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.