Holy Semana Santa

:: Day 98 in Guatemala ::


So I had promised an update after spending Holy Week in Antigua. It is a bit late [insert excuses about how I'm really busy here] - but here it is.

After Chris spent a few days with her family in Guatemala we met up and on Thursday morning we took an early bus to Monterrico via Antigua. Yes, I've already been to Monterrico - but it was beautiful! And it's the beach! Who passes up a day at the beach! However, I will admit that we didn't come fully prepared for a beach-day. Chris had a little hand-towel and I had.... a box of fruit bars. I'm not kidding. I took out the bars and unfolded the box. Somewhere on Chris's camera there is a picture of me sitting in the sand on my little piece of cardboard.

Anyway... at the end of the day we headed back to Antigua - sunburned and sweaty. After a shower and a nap the holy week festivities began!

:: Non-Stop Alfombras, Cucuruchos & Processions ::

The Alfombras were gorgeous! And some were extremely creative - my favorite featured Barbie with a watermelon dress and traditional Mayan outfits.

The Processions of course were huge! I think that all of the Andas needed to be carried by over a hundred people. And, they lasted for hours! We were able to see one of the processions twice with a 4 hour "nap" and "breakfast" in between viewings. Probably the most beautiful procession happened on Saturday night -- it was a candle-lit vigil.

On Good Friday we even got up and waited outside of a church at 3am until they opened the doors. This procession featured Roman soldiers on horseback who are announcing the condemnation of Christ by Pontious Pilot. Even though it was 3am there were tons of people out! And food vendors! So much food! You would think it was only 9pm. They were opening the doors at 4am and there was a mad rush into the church (La Merced). People were trying to push their way through, they were getting mad at the Roman soldiers who were blocking some parts out - letting only people in the middle into the church. We actually got really lucky because they drew their line right in between us and then Chris moved over to my side - which was the side that got into the church.

On Easter Sunday we actually went to mass inside the Cathedral. Afterwards there was a small procession - which was actually much "happier" than the ones from previous days. Which of course makes sense since they were celebrating the resurrection. What made it very cute was that the Anda was carried by children! Eventually the adults had to relieve them of their carrying duties, but nonetheless it was adorable. In general, the kids were adorable:

 

So, I wanted to make a compilation video of all the processions I managed to record. I have to admit - it is not nearly as exciting on video. There is a lot of waiting around and just watching people walk by. Plus, apparently it is impossible to upload :(   The one from last time gives you a pretty good idea.

:: Who Said Climbing a Volcano is Supposed to be Fun? ::

So when Chris said she wanted to go to Antigua for Semana Santa - I immediately said that I really wanted to get in one of those volcano hikes before I leave Guatemala. Everyone had told me how beautiful it is and that is is one of those Guatemala experiences that you just can't miss! So we decided that Saturday we'd take the 6am bus to Pacaya for a hiking tour.

We packed sunscreen, water, and the three fruit bars I still had left over from Thursday. Our group was pretty big - maybe about 25 people. Most of them were European and seemed to be in hiking boots - whereas Chris and I were in our running shoes. When you get to the starting point there are a bunch of little kids trying to sell you walking sticks. No one really bought into it except for two of the older women in our group. The kids kept insisting Es necesario! Es necesario! Yeah right, how necessary can a walking stick be? Right? Then come the "taxis". We had the option of hiking the whole way - or paying for a horse taxi which would get you most of the way up. Only two people opted for a horse.

30 minutes in... and THAT is where we're going.

So we start walking up the mountain volcano. At first it is a pretty steep climb but not terrible. About 10 minutes in I really started rethinking my decision to hike rather than go horseback. The guys with the horses were riding alongside us - hoping someone would give up and pay for the ride. But how embarrassing is that!?!? So we kept on hiking. Another 10 minutes and I'm panting, dripping with sweat, and my thighs and calves are burning. By this point Chris hates me. She did a pretty good job of not turning around and cussing me out for making her go on this volcano hike - but she was clearly not happy. Turns out it is about 1.5 miles of hiking on a ridiculous incline. Then you get to an area where there is no more dirt, no more trees, just volcano rocks.  Here is where it gets really interesting because every time you step the dirt under your shoes slips - which wouldn't be bad if it weren't so steep that you could reach your arm straight out and touch the ground in front of you.

Oh how I wish it wasn't cloudy. 

At one point it almost started to rain. That would have been miserable! When we got to the end of our tour everyone sat down and pulled out their lunches. I guess we missed the memo - you are supposed to bring a lunch when you go on a 4-hour hike. Oops. Well anyways. We didn't actually get to the opening in the volcano. I looked up at the top - which might have been like 200 meters up - straight up - and decided that I didn't care enough to climb up there. Pacaya has been an active volcano for the past few years. So I was excited to see lava - however, I didn't do my homework. The guide told us that since Pacaya erupted in 2010 the lava flow has been dormant. So I pretty much decided that I wasn't going to kill myself climbing the last 200 meters (on my own because the guide stopped there) if I wasn't even going to see lava. (That's crazy right? I would have climbed to the rim of an active volcano but not a dormant one!)

That is our group.... and that is the peak.

Anyway, it was a good experience. [Note: Chris did end up enjoying it once we got to the top and as we slid/skied/ran our way down the volcano.] And a great workout! Even the way down was exhausting. I mean, that says something about how steep of a climb this was - my thighs and calves burned on the way down and my knees were starting to hurt. I think I lost 5 lbs during that hike. Of course, I gained it all back with everything we ate in Antigua.

Mole con Platanos

Dulces Tipicos

Churrasco

Anyway, so thats the gist of the experience. Now I'm in Zacualpa finishing my last week of work! I don't think I've ever been so excited to go home. Just FOUR more days!

Eat, Sleep, Work...

:: Getting Around On My Own ::

I've always thought of myself as one of those people who can't do anything alone. There has always been someone around to go with me to the store, to a movie, for a walk, to dinner, basically for just about everything. Think about it, I'm one of four kids and I've been with Hannover for almost 8 years now. Of course, living in Boston changed that a little bit. I had to get comfortable with doing things by myself. I suppose that I could have called someone up to say, "Hey, I'm going to Target. Do you want to come?" The truth is, that I assume everyone else is busy living their own life, so I rarely ask someone to come with me - unless they live under the same roof as I do. Also, that is a relatively easy thing to do when you have a car. Of course, picking up and going somewhere by yourself is also pretty easy to do when you have a car.

So living in Guatemala City has been an adjustment. Partially because I still have trouble asking people to accompany me. More-so because I don't have a car, and because everyone keeps warning me that I shouldn't ride the local buses. Apparently they are frequent targets for robberies. So, if its not safe to walk alone, and its not safe to ride the bus, what is left? I either call a cab (my cab driver Mario has started to say we're BFFs) or catch a ride. I haven't felt this dependent since high school. The plan is to buy a bicycle. I think I can make it the 1.8 miles to work, right?

:: The Routine ::

So this week was much calmer than the previous ones. I thought I'd be going with the team from the Post-Deportation Human Rights Project (PDHRP) in Zacualpa for a tour that included visiting parts of northern Guatemala and southern Mexico. Plans changed. It took a while to get things figured out, but it looks like that tour will have to wait until maybe next month. So, this week was much more about settling into a routine here at "home" in the city. It became - up early, maybe workout, shower and get ready, wait for my ride, go to work, get lunch at the little home/restaurant around the corner, home around 6pm, walk to the grocery store or convenience mart to buy something to cook, or walk to another local home/restaurant or street vendor for dinner, go online to catch up on TV shows that I'm missing (mostly: Glee, Grey's Anatomy, Community, How I Met Your Mother), gchat/facebook/email/kill-time, go online to talk to Hannover via google voice or skype, go to sleep. Somewhere in there I'll work in some reading - maybe I'll read as I wait for my shows to download. In other words... nothing very exciting happened this week. So let's talk about work:

:: Medical Monday :: 

Monday we went to the Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguro Social (commonly called "IGSS" but they pronounce it like a word - sounds like "eeks"). It sounds like it should be the department of social services, but it is actually the community medical clinics. We were accompanying a client who has a horrible medical history. She had a constant pain in her stomach for years and the doctors kept telling her its gas, or a hernia, or that its just in her head and she should seek counseling (seriously, they said that). She is actually a nurse for IGSS, so after consulting with her co-workers she asked for a colonoscopy - but her doctors refused to give it to her because she's not over 40. At some point she was in the hospital for "observation" for two weeks - but all they did was give her antibiotics and painkillers.

It took at least another year before they finally ran the test that revealed that she had a tumor growing on her intestine. When she went in for surgery, they told her that none of the other organs seemed to be effected - and that they would probably just take out a piece of her large and small intestine. Well, when she woke up she found out that not only did they take out part of her intestine - but also her uterus and ovaries! Let's not even talk about all the health issues involved with that.

Later, someone finally runs a colonoscopy and finds that she also has colon cancer. So that's the reason we were there today. She was about a month past-due on her chemotherapy treatments. The first time they gave her the treatment, the second time they refused, the third time she came back with an attorney from MTM and they gave her the treatment, the fourth time she came alone and they refused, and now she was showing up again with an attorney from MTM in hopes that she would get her chemotheraphy treatment. Long story short - Jenny from MTM fought with every doctor in the clinic and worked her way to the top guy until they finally requested the medication she needed from another clinic. They had said it would take at least two hours to get there - it was there in 20 minutes. We stayed there almost all day just to make sure that she was getting her treatment. We had also called attorneys from PDH: Procuraduria de los Derechos Humanos (which is like the national department of human rights) who came to accompany her, and had arranged for a meeting with a representative from Congress to discuss the issues she had been facing in getting treatment.

Lessons learned: (1) being poor and needing medical attention is a nightmare, especially in Guatemala. (2) doctors in Guatemala are not scared of lawyers. At least, they are not as scared of lawyers and lawsuits as people in the U.S. In the U.S. we have a legally-oriented culture. Not only do we watch legal TV shows - like Law and Order, Boston Legal,  or even The People's Court - but we also are very accustomed to taking people to court whenever anything goes wrong. So doctors have malpractice insurance - just in case they get sued. Here, that legal culture just does not exist. And even if it did, the common perception is that the guy with the fattest wallet who can pay off the judges wins.

:: Other Work-Time Highlights ::

Child Prostitution:  Yes, this is one of the many fun topics I've been exposed to this week. It's not something people really want to talk about, but it happens. On Thursday morning we attended a presentation by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Abuses and Trafficking) revealing the results of their study of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of male children and teens in Guatemala. It is not really something I had heard much about before. When really young girls are involved in prostitution they are generally being held somewhere discreet, probably against their will, and someone else is running the business. With boys, there is a totally different story. They tend to be living on the street, or children of adult women sex workers, victims of child abuse and neglect, and they are simply poor and prostitution is a way to put food on the table. There is more autonomy, but the truth is that behind the scenes there are a number of power dynamics and groups that are recruiting boys into prostitution or trafficking them to cities where there is higher demand. Unlike the girls, the boys are rarely regarded as victims or at risk children in need of services. Instead, they are seen as sexual deviants. Furthermore, even in cases where there is sexual abuse and rape of young boys - those cases are rarely prosecuted since the laws are mostly directed towards protecting girls and women, and since there is such a great stigma associated with being a male victim of sexual abuse. 


What happens when you break-up with your boyfriend who is growing marijuana on your land: Yes, this is one of the cases that came to MTM. Granted, it was much more complicated than that. It involved two break-ups. The first was between a woman and her husband and resulted in the husband's parents kidnapping their little girl. When the woman showed up with the police to get her daughter - the in-laws threw rocks at them! The second break-up was between the woman's mother and her boyfriend. Since the boyfriend, plus the daughter's husband, and her three sons were growing marijuana on the mother's land - it was not a pretty break up. Now the mother and daughter are being threatened by all the men in their family because the men think they are trying to report them for illegally growing marijuana. So the question is... how do you protect these women from the men's threats of violence, and get the baby daughter back from the in-laws, all without calling attention to the growing of marijuana because the women would also get in trouble for having it on their land?




:: A Taste of Guatemala ::


Finally, I'll end this entry with something a little more light-hearted, food. These are pictures from the few times I've actually remembered to bring out a camera before or during a meal. Of course, pictures of food are never as good as the real thing. 


These are called "Cuchines" (possibly spelled "Cuxines" with the x = sh sound ) This one of course was broken in half and I split one half open so you could see what the seeds look like. The seeds are a shiny black, but are covered in this white, fluffy, cotton-y stuff that you can eat. I assume most of you have either read Charlotte's Web or have seen the movie. These seeds feel and taste exactly what I imagined Charlotte's egg sac to taste and feel like. I know, that sounds ridiculous but there is no better way to describe it, besides they carry it in their mouth so its totally appropriate to think of that. Soft, fluffy and sweet... These we bought on roadside as we were heading down "the coast" from Coatepeque last week.

These are "Rellenitos". It is fried banana with sweet black bean filling. The black beans are cooked with cinnamon and sugar and then made into a sort of paste. The rellenitos are generally sprinkled with sugar - much like those sugar covered donuts. They are a type of dessert and they are really good. The second picture is there mostly to show what my meal was that day - a chicken sandwich and a rellenito - all for 15 Quetzales ~ approximately $1.93

Typically this is what my lunch looks like. This particular day it was breaded pork chops with rice and potato salad. There is always rice, but the meat and the vegetable side vary. When I'm at work I generally buy lunch from a lady who lives down the street. Everyday she makes 3 meals to choose from, a meat, a chicken, and usually a soup. It costs 12 Q ~ $1.54. It tastes much better than this picture looks. PLUS, we alway get a stack of about 15 fresh handmade tortillas for 4 Q ~ $0.51

These apparently are called "Patches". They are wrapped in a banana leaf. They look and sort of taste like tamales - not Mexican tamales but more like the Salvadoran tamales I've tried. Only instead of being made with maiz, they are made with potatoes. Also, very very good. (The first one is what it looks like wrapped, the second one is unwrapped - this one has a pork filling.)  6Q ~ $0.77

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Days in Guatemala: 21

Date of Return to U.S.: TBD - First Week of May

Graduation Date: May 27, 2011

California Bar Exam: July 26-28, 2011