We had to say good bye to our watery fun in Honduras to return to Antigua. Jessica and Kim´s return to the USA is scheduled for Tuesday. We will be sad to say good bye! I´m hoping they will add some to the blog for us.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
More on our Honduras time
I´m not sure in what order these pictures will post, but I will briefly (I hear all those sighs of relief after your having read about the Copan Ruinas!) cover our week in Honduras beginning with the time starting after our visit to the ruins. The next day we splurged on a major thrill, called a canopy tour. This is another name for zip lines, steel cables strung between trees from which you hang from a pulley as you fly down the mountain side in 15 trips to get to the bottom. You would clip in, often standing on a platform in a tree and then go... sailing out over the tree tops! Then the mountainside below you would break into a ravine and y
ou´d suddenly be as much as 300 feet above the tree tops. We could not capture the depth or thrill of this ride, so I have a picture here as a token image. One of the runs was said to be over half mile in length. I would guess that is accurate. The engineer in me had me wondering about their anchoring system however. Each end of the cable was wound around approximately a 15" diameter tree. The tree had no other support. With the amount of tension in the 7-16" cable, I am very surprised the trees did not uproot. Also glad they did not!
ou´d suddenly be as much as 300 feet above the tree tops. We could not capture the depth or thrill of this ride, so I have a picture here as a token image. One of the runs was said to be over half mile in length. I would guess that is accurate. The engineer in me had me wondering about their anchoring system however. Each end of the cable was wound around approximately a 15" diameter tree. The tree had no other support. With the amount of tension in the 7-16" cable, I am very surprised the trees did not uproot. Also glad they did not!We took a bus to Tela, on the Carribean coast where we spent five days in the sun and water. I included a few sample shots, us eating breakfast in view of the Carribean, us eating lunch along the beach, us eating dinner at our favorite rest., The Northern Lights (starting to get the the
me?) Jessica and Kim having a cold one. The last photo may not be obvious to be included with the dining pictures, but read on. This one is of a termite nest in the Ecological Reserve Area. Our guide was pointing out many things about survival in the jungle and said termites were a tastee treat, much the same flavor as carrots. He demonstrated how to capture some termites and eat them, and then offered the group to partake. I think he was a bit surprised when most of the D´s tried out termites (We had not had lunch yet along the beach.) 
me?) Jessica and Kim having a cold one. The last photo may not be obvious to be included with the dining pictures, but read on. This one is of a termite nest in the Ecological Reserve Area. Our guide was pointing out many things about survival in the jungle and said termites were a tastee treat, much the same flavor as carrots. He demonstrated how to capture some termites and eat them, and then offered the group to partake. I think he was a bit surprised when most of the D´s tried out termites (We had not had lunch yet along the beach.) 
P.S. it would take alot of termites to make even a small helping at a meal.....
Christmas Day 2008, Merry Christmas from the Dworschack´s
Our very best and blessed Christmas greetings to you! The seaside picture shows what we did most of the day. The picture to the left (look closely, more than half the greenery is a background palm) is our Christmas tree which Linda has been lugging around in her pack. The ornaments are various pices of shell and coral topped off with an angel. The picture on the right shows our Christmas smorgasborg dinner. The lowest picture shows us all extending our greetings to you from the beach. Feliz Navidad!
Monday, December 22, 2008
A bit more about the Copan Ruins before we leave this area. This type of place I just love and could spend untold amounts of time trying to learn all I could about every aspect of whatever I would be seeing. Starting at the beginning though, we have our lovely pair introducing this series of pictures with their sign they are holding for us, welcoming us to the Ruins of Copan. The next scene is one of the many relief scultures found in the light, soft rock from which so much of the Mayan world is built. The last picture is from atop a pyramidal shaped base that is believed to have had a temple on top. We are looking to the ball field which is the area between what looks opposing sets of bleachers facing a field in between. In fact, the slanteds are not bleachers, but a smooth rock surface. Since the current Mayan culture has no equivalent and no game rules have yet been found, modern man does not know much about this. However, due to the fact most any Mayan city of any size had a ball court, the thought prevails that this was a popular sport. There are glyphs carved in stone depicting some aspects of a game somewhat soccer like in format, excepting for what sometimes happened to the losing team. (I won´t get graphic here, but remember how the Romans entertained themselves only a few centuries before in their coliseums? No wild animals used in the Mayan world, but the results...) A description of the ball itself is gruesome enough, we saw a replica in the Copan museum. The ball is slightly smaller in diameter than a bowling ball and made of solid rubber! (And we were always told to not throw bowling balls!) Weighing in at about 8 pounds with no bounce, the players could only safely contact the ball either with their thighs or around the waist if protected with a wide, very thick leather belt. The belief is that there were professional teams, several probably in each of the larger cities. The thinking also says that sometimes kings and some of the court partook in this sport as well.
This background creates the setting to tell what is believed the start of Copan in 426 A.D. The glyphs all point back to this date and a geat King, the name of which I would have to copy from a pamphlet I don´t have here, as the start of this great empire for the Copan Valley area. Archeologists believe they found this king´s tomb. By analyzing his teeth for various trace minerals, they determined that this fellow grew up in one the greatest Mayan cities, Tikal, directly to the north, but many, many days (weeks) travel on foot. One surmises that as a young man, he left Tikal to seek his fortune, ending up in a probably small, unimportant burg of a town, Copan. He was tall for a Mayan (162 cm´s a bit over five feet,) strongly built which may have helped him quickly gain the trust of (or power over) the local ruling class. He assembled a formidable army and strong governing tactics. During his long reign of about 38 years, he was able to command enough resources to have many buildings built at Copan and offered the area stability and safety in which this Mayan town exploded with growth, both in population and wealth. Now that is some rags to riches story! Other analysis of his skeleton reveals one of his lower right arm bones broken and never allowed to heal. The theory there is that a blow taken while holding his shield in battle could have created such a break at that location. Other observations included fractured ribs and sternum that fit damage that catching one of the aforementioned balls during a game could deliver.
Another aspect of Mayan history was their belief of constant renewal and making more grand. Each king would commission as many buildings, statues and carvings as resources could be devoted. The easiest way to gain new heights with your new structure would be to bury your predecessor´s buildings. This was done with astonishing regularity (sometimes buildings completed only 15 to 40 years before!) Over 400 years of building at Copan resulted in a totally manmade acropolis of 100 feet in height and 2 square kilometers of surface above the plain. Archeologists have learned much about the older generations by tunnelling around under the current structures and have found one building (built by the first king) embalmed in perfect condition, including the original colors!
Well, I guess you can see I get into all this and could go on and on. However, I will point out just one more thing in the last picture, and that is what appears to be a very long canvas roof slanting upwards over what appears to be steps. All is as it appears. The canvas is protecting the longest story carved in stone in the Americas. The risor of each of every one of the 63 steps is carved with Copan´s dynastic history starting with our above described famous king, right up to the 15th ruler as completed in 755 A.D. Copan had an amazing era of stability for its last 160 years; from about 620 to about 780 only 4 rulers reigned. One lived into his 80´s and ruled for 65 years! The others were 30 to 50 years of rule. Apparently they were strong, powerful rulers able to commission many works of art, carvings, etc, that Copan is justly reknown for today. However, with this stability came an exploding population (28,000 by about 800,) deforestation of the entire Copan Valley, not enough land to grow food locally and other ecological problems resulting in subsequent flooding, crop failures, malnutrition, disease (as evidenced by study of bodies from the early 800´s) and a sudden total collapse in 822.
This grand city was empty with evidence only of a fraction of subsistence farmers left after the collapse. The jungle quickly covered over the great city hiding the buildings, or what was left of them, as hills and mounds scattered about. The Copan river, 100 feet below the Acropolis over the subsequent centuries slowly ate into the city´s main hill (called the acropolis.) European explorers from 1834 report buildings no longer present teetering on this huge man made cliff ready to slough off with the next flood. By 1930, an archeological group decided to divert the river from further mischief. The story of Copan continues to unfold as the archeologists´ digging continues even today.
Here we have a pair of pictures with two pairs each. (can you tell we´ve been playing some cards?) The colorful pair are jumping ahead out of turn, as we saw these friendly macaws at the entrance to the Copan Ruins Archeological site. We are quite happy to have the second pair with us all the time! Kim and Jessica have turned our world sideways! Here they are posed in front of Antigua´s Central Park fountain.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
A few notes about Copan, Jim writes:
A quick run down of some Copan highlights, as we are soon leaving for lunch. A large Mayan city lay in ruins one half mile from the current town's center, also called Copan. These ruins are world famous for elaborate and extensive hieroglyphics. The settlement is not on the scale of Tikal in northern Guatemala, but I do see why the world fame is well deserved. I could write much about it, but will only sum up that seeing these ruins, if one has a shred of interest in this type of history is well worth the getting here.
The current city Copan is fairly clean with steep cobble stoned streets, lots of tourist traffic for the ruins and an economy well based on tourism. The requisite town square is quite nice and the site of activity, day and night. Last night, the activities included a person playing a flute which kept Linda and I there for quite a while listening. One image I'll remember is a fellow scratching one of the street dogs while listening to the music. This dog was clearly in ectasy and the funniest thing is that as the fellow got to the best scratching spots, the dog's tail ended up absolutely straight up in the air like a cat's can be. I've never seen a dog do that before.
Oh-oh, the crew is deserting me to go eat......
The current city Copan is fairly clean with steep cobble stoned streets, lots of tourist traffic for the ruins and an economy well based on tourism. The requisite town square is quite nice and the site of activity, day and night. Last night, the activities included a person playing a flute which kept Linda and I there for quite a while listening. One image I'll remember is a fellow scratching one of the street dogs while listening to the music. This dog was clearly in ectasy and the funniest thing is that as the fellow got to the best scratching spots, the dog's tail ended up absolutely straight up in the air like a cat's can be. I've never seen a dog do that before.
Oh-oh, the crew is deserting me to go eat......
Travels to Honduras, Jim writes:
I debated about describing this part of the trip because this was so little fun. However, lest you think we'll feed you only the best parts of the trip, (you are right, mostly we will!) I thought perhaps a dose of some not so fun days would balance the picture.
We signed up the day before for the 4 am 6 hour shuttle ride from Antigua to Copan in Honduras. We all managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 315 am for this ride, only it never showed. We called at 445 to find out where it might be, operator said she'd check and call back. Of course, no call back. When the agency opened in the morning, we were there and given the story that we weren't there when the shuttle came by. They would put us on their 1 pm shuttle that day. Upon loading that afternoon, there were about 6 other passengers, turns out, all of whom had signed up for the 4 am departure. Interestingly, they were all given different reasons, driver didn't show, bus broke down, etc.
Okay, at least we were heading to our destination. The bus this time was a 15 passenger van with a driver who apparently was trained, to never, ever, under any circumstance, drive at a steady speed for more than 5 seconds (literally.) If the unthinkable event happened (that is, a steady speed for more than 5 seconds) he would stab the accelerator and immediately either let us foot completely off the gas to cancel the acceleration, or actually stab the brake pedal.
That is not the end of the story though. There was the issue of taste in music. Now I know if you have 14 people, you are likely to have 14 different preferences. So perhaps there was someone on this ride that liked the music besides the driver, but it was loud. And the speaker located close by. Constantly on too. Did I mention loud?
Then there was the ride through Guatemala City looking for two more passengers. We tend to avoid the large metro areas with traffic, constant smell of diesel exhaust, dreary housing, etc. We saw alot o Guatemala City as I think the driver was lost circling neighborhoods for these two passengers.
And, speaking at least for myself, having an unsettled stomach for days before (and after) this ride did give me one other issue upon which to focus.
Okay, you have the picture, except the ride turned out to be 8 hours instead of 6 due to I guess our Guate City tour. My last remaining fear for hassle for the day (as was every traveller on the bus) was finding lodging so late at night arriving in Copan. The good news is that finding a hotel proved to be easy upon arrival. We were assaulted (figuratively speaking) by three fellows representing one hotel. They had pictures of their place, looked too nice in the pics for our budget, and we were offered rooms for $50 each. I told the fellow we usually bed down for about $4 per person per night. To my surprise, he did not leave scorning me, but actually counter offered, but still way out of range. Linda was conversing with another, older fellow who turned out to be the hotel owner. He ended up accepting our $24 offer for two rooms and drove us right to the hotel. Turns out, we even had very small attached baths! A very nice place.
I get the feeling that the slow world economy is being felt by the tourism industry here.
I guess I couldn't resist adding this photo either, as I wanted to point out how laid back the canine population can be.... Many times the dogs are deeply asleep where ever they happen to be lying, in paths, sidewalks, under park benches, under cars or truck, etc. I'm highly suspicious these are the same canines we awake to at night carrying on....
Here is one of the pictures of the narrow neighborhood foot paths lacing the ancient part of Todos Santos. Any houses clustered along this path have no other means of access, meaning their firewood, food, water, whatever they need is carried to their house on their backs. Note the small pig house right along the path Unfortunately, these piggees do not get any exercise, ever.
Market Day, Todos Santos. The small central plazas are packed with people from all over the countryside who come in by foot and bus for a presumably rare trip into town. Gathering along the upper plaza's railing, the locals no doubt catch up on what is happening in the various neighborhoods, besides keeping an eye on activities down in the plaza. Note that the railing is lined with Mayan men in their local dress. Those two in the top picture don't look very local, I wonder what they are checking out???
Unfortunately, I did not have all the hardware along to publish Willa's b-day picture when I made the write-up, so this will be out of order with the story. Someday, I hope to figure out how to cut and paste the pictures as this blog site indicated is possible. With that ability, I can get pictures organized into the write-ups.
The previous day, a parade similar to this one passed under our hotel window. We were alerted to the parade by the various instrumentals marching along, this time drums. The parade the day before had a much more complete marching band with them. This parade passed by the corner near the hotel moving along the cross street, but we knew to investigate the sounds of a parade to see what was going on!
At last, the long promised picture and write up about the Posada parade we saw twice in Antigua. On the nine nights before Christmas, churches, families or friends reenact the Holy Family's search for a place to stay in Bethlehem. They are pre-arranged, in that they stop at various doors around town and refused a place more than once, when at last arriving at their destination, they are granted refuge for the night. As far as the parade is concerned, this granted refuge means treats and a special warm punch. Note in this picture, there are candles contained within lantern type frames covered with various colors of cellophane. I will also attempt to attach a picture of the float that this particular group had.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
A lazy day in Antigua, Willa´s birthday
Today, Willa turned 11. This small hotel we are in, (we take up about half the beds available) the owner gave Willa a banana split. I think that may well have been her first banana split of her life. One of the three ice cream scoops had quite a unique taste, it wasn´t citrus, but that is about as close a description as I can give, besides the color which was orangish, and for those who know the color of the inside of a papaya, that was exactly the shade of orange.
The kids get breaks from their travels by coming to the internet cafe to connect with that world (as I do too!) Cost here is $1 per hour, so this is relatively cheap entertainment for all of us. Both kids also have been going through books like mad. Willa read a 500 page book in the first week, the second book of the series is about 700 pages and the third is close to 800, both of which Jessica just brought her from the states. At her current rate, I have little hope this next 1500 pages will last the trip! Unfortunately, Tias has not yet found a book around here to take up since he also read a similarly long book the first week (uin fact, two other books to boot!) and the next in his series is not yet published.
The three big girls just popped into this internet cafe to tell us they have returned from the market and if we want lunch, we need to vamos! Once again, while I had plans to describe the Christmas parades we saw, that must wait! Hasta Luego!
The kids get breaks from their travels by coming to the internet cafe to connect with that world (as I do too!) Cost here is $1 per hour, so this is relatively cheap entertainment for all of us. Both kids also have been going through books like mad. Willa read a 500 page book in the first week, the second book of the series is about 700 pages and the third is close to 800, both of which Jessica just brought her from the states. At her current rate, I have little hope this next 1500 pages will last the trip! Unfortunately, Tias has not yet found a book around here to take up since he also read a similarly long book the first week (uin fact, two other books to boot!) and the next in his series is not yet published.
The three big girls just popped into this internet cafe to tell us they have returned from the market and if we want lunch, we need to vamos! Once again, while I had plans to describe the Christmas parades we saw, that must wait! Hasta Luego!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Antigua! Dec 15th, Jim writes:
Here we are all (now six of us) in Antigua. The core four (Linda, Mattias, Willa and Jim) travelled by bus from Todos Santos to Antigua in a long day on Saturday. We were sorry to leave Todos, but excited about meeting Jessica and her amiga, Kim Imp at the airport Sunday evening. Sunday morning we spent combing the town for affordable rooms to accomodate the six of us, as well as affordable places to eat, not to mention what might be available for Willa´s birthday tomorrow.
There are the usual travel stories connected with meeting Jessica and Kim at the airport, but could be summarized in saying that it proved mildly difficult finding a shuttle to the airport on Sunday afternoon which eventually showed up about 40 mintues late. This late arrival had Linda and I already trying to come up with an alternative way to get to the airport on time without busting our trip's budget (ie; a taxi.) But alas, around the corner came the shuttle, I was the second to last passenger to get picked up for the journey to the big city. By the time we had the last passenger on board, Jessica and Kim´s plane was scheduled to land. However, in reality it was probably just over Cuba at that point and arrived about 2.5 hours late, giving me plenty of margin for arrival. Why worry?
When gazing out from the top of 12,000' LaTorre back near Todos Santos, (mentioned in Tias' writings,) we could see across a vast sea of clouds seven volcano tops, among them, Santa Marie which Linda and I (as well as niece Melissa and friend Coni) climbed on a moonlit hike back in 2001, arriving at the top just before dawn in order to see the sun rise from an approximate 12,000' vantage spot. Even further in the distance were two or three volcanoes surrounding Lake Attilan. The furthest peaks (dark triangles jutting above the snow white clouds) we saw that day were volcanoes surrounding Antigua. I should look on the map to see how far Todos to Antigua is, but here I will guess 150 miles. Three volcanoes were puffing tall towers of white smoke high above the cloud ceiling. Now we have the window of the girl´s room (Jessica, Kim and Willa) making a perfect frame for the largest volcano here. The view was part of the reason we had to pay $15 for the room.
Despite the sounds of a low costs, when multiplying food, etc, prices times five, expenditures mount quickly. Instead of eating out all the time, we eat out once, and cook in our kitchenette for the other two meals. This involves gathering items from sources including a grocery story, various smaller tiendas (very small stores with the food on shelves that the proprietor must retrieve upon your request for the item) and the local market where vendors sell produce, generally whatever is in season. No one place has everything, and we have yet to find a source of dairy products of any sort, except ice cream novelties. I am especially enjoying the tangerines for 15 cents each directly from the market place and I keep eyeing those pineapples... Most of us six gringos here enjoy the shopping (I hear that snickering coming down from the far, frozen north for that statement!)
A bit about Antigua itself. This town was the major colonial settlement and capital of the area, one building on one side of the town´s plaza has a plaque stating establishment in 1660. There certainly were many buildings already here before that date as glancing through a brief history of Antigua indicates various buildings around town were begun in the 1560's. Antigua thrived with many large (huge is more accurate) Baroque styled churches and other government buildings (the latter not being multi story units, but single storied, city block long pueblo type buildings made of sun dried mud bricks, and mud mortar fronted with 15' wide porches) the beautiful, shady town square, now bedecked with christmas lights strung on every tree. The streets are cleaned every night, there is no stray dog population (zero) and all is maintained with an obvious police presence, day and night. Hence, the town´s appeal as the premier tourist stay in Guatemala today. As a result of this status, a tourist can spend just about any large amount of money on housing and plush resturaunts located in these ancient buildings. Antigua is also the site of many earthquakes. Over the first couple of centuries, earthquakes occurred perhaps 6 or 8 times. The resident's response was to build their building's walls still thicker to withstand the next quake. Then the big one occurred in 1773. While many buildings were rebuilt, there are more than a few ruins of very thick walls of church and church like buildings jutting without roofs or windows into the skyline. At night, many of these are artistically lit with spot lights. Apparently, the reconstruction was going too slowly for some government officials, so a new capital was established in Guatemala City in 1776. With the evacuation of the big money to the new Guatemala city, the churches that were rebuilt did not retain any of their original baroque interior details.
We also witnessed two parades yesterday evening connected with Christmas, right from our hotel window´s balcony. However, time is running thin, and I'll leave that description to later.
There are the usual travel stories connected with meeting Jessica and Kim at the airport, but could be summarized in saying that it proved mildly difficult finding a shuttle to the airport on Sunday afternoon which eventually showed up about 40 mintues late. This late arrival had Linda and I already trying to come up with an alternative way to get to the airport on time without busting our trip's budget (ie; a taxi.) But alas, around the corner came the shuttle, I was the second to last passenger to get picked up for the journey to the big city. By the time we had the last passenger on board, Jessica and Kim´s plane was scheduled to land. However, in reality it was probably just over Cuba at that point and arrived about 2.5 hours late, giving me plenty of margin for arrival. Why worry?
When gazing out from the top of 12,000' LaTorre back near Todos Santos, (mentioned in Tias' writings,) we could see across a vast sea of clouds seven volcano tops, among them, Santa Marie which Linda and I (as well as niece Melissa and friend Coni) climbed on a moonlit hike back in 2001, arriving at the top just before dawn in order to see the sun rise from an approximate 12,000' vantage spot. Even further in the distance were two or three volcanoes surrounding Lake Attilan. The furthest peaks (dark triangles jutting above the snow white clouds) we saw that day were volcanoes surrounding Antigua. I should look on the map to see how far Todos to Antigua is, but here I will guess 150 miles. Three volcanoes were puffing tall towers of white smoke high above the cloud ceiling. Now we have the window of the girl´s room (Jessica, Kim and Willa) making a perfect frame for the largest volcano here. The view was part of the reason we had to pay $15 for the room.
Despite the sounds of a low costs, when multiplying food, etc, prices times five, expenditures mount quickly. Instead of eating out all the time, we eat out once, and cook in our kitchenette for the other two meals. This involves gathering items from sources including a grocery story, various smaller tiendas (very small stores with the food on shelves that the proprietor must retrieve upon your request for the item) and the local market where vendors sell produce, generally whatever is in season. No one place has everything, and we have yet to find a source of dairy products of any sort, except ice cream novelties. I am especially enjoying the tangerines for 15 cents each directly from the market place and I keep eyeing those pineapples... Most of us six gringos here enjoy the shopping (I hear that snickering coming down from the far, frozen north for that statement!)
A bit about Antigua itself. This town was the major colonial settlement and capital of the area, one building on one side of the town´s plaza has a plaque stating establishment in 1660. There certainly were many buildings already here before that date as glancing through a brief history of Antigua indicates various buildings around town were begun in the 1560's. Antigua thrived with many large (huge is more accurate) Baroque styled churches and other government buildings (the latter not being multi story units, but single storied, city block long pueblo type buildings made of sun dried mud bricks, and mud mortar fronted with 15' wide porches) the beautiful, shady town square, now bedecked with christmas lights strung on every tree. The streets are cleaned every night, there is no stray dog population (zero) and all is maintained with an obvious police presence, day and night. Hence, the town´s appeal as the premier tourist stay in Guatemala today. As a result of this status, a tourist can spend just about any large amount of money on housing and plush resturaunts located in these ancient buildings. Antigua is also the site of many earthquakes. Over the first couple of centuries, earthquakes occurred perhaps 6 or 8 times. The resident's response was to build their building's walls still thicker to withstand the next quake. Then the big one occurred in 1773. While many buildings were rebuilt, there are more than a few ruins of very thick walls of church and church like buildings jutting without roofs or windows into the skyline. At night, many of these are artistically lit with spot lights. Apparently, the reconstruction was going too slowly for some government officials, so a new capital was established in Guatemala City in 1776. With the evacuation of the big money to the new Guatemala city, the churches that were rebuilt did not retain any of their original baroque interior details.
We also witnessed two parades yesterday evening connected with Christmas, right from our hotel window´s balcony. However, time is running thin, and I'll leave that description to later.
changed blog sites
We weren´t very satisfied with our former blog site, so we are trying this one. Perhaps we will discover the problem is our lack of experience with these items, or we´ll find this one is truly easier to use! The original blog to date is copied below:
14/12/2008
photos? Mattias
hiyai think i got the photos up a ready to be seen..use the link and it will take you to the long awaited pics. http://dworschack.blog.com//_/photos/album/1084616/Mattias
12/12/2008
Weaving in Todos Santos, Linda
It is appropriate that my first entry on this blog is about weaving. Lucas, the school coordinator, arranged back-strap weaving lessons for me with a local Mam woman.(Mam is one of the many mayan languages spoken in Guate.) Lucas likes to give work to this woman because her family is very poor. Willa and I went to the house for the first lesson and found a one room home built of home-made bricks with a dirt floor. 6 people live in the house, including Eustabia (the matriarch) and her 26 year old daughter Marcela who helped with the lessons. For the first several days (and about 6 hours) of lessons I did no weaving. First the warp was measured, then soaked in corn water to strengthen the threads, then layed in the sun to dry, then and intricate procedure of winding threads around sticks to prepare of weaving. These women speak a little spanish, but what I enjoyed most was listening to them talk amongst themselves in Mam. The language is very rythmic and guteral, with spanish words thrown in once in a while. There were several young kids in their traditional clothing chasing chickens through the yard, a female relative with a toddler strapped to her back chopping firewood with a machete, and the pig in his pen making a loud fuss. I finally started weaving yesterday! I really enjoy it, but the best part came today when I convinced Willa to come with me again. After watching me weave for a few minutes she asked if she could try it. She is a natural! We now have the loom hanging from a post in our room and she will soon have the scarf finished. Nothing could have made Eustabia and Marcela happier than see little blond Willa take to their form of weaving so quickly!
10/12/2008
Wednesday, Dec 10th Jim writes:
Life in Todos Santos is, well, read on! Todos Santos (All saints) is a pueblo (village) built on a steep mountainside in a beautiful setting. I'll describe the town as Tias has aluded to the natural beauty that surrounds us. While there is much construction going on currently, the core of the town is very old with, of course, the church in the center having a large open plaza in front. Uphill across the street from this church and plaza is another plaza which is surrounded on two sides by shops and municpal buildings and other two sides, streets. This upper plaza has yet another higher level for a band.
The houses in this immediate area could be right out of medieval Europe, located on cobblestoned, steep, winding streets. The oldest houses are made with sun baked bricks, mud chinking, dirt floors and tile roofs. Newer dwellings are poured concrete floors, stairs, concrete block walls topped off with tin roofs.
There are dirt foot paths branching off the narrow streets into mini neighborhoods of up to a dozen houses. Walking these side trails one gets the feeling of walking through people's yards as the path is often the place their pig may be tied, or where one must duck under the low lying edge of a porch roof. However, with perseverence (and the guidance of onlooking kids saying Aqui! Aqui! (here, here) when one strays into dead end side legs of the trail,) one eventually arrives to another street. I love exploring these ancient paths. One thing noted in medieval Europe streets that is lacking here are the slop buckets being heaved into the street from second story windows with a 'look out below.'
And did I mention the dog packs? Wasn't that part of medieval Europe? One hears them fighting at night. One can be walking down a street during the day and have dogs streak by on their way to.... turns out to be our friend Lucas returning from a street vendor with a bowl of chicken remains to feed the hungry perros (dogs.) The dogs must be able to smell food a long way off as Lucas was about a city block away and around a corner, yet the dogs were already on a dead run to get their treats. Even Spanish lessons today were interrupted by pack of about a dozen dogs fighting over something. All the dogs aren't always fighting. Many are too skittish to get near, but there are a few that are so lovey, coming right up and demanding to be petted. Sometimes, the same dogs fighting in packs are the lovey dovey ones.... Need I mention there are no stray cats? Less obviously, there are also no pigeons. I suspect no food laying about for pigeons might be at least part of the reason for their abscence. Do streets with pigs couped up in very small cages, donkeys roaming around, sheep being herded to the next pasture, chickens and turkeys scurrying along, the butcher shop with 4 or 5 steer penned up right along side the street awaiting their fate (appearance in the nearby market meat shops) add to the medieval character?
How about the air, wood fire smoke from cooking (the houses are not heated, as wood is too dear) hanging all over town making the air hazy? This time of year, every day, the sun shines warmly and brightly until shortly after noon when the clouds roll in and sink lower and lower, making Todos Santos seem trapped in a box, the sides made of mountain rocks and trees and the lid being a low cloud ceiling located far below the tops of the mountains surrounding the town. By bedtime, the stars are shining and the temperature is in the 40's or even 30's.
Does one imagine the narrow medieval streets lined with vendors selling everything from veges, fruit, school supplies, cds, shoes, salsa in 5 gallon crocks, clothes, ready to eat food, (especially chicken and fries?) (I know fries aren't medieval, I guess neither are cds.) Aren't castles usually built on steep hill tops, sometimes making streets so steep that if wide enough, a vehicle on the dry cobblestoned surface would not have enough traction to go up? No castle here, but the rest of these images thrive.
How about the noisy tired old diesel powered school buses now public transports between towns, the pickups, the big trucks hauling people out to work in remotely distant fields, the three wheeled canopy covered two passenger taxis struggling up and down the hills? New Yorkers would be familiar with grid lock. In Todos Santos, this occurs when one bus and one of the bigger trucks meet along the narrow village streets, each jockeying their vehicles over to give the needed 1" clearance to pass each other and the buildings. Add to that the honking horns of impatient motorists behind either vehicle...No, that part is not very medieval.
Many doorways have a high curb built around them to keep the rivers of water flowing down the streets during the raining season from flooding into the houses and shops. Combine this high curb with most doorways barely 6 feet high, and you can imagine how limber I have become! I hope to capture a few of these scenes on film and get them posted.
09/12/2008
Dec. 9th, Mattias
hey,everyone! its just anonther perfect day here in todos santos,gaute.yeasterday we took,possably, the most beutiful hike in my life.we got up early found a bus and 20 minutes later we were at the bottom of a mountian.we started up the mountian and the along the way we got to see a water fall a bunch of rocks and a cave.as close to the top as we where going was a stream that fell over the edge of a cliff to form the above said water fall.there was a fantastic view.stunning in fact.ive never seen anything like it! we have pics of the view.hope to here from you all soon!! =)Mattias
05/12/2008, Mattias
hiya everyone! this trip is fantastic so far.There is always the small fact that we´ve been here a grand total of 4days.But put that aside for now.The excitement for me is that i my be able to fulfil my dream of climbing up a really big hill and walk right in to a cloud.I´ve always wanted to do that and i may fianlly be able to.yyyyyyyaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!! hasta luego.y´all!!! Mattias
01/12/2008
Dec 1st, 2008. Jim writes:
Here we find ourselves heading half way down to the equator from home and trying out this new (to us) technology, the blog. Our adventure began on Nov 30th with our trip to Germantown, driving into the eye of a 10" snowstorm. We arrived early in the storm to our Germantown house (where Jessica lives) with only about 3" of snow on the ground. Tomorrow we head off to Ohare!Dec 4th, 2008 Jim writes: We are all arrived safely here in Todos Santos, a very old small town nestled at 7500´ surrounded by mountains in three directions. This area has the highest peaks in Guatemala. Not much time to write more than this, just to get your appetite whetted. We will be here for a week with the main activity being Spanish 5 hours per day. The rest of the time we have nothing else to do except hike the mountains, check the old town, scenery and the nearby Mayan ruins.
14/12/2008
photos? Mattias
hiyai think i got the photos up a ready to be seen..use the link and it will take you to the long awaited pics. http://dworschack.blog.com//_/photos/album/1084616/Mattias
12/12/2008
Weaving in Todos Santos, Linda
It is appropriate that my first entry on this blog is about weaving. Lucas, the school coordinator, arranged back-strap weaving lessons for me with a local Mam woman.(Mam is one of the many mayan languages spoken in Guate.) Lucas likes to give work to this woman because her family is very poor. Willa and I went to the house for the first lesson and found a one room home built of home-made bricks with a dirt floor. 6 people live in the house, including Eustabia (the matriarch) and her 26 year old daughter Marcela who helped with the lessons. For the first several days (and about 6 hours) of lessons I did no weaving. First the warp was measured, then soaked in corn water to strengthen the threads, then layed in the sun to dry, then and intricate procedure of winding threads around sticks to prepare of weaving. These women speak a little spanish, but what I enjoyed most was listening to them talk amongst themselves in Mam. The language is very rythmic and guteral, with spanish words thrown in once in a while. There were several young kids in their traditional clothing chasing chickens through the yard, a female relative with a toddler strapped to her back chopping firewood with a machete, and the pig in his pen making a loud fuss. I finally started weaving yesterday! I really enjoy it, but the best part came today when I convinced Willa to come with me again. After watching me weave for a few minutes she asked if she could try it. She is a natural! We now have the loom hanging from a post in our room and she will soon have the scarf finished. Nothing could have made Eustabia and Marcela happier than see little blond Willa take to their form of weaving so quickly!
10/12/2008
Wednesday, Dec 10th Jim writes:
Life in Todos Santos is, well, read on! Todos Santos (All saints) is a pueblo (village) built on a steep mountainside in a beautiful setting. I'll describe the town as Tias has aluded to the natural beauty that surrounds us. While there is much construction going on currently, the core of the town is very old with, of course, the church in the center having a large open plaza in front. Uphill across the street from this church and plaza is another plaza which is surrounded on two sides by shops and municpal buildings and other two sides, streets. This upper plaza has yet another higher level for a band.
The houses in this immediate area could be right out of medieval Europe, located on cobblestoned, steep, winding streets. The oldest houses are made with sun baked bricks, mud chinking, dirt floors and tile roofs. Newer dwellings are poured concrete floors, stairs, concrete block walls topped off with tin roofs.
There are dirt foot paths branching off the narrow streets into mini neighborhoods of up to a dozen houses. Walking these side trails one gets the feeling of walking through people's yards as the path is often the place their pig may be tied, or where one must duck under the low lying edge of a porch roof. However, with perseverence (and the guidance of onlooking kids saying Aqui! Aqui! (here, here) when one strays into dead end side legs of the trail,) one eventually arrives to another street. I love exploring these ancient paths. One thing noted in medieval Europe streets that is lacking here are the slop buckets being heaved into the street from second story windows with a 'look out below.'
And did I mention the dog packs? Wasn't that part of medieval Europe? One hears them fighting at night. One can be walking down a street during the day and have dogs streak by on their way to.... turns out to be our friend Lucas returning from a street vendor with a bowl of chicken remains to feed the hungry perros (dogs.) The dogs must be able to smell food a long way off as Lucas was about a city block away and around a corner, yet the dogs were already on a dead run to get their treats. Even Spanish lessons today were interrupted by pack of about a dozen dogs fighting over something. All the dogs aren't always fighting. Many are too skittish to get near, but there are a few that are so lovey, coming right up and demanding to be petted. Sometimes, the same dogs fighting in packs are the lovey dovey ones.... Need I mention there are no stray cats? Less obviously, there are also no pigeons. I suspect no food laying about for pigeons might be at least part of the reason for their abscence. Do streets with pigs couped up in very small cages, donkeys roaming around, sheep being herded to the next pasture, chickens and turkeys scurrying along, the butcher shop with 4 or 5 steer penned up right along side the street awaiting their fate (appearance in the nearby market meat shops) add to the medieval character?
How about the air, wood fire smoke from cooking (the houses are not heated, as wood is too dear) hanging all over town making the air hazy? This time of year, every day, the sun shines warmly and brightly until shortly after noon when the clouds roll in and sink lower and lower, making Todos Santos seem trapped in a box, the sides made of mountain rocks and trees and the lid being a low cloud ceiling located far below the tops of the mountains surrounding the town. By bedtime, the stars are shining and the temperature is in the 40's or even 30's.
Does one imagine the narrow medieval streets lined with vendors selling everything from veges, fruit, school supplies, cds, shoes, salsa in 5 gallon crocks, clothes, ready to eat food, (especially chicken and fries?) (I know fries aren't medieval, I guess neither are cds.) Aren't castles usually built on steep hill tops, sometimes making streets so steep that if wide enough, a vehicle on the dry cobblestoned surface would not have enough traction to go up? No castle here, but the rest of these images thrive.
How about the noisy tired old diesel powered school buses now public transports between towns, the pickups, the big trucks hauling people out to work in remotely distant fields, the three wheeled canopy covered two passenger taxis struggling up and down the hills? New Yorkers would be familiar with grid lock. In Todos Santos, this occurs when one bus and one of the bigger trucks meet along the narrow village streets, each jockeying their vehicles over to give the needed 1" clearance to pass each other and the buildings. Add to that the honking horns of impatient motorists behind either vehicle...No, that part is not very medieval.
Many doorways have a high curb built around them to keep the rivers of water flowing down the streets during the raining season from flooding into the houses and shops. Combine this high curb with most doorways barely 6 feet high, and you can imagine how limber I have become! I hope to capture a few of these scenes on film and get them posted.
09/12/2008
Dec. 9th, Mattias
hey,everyone! its just anonther perfect day here in todos santos,gaute.yeasterday we took,possably, the most beutiful hike in my life.we got up early found a bus and 20 minutes later we were at the bottom of a mountian.we started up the mountian and the along the way we got to see a water fall a bunch of rocks and a cave.as close to the top as we where going was a stream that fell over the edge of a cliff to form the above said water fall.there was a fantastic view.stunning in fact.ive never seen anything like it! we have pics of the view.hope to here from you all soon!! =)Mattias
05/12/2008, Mattias
hiya everyone! this trip is fantastic so far.There is always the small fact that we´ve been here a grand total of 4days.But put that aside for now.The excitement for me is that i my be able to fulfil my dream of climbing up a really big hill and walk right in to a cloud.I´ve always wanted to do that and i may fianlly be able to.yyyyyyyaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!! hasta luego.y´all!!! Mattias
01/12/2008
Dec 1st, 2008. Jim writes:
Here we find ourselves heading half way down to the equator from home and trying out this new (to us) technology, the blog. Our adventure began on Nov 30th with our trip to Germantown, driving into the eye of a 10" snowstorm. We arrived early in the storm to our Germantown house (where Jessica lives) with only about 3" of snow on the ground. Tomorrow we head off to Ohare!Dec 4th, 2008 Jim writes: We are all arrived safely here in Todos Santos, a very old small town nestled at 7500´ surrounded by mountains in three directions. This area has the highest peaks in Guatemala. Not much time to write more than this, just to get your appetite whetted. We will be here for a week with the main activity being Spanish 5 hours per day. The rest of the time we have nothing else to do except hike the mountains, check the old town, scenery and the nearby Mayan ruins.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
