El Casco

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I am leaving Xela tomorrow morning so this is my very last day.  Yesterday was quite eventful.  During my Spanish class my teacher offered to go with me to the Post Office to mail a box.  When we got there we learned that it was going to cost $100, yes 100 U.S. dollars to mail about a 5-pound box (and that was the slow - 2-week service).  Apparently the postal service here has recently been privatized - I think that explains the issue.  So, I opted for making my pack 5 pounds heavier rather than forking over the money.  Of course this means I don´t really want to buy anything else on the trip, but we´ll see how that turns out.

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Yesterday afternoon we had a salsa lesson at the school and it was fabulous! Uno-dos-tres, Uno-dos-tres, Uno-dos-tres, cuatro, cinco, seis.  That´s really all you have to know - and of course what to do with your feet and hands during each number, but it was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it.  I might take some more lessons once I get to San Pedro!

And last night was the graduation, which was a lot of fun.  The school bought Gallo, the local popular beer and each student brought a dish.  The teachers sang several songs that they said would have gotten them in trouble during the civil war, but now they are able to sing freely (and loudly).  Then each graduating student got to do something - I read my poem - and then we ate dinner.  The best thing there was macaroni and cheese!!!

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This morning bright and early we left for El Casco, which is the name of the excampamento that we visited.  It was a HIKE!  It was about an hour of going straight up on a gravel road and then about 15 minutes on a little trail.  When we got to the top, the place where the camp actually was, there were all of these little white flowers growing on the ground - seemingly marking a sacred site.  The most amazing part was listening to Ronaldo, the ex-combatant, tell of the history before the war started and the issues that led up to the war and then his experiences of being a guerilla in the war for 5 years.  I learned the war actually lasted 36 years.  And it was surreal to be at a site where 10 years ago clandestine guerillas lived and fought.

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He told us how the guerillas subsisted on very little sleep, food, and water - a feast was rice and beans - usually there was just rice.  They would sleep on the ground on a piece of plastic with a another piece of plastic covering them.  They bathed in the rivers and then wrung out their clothes and put them back on.  He told of the tough times when his compadres were killed.  Very interestingly, 20% of the guerillas were women - and he said that women were treated as compadres - or perhaps, more accurately commadres.  It was a community, from his account, of equals.

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It is also very interesting to me that before coming here I knew next to nothing about what was going on in Guatemala from 1960-1996.  I probably would have assumed at that point, that the U.S. was doing the "right" thing to help the Guatemalan people.  Now I know better.  But I come away very aware of how my position of privilege allows me to be completely ignorant of what goes on in the rest of the world most of the time.

Listening to him it was really hard for me to imagine me being dedicated enough to any cause to live the way he lived and risk my life every day for 5 years.  I am eternally grateful for the privilege of Ronaldo sharing his story with us.  I of course don´t know what I´m going to do with this new experience, for now I guess just hold on to it.

Tonight I will go out to dinner with some friends and then to Coco Loco, a salsa club, to perhaps learn more or perhaps make a complete fool of myself.  More from San Pedro when I get there!!!