politics

cuba. i asked my host family today if they had heard about fidel castro and the recent news. they were aware that he had some kind of stomach operation, but they didn´t know he relinquished power to his brother raul. my host mom spectulates that fidel has actually in fact died, but that they are not announcing it. she thinks this because she hasn´t seen any photos of him after surgery, in a hospital bed, etc. i´m not reading enough to agree or disagree with that. but i agree that the u.s. is certainly making plans for something drastic. thirsty for more blood is our country.

guatemala. yesterday nite i went to a very cool collective space where they hosted a discussion/testimonial from a victim of the guatemalan government/army. pedro told his account of how he was captured, interrogated, and tortured during the civil war. it started when the army captured and interrogated a 14-yr-old boy in his village, threatening him and demanding to know who the guerillas and leaders were. in fear, he named pedro as one. the army the captured and tortured him, even though he had done nothing and was a part of nothing. for 8 days they tied him up naked, cut his face, kicked him, one soldier even bit his ear... thereafter they put him in a car and took him somewhere in the mountains where he was dropped into a deep hole. they dropped large rocks at him, threatened to burn him with gasoline, hung him briefly 3 times, and shot bullets at him. by the end, there was no inch of his body that didn´t have a mark, and his entire body was blackened from the wounds. when he was finally released he went back to him home, he was to patrol but couldn´t because of his condition. he was being monitored by government officials, so it was then he realized he had to flee to mexico. there he had to blend in as a mexican, speak like them, dress, eat, etc. like them. he lost much of his culture during the time there. the mexican government, realizing that many guatemalans were fleeing to mexico for persecution, created laws such as children cannot attend school if they don´t have mexican papers. his children could not attend. anyway, finally in 1998 a group of almost 200 guatemalan refugees organized themselves and returned. this was after the 1996 peace accord that was signed between the government and the URNG, the former guerilla group that is now a political party. the refugees were able to get land, materials for housing, etc. today, this group runs a collective community as well as several projects to help sustain themselves and the community. they run a tortillería, a bee project to sell honey, and a school. their board of directors is elected by the assembly every 2 years, and they have a women´s committee and an elderly committee, because they are very important groups he says (and i agree!). my thoughts? well, we can talk.

language. i´m really frustrated with my spanish right now. i think i must be a difficult student. i ask questions that are kind of all over the place. i have so many questions and i´m always jumping from this topic to that. my teacher is really patient with me though. anyway, i understand so much better than i can speak. i still stumble and take a LONG time to think. it frustrates me. lotsa other folks are fearless and just talk and get the point across, even if there are mistakes. but i´m such a perfectionist that i stop and think and think to make sure that i conjugate the verb correctly, that i use the correct masculine or feminine article, that i use the correct vocabulary to express something... arghhh. it´s been almost a week and i don´t feel like i´m where i should be. maybe i´m impatient, or i just expect language to magically fill my cerebrum.

plumbing. u can´t put your toilet paper in the toilet because the septic system can´t handle it. showers have a mechanism on top of the showerhead that heats the water. u are NOT to touch this mechanism. weird quirk: u have to negotiate between temperature and water pressure. if u want a hot shower, u have to have low pressure. if u want lotsa pressure, u have to have a cool shower.

transportation. main source of public transportation here is called a chicken bus. yes, in spanish they call it ¨chicken bus¨, but of course the bus is pronounced like ¨boos¨. i have yet to ride it. i think i may be taking one to lake atitlan this weekend, if i choose to go there. don´t know yet what to do with my weekend. it´ll be lonely i fear, because liz and trisha leave tomorrow. that just means i have to force myself to make friends with folks at my school. eep! i´m secretly an introvert.