In between bites of my fire-laden tamal, I take time to observe my surroundings. To my left are women working tirelessly over an open fire making tortillas and preparing food for the day. Women here in the campo never cease to impress me; they are indefatigable, spending almost the entirety of their days either cooking over an open fire or cleaning the house and surrounding area. To my right is a frail, old man. His creased, wrinkled face tells the story of a long, difficult life. His back is severely hunched, like a crude implement used in metallurgy that has had its shape formed by years and years of exposure to intense heat. He is Santiago and Domingo’s father, thus making him the true owner of this house. I do my best to mask my astonishment when I realize that he is going to join us in the fields. He methodically takes each of the men’s bags and fills them with seed. My bag is the last to be filled.
My bag full of corn and bean seeds, the time has finally come to set out on my first day farming in the fields of northern Guatemala. We form a line and begin to trudge down a path that leads away from the back of the house. We continue to plod through a beautiful, green wooded area. Like a snake, single-file we slither over rolling hills that become more and more beautiful the farther we go. After some time, the men stop and, with their machetes, hack away at the low-hanging branches of nearby trees. They then use their machetes to carve one end of their 4-foot poles into sharp points capable of the task that they are intended to perform, that being to plunge into the earth. The men content with their farming implements, we continue along down the path.
Finally, after 5 more minutes of slithering up and over more hills we arrive at an area with a much different landscape. The land is jagged and rocky, and gray boulders jut out from a hill with a very steep incline. This cannot possibly be where we are farming, I ponder, but it is. This is the land that they own. The men slowly begin to form a horizontal line facing the hill, and the elder Santiago commences a prayer. The men drop their poles to the ground, close their eyes and mutter in unison. It is a moment for reflection, a moment to ask for a productive harvest. I look down the line and think about how these men rely on these harvests to feed their families. I think about how one year ago I was most likely in a bar in Newark, Delaware celebrating the end of my college career. I think about how much can change in a year; how paradigms can shift and lives can alter their course.
The prayer ends, and the last muttered words seem to float away with a slight breeze that passes between us. Then, the work begins. With one hand in their bag of seed preparing a handful of beans and corn and the other hand on their farming staffs, the men move forward stabbing the ground with their natural farming tools and throw the seed into the 4-inch wide indentation in the earth. Then they move forward a meter and repeat the process. The men inch forward in a slow-moving line. They move forward together; they sembrar together, because, in a practice routed in hundreds of years of tradition, to do it any other way would be unthinkable. The branches of the trees that they use to carve small holes in the ground are part of nature. The seeds that they toss into the holes have been gathered from past harvests, also part of nature. It is nature shaping nature, and the Mayans, knowing all that there is to know about their surroundings, by nature, are adept at tilling their land.
I catch on quickly, but I struggle with evenly spacing the holes in perfect 1 meter by 1 meter squares. What I believe is 1 meter away from my last hole and 1 meter away from the man working next to me is never so. I constantly look to the line of holes next to mine for guidance on where to make my next hole. The men never need to look. They can sense where their next holes should be, and they are never wrong.
The work is long and tiring, but I wouldn’t call it boring. There is a simple satisfaction in doing this work, knowing that each seed planted will bear fruit for the families of the men doing the planting. Yet, after 8 hours of work, I find myself sunburned and tired with blisters on my hands. I did not work as quickly as the other men, but I worked by their sides. My seed planted will not earn the biggest portion of the harvest in a few months time, but I earned respect. Soon after we started to sembrar, the men began to joke with me and call me Qawachin, a term of respect, usually accorded to older men. It may have been because my beard makes me look older – a man in my community thought I was 35 years old the other day- but I think it was because they felt like I was one of them.
At the end of the day we made our way back to the house of Don Santiago, who is a warrior in his household. He is an ancient warrior that finds the withering body that is his armor betraying him, but he is a proud warrior nonetheless. We are back in the house where we started the morning, and we take our places on the benches. Don Santiago gets up and hobbles over to a tiny altar in the corner of the room. He lights candles, says a Mayan prayer and paces back and forth in front of us waving a metal container filled with incense. I breathe in the potent fumes and get a light, heady feeling. The feeling is peculiar, almost mystical.
Eventually, the food is distributed. After a day out in the fields, it is customary to eat caldo, or soup, with chicken. A large basket of tortillas is placed in the center of the floor. There is a red and white checkered cloth covering the tortillas, trapping the heat inside. Next, Don Santiago, because he is the owner of the house, begins to beckon to each man. In Q’eqchi he tells the man to eat. At the end, he tells us all to eat. The men respectfully wait for the cue. The men savor the food. I savor the experience. I believe that I have been welcomed into an important ritual of the Mayan family. This is the type of experience that I hoped to have as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
The day is coming to a close; the sun is setting, and I find myself standing on the side of the road with my host family waiting for a ride back to our town. Most microbuses are full and will not slow for us. The process of watching and waiting continues for almost 30 minutes. Hopes rise as a microbus appears on the horizon and then fall as the driver flashes his headlights to signal that the bus is full. There being 7 of us, it does not appear we will have luck with a microbus anyway. Our best option will be to hail a passing pick-up truck. Don Santiago is tired from a 9-hour day in the fields, and I can sense his exasperation at our inability to get a ride back to town. I turn towards him, and say, “I guess we should have prayed for a microbus when we prayed for a good harvest.” He lets out a big, bellowing laugh and slaps me lovingly on the back.
Suddenly, a half-full pick-up truck appears. Chugging along, it appears to be straining to transport its passengers. We all pile into the back and slap the top of the truck to signal that we are all securely in our positions and that the driver can start driving. I am standing in the middle of the truck bed, closest to the front of the truck. The rest of the family, expect for 5-year old Julio, is sitting behind me. Julio is at my side peering over the top of the truck. The driver accelerates and the wind begins to rush through my hair. Rough, roaring blasts of wind hit my face. I almost can’t keep my eyes open, because the wind seals my eyelids shut. However, I work to pry them open because I don’t want to miss the view. In my opinion, this is the best, albeit not the safest, way to travel in Guatemala. Flying down the road like a soaring bird, free of worries, I find that I can’t stop smiling. I turn to my right and Julio, with his cheeks and hair flapping in the wind, is also smiling. Looking behind me, the rest of the family is staring off into the distance, all smiling. The sun is setting, which means that the day is ending. We are all smiling, which means that right here, right now, everything is alright.
One of the caves at my site. It's called "Ventana de Seguridad"
The comedor that my association runs.
I have been staying at this ecohotel. There are 20 beds in 6 rooms. It is very cramped, and I am excited to have my own house soon. I think that once I move into my place and feel a little more settled, I will be able to be more effective.
1 comments:
I wish that you could always feel this wonder and satisfaction in Guatemala. The imagery in the narrative is wonderful.I can feel your sense of awe.
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