Sleep, food, routine, bats and my project!

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!

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!

"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

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.

Boy farmworker probably around 7 years old

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.

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 (22^nd 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!

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

All change!

Hello!

Well the weather seemed to change yesterday the "land of eternal spring" went from a non-existent summer (except that the last few days were very hot) to a humid morning followed by 5 hours of torrential rain!  My roof is made of corrugated laminate with some tiles laid on top (for effect) the noise is deafening but the roof is water tight.  Well watertight inside there are many leaks where the laminate meets the clear laminate covering the patio, and the gutters need cleaning!

Jossefet is now in Brussels for three months, a friend of his has kindly offered him an internship in his textile-design company, I hope it works out. So the burgeoning relationship is in a period of change and adjustment!  Unsurprisingly, to me, he was grilled for four hours by immigration at Madrid airport before being let into the EU. Missed his connection but was put on a later flight to Brussels. All this, despite of having a letter of invitation and various other details to prove he was a legitimate visitor.

As “penny buns had been costing tuppence” lately, I have decided to use the next three months to change my diet and live more like a “Chapin” (Guatemalteco) and adopt a traditional diet, (but)  also be meat free 4 days a week.  It will do me good, I need to loose a further 5-10 kg if my optimal BMI is to be believed and achieved! So more vegetables, more frijoles, more fruit.  Less cream cheese, cream and cakes. I have as good as stopped drinking alcohol except for the occasional beer (this is purely temporary I hasten to add!) and I probably drink too much coffee these days!

The project in Santiago Zamora is heading for the buffers as the old guy who founded the project really resents the popularity and diversity of what is being offered to the children, and is making life impossible for us, so we need a change of strategy.

For me, I have seen the writing on the wall, and have been preparing for this change over the last two months I have been working on the idea for a new project which is called “artes móviles” with the proposed mission of “bringing the arts to Guatemalan children in remote and rural communities and importantly for those children with special needs”.   

 I am developing the project plan and will be asking you all for your ideas, and support (at a later date) going to need to find 500 people willing to cough-up £5 per month for the duration of the project. Viral marketing and sponsorship by UK companies in Guatemala will be the way forward I hope. Looking for a late 2012 launch but have many obstacles to overcome in the meantime ~ gauging interest, forming an NGO in Guatemala, charity commission rules in the UK, to name but three!

Simply sitting, and watching the world go by just isn’t an option! However, I am constantly reminded of the frustration I felt in India with an approach to anything taking five times as long and achieving on 50% what I am used to in Europe!  Mañana,  mañana and looking “po faced” and not expressing any opinion to your face. Adapting to this culture change is so frustrating, my well meaning advisors all tell me to lower my expectations and then lower them some more!

But, part of the process of designing and delivering arts based activities to the children has been an incredible widening of my own skills and abilities.  In the last two months I have made terracotta hanging mobiles, learned to use a hot glue gun, designed picture frames in “foamy”,  and started out on a whole new world around jewellery making and design. The shops here are “chokka” with cheap jewellery; all the same, all boring and not a scintilla of creativity to be seen!  I want to use this medium for developing the creativity and ingenuity of the children, giving them an opportunity to change from the traditional learning by rote and copying based learning of school to the freedom to explore and develop ideas and give them expression through making amazing pieces of costume jewellery!  Traditional starting point, but with an original (Mayan) twist! The boys and girls will also have the challenge of finding ways of overcoming the technical details of trying to work with wire and stones and in design problem solving.

So today, I present the idea of “artes móviles” to the operational team of CasaSito and hopefully after getting their support, the idea goes to the board of CasaSito with the hope that it becomes a (future) autonomous but partner project of CasaSito. 

I have been so frustrated with the technology behind this blog, as I have no real idea whether you are getting to read my witterings as there is no way of knowing who when and how you read the blog after I press the “publish” button- so maybe I need to change this as well!

Oh yes, I have 6486 tracks on my computer in i-tunes  represented by over 400 composers I have turned on shuffle - so I am listening to the lot in a randon order- a complete change in my listening habits and an absolute revelation. So many gems I have simply forgotten!  Oh yes the 6486 tracks would take 23 days of continuous listening!  The juxtaposition of tracks is a little hair-raising at times but then so is life!

All change!

Last Thursday was Mother's day here in Guatemala ~ I got the children making cards for their Mums!

 Hasta Luego Amigos!

It has just started to thunder and rain.......  during the rainy season itraisn everyday in the afternoon  often torrentially ...... and I need to go out to do my presentation! Hey ho!

Brazil, Flying Chickens and Wooden Beads!

Well my whistle stop trip to Florianopolis and the Eurochambres Academy was enjoyable and worthwhile.  The hotel was on the beach in what is a very popular seaside resort in season. May is out of season. Empty beaches and the chance for some very gentle, relaxing strolls, managed an average of 5 kilometres per walk and did a walk on each of the 3 days I was there.  The course was well received and the delegates very enthusiastic, even if by the time they got to my session they had had some 4 days of lectures! I had the opportunity to do some thinking and generally think about things (see my more introspective blog).

Here is a selection of pictures from my walks .....

The Academy was just at the right time for me as I was “out of visa”  after 180 days it is necessary to leave Guatemala for 3 days before you can re-enter – as I am only on a tourist visa at the current time.

Once back in Antigua, it was time to think about new projects for Santiago Zamora and more importantly for my Artes Moviles project.  My next posting will be about this project.

The weather continues to be crazy here and combined with the fact that travel even a short distance can result in very different weather I have had a cold since Wednesday. For instance on Thursday in Antigua 7 am  ~ chilly and damp, 10 am ~ hot sunshine, 1pm Santiago Zamora ~ warm but cloudy, 5pm Santiago Zamora ~ cold and misty, 6pm Antigua ~ cloudy and exceptionally humid, 10pm very humid ……   Antigua has its own micro-climate  as it is in a valley and Santiago Zamora is surrounded by the hills forming part of the slopes of Volcano Acatenango.  Net result a cold!

Some weeks ago Jossefet and I purchased a raft of materials for making garden mobiles- these terracotta figures need painting and assembling into mobiles – we were trying the idea out as a possible arts/crafts project. We had purchased these wonderful terracotta chickens and J spent a quite, some time painting them as he wanted each one to be slightly different. I have spent a couple of hours this morning painting stringing them and decorating the mobile structure.  So we now have the “Flying Gallinas”  pronounced ga-yee-nas ~ which to my mind sounds like a trapeze act in a circus!   But they look good.

PLastic beads but "Arty"

Project for the Girls

Set made by Jossefet  ~ first attempt!

Something more stylish from Jossefet!

Work in progress- classical from Michael

We have also been experimenting with making jewellery, originally as a project,  but our creativity has taken over and we are both producing some “pieces” Jossefet is using polished stones and I am sticking to using plastic and wooden beads, but we are both trying to produce costume jewellery that looks good and has its own style.  The plan is then to simplify the ideas to introduce this craft to the children. 

Using only wooden beads - as a start for the children.

Today I have made a series of necklaces and bracelets using only wooden or plastic beads, and arriving at a range of designs for both the boys and the girls.

I am hoping that this might kick start some “creativity”  in the children, their schooling is totally devoid of original thinking, and in art as soon as you say “drawn anything you want”  they all rush to get books in order to copy pictures!

I have been doing a few sessions with them on abstract art and it has been an uphill struggle to get them to even start to comprehend that there need not be any rules and that things do not have to be symmetrical, but slowly we will get there!

Haven’t got a clue what they will make of things when we do a session on portraits in the style of Picasso!

It looks like Jossefet is definitely off to Brussels for three months in the next week or two.  So I am glad that I have my “Artes Moviles” project to get stuck into.

The garden is currently getting regular visits from humming-birds and today a pair of Yellow Torgons …….. but the birds were actually much more of an amazing Orange colour, so wonderful to watch as they searched for insects in the Mandarin tree!   (Oh, yes it is rather nice to pick a Mandarin from one’s own tree!)

The introspective blog is posted along with this one …….  (it is NOT required reading) but I promised that my blog would reflect the various aspects of my thinking and it was important at the time- though I delayed posting it!

 Ok folks that's it for today!

Hasta Luego Amigos!