Thursday I went to the rural area with some nuns for a women’s art therapy workshop. It was about an hour outside town on some very unfriendly roads. When we arrived women were milling about a white church on the top of a hill overlooking brown pastures. I was a little shel shocked going into such a different world but made as much small talk as could slip between the cracks of an enormous language barrier: English-Spanish-K’iche.
Women started cooking lunch on an open pit beneath a tin roof on one side of the church. I milled about and played with children and smiled a lot.
Perhaps if there is one thing that I notice is how bright some of the people’s eyes are. The one’s who have lived through the war lost everything and still come back with great kindness and goodwill in their hearts: following the rhythm of sowing, working, and harvesting as time keeps moving on regardless of humankind’s insanity.
The sister Ana Maria. Laid out a circular carpet of pine needles on the church’s concrete floor above which rested a equidistant cross of pink amaryllis flowers inside a half moon. To the north a black candle, to the south red, to the west yellow, to the east white…. I remembered, half laughing, all the times I got together with my girlfriend’s on a new or full moon and laid out a similar homage to the four directions and how we, bereft of history, tried to invent a god that looked like us. Tried to invent an empowerment of our womanhood that we had never seen before, something beside capitalism’s never ending exploitation of women’s liberation: instant meals, anti-perspirant, power lunches…. Something that couldn’t be marketed…Something that couldn’t be stolen.
Standing in a circle of women, living extensions of one of the oldest cultures on the face of the earth. Wearing their own woven skirts and embroidered blouses, on feet that were born to know every curve of the hard land cut with rivulets of rain, like the faces of their elders. Women who had lost everything and remained intact. 80% of the population in this area was murdered in the civil war. We lit the candles: South for the birth of the sun.. That God was with his people…. North for the dark in which we find illumination, Yellow for the corn from which our bodies are sculpted the harvest, white for wisdom. Sister Ana Maria leading the prayers reminding us that we were not born of a dry and sterile masculine rib but of a feminine womb, warm and tender, blessed by god because even god came from a woman.
And so we played games tossing balloons up in the air, making human knots, silly stuff. I think if there is anything that Guatemala needs, it’s playtime. Play is really revolutionary. Happiness isn’t flippant, its powerful, its political. Like a little 3 and a half foot tall pickpocket (which aren’t uncommon here) play steals away our fears, anxiety, power structures, and self concept if just for a minute. Aerates them and returns them to us weaker (Earth to said 3 and a half foot tall pickpocket: I still want my cell phone charger back!). Happiness is radical. For it to stay we have to have the courage to challenge what makes us unhappy and create something different. Besides there is nothing like a pair of floppy clown shoes and a big red rubber clown nose to make you not take yourself so friggin’ seriously.
When it came time for the meat and potatoes of the workshop: Ana Maria asked the women what made them sad, like Maria Magdalena weeping when she saw the body of Christ robbed from the tomb Jesus asked her: Maria why are you weeping?
I distributed pencils crayons and paper to the women and with the help of a translator encouraged them to draw out what makes them sad. They spread out along the pews of the church and set to work. One woman, an elder, refused. The young women bunched together and set to work drawing flowers and giggling nervously. Other woman spent the time drawing their family far away working in the states while they remained alone in the home. Other women drew simple crosses as if marking simple graves. One woman, the most silent of all, drew a skeleton with its heart exposed lying beside a machete surrounded by flowers. She must have lost a lot of family in the war.
WE closed the day wit more games. blindfolding one woman at a time in the middle of a circle of the rest of us holding hands. They would run and try to grab someone in the circle and we would run and run laughing. Lie Maria Magdalena bursting into joy upon recognizing Christ resurrected in front of the empty tomb. We ended the day with happiness and, like everything in Guatemala, big fat stacks of hot tortillas, rice and beans.
Cultural cliff notes.
#1 It seems to be a really desired thing in the community to have a good name “una persona honrada” What we put into our portfolios, cars, houses, Phd, or other forms of “project ME” a lot of Guatemalans put into their names in the community. They tend to be hyper sensitive to criticism while, all the while, do nothing but criticize their neighbors.
#2 I will never succeed in convincing the country that no, I really am NOT a walking ATM. There is too strong an image of the wealthy gringo for one blue collar girl to break. I give up!
#3Although there is a really strong sense of sociability and family ties in Guate there seems to be very little in the way of a developed sense of teamwork. This to me, explains the whole being late, being uncommital and talking on your cell phone during meetings phenomenon.
#4 People are really indirect in their communication and tend to use a third person. They will however fault you if you do the same. They seem to demand directness in others but not themselves.
#5 The “pidgeons” (shy kids) often really want to participate in things but are afraid. I just start doing what I need to do and when they get close enough (after I know they have been watching long enough to learn the technique) I simply put things in their hands wordlessly and let them work with a friend. It is a huge step and SUCCESS for them to try something new.
#6 Pain and fear are right under the skin here. Especially in the interior. 80% of one of my communities was massacred in the armed conflict.
I guess one thing that I really am aware of is people’s hyper acute ability of perception. All of the energy that we gringos used to go to school and study stuff that, at the end of the day leaves us humming the tune of “After all the shit I learned in highschool, it’s a wonder I can think at all” Guatemalans seemed to use to develop an ornate way of communicating and a lot of heightened people intelligence.
I’ve noticed that breaking into different ways:
#1 The more “simple” people are in terms of having little education it seems the more they rely on the “irrational”: religion, gut instinct, feeling, etc. I’ve had the experience in a number of ways of Mayan women knowing very intuitively exactly when I am feeling most like a fish out of water, coming up wordlessly putting their arm around my waist and giving me a big squeeze and a big pat on the back. I hope this doesn’t sound to hoky but I feel like indigenous people are really tuned into people’s vibes so when I communicate with them I make sure I am really grounded and coming from my heart in a very humble way. It makes a big bIG BIG difference in how I am received!
#2 I have to stay very tuned into the context of communication. In the US we just say what comes to mind. In Guatemala it seems like you have to anticipate anyway in which something might be able to be taken as an insult and make sure to address it in the same sentence. For instance, as I recently learned, running through the house scratching yourself wildly while exclaiming “I HAVE FRIGGIN’ FLEAS!!!! GOD DAMN IT I AM COVERED IN FRIGGIN’ FLEAS!!!!” Tends to have some negative repercussions. Namely, my host grandma took it to mean that I was criticizing her ability to keep a clean house. The correct way to articulate said flea issue is “You have such a clean home I can’t imagine how I might have picked up these “pulgas”) The cool thing about this principle is that it seems to work in reverse as flattery: when commenting to women in my ONG about how healthy and polite their children are I noticed that they tended to glow as if I had told them that they were good mothers.
to be continued…..
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