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<\/a><\/p>\nThe first village we visited on the cusp of the lake has a successful history of negotiating a peace treaty with the government before the civil war was officially over, by rallying together as a community after a massacre.\u00a0 But the village is situated in a natural disaster zone.\u00a0 Homes are half-deep in the lake.\u00a0 Hurricanes have passed through, causing mudslides which have destroyed much of the village and the people living in it.\u00a0 Our tour guide was very sceptical of the ability of the government to help, doing more damage than good.<\/p>\n
What fascinates me is that, contrary to what anti-immigrationists think, people very rarely just want<\/em> to migrate.\u00a0 Sure there are a few wandering souls, but most have a deep connection to the land they grew up in.\u00a0 They will refuse to leave even when they are in a natural disaster zone, even when there is war.\u00a0 It is only when things really get unbearable, when they need <\/em>to leave, that they migrate. \u00a0At least, for natives.<\/p>\n The sun broke out at some point, and I experienced an epic ride on the back of a truck along a coastal road.\u00a0 I felt like the happiest dog in the world.\u00a0 Below that, is a great photo of my philosophy professor.<\/p>\n We also met with a women\u2019s weaving co-operative . \u00a0They work only with natural dyes, relearning and sometimes reinventing traditional native knowledges of dyeing.\u00a0 \u00a0I think our professors have a selective bias of scheduling visits to co-operatives and villages with inspiring grassroots development stories.\u00a0 It could lead one to mistakenly think that all of Guatemala is like this. \u00a0No, I think, it is meant to be a hope. \u00a0It makes me wonder, what co-operatives exist in Canada? Do they work as a model for profitable enterprises?<\/p>\n Anyway, we had Aly take some clothes to the laundromat while she was deathly ill (OK, that makes us sound like horrible people but I swear she offered while we were out on the daytrip) and we laughed ourselves to sleep by watching Spanish dubbed Twilight on our hotel T.V.\u00a0 I am hard pressed to believe that that stuff is not meant to be comedy.<\/p>\n Now for the big move.\u00a0 We were about to spend two and a half weeks at this mysterious \u201ccoffee co-operative\u201d we kept on hearing so much about: \u201cNueva Alianza\u201d, an hour drive from the town of Retalhuleu. \u00a0\u00a0It was humid and hot as we drove past new sights: coffee trees, bamboo, and tropical things, down what must be at least<\/em> a one hundred year old cobble-stone road (which I swear, if were paved, would take a quarter of the time to traverse).\u00a0 The day passed quickly as we lugged our bags into rooms of four to six in a farm-like motel, and I nearly fell asleep during our welcoming\/the let-me-tell-you-our-organizations\u2019-entire-history speech, much to the chagrin of my professors.<\/p>\n But seriously, the history of the group is really something.\u00a0 The other students can probably recall it better, but the group is basically a co-operative of local workers who were totally screwed over to starving point by a bankrupt owner.\u00a0 They took over the farm for themselves, fought a legal battle, took out a loan, and are paying it back with the help of the eco-tourist hotel we were staying in.\u00a0 We watched a documentary some tourists made about the history of the co-op and I was really interested to hear these self-proclaimed \u201cpeasants\u201d use the hefty language of \u201crights.\u201d\u00a0 I want to know where that discourse of rights comes from, and I have a sneaking suspicion it does not come from international human rights regimes…but who knows?<\/p>\n The basic setup was this, then: wake up at 6 a.m. by either Sara or the sound of the cooks preparing breakfast on a biofuel stove.\u00a0 Take a \u201cmilitary shower\u201d i.e. starting the freezing cold water on and off again as you bathe.\u00a0 Yes, it does reduce the number of showers one chooses to take, since you asked. Then, chill out on one of the hammocks in the deck\/main-room until breakfast.\u00a0 Help set up the table.\u00a0 Eat food impressively prepared without a refrigerator at the long-table with everyone; the food was decent and homey but I was very whiny about the runny bean and eggs breakfast by the end.\u00a0 Help clean up the table.\u00a0 Visit the store located in the neighbour\u2019s home for some absolutely necessary cookies, or in Aly\u2019s case, macadamia nuts.\u00a0 Go swim in a waterfall if you\u2019re not Miriam, chase chickens if you\u2019re mean, and laugh.\u00a0 Do your readings for class, in your bunkbed or in the media room or the roof overlooking the volcano studded tropical rainforest.<\/p>\n Carbohydrate-stuffed lunch\u2014pass over the evil corn tortillas every single time.\u00a0 Then participate in a three hour class at the long-table.\u00a0 Commence, at mid-afternoon, a tropical thunderstorm with crackling lightning and massive thunder, forcing the professor to shout.\u00a0 After class, fiddle around on a guitar, watch Kevin (practically<\/em> the only male in the town we ever saw) chop wood or gather fresh coconuts for us, and then go to dinner.\u00a0 Do homework. \u00a0Hang out around a bonfire. \u00a0Start a secret civil association with your roommates that has its own made-up religion\/s, and conspire against the world.\u00a0 Do more homework by candlelight or with your flashlight on.\u00a0 Tuck your ironically pink bednet around the bedpost sometime after 10 p.m.\u00a0 Cue falling fast asleep.<\/p>\n So the courses really took off those two and a half weeks in the coffee co-op.\u00a0 I will write about them in my summer course review, but let\u2019s just say that I ended up really enjoying my philosophy class.\u00a0 I was especially interested by the section on theories of global justice.\u00a0 My mind opened the primly shut national cage and welcomed in the 7 billion who are just as in need of justice as anyone in Canada. \u00a0It seems like a relatively new field of thought in philosophy and it has had a great impact on me now that I am back in Vancouver\u2014this is a story for another blogpost!\u00a0 The sociology course was…new.\u00a0 Never had I taken a sociology course, and while I enjoyed most of the readings, I wasn\u2019t sure what was expected of me or what we were trying to do. \u00a0Both professors were fabulous people though and I enjoyed seeing them enjoy their time in Guatemala like, you know, human beings.<\/p>\n I read Tolstoy\u2019s Anna Karenina after I came back from Guatemala and I really sympathized with the spiritual crisis the character, Levin, was going through.\u00a0 When I was on the roof of Nueva Alianza, I would look out at the big leafy trees and the neighbour\u2019s house spilling out with brown-skinned children.\u00a0 7 billion…I cannot fathom, I even despise, the idea that we are fully fleshed memory-bots and that life is a series of memories, or experiences, or a bucket list.\u00a0 Was my visiting Guatemala on this roof going to be just another memory to be forgotten when I\u2019m dead?\u00a0 Why care so much?\u00a0 What is this befuddling thing called consciousness?\u00a0 I am sorry to say that I do not have an answer.<\/p>\n Time for lightheartedness.\u00a0 Bugs–we were, after all, in the middle of a tropical rainforest. \u00a0 \u00a0While we passed through the initial phase of attempting to pre-emptively kill them all<\/em> (by the end: a fly in your cup of tea? Just spoon it out), everyone still had a very unsolicited bug encounter story. Cockroaches jumping in your bed, giant beetles the size of your palm whirring with a mechanical-sounding buzz, centipedes in the shower, and suicidal moths that would spiral down madly from the ceiling at night.\u00a0 I recall one particular study session in the evening on the deck.\u00a0 I was in the middle of summarizing Marcuse when a moth decided to commit suicide from the ceiling by burrowing into my blouse.\u00a0 Worst of all was the night of hell.<\/p>\n I woke up after midnight to the dreaded sound of a buzzing giant beetle…you wouldn\u2019t guess where it was coming from: inside<\/em> my bednet.\u00a0 I frantically jumped out of bed and inadvertently woke up Sara.\u00a0 Before I could address the very pressing issue of the giant beetle, a yellow moth literally began chasing me<\/em> around the room.\u00a0 I apologize to everyone for the screaming, but then again, I don\u2019t, because it was horrific.\u00a0 \u00a0The moth managed to successfully cling onto my back twice\u2014Sara had to bravely slap away at it from her top bunk.\u00a0 All the while, the giant beetle buzzed and whirred and I was panicking about the noise I heard from the bathroom nearby\u2014the garbage can was knocked over by a stray dog again\u2014what if it traipsed into the room while all this was happening!? In the mad hustle and bustle, Anna heard us from outside, walked in, and saved us all.\u00a0 She narrowly kept another moth from coming in, this time the size of a bird, and she dealt with my bugs. And in fact, pretty much every bug we encountered in our room. \u00a0 Now that I\u2019m back in Vancouver, I scoff when people point out a tiny spider or a harmless moth.\u00a0 I am a battle-hardened veteran.<\/p>\n The tale of the gecko, next week.\u00a0 And more about living in a small motel with twenty other people.\u00a0 And becoming really ill.<\/p>\n Weblink to the UBC Go Global \u00a0Group Study Programs.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We said our farewells to beautiful Nebaj and bussed down, down from the mountains and into the coastal city of Panajachel.\u00a0 This was to be our special weekend break, a couple of days in a tourist city, where we could … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n