Sleep
My sleeping pattern seems to change with the weather. I go to bed much earlier and I get up much
earlier. I am up and about before 5am
these days and in bed just after 9! The
nights are chillier so an extra blanket on the bed (no duvets or any form of central
heating here) and because we are tropical of course we get around 12 and half
hours of daylight pretty much unchanged all year. It is light by 6am and dark by 6.30pm, I like
to be sitting in the garden with a cup of coffee as soon as it is light. And
although I live in the tropics I also live in the mountains, what we imagine as
tropical weather is only experienced in the lowlands here I live at 1530 metres
which is around 5000 feet. Often I am
living in the clouds!
Food
I was just looking at my larder and realised just how basic
it is:
Dried Black beans
Dried Red Beans
Sugar
Tea
Coffee
Salt and Pepper
A few spices
Lots of cinnamon sticks
Rice
Tomato Paste
Pasta
Tin of Black Olives (treat!)
Carton of Milk
Butter
Eggs
A few onions, tomatoes and courgettes
Biscuits
Yoghurt, some stewed blackberries
Cream and cottage type cheese – mainly for use with the
beans.
That’s it!
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| Children acting out a story from the Mayan "Popol Vuh" |
Routine
I tend to go to the market Monday, Thursday and Saturday and
buy what I need over and above the “staples” mentioned above. Bread is bought fresh as needed (daily).
And have decide that meat is for the weekends only!
My menu for the last seven days has been:
Pasta with vegetables including courgettes from the
garden (3 meals)
Caldo de pollo (chicken soup/stew) (3 meals)
Frijoles negro (black beans) and rice (4 meals)
Frijoles rojo (red beans) and rice with a couple of fried
eggs (3 breakfasts)
Yoghurt and blackberries (4 breakfasts)
Cheese/ham rolls (2 meals)
Gallons of Coffee!
Basic, healthy and cheap! And typical of any Guatemalan
household!
This weekend I think I will have caldo de res (soup/stew of
beef) which I will have with rice and broccoli a pound of stewing beef will be
sufficient to make enough stew for 3 meals, I have black beans soaking
already…..
Every Guatemalan household ALWAYS has beans of one colour or
variety available and they will be eaten at least twice a day.
I don’t find the menu boring, even though I occasionally
wish I had a nice piece of strong cheddar and a glass of port!
With the change of weather everything is extremely “lush” in
the garden, sadly that includes the weeds and the grass which seem to grow at
an alarming rate. I decided to tidy up
the entrance driveway and removed some 7 HUGE sacks of undergrowth and trailing
weeds. Some of these weeds were on
stems 20 – 30 yards long!
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| "Batty" was only about 4 inches across, so bedraggled! |
This damp and dull weather has also brought out a whole new
set of insects and after my gardening efforts I found that my legs had been
bitten to pieces (despite my trousers being tucked into my socks): particularly
unpleasant as the bites from whatever has bitten me have swollen and scabbed
over and they itch like crazy!
I also had another couple of nights doing battle with flying
ants which appeared from the roof, I have now cleaned the gap between the tops
of the walls and the corrugated roof (inside) and hope that I am both winning
the battle and will win the war on these pesky ants!
Bats
I rescued a very bedraggled bat from a plastic bucket of
water, the other day, the poor things
was desperately trying to get out but of course could get no purchase. I donned my gardening gloves fetched him out
and put him on a tree within 15 minutes he had dried out and was off!
Artes Móviles
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| Harsh reality of rural life |
The last few early morning I have been cracking on with a
website for Artes Móviles, at present it is being hosted on a free site so is
plastered with adverts and is very much still in progress. Once it is in decent
shape I will let you all know as I will welcome your comments.
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| Boy farmworker probably around 7 years old |
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| Even at 6 she has two younger siblings to look after! |
Artes Móviles will be an NGO project taking music, drama,
arts and crafts to children in rural and remote parts of Guatemala. Given the fact that Guatemala is
mountainous and volcanic, becoming rural and remote does not necessarily imply
great distances but usually means high altitudes and unmade roads! Ten minutes drive from Antigua
and it is all pretty rural and once you are off the main road, you are on to
unmade dirt tracks pretty soon! Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in all Latin America.
Sadly only 42% of children finish primary education here.
Many children have only two or three year’s education and by 12 the girls are
at home bringing up their siblings and the boys are working in the fields. Sadly by 14 many girls will themselves be
young mothers!
It is a factor of Guatemala's crushing poverty,that this happens, outside of the public gaze in the romote hillsides where there is little orno education and communities have never recovered from the 36 year long civil war which only finished in 1996. Itis the harshest of economic necessity that forces these children to abandon their childhood!
Childhood is brief and in many cases merely a preparation
for taking on an adult role as soon as possible. Self expression forms no part
of an education system where children mainly learn by rote copying down notes
and receiving no 1-2-1 help support or encouragement.
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| A rural school. |
Art, music and drama is simply absent, which in many cases
also means that any connection with their own cultural Mayan heritage is lost.
The idea of Artes Móviles is simple. Take an MPV stuff it full of arts based
activities and go out and about and for a morning or an afternoon a week give a
group of children the chance to paint, sing, play and express themselves in new
and exciting ways. They have the chance
to achieve something with which they can be proud, often for the very first
time! Many organisations are devoted to
general education, welfare and nutrition, but hardly any can afford the costs
for providing what is seen as a luxury of exposure to the arts and all the
wonders its holds. Artes Móviles hopes
to bridge and fill that gap for some 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) over the first
three years of its operation. It will
provide eight, half-day, weekly sessions for groups of children, the first ten
groups of children have already been identified, and during the school holidays Artes Móviles will setup
“shop” in rural, remote and/or mountain villages and simply open its doors to
all comers!
At the moment I am in the process of setting up the
strategy, I have to form an NGO here in Guatemala and will need to form a
charity in the UK (as this is where I hope to attract the funds from), I hope
to enlist the support of friends to get a viral/social marketing campaign off
the ground. Here I am hoping that the
embassy will help with introductions to every UK
company working in or associated with Guatemala……. I hope that Artes
Móviles will launch by November of this year. And start delivering programmes
from the start of the new Mayan Calendar (22nd December 2012).
Its ambitious, but I am taking a cautious approach and not
moving forward unless I am sure of the financial and other support. I will start small and grow. In the end the
project will cost around £46k per annum but I can get the project started with
around 33% of that. Watch this space!
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| Children of the mountain village of Todos Santos (All Saints) |
Today I am off to Santiago Zamora and my 40 children...... we aregoing to make bracelets, with shiny plastic beads for the girls and wooden beads for the boys!
Hasta Luego Amigos
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