Day Twenty-Six, Antigua

Fuego and Acatenango

Wednesday was our 26th day in Antigua. We are on the other side of the halfway point in our history and religion class, and we are nearing the end of our first month. Wednesday was a very busy day for me, and quite a turning point for this trip. In the morning we all went to normal history class at the Casa. At the beginning of class I gave my second presentation, this time on the book I... Rigoberta Menchu. I read the book over the summer to get a head start on the readings for the course. I really loved the book; it is a powerful story about the travesties of the civil war from the view point of the people most seriously affected. We are not reading the whole book during this semester, only a small section, so I wanted to share one of the most striking passages in the book that I marked while reading it over the summer.
Another student gave a presentation as well. He explained to us that on Guatemala's Independence Day he listened to the Guatemalan national anthem. It had a big effect on his so he got a translated version and read a few passages of the anthem to us. The anthem is actually very so we didn't hear all of it, nor did we hear it in Spanish, but the passages that were read were very intriguing and told us a lot about Guatemalan culture.
During class we discussed Rafael Cerrera, president for life, and the War of la Montana. We also discussed the Coffee Rebulic of the mid 19th century; who coffee cultivation began in 1845 and developed progressively from there until by 1880 coffee sales made up 90% of Guatemala's exports. We progressed into discussion of the end of the Conservative era and German immigration to Guatemala.

In religion we had a guest speaker who is a linguistic anthropologist. She told us about the village she has worked in for several years, and by doing so she told us all about the structure of religion in that village. The village she lived and worked in is called Sacapulas, and she told us about the religion and language of that town. Sacapulas is in the department of Quiche, it has its own river, and, surprisingly, its own flag and promotional posters. The language they speak is Sakapultek and it is also how these people identify themselves. She explained the religious groups and boundaries of Guatemala, and the tense divisions between them. She also showed us a few videos she had taken personally of the rituals performed by the population of Sacapulas.

During lunch I had an experience which was not of the positive variety. As I stated in posts before, I was very sick last week, and missed meals, classes, and activities. I even ended up in the hospital over it. To keep me from getting sick again my doctor here gave me a new diet to get my system back up and running properly. For the days after I got back from the hospital my host family was giving me steamed vegetables from my diet. But all they were giving me was the veggies. So, on Wednesday after lunch, I took the list for my diet to my host parents and told them I could eat everything from the list for the rest of the trip. The host father told me that he understood, but they couldn't afford to feed me from that diet. He suggested that  I either move to a different home stay or buy my own food, and he said I should talk to Elma, the director of PLFM about the situation. I talked to Milady, the director of Casa Herrera, about the issue and she got in to contact with Elma. After Spanish class I gave Elma the list of foods and she said they were going to work hard to find a solution that would make everyone happy. That night I made my own dinner from some food I bought for Sundays.