Me gusta la piña, me gustas tu. Me gusta Guatemala, me gustas tu

My teacher reminded me of these fitting Manu Chao lines as we ate pineapple during the snack hour at my spanish school.

The past week I have had class from 8-12 and have been living with a homestay. The homestay has been interesting, although I´m not that into it. The father is a painter, he paints simple, colorful pictures of the lake and some other sunjects for tourists. They belt out alot of them, they have the method down pretty well. There are two daughters in the family, one is middle school age and the other is 4. The 4 year old, Helen, is adorable. Since I dont really have a door on my room, just a curtain, she often comes in and talks to me. The adults speak tzutujil mayan dialect to eachother, and the kids mostly speak spanish. This kind of generational change is how languages die, and I wonder if these kids will teach tzutujil to eachother. The food is almost all carbs and meat, I think we had a small portion of vegetables twice. Yesterday I had meat, beans, salsa and tortillas for breakfast lunch and dinner. There are always tortillas, even with spaghetti.

During my classes, my teacher nicolas took me to a couple interesting places. The first day we went to a medicinal herb garden in a nearby town, San Juan. They had alot of herbs that I learned about last spring in santa cruz like yarrow, rosemary, horehound, etc. They use them in the community to make medicine and sell teas, soaps etc.
Yesterday we went to a chocolate factory. They make these little cigar shaped chocolates, and have 16 flavors. Some of the ingredients come from their own gardens. I tasted the batch that they are going to make into bars on monday.

The other day as I was walking along the path around the lake, a farmer greeted me and introduced himself. He then showed me his little plot, and what he is growing. He had a big plot of corn and beans, and then a bunch of flowers, lettuce and cilantro that he sells at markets. He had some small papaya trees, and when I pointed that out he straight up just gave me the only small papaya on them. Of course, he did have a motive for this niceness, which was selling me coffee (he also grows coffee). I couldn´t refuse, plus I wanted to buy some coffee anyway.

Also yesterday there was a school activity, which was supposed to be a hike up this mountain to a view point of the lake, but since the chicken bus wasnt going to the right place we ended up just walking along a road into the hills. The school, casa rosario, is owned by brothers Samuel and Vicente. Both of them are easygoing and easy to laugh. Samuel took us on the walk, and told us many jokes and stories in his slow, easy to understand spanish. He told us alot about the years of the civil war in San Pedro. San Pedro had alot of problems until 1985, when two miltary agents were killed by the townspeople and the problems mostly ended (we even passed the spot were they were killed, marked by two graves). Samuel and Vicente had friends in the Guerillas and although they never participated, they had read their pamphlets, talked to them, and sympathized with their aims. The military knew this, and thus Samuel and Vicente were on thier list. Vicente was tipped off three days before the door to his house was kicked in and they searched high and low for him. He escaped to the capital. Samuel was studying in another town, and was also informed to change his address and lie low. He met his brother in the capital were they stayed in a hotel room. He said how boring it was, staying in the hotel all day everyday, avoiding the police. After a while their mother payed somebody a few hundred quetzals and was assured that this would ensure her sons safety. She sent someone to tell the brothers. Samuel wanted to come back, Vicente feared it was a trap. Sure enough, when Samuel made it back to San Pedro, someone came to his house asking for him, saying that he was back, but his mother acted clueless. So Samuel went back to the hotel in the capital. After a while, their money ran out. They decided to sell vegetables in the perimeter of the capital, buying them from one market and selling them for a bit more at others, and made enough to live. Finally, the situation in San Pedro calmed down and they returned. In 1992 they started their school, with 2 students.
Pretty crazy to hear a first hand account of just how insane it got here in the eighties. At the end of the day both the military and guerrillas were just like mafias, both interested in money and power at the expense of the common people.