Weekend

Last Saturday morning, Willy, Jessica, Miguel and I visited one of the counties of Quetzaltenango named Cajola. Cajola is an area made up of 95% "Mam" which is one of the indigineous, Mayan groups in the country. 34% of this community (mostly men) migrated and are currently living in the US. The leaders of the community are former immigrants of the US and are active in developing their community socially, economically, and politically. Cajola has a huge chicken farm that produces 40,000 eggs per month and the 23 women that run the farm earn more than a college professor. Miguel is from Canada and will be teaching computer classes there. Jessica is Guatemalan but spent the majority of her life in the US. When I told her I was from Connecticut, she said in English "Hey, we are neighbors, I´m from Providence." She is currently working in Guatemala as the international liason for the University of Virginia and she is studying psychology at the University of San Carlos. For her thesis she will be working in Cajola and will examine the pscycological effects in women whose spouses have immigrated to the US. She has done a lot of youth and activist work in the states and in Guatemala. I´d like to work with her on a project sometime, she is "buena onda." Seems like a great person!

My friends from Guatemala will appreciate this next experience i´m going to write about. Sorry i´m not gonna give much context, but i wanted to let you know that on Wednesday night i went to check out the salsa club scene. And there I ran into Werner! He was very surprised to see me and gave me a big hug which slowed turned into a head lock and eventually spun out into a salsa turn. Don´t ask me how, it just happened! "I can´t believe you are here!" he said. I danced a lot with him the last time I was here. Things haven´t changed much with him... he is still flamboyant in his dancing, tall, big smile, and still smoking crack. yes, that is not a typo, the guy is on the pipe. He is very talented musically and has the potential to be gorgeous minus the sweat, blood shot eyes, and shakes. The whole bar scene, loud music, alcohol, and crowdedness was really fucking with my inner light. I don´t think i´ll be doing much dancing this time around. Though I love salsa, I´m just not in the mood for that environment. I´m gonna look into singing. Werner did take me home later that night, but like all good crack heads...he bummed 20Q off me.

Monday night, I went to see the band "Los Guaraguao." Originally from Venezuela, they were/are considered a revolutionary band and have been around for 36 years. They are well known for their songs of protests. Some of my favorites songs include "Casas de carton" (cardboard houses) that talk about the poor people of the country living on the street. "No basta rezar" (Its not enough to pray) meaning in the movement for change you have to take action. Many other songs I heard that night were fun and upbeat. During the Guatemalan civil war in (1960-1996) if someone was caught with the music of Los Guaragua, (especially during the 80s) you could easily be shot and killed by the army. So for them to be playing live, inside a former military base, stirred up a mix of emotions expressed by some of the Guatemalan activists that were around during the most oppressive years of the war. Overall, it was a good time with great music. And I always admire bands that after so many years they "Still got it going on!"