I’m currently working on editing the Guatemala piece, and realized that the script is currently twice as long as it should be- not a fun thing to do. So last night I was working on cutting things out, and got it down a lot closer to what it should be.

Here’s the problem: In my attempts to shorten it, I realized that I was losing a lot of the voices of the people, and leaving in the well spoken workers.

This is definitely a sad reality- the higher your class, the more well spoken you are. This means that the nun will speak of lofty things, and in really clear ways, while the farmer will be more likely to mutter and stumble around.

So it’s easy to take out the more bumbling quotes. And that’s what I did. And now I’m off to put them back in, and make sure that their voices are heard, just as much as their advocates.

Friday and Saturday were also spent in Yalu. We interviewed an old man who spoke Maum, the local language. We taped the construction of a flower greenhouse. We went on a long walk where I almost died (don’t worry, I didn’t). It was beautiful, but constantly swinging back and forth between foggy and cloudy (check the two pictures below to see a god example of that). We also interviewed Juan Pablo, who was an excellent interview.

Sunday, we loaded our goods up on a mule and walked to our car, then made the trek back to Guatemala City. We made a stop back in Santiago de Atitlan for one last interview.

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Thursday, October 18- La Vega del Vulcan to Yalu via Mexico.
Yalu is a 3 hour walk from La Vega, or a 5 hour drive with a 30 minute walk. We opted for the shorter walk because of all our equipment. We left Yalu early after a quick interview with the owner of the fish tank that had been harvested the day before. We stopped in Sibinal to get some breakfast and shots of market day. A landslide from the heavy rain had blocked off a section of road, so we had to wait 45 minutes while they cleared the road. Had lunch at the chile relleno place in San Marcos (they were out, sadly). Then we headed to the Mexico border, and then to a small town on the Mexico border. It was night, and raining pretty hard, but we had to walk about 45 minutes with all our stuff to Yalu, on the Guatemalan side of the border. It was awful We were soaking and exhausted by the time we arrived at Juan Pablo’s (Juanpa) house.
We had a great supper and I had my first experience with Juanpa playing guitar. He sings wonderful songs with their basis in liberation theology, from a tattered song book put out by the Catholic church in Guatemala City.

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Wednesday, October 17- San Marcos to La Vega del Vulcan
The
fog was terrible. We were pretty high up in the mountains, (even drove
through the highest inhabitated place in the Americas) so we were
basically in the clouds. We got some good landscapes on the way to
Sibinal, where we had breakfast and discussed what to do. I knew I
couldn’t get great stuff because of the fog. We decided to go for it,
so we drove to the other side of the mountain, a good hour long drive
where our 4×4 rented SUV came in very handy. We went back and forth
between beautiful landscapes and seeing 10 feet. In La Vega del Vulcan
(located in a valley next to a volcano), we taped the first harvest of
fish from fish tanks that were part of the food security project. We
also interviewed a lady whose husband migrates to Mexico looking for
work very often. We ate wonderful homemade tortillas and macaroni soup.
Jordan and I slept in a very short and hard bed. I slept wonderfully-
he barely slept.

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Tuesday, October 16- Santiago, Atitlan to San Marcos
Woke up to try to get the sunrise shot at 5:30 a.m. The sky looked
clear, but sunrise was a bit off. I went back to sleep, and at 6 a.m.,
the sun was looking more promising, but the sky had grown very cloudy.
We drove to a beautiful spot on the other side of Lago Atitlan, and got
some beautiful shots, despite the clouds. (I just watched some just
wonderful shots, and all credit goes to the landscape, not our camera
skills).
We then headed west to San Marcos, stopping for a parade that was
blocking our way. The local high school was playing that rap song that
basically goes- “Yeah, Yeah” on the xylophone. That beats YMCA, which I
heard in Honduras.
In San Marcos, we interviewed a nun who worked with some of the
projects. She spoke wonderfully about the preferential option for the
poor, liberation theology and more.
We accidently left Fredy in the hotel and went to this cafe with
AMAZING chile relleno. I’m willing to return just for another one of
those. Fredy found us, luckily, but not before some guy (likely bugging
out on something) yelled some very critical but true observations about
gringos at us.

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Sorry about the lack of updating while I was in Guatemala. I spent a significant amount of time very far away from even electricity, let alone internet. I’ll do a few shorter updates instead of one big old one, so it’s more readable.
I’ll wait to get pictures, which hopefully will be tonight or tomorrow. Until then, have a good day?

Well hey. I have officially survived the trip! I am happily sitting in my room, checking my 46 unread emails and hoping to get to bed soon. I promise, I’ll get more on the trip up soon! It was a great time!