Xela and Surroundings
hello everyone. espero que esten muy muy bien. i hope you are all doing very well… i have been here in xela now for 8 days and im finally feeling very adjusted to travel and comfortable in the town itself.
Xela is a town of 100K people, about 4 hours by car, northwest of guatemala city. It is in the Western highlands of the country. The people here are very friendly and beautiful. walking thru the streets you can see women dressed in traditional mayan clothing along with kids in their catholic school uniforms along with typical teenager wear..im staying in a guest house called Casa Kaehler… for about 7 bucks/night i have a lovely private room, warm water for showering, access to a kitchen, a beautiful balcony overlooking the open patio, with chairs/tables for studying outside while its warm…. oh, speaking of the weather.. interesting. It is currently about 75 degrees at 330 in the afternoon, but by this evening when the sun sets the temp. will drop to just above freezing, there is no heating…. i sleep with 3 wool blankets, long underwear and wool socks!..the mornings are very chilly, but i love it!!- i walked to school this a.m. for example, wearing a wool hat, three layers of shirts, long pants, gloves and sneakers.. by our mid morning break, i had on a tee shirt and sunglasses to study outside!!.. the air is very dry and town is dusty, at times the streets are full of exhaust from all the cars… but the town is quite pretty, with the requisite ‘parque central’ in the center of town, surrounded by the old bank, government bldgs, beautiful cathedral etc. There is a nice balcony cafe which overlooks the park and is great for studying or people watching.
Ive been here long enough now to have some favorite places, including the little corner espresso cafe, where i have a little chat with the senora every morning, before i take my coffee ‘para llevar” to go on my way to school. there are some great cafes, restaurants for guatemalteco food as well as other ethnic foods.. and there is of course your share of places serving strange dishes, like nachos covered in what i think was cheese whiz and ketchup ???!!! last night we found a great bar for wine/cheese.. It is very inexpensive to eat. for example, my morning splurge on cafe con leche/coffee with milk, is $1.25. I bought a week;s worth of groceries (two meals/day) for less than 20 dollars. to go out and have a bottle of wine, bottles of water and a cheese plate, for example, costs about 10 dollars at a nice cafe. a couple tacos is about 1 dollar; of course eating at markets is much much cheaper! the liquados- fruit drinks (like a shake) made with water or milk and various fruits are delicious! (and surprisingly easy on the stomach) There is also a bakery run by the Mennonites (thanks for the tip, Bret!) which sells the most amazing breads, granola, yogurt, donuts (yes, Gwen, i said donuts!)..
Im studying at a school called INEPAS; the organinzation is part language school part social project organization. They do education programs for children at risk and women in the community. I am going to learn more about the organizations volunteer opps tomorrow. I am one of only 5 students currently, a slow time of year maybe, but new students start every few days. I study one on one with my teacher Mario for 5 hours per day. He is a 26 year old recent university graduate and a very good teacher; i think he has been teaching for 6 years or so. He’s teaching me the progressive tenses and im teaching him important english terms like “Sketchy”..it is of course quite intense studying for 5 hours all in spanish, but i think im learning alot. Actually i TRUST im learning alot; sometimes i feel like the more i learn or am introduced to, the less i really know.. something about “the more you know, the more you know that you dont know” didn’t someone famous say that??!! we have morning break, 30 minutes during which we are encouraged not to break into english of course,, and we try! very geeky, but very fun. the other students are from: the States (Missouri, Minnesota), Norway, Germany. Everyone is very nice and very interesting. One of the german girls has family who live on a finca (farm) in southern Guatemala. Her grandparents immigrated to guatemala from germany way back in the day. Actually there have been a few waves of german immigration to guatemala (and other countries in Latin Amer.) especially after both wars… some Nazi leaders but mostly normal folk, im told. In this area, there are textiles, shoe factories and there was a railroad all built with the help (and money) of the Germans here back around the turn of the century. I was told that in the 1920s, there was even a movement to cecede and create another central american country. OK, i digress…. im not qualified to give any history lessons!!
I am really loving the luxury of being able to study because i WANT to study. Its actually much more enjoyable that way, go figure!!
I have met some great people. Two friends i hang out with daily are Anna, from Jackson Miss. and Rahim (I call him Radio Rahim, if you dont know why, rent Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, OK?!) who is from Germany. Anna and i are pretty much kindred spirits, its very strange how similar we are and how well we get along. Its hard to imagine that we will all go seperate ways in 3 weeks.. its weird how travel pushes you to meet people and put yourself “out there”.. i know some of you dont believe it, but im really an introvert at heart.. seriously!!!
We have visited a few towns and sites outside of the city. I have to say, without the help of local guides I dont think i could have done it. First, you have to take about 3 buses to get to different places in the highlands; one in the city, which is a little van. A boy hangs off the side of the van while it speeds thru town and he yells things i cant understand. You pay 1Q (7.8Q=1dollar, fyi) anywhere within the town, then you wait for a “Chicken Bus” to take you to your next destination. For those of you not familiar with the chicken bus, they are old school buses exported to guat. from the U.S and canada, i think.. they are from the 60s so you can imagine the condition they are in: seats broken, etc… usually 4 people are squished into one seat (made for 2 elementary school childrens butts, keep in mind), people sit in between the seats in the empty space, and on eachother’s laps too.. we didn’t see any chickens but there was a box that was chirping and had holes in it so…. the other interesting (scary? amazing?) thing about the bus is that people will store luggage on top when there’s not room inside and then when their stop is coming up, they tell the driver’s helper, who CLIMBS up onto the top of the bus while it is cruising at 50mph on a curving mountain road and retrieves the bags.. totally crazy and amazing. We had to hold on with all our strength just so that we weren’t tossed across to the other side of the bus at every turn, but the locals somehow were able to sleep! hu??!!
HueHuetenango (or Hue Hue) is a small highland town, with a traditional market. Very picturesque setting, with the mountains, brightly colored buildings, market stalls etc. unfortunately there is garbage everywhere which is really sad. i mean you literally could carry your trash with you for 20 minutes before finding a garbage can (not just in Hue Hue but xela and everywhere). Outside Hue Hue, we visited Zaculeu, a mayan ruins site. Our guide gave us all the information in spanish, so i understood about 75% of what she said! i love the ruins. ive seen about 5 different Mayan sites already on previous trips and still love seeing them.
The next town we visited was called San Andres Xecul, where there is a bizzare church. Only bizzare in how it is painted. bright yellow with different birds and animals painted on it (hopefully you can see from the pictures). There are alarms in side the church and the saints are locked up behind glass becuase apparently there is a big market for contraband in saints (imagine!) between guate. and other countries. On this visit we learned alot about the mayan rituals and how mayan and catholic rituals are mixed here. seems strange but somehow it works! the mayans celebrate both their culture as well as christian holidays, saints days, as i understand it. however, there is some discrimination of course, where at times the mayans are kept out of churches due to being seen as “brujas” (witches). ok, keep in mind all my explanations have been explained to me in spanish, so dont quote me on this stuff, people!!! The Mayan people have a saint here, called San Simon. Perhaps one of the stranger things ive seen/done so far this trip was to visit San Simon in San Andres.. (there are 6 other San Simons, in different towns in this part of Guatemala). So, here goes the short version. San Simon (see picture!) is a manequin (i hear in other towns he is a mini skeleton model??!), dressed in suit, sombrero, cowboy boots, towel over shoulders, sunglasses..etc. as with saints, the people bring candles with their petitions for love, good crops, health, represented by different colored candles. San Simon moves from house to house every 7 years; the president of the church gets to have S.S. at his home. Then it is transfered to the next president 7 yrs. later etc. etc. The man currently caring for the saint explained to us all about how San simon cures and answer the petitions of the people. There is even a bed in S.S.s room (which is the nicest in the house!) because, as we were told, he goes to bed around 10pm and wakes up @ 8am, so he obviously needs a place to sleep! VERY interesting does not adequately describe this experience..
In between outings there are lectures and movies at school about guatemalan history and culture. We are so lucky in the U.S. not to have experienced the hell that central america has experienced over the years- the poverty, years of war– unbelievable.
Now that my mind (and body– i wont give you THOSE details!) have adjusted, im totally enjoying myself. It has been an incredible experience already. I dont care about taking a shower with very little water pressure, having dirty feet from the dusty streets, avoiding food for fear of amoebas, wearing the same clothes several days in a row… Those experiences are mixed with meeting amazing people, learning about a new culture as well as myself, and doing pretty much what I WANT to do every day!
I cannot believe its only been a week.. please keep in touch by commenting on this post or sending me an email!
Ok, i hope i haven’t exhausted anyone besides myself here!!! its been a week so i have lots to say. Please check back for pics in a day or two. I will label things so you should be able to follow my narrative and see some of what ive mentioned.
Estoy pensando en ustedes a menudo (pretty sure that says im thinking of you all often.. spanish speaking friends, please feel free to correct me! ha ha)..
with love, jennie
9 comments Posted by jennie on February 16th, 2006