Day 10

The day started off slowly.  We sent our laundry to town with Svante (first laundry run since we got here and my clothes were gross-did I under-pact?  Yes.  Laundry every 3-4 days?  Haha, yeah right.)  We had a nice breakfast and a class on facilitation skills and consensus with giovanni.  Then it was time to run our own meetings and begin to get ready for our project.  The meeting went well.  We all played separate roles and I was the scribe.  We have really high expectations for this project.  We want it to be Useful- Meeting a need,  Sustainable- Environmentally and lasting, something that community couldn't do on its own, Creative, reflecting the spirit of Huehue and something that highlights the talents of our group members. Although things did not go perfectly and there was a lot of nervous tension, we survived and set out to schedule and do interviews with community members about their visions for our community project.  What we thought would take maybe a couple hours lasted until after 10:30pm and in that time we had tons of tension, rushing around, we finished 10 interviews (out of 25) and one of our group members fell violently ill with some type of horrible stomach bug.  It was a crazy night.  Some of the interviews were really incredible.  We interviewed Andres, a recognized indigenous elder and medicine man, not to mention, an incredibly sweet, intelligent, man who has had a long adventurous life.  he talked to us for so long that we took far to on his interview when we should have been doing others.  Just in that small time, it was obvious that he holds so much wisdom and generosity and when he spoke tears came to my eyes.  It was really a blessing to get to speak with him.  Our final interview of the night was with Toña, an artist and activist whose life is dedicated to keeping Mexico from buying into GMO corn and protecting and teaching the songs and myths of the original Maize of Mexico.  Still, Everyone brought interesting ideas- small fix-ups in the community (hand rails, painting, new signs, a map), improvements in the garden, a project/festival type thing with the poor neighboring community...many many.

It was a busy night, and I was so overwhelmed with busyness, project ideas and personal thoughts about life, that I desperately needed to talk to Keith. It was wonderful.  This trip is really making me reconsider my reasons for doing things, my view of the unjust system that we live in, and my own hope and dreams for my life.  We talked about our experience so far in Mexico with Toña and she said to us, "When you go home, no one will understand what you've experienced" and I think that she's right.  This trip has changed me and opened my eyes and I very much want to share the things I've learned.   I’m not cray or brainwashed- I just want a long life full of adventure, joy, and conscious living.  I want to be fulfilled, I want to leave the world a better place and to live the way that I want to I have to make changes in my life.    I will do things for the right reasons, I will get a real, hands-on education, I will learn from real people with real wisdom and I am willing to make changes to adjust my life to fit these standards.  

Anyway, I stayed up with Chrissy, our sick member ,for awhile and went to bed way too late.

Day 11

I woke up to clean clothes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was really getting pretty grungy and I’ve never been so excited to have clean clothes ever!  Its actually quite cold here and it poured rain all night.  Kathy said that this is very unusual weather for the dry winter season.  We spent the morning having class with Kathy.  At breakfast Svante had looked up our signs according to a version of the Mayan calendar called DreamSpell.  My sign was Night, my number was 13 (very cool) and my color was blue.  The profile was quite interesting and it actually kind of fit me.  Svant also said that Sam, a group member, where somewhat connected to Huehue.  

Kathy taught us a section on Martin Luther King Jr. and non-violence.  It really made me take a look at some of the “non-violent” efforts in Asheville and reconsider some of their intentions and methods.  For instance, the point of a non-violent protest is not to get arrested (usually unless its in large numbers for press) instead it is to seek a negotiation.   Often the efforts I’ve seen lack that goal to negotiate and therefore, maybe this is an area for growth and improvement in the groups around school.  After class we watched a documentary about the children's march that essentially won the civil rights movement.  We all cried all the way through it.  The terrible hatred that they were up against, their bravery, the joy and unity that fueled their efforts- its was all overwhelmingly inspiring and touching.

We continued our community interviews through the afternoon and I believe that we’ll be finished tonight (an amazing feat) or in the morning. Then well spend Saturday deciding on and designing a community project that we will spend the next week creating.

I felt really sick all afternoon, with the worst stomach cramps I’ve ever had.  Kathy said that she thinks I got chilled in this awful weather and also Mexican hot chocolate can be rough on your stomach.  I spent most of the afternoon in Cathy’s house with a hot water bottle drinking tea.  I ate some crackers and took a short nap in the dorm all wrapped up and warm.  It really helped just to get warm in this terrible, damp, cold weather.  When I stepped out of the dorm, I literally stepped into a cloud- they were so low and we are at such a high altitude-I could hardly see. They were telling stories in the kitchen and singing songs by firelight so, I went down.  

Here are Kathy’s two stories...

The Ghost Story of Llarona 

When the Spanish came into Mexico they often would take Mexican woman to have families with and this was the case for an important Spanish general long ago.  He had taken Llarona as his wife and they had two beautiful sons together.  After all of the time that they were together she truly believed that he loved her and he was very good to her.  But, the time came when his Spanish family said that it was time for him to marry another Spanish person of his own ‘race’ and class and they choose a bride and sent her to him in Mexico.   Well, Llarona didn’t really believe that he would leave her...all the way up until the day of the wedding she believed that he would do something to stop this and keep their family together.  On the day of the wedding she sneaked into the back of the church and watched the ceremony and there was her husband marrying this spanish woman. She had heard that if he married this other woman that he would take their sons with him and she would be left all alone.  She went crazy.  So-To make sure that they didn’t take her sons, she did an unthinkable horrible thing-she drowned them in the river.  Then realizing what she had done she began wailing and crying, “Mis Niños!  Mis Niños!”.  Now on the day of the dead, people celebrate and remember their lost loved ones but they all try to be home before midnight, because after midnight, Llarona walks the streets wailing for her children.  But she won’t find those children, so if you meet her ghost on the street at night, she will scream,  “Mi Niño!” and grab you and drag you back with her. 

The Story of the two volcanos  The Sleeping woman, Istachiwatl and The Warrior, Popocotepitol

There are two huge volcanos that we can see from almost anywhere in Morales, but legend has it that they weren’t always volcanos....

Once there was a princess and a warrior and they were in love.  When the Princess’ father decided it was tie for here to marry he set up a challenge: That all of the brave warriors of the kingdom go out to battle and the one who was able to conquer all of the surrounding tribes could marry his daughter.  Popocatepitotl was really the finest warrior in the land and he was successful on his venture, but he was injured in battle and unable to return home immediate to marry his beloved.  A solider who was not so honest and who was uninjured returned home and lied to the king saying that Popcatepitotl had died and he himself  had conquered all of the surrounding tribes and was here to marry the princess.  When the princess heard the news, she was so upset that her lover had died and that she would have to marry this other man that see took a potion that put her into a long....deep...sleep.  The other solider was unable to marry her and fulfill his plan before Popocatepitotl returned home and set the story straight.  Popocatepitotl did come home and he went to his lover to marry her, but she was a sleep.  And so he carried her all the way to a beautiful spot and he laid her down and then he stood beside her waiting for her to awaken. Now they still stand there, but people believe that the time for her to awaken is coming soon and that when she does the true people of Mexico will rise up with pride and take back their country and their tradition for the first time in hundred of years.

Svante told us about their incredible adventures in the traveling caravan until we were all so tired that we went to bed.  I woke up in the night throwing up-in the rain, but then I was able to sleep.

Day 12 

Today we woke up to Llarona’s scream.  We all jumped and then realized that it was 8:20, none of our alarms had gone off and Svante was trying to scare us awake so he could eat breakfast.  Today is the day to choose our project so we can present it to the community tomorrow.  Intimidating?  Yes.  Then at breakfast Gio gave us a bunch of homework-so busy day!  We all worked on homework until lunch and my breakfast stayed down, so I ate a normal lunch and I’m feeling much better.  After lunch it was meeting time.  We met for about 3 hours and managed to narrow our projects down to 3 options (that may be possible to do together): Repainting parts of the community building, making new signs to go around the community and working to make the stair cases safer with solar lights, paint and maybe some concrete patching.  Now we have to fight it out to see what we will actually do and present it to the community tomorrow.  After a tense end to our meeting we all took a brief break before a Yoga class with Sadie, a young, beautiful community member with a new baby. It was difficult but very relaxing and fun.  I think that as soon as I get home I want to find a yoga class to join!  .We ate dinner and had another long frustrating, horrible meeting and finally decided on a project.  We are doing a few mural-type painting projects around the community building, making a few new signs for the entrance, and building a beautiful mosaic ramp to go between two buildings to replace some really bad stairs.  It should be much more fun to make these things than to decide on them. 

Day 13

We woke up early this morning to make waffles for breakfast with Svante.  We listened to crazy music and I hand-beat eggs white until I thought that my arm would fall off.  After eating the delicious results of our cooking, we got to work preparing for our community meeting at 11:30.  We had a big display board and divided up all the roles to facilitate a very professional meeting.  My job was to explain our painting process and I also helped answer questions.  We had about 10 community members show up to our meeting and they all approved of our proposal and had very nice things to say as well as good advice on how to improve.  After the meeting, it was like a hugh sigh of relief- a huge weight had been lifted.  We all got ready and jumped on the bus with Svante to spend the afternoon in Tetzoplan. I didn’t do much shopping, but I bought a small charm and gift for Keith’s mom.  Instead of shopping Sam, a group member, and I each got 15 min. Massages!  I’ve never had a massage.  They’ve always seemed elitist and expensive- but for about 5 American dollars after the last couple of days...it was necessary.  

We took a taxi back from town and got ready for an awesome slide show about the Mayans by Alberto one of the old old coyotes.  He was putting it on for a visiting group of Italians and he invited us.  We set up the dining room like a cafe for everyone to fit and we settled down in the cold theater to watch.  Alberto presented in Spanish and Cathy sat with our living routes group to translate and another woman translated for the Italians.  The seats in the english section filled up so I went and sat with the Italians and tried to make out the Spanish.  I actually did rather well.  Still, when you aren’t fluent in a language its easy for your brain to get saturated quickly and your mind starts to wander.  So, at times I just spaced out and other times I didn’t understand, but overall I think that I did rather well.  My favorite slide was a picture of a statue that depicts an indigenous woman on one side, a spanish man on the other side and in the center a baby- the first Mestizo (mixed) child, the new face of mexico.  In one hand the baby holds an ear of corn and in the other a book.  I thought that it was not only a beautiful representation, but also a very accurate portrayal of Mexico and its dichotomous spirit.  One other incredibly interesting thing that Alberto explained was the meaning of the infamous 2012.  The Mayans believed that every 50 years the earth entered into a new cycle, and 2012 will be one of those; however, it is not only the end of a 50 year cycle, but also the end of a much larger cycle on top of that.  To the Mexican people this means a new turn and new wave coming our way and the desperately hope that is is one of indigenous rights, justice and peace.  How I hope so too.  

After the show, we all packed into the dining room for dinner and it was tasty, warm and fun as usual.  The rest of the night should be relaxing before the brute work starts tomorrow!!!!