going to find all new host families this year, but Tat Lu' had already talked to the families from last year when I got there. Oh, well, best just to go with the flow.
On Monday, I went up to the Capital to spend the night where the other students were staying. We had a cinco de mayo party complete with carne asada and cohetes. No piñata though, they were expensive and had no candy in them. I actually don't know whay a piñata costs, so it's possible they were cheap. Whatever. I
The last week I've basically been getting distracted by the other students, running around town seeing people and eating food. The pan dulce is going to be the death of me. Luckily, Yohana (my host sister from last year) said she'd go running with me a few times a week. It's not socially unnacceptable to run! Hooray! Also, we tried to go talk to both the mayors and neither of them were there. Does that make me a bad facilitator? Possibly.
Yesterday and Saturday I went up to the top of Las Cristalinas, a mountain peak that overlooks Lake Atitlan. It's not very clear this time of year, but it's still cool to go up and see what I can see. You know, like the bear. The second time was fun because we went up with Craig's host parents, Cecelia and Miguel who were all up for exploring the mountain and trying different paths. We took pictures of all the gringos just to see how they'd like it as well as destroying the lovely foliage Guatemala style in order to take flowers back with us. We did actually learn something about the plants and I found a ton of mint up on the mountain. It was fun. There's a lot of hiking to be done while I'm here.
Anyway, not too many flea bites so far. I'm only sleeping on a box spring, so that's interesting. But, I'm taking bucket baths every other day which is marvelous! So far adjusting to the food hasn't been all that painful either. I'm going to be working again with Lucia's group of women that make crafts (including the pine needle baskets) among other things. I'm also hoping to learn baskets well enough to work with someone a few times a week making different styles. We'll see how that goes. Anyway, happy Amy's birthday to everyone.