Our short stay in our new home has been an amazing yet humbling experience. We were immediately befriended by the family that we rent our house from. Carlos, one of their ten children, has become our personal guide of Pena Blanca, its people and how to survive at the level that our meager budget permits us. He is barely four feet tall and is only thirteen but his knowledge of living in the mountains is a culmination of the hundreds of years that his Kaqchiquel ancestors have lived here. He is constantly smiling, which comes as no surprise considering the amount of times that we have made complete fools of ourselves. Whenever we are almost ready to give up Carlos arrives with exactly what we need, be it a candle or a stick of acote (red pine, a natural fire starter). When we gave him a set of crayons to repay him for all of the help he has provided he immediately wrapped Chris and I in individual bear hugs. His lack of entitlement and the appreciation he showed was something that is so often missing in American culture and something I will try to learn from.
The generosity of the community has been one of the most difficult aspects to moderate. The willingness of the people to give us whatever they have has forced us to refuse and return gifts as politely as possible in order to follow our budget of one dollar a day. Finally I think we have reached an understanding that we will only accept gifts that we can return with something of equal value. Our evenings are now filled with mutual exchanges of Kaqchiquel lessons for English lessons. It is a great feeling having the community come to our own home while we cook our dinner of rice and beans on our fire.
Our adventures in cooking may be one of the reasons that I was left immobile on our earth floor on the first day, while everyone else worked tilling Don Carlos’ corn field. Luckily, I have completely recovered and our cooking has vastly improved. We now enjoy beans spiced by a little garlic, chili pepper or onions. The portions come nowhere near to filling me up but our first week will most likely be our poorest.
While the Mayan culture and our experiences thus far have reminded me of magical realism, the poverty here in the Guatemalan highlands is all together to real. Living at a similar level only makes it more apparent since we will get to return after eight weeks. The height of all of the children is more than telling of the lack of nutrition they receive. It is hard not to give to everyone that I see. This urge is impossible to suppress no matter how much I have studied the negative effects of charity in school or in microfinance books. Luckily, the few borrowers that we have met so far seem to be better off than their neighbors. I am eager to begin researching to find out if this is due to microfinance or if they were already ahead of the game before borrowing.
The women borrowers that we have met also are strikingly confident and have no problem talking to us. This is completely different than most of the Mayan women we have met in our time here. Again, this only reaffirms why I have come here and my desire to begin really start investigating. Hopefully in the future I will be able to provide more insight in both of the previously mentioned areas.
The only thing that I ask is that you send me delicious food thoughts, anything helps.