Sunday, January 21, 2007
Week 2:
Things slowly seem to be falling into place. I discovered that Consorcio Bizkaia has an office in the Municipal Building and not only were they very welcoming, but they are very organized and have their act together. Con. Biz. is a consortium of three Spanish aid agencies working here on post-Stan development projects. They are constructing houses in 3 or 4 of the relocated communities. Their office is papered with wall maps showing the town layouts, including areas for housing, churches, schools, recreation, medical and community services, and areas to be reforested. They coordinate with other government and NGOs like CARE and Mercy Corps who have assumed responsibility for water, sanitation systems, roads, etc.
Meanwhile, my counterpart Tomas outlined a number of possible projects, and we will be looking at those in more detail this coming week, I’m sure. I also got in touch with the national organization for the reduction of disasters, CONRED, and they invited me to visit them the next time I am in Guatemala City.
Tuesday caught me by surprise, though. I went to the office and it seemed like business as usual. Suddenly, at 9:30 Tomas said it was time for the meeting in the Salón – the big community building next door. This turned out to be an Annual Meeting for representatives of all the 105 communities in the municipality to hear about what the various municipal departments have accomplished during the past year, and plan in the coming year. This lasted until about 2:00pm. I was in and out, unfortunately, but between the poor acoustics in the auditorium and the predominant use of K’iche’, I understood very little.
After the program, a meal was served, while Tomas handed out his questionnaires to each community, to survey their disaster resources. The meal provided chicken and tamales, rice and beans, and soda. That, I am sure, is what guaranteed attendance, and now I understand why Tomas sounded so sure that all the communities would come to the Muni to pick up their surveys.
Saturday was a beautiful day – warm, little wind, blue sky. I bought some fruit and peanuts at the market, walked to the end of the town and followed a path into the hills. The hills around town are bare of trees, covered with an irregular checkerboard of farming plots (cuadrados). This is the dry season, so the colors are predominantly brown and gold. Striking, with the mountains and volcanos off in the distance.
I measured a typical cuadrado at 22x22 paces, about 1/10 acre. This is supposed to approximate the amount of land one man can hoe, plant, weed, or harvest in a single day. A family typically is allotted 3 cuadrados, to provide the food for year. A few men were working in their cuadrados here and there, hoeing by hand very much like the familiar process back in Tanzania. Most of the plots are terraced to reduce erosion, and planted in corn. Corn is essential to the Maya identity, with religious significance, and growing corn is practically a requirement for every Mayan man.
I came across a family, harvesting straw from their cuadrado. They had planted oats instead of corn. I tried to find out why, but we didn’t understand each other well enough to answer that. They were carrying the straw to the path and tying it into bundles to carry to their town, about 6 km away. It was to be used for bedding for animals. I haven’t seen any work animals here, but there is an occasional solitary cow or bull, a few pigs wandering in the towns, and of course lots of chickens. This family included the usual 5 or 6 children and an old man, and said they planted 2 cuadrados. I gave them an orange from my pack, and they gave me permission to take photos.
Land is a big problem here, because with large families the population growing rapidly but the amount of arable land is not. This compounds the problem of deforestation for firewood and additional plantings. There are a few shops and cafes near the markets, and home craft activities, but by far the basic industry here is agriculture. I’m sure I will be learning a lot more about the interplay of these forces and poverty during my time here.
Things slowly seem to be falling into place. I discovered that Consorcio Bizkaia has an office in the Municipal Building and not only were they very welcoming, but they are very organized and have their act together. Con. Biz. is a consortium of three Spanish aid agencies working here on post-Stan development projects. They are constructing houses in 3 or 4 of the relocated communities. Their office is papered with wall maps showing the town layouts, including areas for housing, churches, schools, recreation, medical and community services, and areas to be reforested. They coordinate with other government and NGOs like CARE and Mercy Corps who have assumed responsibility for water, sanitation systems, roads, etc.
Meanwhile, my counterpart Tomas outlined a number of possible projects, and we will be looking at those in more detail this coming week, I’m sure. I also got in touch with the national organization for the reduction of disasters, CONRED, and they invited me to visit them the next time I am in Guatemala City.
Tuesday caught me by surprise, though. I went to the office and it seemed like business as usual. Suddenly, at 9:30 Tomas said it was time for the meeting in the Salón – the big community building next door. This turned out to be an Annual Meeting for representatives of all the 105 communities in the municipality to hear about what the various municipal departments have accomplished during the past year, and plan in the coming year. This lasted until about 2:00pm. I was in and out, unfortunately, but between the poor acoustics in the auditorium and the predominant use of K’iche’, I understood very little.
After the program, a meal was served, while Tomas handed out his questionnaires to each community, to survey their disaster resources. The meal provided chicken and tamales, rice and beans, and soda. That, I am sure, is what guaranteed attendance, and now I understand why Tomas sounded so sure that all the communities would come to the Muni to pick up their surveys.
Saturday was a beautiful day – warm, little wind, blue sky. I bought some fruit and peanuts at the market, walked to the end of the town and followed a path into the hills. The hills around town are bare of trees, covered with an irregular checkerboard of farming plots (cuadrados). This is the dry season, so the colors are predominantly brown and gold. Striking, with the mountains and volcanos off in the distance.
I measured a typical cuadrado at 22x22 paces, about 1/10 acre. This is supposed to approximate the amount of land one man can hoe, plant, weed, or harvest in a single day. A family typically is allotted 3 cuadrados, to provide the food for year. A few men were working in their cuadrados here and there, hoeing by hand very much like the familiar process back in Tanzania. Most of the plots are terraced to reduce erosion, and planted in corn. Corn is essential to the Maya identity, with religious significance, and growing corn is practically a requirement for every Mayan man.
I came across a family, harvesting straw from their cuadrado. They had planted oats instead of corn. I tried to find out why, but we didn’t understand each other well enough to answer that. They were carrying the straw to the path and tying it into bundles to carry to their town, about 6 km away. It was to be used for bedding for animals. I haven’t seen any work animals here, but there is an occasional solitary cow or bull, a few pigs wandering in the towns, and of course lots of chickens. This family included the usual 5 or 6 children and an old man, and said they planted 2 cuadrados. I gave them an orange from my pack, and they gave me permission to take photos.
Land is a big problem here, because with large families the population growing rapidly but the amount of arable land is not. This compounds the problem of deforestation for firewood and additional plantings. There are a few shops and cafes near the markets, and home craft activities, but by far the basic industry here is agriculture. I’m sure I will be learning a lot more about the interplay of these forces and poverty during my time here.
