Coffee & Culture

February 4^th

Today for Spanish class we took a bus to Antigua and visited a museum of coffee and Mayan culture.  Guides took us through the history and the whole process of making coffee.  Countries that produce the largest amount coffee in order from most to least are: Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, India, Guatemala (Costa Rica was #11 for all my Costa Rica peeps out there).  But the top three countries in coffee quality in order are Ethiopia, Kenya, and third place is Guatemala!  Here is a picture of the coffee “cherries”.  It takes 6.5 pounds of these to make 1 pound of roasted coffee (40 cups).

Here is where they sundried their coffee:

At the end we got a delicious cup of coffee and proceeded to the Maya museum.  The guide showed us tons of crazy instruments like these below.  They are called Tuns or Tunkils and are made from hormigo wood (platymiscium dimophandrum).  They are hollow inside and have an H shape cut into on top.  They hit them with wooden sticks that have rubber on the ends. 

We also got to see a Maximón (pronounced Ma-shee-mone) alter.  From what I understand, Maximón is a mix of Catholicism and the Pre-Colombian Mayan God Mam.  He is represented by different effigys and stays in his house all year and comes out for holy week.  Worshippers stop by and offer spirits and cigars:

And then the tour ended with a “no words” video of various dances, festivals, and ceremonies all around Guatemala.  It was very trippy. One with giant colorful kites (maybe 12 feet across), one with giant dancing birds, one where they swing around a giant pole on ropes, of course many with fireworks, and a ceremony where they were pouring alcohol into the mouth of a wooden MaximÓn (after they stuck a burning cigar in his mouth).

5 de Febrero

This morning the whole group gathered at the training center to partake in a traditional Mayan ceremony. First, we helped to get the offerings ready.  I helped unwrap dried corn husks that had incense chips inside.  The incense was made from pine sap and a mixture of other plants, here is what they looked like:

Then the priestess began building the base of the offering.  The middle square is sugar, most of the circular disks are made from ground chocolate nibs, the liquid on top is honey, and piled all around the sugar are dried barks from various plants.

Then she began to add candles of different colors, whole chocolate seeds, flower petals, etc.

She explained each section and color with detail.  I’ll try to recount what I remember, which is not easy because there was a lot of information that she gave us and the ceremony was at least three hours.  The red represented the East, our blood, the energy from the sun.  The yellow was nourishment, yellow corn.  The section with pink flowers and the black candle was the night, shade, black corn.  The white was white corn, the air that keeps us alive and cleans away bad things like illnesses.

The Mayan calendar goes in rotations of 20 days.  For each of the 20 days there is a god, a special energy.  She explained that this was an offering, but also a celebration so she went through each of the 20 gods and offered alcohol, refreshments, sugar, seeds, tobacco etc.  Many of the prayers were made in Kakchiquel, which is also the language my host dad speaks!  He has taught me a lot of the basic words so I understood when she kept saying matiosh (gracias).  She gave thanks to the mother earth and kissed the ground, to the moon for illuminating the night, to the sun for giving us energy, to the plants, to water (river, lakes, sea, watersheds), to the divine law, to justice, to peace, to the loyal friends we meet along our pathway, to the cosmo, and to the stars (she named off a lot of constellations).  Throughout the ceremony we also participated and made offerings when she would tell us to.  We “paid” a few of the gods having to do with prosperity/money/business with the incense chips.  We made candle offerings.  During one part she just had the men come up and did specific prayers for them, then the women.  We gave blessings to those who have passed.  There was also one part where we gave blessings to those we knew who worked in the medical field as healers.  I gave two red candles, one for Julia & one for Michael. 

She also gave blessings for the success of our projects and safety on our journeys.  She always threw in crosses of protections. 

She could tell that a lot of people were drifting off in the end and she said “Keep your mind and heart here as one, everyone together.  Just in this little moment, it’s not very long.”  Here are pictures towards the end:

Afterwards we got to eat traditional Mayan food of course using what they used, their fingers.

I was chatting with her during the lunch hour and HAD TO ask her about what she thought of 2012.  I needed to hear it first hand, what a Mayan woman thought about all of the fuss.  She said that there will be a lot of change as we move to the next cycle of light and peace.  I asked her what sort of changes and she replied “lots of volcanic eruptions, landslides, changes in weather so there will be people that die but those who live will be in peace and harmony as one”.  Right after that I walked over to the training director Craig and asked him not to place me near a volcano please. 

9 de Febrero

Whew! I have completed my first charla!  One of the first big steps towards becoming a Peace Corps volunteer here.  It is always a painful and necessary learning process for everyone.  It is hard enough to give presentations in front of a classroom of Americans in your own language but man is it stressful to give a presentation in Spanish to municipality workers and farmers.  Not to mention that my training director, program director, country director, a current volunteer, etc. stopped by the municipality to watch us perform.

They gave great feedback afterwards.  I have learned to definitely keep it simple, and then make it even more simple. And I need to use more visual objects and have less writing and reading in my lesson.  A lot of people may not even be able to read and could get down on themselves and lose confidence.  I also need to repeat, repeat, repeat my points.  I cannot believe how helpful my summer job as an orientation leader will be.  I did a ton of different icebreakers and public speaking the whole time and that’s what I will have to do here all the time.  All the current volunteers say that the icebreakers are essential and really do make a huge difference in how comfortable everyone is, and in turn how much everyone participates and learns.

Feb 12, 2011

For Spanish lately I have been walking to the next town over and getting lessons with the more advanced group.  I think it has been great and I’m definitely learning a lot more.

Tomorrow morning the whole ecotourism group is leaving for a week of field based training.  I looked at the schedule I can’t believe how much it reminds me of ESRM fieldtrips, especially the ESRM field trips in Costa Rica.  But OF COURSE that makes sense because I was studying ecotourism there…. hahahaha. We get to check out sweet ecotourism sites and parks.  I know we will be doing environmental education on the trail with niños, a zip line, trail building, and we get to visit the sites of current volunteers.