Reminiscing Guatemala - 2006 dispatches for the Center for International Studies and Development

The sound of corn

San Juan la Laguna wakes up to the sound of corn mills. I love the saying here, ‘sin maís no hay país’, which means, ‘without corn there is no country’. Even if you’re in the mountains, you still hear the corn mills from the peak.

Women and girls line up in the morning with their bowls of the yellow grain to get it processed into a paste that resembles butter. Then, it’s tortilla-time. All the food here is served with tortillas.

I ate in a comedor today- the cook still hadn’t arrived at my eco-hotel by 8:30 and my stomach was growling. For eight quetzals (about $1.50), I got beans, eggs, rice, a bunch of tortillas and a coffee with too much sugar. What’s great is that eight hours later, I’m feeling fine. I think my digestive system is finally going local.


Took-took, pickups and colourful buses

Guatemala boasts a colourful palette of means of transportation. The most common is the chicken bus (so baptized by tourists because… well, the description that follows should depict it fairly enough.) The chicken bus is an old diesel-fuelled Canadian or American school bus painted in bright colours and decorated with flashing lights. The driver has a helper than hangs on to the side of the bus, shouting the destination as the bus honks a few times. The point is to squeeze in as many people as possible, so sometimes a human has to transform into a monkey and literally climb over the other passengers’ heads in order to get out. Animals have been known to travel in these buses, including chickens in bottomless cages sitting above the passengers. When nature calls… If you haven’t been on a chicken bus, you haven’t been in Guatemala.

In the more mountainous regions, one can opt for a colectivo, which is a pick-up truck that goes from town to town. It usually costs Q1.50, a few cents. It can actually be quite fun to ride on the pick-up. If you’re lucky, they’ll cover you with plastic when it rains. If not, at least you’ll have your ride and a shower too.

Took-tooks are three-wheeled taxis. Apparently, five years ago, they didn’t exist in Guatemala. The concept was imported recently from Asia. My first took-took experience was a bit ‘sketchy’. I was in Antigua, it was already dark and rainy. I had to take a took-took to the house I was staying at, but the driver had a hard time finding the street, which was actually a dirt road. Of course, my heart started beating a bit faster as we went back and forth without finding the place. But eventually we found it. Another proof that more than 90% of the things we worry about don’t happen…

Saving the earth

San Juan la Laguna was severely affected by hurricane Stan. This community’s main mode of subsistence is agriculture, so when heavy rain washed away its lands, its people were rather disempowered. Nevertheless, with the help of Fundación Solar, tremendous progress has been made here since the hurricane. An earth-saving program was implemented with incentives for farmers to clean up the boulders choking their lands, reforestation projects are under way with the help of tree gardens that breed the plants that will fill the lands when they are cleaned up, and vegetable gardens were created so people don’t have to depend on exterior help to eat.

The city is pretty clean, because the Fundación equipped it with trash cans that didn’t exist before, and because people are getting sensitized to the importance of hygiene. Traditional arts, crafts and medicine are being valued through touristic circuits which allow the visitors to tour the local artists’ associations and workshops. There are also two eco-hotels offering rooms within a very natural ambience, offering organic coffee, foods, shampoo and toilet paper… One of them has an advanced recycling program which included composting.
I see a lot of potential within this little town bordered by the magical Atitlán lake…

Faces of San Juan

I think my few days of photography lessons have paid off, and I’m much happier with the pictures that I’ve been taking since then.

CIDA and NATO Efforts in the Balkans

Flashback to 2007 - Canadians working in the Balkans agree on one thing: democracies aren't built overnight. Working within broader international organizations, they are building accessible health care and education systems with locals working for military, health, democratization and judicial reform projects funded by Canada in the former Yugoslavia.

"I think it's important for the Canadian public to realize that we and the peaceful Western world, with our good governance and our affluence, have a responsibility to step up to the plate to assist countries who are struggling," said Maj. Greg Frank, who has been serving since last March on Canada's last military mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Bronze.

Recovering a Stolen Childhood - Justine Jablonska

by Justine Jablonska, for the cosmopolitanreview.com

Wesley Adamczyk survived deportation to Siberia and exile to chronicle that journey in “When God Looked the Other Way,” published by the University of Chicago Press in 2004. His father, Jan Adamczyk, was one of tens of thousands of Polish officers killed in the Katyn massacre.

Over the years, Adamczyk, a tireless activist on behalf of Polish history, has collected memoirs and mementos of the Polish children in exile in Iran, India and Africa, including children's autograph books. A few are shown below; their descriptions are located at the bottom of the article. 

1940

It is spring 1940 and the world is more than a year deep into a war that will last five more. Wesley Adamczyk is 7. He has sandy blond hair and large blue eyes, and loves listening to his father tell stories about knights and ancient battles. Some days, Wesley likes playing hide-and-seek with his sister.

But not on this day, because he is on a train eastbound out of his Polish homeland. He tried packing his toys and books, but the soldiers said no. And so he huddles with his mother, sister and brother in a crowded train wagon with no seats or sanitation or food, hurtling toward Kazakhstan.

When they arrive, they'll spend the first day of more than 700 in a Soviet forced labor camp. For weeks and months on end, they will almost freeze and nearly die from starvation. They are only one Polish family out of countless others being deported to Siberia as the war rages on. During the worst, coldest, hungriest winter days, Wesley dreams of home. And of food. He also dreams of his father (all the children do), and their reunion. They haven't heard from him, or of him, for a long time. But it's wartime, and they're deep in Siberia. Thinking about their father sustains them.

Captain Jan Adamczyk, Wesley's father, is 47.

Or, was 47.

I'm a Woman, Not a Headscarf: Debate in Canada, reflections from Turkey

The Gazette: MONTREAL – Proposed legislation that bans the niqab from government offices, the education system and health care reflects a broad consensus in Quebec that equality of the sexes is paramount, rights experts said yesterday.

But any further step to purge religious symbols from the public sphere would intrude on individual rights, said constitutional lawyer Julius Grey. “We shouldn’t follow France into secular radicalism,” he said. “I believe that is too dogmatic, and I do not think we should make secularism a religion.” Read more in The Gazette.

The niqab... a piece of garment that speaks a thousand words, as it veils the face of a woman, revealing the eyes only through a slit.

Under Bill 94, tabled March 24 in the National Assembly in Canada, "all public sector employees will be required to have their faces uncovered, as will any citizen using government services, for example, someone paying her car registration or applying for a medicare card. The ban on such face coverings as the niqab or burqa also applies to the entire education sector, from daycare centres to universities, as well as hospitals, public clinics and social services," The Gazette reported on March 26, 2010.


This debate sparked thoughts and memories from a sojourn in Turkey, where over 90% of the population is Muslim, and where it is prohibited to wear the headscarf in universities and schools.

"La moitié des Québécois n'en veulent pas"

OTTAWA – 49,6 % des Québécois estiment que les personnes affichant des symboles religieux ne devraient pas travailler dans des hôpitaux ou des écoles.

 En revanche, 45,6% pensent le contraire, révèle l’enquête en ligne de Léger Marketing, dévoilée en exclusivité à l’Agence QMI. From canoe.com

In love with music

He loves Polish landscapes, fishing, mushroom-picking and biking at his grandparents' cottage. That's when he's not busy charming the world with his magic fingers. At the age of 14, Calgary-born pianist Jan Lisiecki has conquered the hearts of music lovers in Canada and beyond. And yet he has stayed remarkably down-to-earth. "I believe that life should unfold the way that it is supposed to unfold," he told CR between concerts in Munich and Banff. Pianist extraordinaire? Yes. Extraordinarily human? Most certainly. Jan Lisiecki on being a citizen of the world and on why he prefers music to math. Interview by Kinia Adamczyk. MORE

Istanbul: Lust, Attraction and Attachment

Her ample body follows the sinuous curves of the Bosporus; her two seductively adorned bridges straddle the strait. She's rather promiscuous, seducing men and women alike, while opposing factions in rival families, Asia and Europe, buy, attempt, fail to control this willful and wayward woman.

Whether she is modestly covered, sometimes barely looking you in the eye; or exposing her countless delights, İstanbul rarely fails to entice her visitors. Her name was Constantinople when Byzantium controlled her. She kept it even after the Ottomans took over in 1453, until the Turkish Republic's father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, reformed the Turkish language in the 1920s, adopting the Latin alphabet, and giving the beautiful city a new name. İstanbul is a shortened version of the Greek phrase ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΠΟΛΙΝ (EIS TIN POLIN), meaning "to the city", since Constantinople was the biggest, wealthiest and most populated metropolis of the times. (Top: A bar with a view- old, squeaky apartments buildings often hide breath-taking rooftop sights. KA) MORE

Chopin, NATO, Soviet Relics... CR's spring issue is here!

CR is celebrating spring with a new look because, as you will see, it's time for a party.

There's much to celebrate, starting with the 200th birthday of Poland's most famous exile, Frederic Chopin, born in Żelazowa Wola, just outside of Warsaw. We join the festivities bearing gifts of poetry, prose and a guide to Chopin events worldwide. In CR's first fiction, Eva Stachniak transforms her readers into aristocratic guests at a salon in Paris in the company of Polish exiles, among them, Chopin himself. (Photo: Liberté 1 by "MonOeil" from creativecommons.org)

Were the composer alive today, would he accept an invitation to give a concert at Warsaw's Soviet-built Palace of Culture and Science? Would he dance in the Palace's hip club Kafe Kulturalna? Or would he side with Minister of Foreign Affairs Radek Sikorski, who is suggesting Poland "demolish its own symbol of communist misrule"? Whether you agree or not, we invite you to follow the little red arrows to find out more about what this issue has in store. Join our global Polish party, open to all. Bring your friends. We'll introduce you to both emerging and seasoned writers from around the world. All you have to bring is your ideas... and find a sun-filled, comfortable spot from where you can enjoy CR's spring issue. MORE >

Paradise? Or utopia?

Delicious, tasty, natural food.
Beautiful living interiors.
Nature - around you, beneath you, above you.
Self-reliance.
More time to do what you love.

Did I mention awesome toilets?

It took a couple of months to gain perspective about living the ecovillage life. Indeed, from North America, Svanholm and Munksoegaard, two Danish eco-villages, now evoke a certain nostalgia for nature, simplicity, community.