Personal Experiences in the Western Highlands of Guatemala

I have been waiting for this Unit since the semester began because I became particularly interested in Guatemala after I went on a trip to the Western Highlands in August 2019 (I visited the Q’anjobal, Ixil, K’iche’, and Kaqchikel speaking regions!), so I am super excited for this weeks discussion!

When I visited Barillas, a small town located in Huehuetenango Dept, Guatemala (Western Highlands, fairly close to the Mexico-Guatemala border), I had the rare opportunity to learn about the foodways that are an integral part in Mayan culture, specifically about coffee and cardamom production in the Barillas community. 3 of my friends, in this case we will refer to them as W, M, and R, took me around the town to the local coffee shop. When you go behind the coffee shop you will end up in the office of the local agricultural co-op for farmers, one like the Tecpan cooperative mentioned in the Benson and Fischer article. In this building you can buy bags in bulk from the local farmers, and the cafe that sits in front of it exclusively uses the farmers coffee. Down the street, you will find a small local cardamom processing plant that is  likely exported globally, as I was told by M that Guatemala is the biggest exporter of cardamom in the world. After reading the Benson and Fischer article, it really reminded me of these experiences of what I learned about the local agriculture system in Barillas and how likely it is that many of the farmers in the area are probably engaging in the production of non-traditional crops like broccoli, but in this case, for cardamom.

I also visited a nearby village, about a 30 minute drive from Barillas, called Cementerio Jolomtaj. I was learning about traditional Mayan cooking methods for tortilla making. As mentioned in the podcast lecture, I got to see how families processed and nixtamalized their corn from nearby mountainside crops in order to make dough for tortillas made on the clean-burning stone stoves I was helping to assemble. I also saw a great example of Benson and Fischer’s mention that Mayans do not like to waste food. My friend Leche, the Mayor of Cementario Jolomtaj, invited me into his home where he showed me his sugar cane crop, stacked with a corn crop behind, and then a mini pond that he made himself (complete with a homemade irrigation system!) where he has fish that swim alongside his home. Leche also had a beehive with little bees (I do not know the name of the breed but they were much smaller than the bees we see here!)–he took the honeycomb out with the bees still on it, put it on a plate, and told me to eat the honeycomb with the bees on it. After I was done eating (the bees included! Definitely an interesting experience), he told me the wax that is left over was used for marimba mallets, an instrument commonly used by the community. It was incredible to see how this community did not let anything go to waste, and had very intricate ways of maintaining localized agriculture, including mesmerizing water drainage systems that trail along the mountainside.

When I noticed that most of the families homes were located in the tops of the mountains we were in, I asked Leche why. He told me that it was because of Western corporations coming in and using the valley areas for coffee plantations, forcing the indigenous communities upward into the mountains. It was a sad reality for the Q’anjob’al people. Also, when I was driving through the village, I noticed some parents hid their children. I realized this is likely due to fear and trauma left from the genocide that killed thousands of Mayans in the Western Highlands–around the same location I was in. Children and families in these areas were tortured and killed by their own government. It really put into perspective to me of the inequality and trauma that the Mayan communities face to this day.

Below I wanted to include a movie recommendation called 500 Years on the Mayan Genocide, specifically regarding the trial of former Guatemalan President Rios Montt who is primarily responsible for the horrific killings. It provides a great overview of the awful events that these communities experienced and how they eventually came together to fight for indigenous rights: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6098512/

Also, I happened to visit Tecpan and other towns in the Western highlands, so here are some pictures of the landscape and agriculture!