In the Boca de la Costa

Last Sunday I arrived at the Mountain school, another campus of the Spanish school that I am attending right now. It is the rural sister school and it is located in the lush coffee country, west of and below the volcano I wrote about earlier, Santa Maria. After a two-hour ride crammed in a "chicken bus" we got to the school. The change in altitude and climate was noticable immediately; lush, green, humid and warm. I was totally blown away of course like I always am and right away I signed up for another week at this campus, three weeks instead of the original two. The school is located by, supports and is supported by three nearby communities. The nearest access to computers and ATMs is in the town Colomuba, a twentyfive minute ride by 'pickup' down the hill. The school itself is beautiful; the grounds are covered with tons of plants, lime trees, banana trees and other palms, super wonderful lilies, the tropical plants that you buy for your house, neon (not exaggerating) impatients, ferns. Our classes are held in little "ranchitos", thatched huts that hold two people and a desk and chairs comfortably that are scttered in the back. There is a dry latrine which is super fun to use even though there are also tiolets inside. There is a hut on stilts that gives us a view of the photosynthetically productive valleys and hilltops surrounding us. We all live together and some of the teachers stay with us through the week so it really feels like a home that I can let loose in. We eat all of our meals with families in the communities and that has been really fun because we get to see how people live and also get to be a part of the life here in a small way.
We are in the heart of coffe country which is like heaven to me. We are in the "Boca de la Costa", the foothills of the highlands to the east. We are able to fully appreciate the geography and its range of features on our rides into town standing up on the beds of the local taxi-pickup trucks. On the way down we can see the land flatten out presumably until it reaches the Pacific. On the way back up we can see the enormous crater of santa Maria with its regular eruptions and rocky west-facing slope. I don't know if words could do justice to the grandeur of the sunsets we get to see...
So as I mentioned we are in the heart of Guatemala's coffee country and little by little I am learning just what that means. Basically all of this land is divided into coffee fincas. the divisions were made in the late 1800s under the influence of the then president something Barrios. He is responsible for allowing foreign companies and oligarchal Guatemalan "ladino" families to invest in developing the land for export production. This was the beginning of the finca system that continues to permeate and dictate life around here and through the rest of the country. This is the land of the campesinos, people who make their living on the fincas and who either live on them or live in other communities and commute daily or weekly while their families stay at home. I haven't come close to comprehending the effects of this finca system; a system that seems to have been formed by global processes of greed and demand and by local processes of living and surviving. Everything around here seems to be a direct result of the finca. Today we visited a community of exfinca workers who were kicked off the finca on which they lived and worked for attempted to organized to more effectly demand fair pay and humane living conditions. This was in the eightie and since they moved off the finca they have developed their community on land that an American aid institution (Welden?) bought and loans to them. They are now trying to find a way to buy their own finca as they still have to leave their remote community to work. It is absolutely unbelievable. This place that we visited is just one exaple of what has been happening as a result of the finca system and they have eeked out a decent living for themselves because they are exceptionally well organized. Other groups of families (ex and current finca workers) have not been so fortunate and are really struggling to meet their basic needs.
It has been really amazing to see the ways these people negotiated their situation. It seems that a lot of people have turned to foreign aid organizations for material and legal help since the government has a well-deserved reputation of being inaccessable and detrimental instead of helpful. I've also been struggling with the role of the church here which seems to have had a role in putting a lot of these people to sleep as I think I mentioned earlier; there are several situations in which the church, evangelical and catholic, has been an important organizing tool that has allowed some communities to access what they need to survive.
I think I am slowly piecing together the convoluted legal processes many of the communities around here find themselves in. Clearly the judiciary system functions sort of as it does in Canada in its treatment if Indigenous "issues"; it is complex, entangling and systematic oppression. Here though there is a very blatant emphasis on maintaining an essentially passive workforce, sustanence to the oligarchy.
Note: Apparently eight families hold control of EVERYTHING in Guatemala, down to who is let in from other countries to "invest".
The school that am going to right now was developed by some of these ex-finca workers as a way to create alternatives to finca work. It really seems to be an amazing organization that serves as gathering place and an oulet for people who need access to outside help.

I hope some of this made sense. I have been in a continual state of 'blown away' since I got here three weeks ago and I am feeling myself attaching to the land scpae and also to the shit that is going down on it. Ask me questions if they come to you because it would be a great excuse for me to do some research.

I love you all and I thin about you even when I'm not writing you or talking to you. I hope that I am generating some curiosity about Guatemala amongst you because that would be amazing.
over and out love xoxoxo