Day 14

The sun is finally out for a little while, but the cold is not gone.  It lasts and my hands ache from it.   Today is a kind of an off day, because we are mostly designing, and either finding, ordering or buying materials.  Tomorrow we will begin our ramp and then paint some murals and some signs.  We have a few activities planned for evenings and afternoons but thats about it.  The final stretch. 

Svante said the my Mayan sign was Cosmic Night, blue, number 13.  The attributes of my sign were:  I’m a beginning, a threshold- I set things moving.  I’m mysterious and intellectual and...most surprising to me- I’m somewhat conservative.  When I first heard that I thought No!  I’m not conservative, but now as I think over my values and actions, I kind of am.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, but you are who you are, and I am who I am. There is only so much I can change while still being true to myself.

Its strawberry and tomato season in Mexico!  (AKA , Heaven for Emma.)  For dessert we had sliced strawberries (frescas in Spanish) with creme and honey and I’ve never had anything so delicious in my life!!!!  Its very unusual to have fresh produce in the winter, and I have to say I like it.  

We worked out minor details designing our mosaic and murals and agreeing on paint colors, etc.  We had a bit of confrontation today and I didn’t say everything that I think I should have said, but I keep hoping that we’ll all get to work and I won’t have to.  Sadie, the yoga teacher, taught us a class on creative personal finances tonight and it was so interesting.  I really think that as an experiment, I should try her practice of keeping up with finances.  It could be a fun!  After class with Sadie, we had a big fun dinner of sopes tonight (which I love, they are like big fluffy tortillas) and we invited Andreas and we all told stories and laughed until we were sore. When we walked out of the community building tonight we could hear drumming and laughing at someone’s house nearby.   It was so nice to hear this community being a community!

I’m very excited about the changes I’ve made to my schedule.  12 academic hours, 3 farming hours and 1 hour of Yoga. 

Day 15

Today was the day for project making!  We got up early and Chrissy and I scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Then we began to clear the site for our ramp.  We used a pick ax to beat the heck out of bamboo roots as we cut branches and raked.  Then, Chris and I rode with Svante to the paint store to buy paint, while the others kept working on the ramp.  It was quite interesting spanglishing our way through trying to buy paint that would make everyone happy with thinners and sand paper and brushed and everything!  It was intense!  The ladies that worked in the store were very patient and kind and we all lived through it.  We took the long curvy bus ride home because Svante had a dentist appointment.  While waiting for the bus, we got snacks from the nearby connivance store.  I was craving some chocolate so I bought a candy bar-something I never do in the states.  

When we got back, we jumped in to work using this huge metal tool to beat down the dirt. We hauled dirt and sand and gravel and we mixed cement and poured and hauled water and decorated the ramp with tile pieces and broken pottery ALL DAY!  Everyone was impressed that tiny me could haul and chop and work with things twice my weight. By 5:00 we were all blistered and exhausted with aches and cracked hands.  We finished half the ramp and we’ll finish the rest tomorrow.  Andres had some concrete dye and so our half ramp is now blue and red...yep interesting.  We worked so hard and I feel very accomplished and good about tomorrow.   I had a brief break and I went to visit Andreas (community Member, medicine man, elder) to buy one of his spanish poetry books.  I love this man.  He is so full of generosity and wisdom.  Every time he speaks tears come to my eyes.  He took the time to walk me through the parts of his book and tell me his inspiration and also to write me a beautiful message (in Spanish) in the front of it.  He took my email so he can send me new poems as he writes them, so I can give feedback.  He also promised to help me with speaking spanish when Sam and I came back here. I hope very much that his book will not only improve my Spanish, but that maybe I can receive a tiny piece of his incredible wisdom by reading it.

We had a big leftover dinner where we all laughed and told stories until we were even more sore than before.  Then we headed over to Toña’s (an community member/artist/activist) to learn to make chocolate from scratch.   It turns out that chocolate is native to Mexico and Latin America.  We toasted and ground up cocoa beans by hand and mixed them with cane sugar that we cut by hand and finally boiled it in water for a tasty hot drink.  It was quite an experience!  Then it was off to bed with the girls.  I can’t believe I’ll be home in 5 days!

Day 16

We all woke up SORE from work the day before.  We started the day making our own breakfast.  We had to have a tough conversation about everyone participating creatively to the best of their ability.  It wasn’t fun but the day went better afterward.  Then we got back to work on the ramp, stopping only for a lunch break and then working again.  At lunch the grounds keeper, Don Alehondro, came over an told us that there was something terrible going on in New York, with balls of fire or something.  We were very worried.  We all ran to our computers and TV, but there was nothing about New York.  Finally Kathy just went over to Alehondro’s home and asked for details about what he had seen.  It turned out (his daughter explained) that he had been watching one of those History Channel shows about the bible and the apocalypse.   We had all freaked out for nothing.  After that little scare, we got back to making our ramp and we finished around 4:00pm.  Its very large and very colorful with red and blue cement dye and mosaics of sunbursts and flowers.  I don’t want to look at cement for a very long time.  The girls here laugh at me because although my southern accent is slight, it still exists (I’m here with a bunch of Northerners :) )For instance, apparently, I say sea-ment, instead of cement and pin and tin instead of pen and ten.  Oh well.

After we finished working and cleaning up, I had my first shower in 4 days! Yuck.  It was sooooo awesome and I completely de-grossed.  Then it was time for class with Andres, our local elder and shaman.  He is sooooooo wonderful.  I absolutely love this man.  He talks in long seemingly rambling sentences in strange and sometimes broken english and says “chou know?” every few words, but still its so obvious what wisdom and generosity he holds.  He taught us about the medicine wheel and how it responds to the four directions, the four elements, the stages of life (birth, adolescence, adulthood, death) and the four races.  Then we all sat around a fire that he built and he told us an ancient creation myth.  Then the smoke billowed up and Andres said that it was telling him that he was talking to much, so he ended our class. He invited us to come and visit him later if we had any questions.  Since the others were making homemade pizza with Kathy and there were already too many cooks in the kitchen, I went to visit with Andres again.  I did have questions.  He talked in our class about the stages of life and I wondered if maybe I had skipped one and gone straight to being old or if maybe people move through their life cycles at different speeds.  I also wanted to know if a balance of living with the earth is possible in a materialistic place like the USA.  As soon as I asked him about the stages of life, he knew exactly why I was asking. “you ask this because you feel like you are old” he said.  But he he explained that everyone must pass through all of the stages because life is a circle and that , yes, people move at different speeds according to their spirit animal, their essence.  I asked him how to know what your spirit animal is and he said just to look at your characteristics and into you dreams.  He said that some people believe that you have two lives, your waking life and your dreaming life, and that your dreams control your waking actions.  He encouraged me to learn to pay attention to my dreams to see what they are saying .I think that will be difficult, but I’m willing to try.  He told me that I am not timid like I may think and that my animal must be humble, and have some courage.   He asked me about school and about who I lived with and he seemed to think that my plan to shape my education into something new would be good for me intellectually and spiritually.  He also thought that it would help me to find  people who share my interests, which is funny because I didn’t tell him that that was a problem for me, but it is.  He said, “You must find birds with a feather you can fly with”.  When I told him that I would be living with Keith and that we had been together for 4 years, he was very happy for me.  He said we’d just have to try different things to see what worked for us.  He said that we would learn how to make our interests meet.  He also said that we would have to learn how to be married to each other, and I had to laugh.  Just the way he says things.  I was so nervous talking to him, this soft spoken gentle man.  I really believe that he has a power and energy about him.  He has a western degree (or degrees) and he has studied and worked all over the world and then he returned to Mexico to learn ancient ways with the elders. He is very intelligent and a writer, but also wise.  I really respected and appreciated his time and advice.

After our conversation we went over and had homemade pizza dinner with the group and some community members at Kathy and Gio’s house. I stayed late to help wash dishes and talk to Kathy (I love her more all the time) and then I walked home to the dorm and went to sleep.

Day 17

We got up early this morning to Andres’ conch to take a sunrise hike up the mountain to make an ancient sun salutation.  When we got there we thought that the sun had already risen and moved behind the clouds, but then it burst up from behind the mountain right in front of us.  It was incredible.  He burned incense all the way up the mountain and then used it to purify our space and each of us individually.   Andres did a salute to the four directions and a thank you to the earth and sky and to grandmother death. It was wonderful and of course watching a sunrise form the top of a mountain was amazing.  We got back and did some stretches before breakfast, then we got right to painting.  We painted all day and the sun salutation must have worked because it was the most beautiful day we have so far and I may actually have a tan!  We finished the two benches for the showers and Sam made beautiful progress on a Quetzalcotatl for the outside bench.  We also primed and began to paint the metal door frame and a table.  

We had a lunch of Indian foods like curry and chai and then I took a journaling break.  Then back to painting!  Svante helped me cheat on my part of the mural for the front door, by using his projector to help me trace a Mayan mandala.  I think it was fair because it is going to be the first thing people see as they enter the theater and thats a bit daunting to draw all by myself.  We had to stop and clean up to go to a writing workshop with a new community member, Monica.  She is a professional writer who has been published multiple times for work on scientific books.  We left her house pretty late and we made grilled cheese and cheese quesadillas for dinner.  After everyone left Sam and I sat around swapping musical interests and I listened to her play the guitar and sing.  I really hope that we get to come back to Mexico the way we say we are going to.  It was a pleasant and beautiful day and I really look forward to finishing out work soon. 

Day 18

The first thought that popped into my head this morning was “oh no, my shoes are still outside.”  It had rained hard enough last night that it woke me up and yet, I didn’t remember to bring them inside until I woke up.  Both pairs were outside and very wet.  This morning I got up really early to work on my Spanish quiz, but it was pretty tough and I didn’t have time to finish, so I asked for an extension.  We had a tasty breakfast and then we painted all morning long.  We stopped only for a lunch of enchiladas and then went back to painting.  Listening to mine and Sam's ipods and dancing and painting for two days has been fun.  The weather was too strange- it was sunny, rainy, cold, hot, cloudy ALL TODAY.  We finished the front door and the benches by four and we cleaned up just in time to have a session with Alberto.  How to describe Alberto... He has the downward sloping face of an indigenous man.  He moves like an actor and dancer.  He almost always wears a slouchy beanie hat and bright scarves and bracelets.  He has a distinct Jack Sparrow thing about him.  He is very skinny.  His father was probably the most famous archaeologist in Mexico and his deep interest in Mayan culture was born from his fathers work and incredible discoveries.  He has been traveling in a caravan through South America since 1995 (not to mention all the years he traveled before settling in Huehue) and he’s just returned to Huehue for awhile.  He has incredible amounts of knowledge about ancient civilizations and ceremonies.  He looks stern and he says little, but his flamboyance and jokes and smiling eyes tell you otherwise.  He is awesome. period.  We did some pretty strange exercises with him, like trying to forget that we are human by pretending to be animals, dancing and drumming and singing in circles, preforming skits, and finally doing a salute to the four directions. It was really a lot of fun.  He stayed and had dinner with us (soup and cheese bread-so Mexican haha).  I had to leave to skype with Keith and as I got up from the table, I placed my hand on his shoulder and said thank you.  He reached up to place his hand on mine, but he missed - I had moved away to fast...and it made me so sad.  I move too fast.  My society moves to fast.  Gestures of thanks aren’t lingering enough to share a moment.  When will we...I...learn to slow down?  Tomorrow is our last day here.  it should be relaxing, and fun, but sad too.  I’m not sure I’m ready to go back, and actually I’m sure things will never be the same.