I know its been like a month . . .

Alright. So lets begin. ON . . . January 25th we left for our first group trip outside of Antigua. Our first stop was El Estor, which is on Lake Izabal which is six hours from Antigua. We met up at 7:30am by the church by the central park. Our bus drives up, and we have this school bus painted with red, white, and blue! It has stars and crazy wave action going on. Also, the two front wheels have spikes all the way around the hub caps! ITS AWESOME! We met our group leader a few days before, and his name is Graham, and he co-founded Rights Action (a HUGE activist group). He is actually a graduate of the University of Guelph, which I thought was pretty cool. So after a long ride, and some snack stops along the way we finally arrived. All that time that we were on the bus was completely forgotten when we saw the lake, it is BEAUTIFUL! And since it was very hot out on our ride up everyone went swimming when we got there. Our hotel was right on the water, and just fantastic. It was bit scary cause you had to jump into the lake, and you couldn't touch the bottom . . . which made me a bit nervous. Then we had dinner because we arrived around 5:30pm, which was alright. I had a vegetarian dish with just rice, potatoes, and a BUNCH of veggies which were DELICIOUS. They have this weird kind of moth out there that has kind of a wormy body which would sometimes fall into our food. . . and wiggle around . . . it was interesting. Graham our trip leader got us all some beer, so that was great. That night we had a presentation with some indigenous women community leaders, where they briefly talked about their recent ordeal. One of the women's husband was shot and killed by security guards of the mining company INKO (YES, it's Canadian). What happened was that the community was having a peaceful protest against the mine, but then the security guards showed up and started firing rounds. Everyone started scattering, the one women's husband was not apart of this demonstration but he was a community leader and a well-respected teacher in the community. He heard that there were some children in the crowd so he went out to try and round them up and get them away. One of the security guards grabbed him and asked him his name. . . he told them and they apparently said 'we've been looking for you' and grabbed him and pulled him away onto company property. .. and then shot him. His son witnessed all of this but as soon as they realized who he was they started chasing after him... so he couldn't get back to check on his dad for a few hours and by that time it was too late. So that was what happened last year I believe, it was quite heavy to deal with. This whole trip was EXTREMELY heavy. Anyway though, now Rights Action has filed a lawsuit in Canada about the killing of this innocent man on a Canadian company's property. These two women we talked to were really motivational! They are so empowered and are taking on the struggle for their people for their children. It was very refreshing to see empowered indigenous women! This culture is very machismo and is sometimes worse in rural indigenous communities.
Day 2: Had a nice early breakfast, of one pancake, a huge bowl of fruit and granola YUM! We took the pimped out school bus to a town an hour away from El Estor called 'Cahaboncito'. There our whole group transfered to 3 pick-up's with bars along the whole back frame so we could all pile in and grab on. We took these pick-ups, for about 2 hours on a dirt road UP and UP and UP and UP a mountain side. We finally arrived in 'Lote ocho', it was raining even though it 'never rains' in this region during this time of year haha! We came and were given the opportunity to listen in while this Ke'chi Mayan community had a community meeting with Graham. In 2007 this community was forced to move off the land they had been on for decades by the same mining company as mentioned previously. They sent up about 700 security force of the company and they burnt down their houses, cut down the five posts that are used as the frame for building their houses, burnt their crops, and as if that wasn't enough stole any food they had left in their houses. INKO the mining company had found that this land contained nickel underneath the soil, and we actually found some of their cement testing blocks. This land has forever been disputed land, and because the nickel company has changed ownership various times every time the company and the community have come to an agreement they change ownership and need to start negotiations again. The story gets quite a bit more complicated but. . . if you want to know more you can ask me :) Now the community is living an hour and a half walk from 'lote ocho' (aka lot eight), where there is no road access. To see this community was so intense, these people are living at extreme poverty. Access to health care is extremely rare and is very costly. According to a girl in our group who was taking with one of the community leaders who speaks Spanish (Because most just speak their Mayan language) it costs them 450Quetzales which translates to about . . . $60 dollars to hire a truck to drive up to get someone and then bring them back. This is A LOT of money and is basically impossible for many families. We did not have enough time to walk to where their new community is based but we walked part way and could see across a valley to their community on the other side of the mountain. One of the women we talked to the night before came with us and talked to the community, she is so powerful. She is so quite and reserved when she is not speaking to a group but as soon as she started taking to the community she became is strong, intelligent community leader! You can still see where the security forces cut down the 5 posts of the families' houses, and the women of the community showed us their houses, and where they used to cook etc. It was very sad, but also good to see that they are not afraid to talk about it. The women of the community cooked lunch for us, which was delicious. It was a fish (eyes, head, mouth and all), with rice/tomato and tortilla of course. It was quite delicious, and it felt really natural. We eventually made it back to El Estor to our hotel, and it continued raining that night. I was in a hotel room with no washroom door. . . it was pretty funny. There was wall so you wouldn't be able to see but . .. there was not much privacy.
Day 3 and 4: We left El Estor bright and early and had a little encounter with a tarantula on our bus. Luckily it was noticed by the bus driver and his assistant before we left on our trip and they got it out of the bus. It was so big, and it could jump. It was so frightening but so mesmerizing!! It was black and brown and very hairy. It was so cool to see a Tarantula in it's natural environment. Then we drove to these AMAZING hot springs! Which were actually hot waterfalls! It was SOOO beautiful and the waterfall was hot hot hot water, and felt so nice. There were little caves and cool rocks to sit or stand on too. I really loved that, I didn't want to leave when it came time. From there we drove to Rabinal which was hit quite heavily by the civil war. There we met a man who survived a genocide of his village as a 10 year old boy. He told us his story which was quite sad and very traumatizing for him. He has published a book and I bought it. In Rabinal they have this museum for all those that died in those genocides/massacres of communities, it was a very powerful place.
At our hotel I was in a room with Libby, and we had a funny thing happen. I was just washing my hands and had locked the bathroom door, but when I turned the tap the whole TAP thing CAME OFF and water went SHOOOOOOOOOTING EVERYWHERE! I didn't know what to do, to stop the water or open the door so Libby could help. Eventually I got the door open, and we found a switch thing that was on the pipe underneath the sink that stopped the water from flowing. It was a hilarious situation!! But not too much water got on the floor, and the hotel fixed it for us. We had a lot of late nights in Rabinal staying up talking to our group members and getting closer as a group. We were there for two nights. . . and off to Rio Negro we went.
Day 5: We drove A LONG TIME about 4 hours or so to get to this hydro-electric dam that was built from 1975-1983. Unfortunately this dam project flooded many communities and in total affected 33 communities both up and down stream. The community we went to actually visit was flooded by 90 meters by this project, and they now live up this very high mountain/hill. So we took the bus UP and UP and UP UP this DAM WALL (this dam wall became a very big joke), and then took two boats for about 40 min to the community. Once at the community center we had to climb up this windy path for about 10-15min . .. it was all uphill quite sweaty. But the community center was built by a German group I believe and it has a nice wrap around porch and has a very cottage-y feel to it. So we talked to this one man specifically who was affected by the flooding of his community, and how many men hid in the mountains from the army (this was during the time of the heaviest fighting of the civil war when the dam wall was built). Then the community made us this delicious dinner of frijoles (aka. beans) and rice and tortilla! It was SO good. . . I know I know... ME EATING BEANS WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO??? Hahaha, well I like beans now. So that is a positive :) That night we all dragged our mattresses outside to sleep on the porch underneath the blanket of stars. There was more stars in the sky then I have seen EVEN COUNTING when I've been at the Bruce Peninsula! It was just soooo amazing! And surprisingly not that cold. . . although it was a bit cold.
Day 6: We woke nice and early around 6:30am so we could go climb up and see some caves in the mountains. There was also another group that was doing a hike up two hours UPHILL to a memorial site. I decided to do the smaller hike due to my ankle being messed up. (SIDE NOTE: When I hurt my ankle when I went up to the cross, turns out that I actually ripped some of my tendon that is connected to my knee and goes through my ankle. . .So I had to wear a brace and tape for three weeks . . . it's almost better now!) So we got into a boat and went up stream for about 10min. I actually became the translator for this excursion because the other translator aka. assistant to Clive and Janey our coordinators was on the long hike. It was really fun being a translator, and I think I did an alright job. So we hiked up to this cave that was WICKED on the inside. It used to used by the ancient Maya for spiritual rituals. During the war many people would hide in these mountains when the army was out patrolling. It was so beautiful up there. We left, had breakfast back at camp and had to get going to drive back to Antigua.

In total this trip was AMAZING! Very intense and sometimes hard to deal with but that is reality you know? Graham is very active in Guatemala and has been in Central America for 30 years now. He has written a few books that are sort of diaries but are very interesting and are based in his living in Central America. It was a great trip but it left a lot of us with a WHAt can WE do? So we are limited to our 'political activity' in Guatemala due to our contract signed before we came on our study abroad. But, we are going to write a letter to the university of guelph because it has shares in the nickel company! Well that is one trip out of the way. . . we went on another one about a week ago, but as soon as I get a chance i'll write about it. School is SO busy right now, I had a literature midterm last week, a paper due next monday in poverty and health, a presentation tomorrow for NGO class, and Spanish homework every night. Well I miss everyone I hope this wasn't too intense and that you can enjoy it! So much love to everyone <3 xoxoxo