Journal FEBRUARY
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Sunday 1 February 2004
Well, Crazy February, as it is known here, has arrived. The weather is February
is notoriously fickle, there is a lot of gripe, or flu, around, and in general
people expect the unexpected. 
The
great earthquake of 1976 was a February event. In part, I think Crazy February
is crazy just because the weather IS so variable, but also I'm sure it has
something to do with the fact that this month is also associated with important
transitions in the Mayan solar calendar and with the approaching arrival
of Lent in the Catholic one. Both periods are associated with penance and
petition, with changes in the patterns of daily life and work, and with
momentous connections between the human world and the supernatural one.
There is a well-known short novel that is actually titled, Crazy February:
Death and Life in the Mayan Highlands written by Carter Wilson, released
April of 1974. The book deals with the beliefs and activities of February
in a Mayan community in Chiapas. For me February is crazy enough, what with
my first taller (workshop), so I am not thinking much about the weather.
Tuesday 3 February 2004
A day at Landívar, working on taller contents and beginning to
discuss the March visit by some Cleveland State University (CSU) faculty
and staff. We are all waiting to hear about a pending grant for a project
that involves a complex collaboration between linguists and environmentalists
at URL and CSU. If they are funded, the project will require almost immediate
start-up, and will siphon investigators and resources from other activities
in both Institutes at URL as well as from individual departments at CSU.
We hardly know whether to hope for it or against it!
Wednesday 4 February 2004
Early in the morning, don Gaspar comes for a meeting and sees my garden
for the first time. He is enchanted! (Who wouldn't be?) We agree that sometime
he will come to draw and paint here, something I am also anxious to do.
The tranquility and quiet of the space combines with the riotous colors
of the flowers to produce a special atmosphere that his artistic senses
respond to at once. He brings with him, José Camposeco, also a Yax Te' author,
and we discuss new royalty arrangements. Since the amounts will be higher
under the new arrangements, but the responsibilities (and payments) for
book representation will be less, both authors are pleased, and we quickly
move to discussions of possible new manuscripts and reprints. It is so helpful
to be able to discuss these matters face to face and I continue to develop
my ideas about the need for a Yax Te' representative here. But even more,
I am determined to be back here at regular intervals so we can keep all
our projects steadily moving!
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Today is also the 28th anniversary of the devastating earthquake that destroyed so many towns and caused so many deaths and injuries in the highlands. The newspapers are filled with columnists' reminiscences, and, truly, the facts and figures and personal stories are astonishing! One friend tells me that he was in Huehuetenango, where the quake was less destructive, and spent that whole day trying to get to his family in Comalapa, which was almost totally destroyed. When he finally got there, he found everyone alive and sound, and with stories of almost miraculous escape. Because the quake occurred so early in the morning, most people were in bed. The shaking was so strong people were thrown from their beds or could not get up. Many roof beams fell on the beds, causing the remarkable number of spinal fractures that characterized the injuries of that particular disaster. My friend's father, along with some other relatives, were saved from this fate because only that day he had brought a load of corn into the house and piles I around the walls of his house. When the roof beams fell, the ends became suspended on the piled corn and did not reach the beds. His sister spent several hours trapped in her bed with a beam a few inches above her face!
Thursday 5 February 2004
At ILE today I talk for a while with the new linguistics investigator, Ana,
who has just arrived to work on the big Spanish dialectology project underway
at the Institute. She is Guatemalan but lives in France where she is completing
a doctoral degree. She is teaching an analysis course for students in the
post-graduate literature program and her first session is Saturday. I thought
"I" was nervous! Ana is concerned that her approach to the course might
be too much in the French University style or that the students will not
expect such an analytical research perspective on literary works. She asks
me to look at her syllabus, and then I get even more nervous. It seems a
very ambitious course plan to me, and, while we are covering some of the
same material, we are doing so in totally different ways. I begin to worry
about the level of my material and the orientation I am taking. Teaching
in a foreign country, with a very different educational system and different
expectations by the students, is, I think, often a challenge for Fulbrighters.
Even with over 30 years of teaching experience, I'm always a little nervous
before a new course begins, and this is like no other course I've ever done!
It is reassuring to see that Ana, who is from here, is also worried about
some of the same things that worry me. She looks at what I have so far on
the first taller, and tells me she is going to participate. I decide I better
spend even more time preparing. French-trained intellectuals scare me!
Sunday 8 February 2004
I received a very welcome caller today! A new friend, a young woman from
Santa Eulalia, where I did my original Guatemalan fieldwork, has a meeting
in the capital tomorrow and stops in to see me, accompanied by a young man
from Ixcán, also located far from here in the north. I met Rebeca during
a program evaluation last August and she impressed me deeply. University-degreed
in International Tourism, she works in Quetzaltenango but is very involved
in development projects in her home town, especially ones involving the
creation of ecology projects that could serve also as tourist draws. She
works primarily with groups of woman who were affected (e.g., widowed, displaced,
orphaned, raped, etc.) during the violence, so her goals also involve economic
development. Her energy and community commitment are typical of what I see
among the new generation of educated Mayans from all around the country.
It is cause for much optimism about the future of Guatemala. And so it is
delightful to spend a couple of hours with these two. Among other things,
Rebeca and I agree that it is too bad I set my taller dates without taking
into account the Santa Eulalia patron festival, which begins tomorrow and
lasts through the 12th. I haven't seen it since 1975 and imagine that it
is much changed. But uh-oh! Crazy February strikes, and I begin to feel
flu-ish. I recall that last week when I went to campus, my friend Martín
was sniffling, but doña Aura assures me that it is really the crazy February
weather - it has turned quite cold - and we agree that hot rum toddies are
the best treatment. I'm sure her reasoning is not the same as mine, but
the result is much the same...off to bed.
Tuesday 10 February 2004
Today at ILE, we run the test of my laptop, the projecting system, and the
presentation software. To my utter astonishment, everything works perfectly
the very first time! I have certainly never had that experience back in
Cleveland. Since I am actually very nervous about the taller - will the
level be right? will the content be interesting? have I calculated the time
of each session accurately? will my Spanish hold up under the need to speak
at length about complex linguistics topics in sentences never before uttered
by me?! - I am at least reassured that the technology will not fail me!
The rooms where the sessions will be held are also very agreeable: Banked,
carpeted classrooms with comfortable seating for about 40 at long fixed
tables with windows across one wall, they have good acoustics and sight
lines. They strike me as exactly perfect for my needs, and they are directly
across an atrium from the ILE offices por
si acaso (just in case!). All the arrangements - for equipment, chalk, copies,
and coffee and cookies at the breaks - are being handled by Ingrid Estrada
from ILE. She is also tracking the number of participants who have signed
up. Today is the stated deadline for registering, but everyone knows it's
only a suggestion. There are nine registered today, but we are making 25
copies, in case. Ingrid is always so friendly, and completely competent
and helpful. She insists on practicing her English with me whenever we talk.
Just one of the many wonderful new colleagues I have here. And I notice
that a couple of them seem to have colds.....
Wednesday and Thursday 11 and 12 February 2004
Well, the gripe has got me. No morning walk for this one! Both days in bed,
worrying about being well enough and with enough voice to teach all day
Friday. Ugh!!!
Friday 13 February 2004
Well, fortunately, here in Guatemala it is Tuesday the 13th that is unlucky.
My workshop is off to a splendid start, with nearly 30 attendees. They include
all the ILE investigative staff, many OKMA linguists, some URL faculty from
humanities, a few students and faculty from the linguistics program at Gálvez
University, and one or two linguists from the Academy of Mayan Languages.
The presentation's slides fit the time perfectly, there are lots of questions
- even during the breaks when I hope to rest my voice a little - and with
aspirins, cough drops, my very own box of tissues, bottles of water, adrenaline,
coffee, and delicious cookies (thanks, Ingrid!!), I stay upright and intelligible
from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm. Frankly, I end the day pretty damn pleased with
myself. My friends drag me home, but, since it is Friday evening, and we
are leaving the capital at rush hour, I don't get back until after 7:00.
I am in bed and asleep by 8:00.
Saturday 14 February 2004
Another measure of the responsive interest to my workshop topic is the turnout
today. Ana brings her Spanish literature students and Jorge Raymundo, my
ILE colleague who is teaching an undergraduate sociolinguistics course brings
his. By the end of the session, everyone seems enthusiastic about discourse
issues, and the examples that participants offer from the various languages
they speak - there are perhaps 15 or so represented in the group - demonstrate
that already they are using the concepts to re-examine their analyses in
the languages they work on. Various participants commented they have discovered
something new or have a new line of investigation to follow. Better than
coffee or adrenaline, this is what keeps me going for another four hours
plus. And I decide there and then to double my efforts to make the talleres
really useful. But perhaps not just now....once I'm home, all I can think
of is rest. Go to bed early and get up late, that's the strategy!
Sunday 15 February 2004
A day for laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and noticing that
the weather really IS weird! Much colder than usual in some places, too
windy in others, unseasonably hot elsewhere, and flooding when it's supposed
to be the dry season. All anyone can say is that it's Crazy February.
Saturday 21 February 2004
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Yesterday was the last session of my first workshop. Participants had come with texts from their own research to which they had applied various techniques and concepts I had presented. It was so rewarding to see them applying the new ideas they were learning. I'm already thinking about the new one, and so glad to be here! Yesterday was also Hun Aj in the Mayan calendar and the second day of the five-day period between the end of one solar year and the start of the next, the wayeb'. Ceremonies are being conducted privately and publicly across the highlands. In the lowlands (Yucatán and in Petén), along with some regions such as the Q'anjob'al and Q'eqchi' areas, Mayan communities use calendar calculations that are from four to forty days different from the central highland one. Some people are anxious to align them. Last evening, on the way back from URL, I was able to talk with several people who are observing this traditional period and I pointed out that the Orthodox and Roman branches of Catholicism have not been able to realign their calendars in hundreds of years, and we agreed that it would be a very difficult undertaking, since the calendar is so closely tied to community rituals and traditions. They seemed reassured to know that great religions have survived competing calendars in other traditions too.
Tuesday 24 February 2004
After days of getting over my cold, reasserting my authority over the dust
bunnies, and working on a sudden grant opportunity with an almost immediate
deadline, here we are almost at the end of February and right at the beginning
of Lent. Mardi Gras means nothing here. Children and young people make or
buy eggshells that have been emptied and filled with confetti (or worse!),
sealed shut with colored paper, and painted in bright colors, which they
then crack over each other's heads. But Lent! Now that is Antigua's main
season, one that culminates in the vigils, processions, and penitence of
Holy Week.
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Holy Week in Antigua is the largest celebration of its kind in the world,
outside of Sevilla, Spain (where the practices that created Antigua's version
originated). It is a weeks-long spectacle that I hope to observe with more
care than I did in 1973, and to document in this on-line journal. Meanwhile,of
course, I am working on Workshop #2, planning for the upcoming visit by
people from Cleveland State, and handling several projects for Yax Te' and
K'inal Winik. It is a busy time, but at least Crazy February is almost over.
At midnight today, 5 No'j, the new Mayan solar year began. New Year's cards
are not required.
Wedenesday 25 February
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Ash Wednesday The main events of the round of Lenten observance that mark
Ash Wednesday in Antigua actually take place in the nearby town of San Felipe,
where an image in venerated and goes out into procession. Doña Aura and
I decide to go to the velación (vigil) - an event involving a special scene
created at the altar of the church - at about 5:00 p.m. According to her,
the main activities are...
(a) to look at the velación,
(b) look at what's for sale, and
(c) drink batidos (a hot drink of the season)
and eat
street food.
(As if!, I think, that doña Aura would never eat street food!) The velación
is spectacular! It depicts the crossing of the red sea. And, believe it
or not, we do all the customary things at the San Felipe vigil after all!
Thursday 26 February 2004
Yesterday the dirge bells rang every minute or so from midnight Tuesday
to midnight last night. In a weird way, the steady tolling was sort of comforting
but the quiet that has fallen today is even more so! The whole of Lent is
really like that: a steady progression of increasing fervor and excitement
and performance that culminates on the seventh Friday, Good Friday in English
and Viernes Santo here. Everyone says - many with either a doleful or warning
tone in the voice! - that Holy Week in Antigua is much changed from when
I saw it over thirty years ago and that I will notice the changes from the
very beginning of Lent. I am interested to see what the changes are. I intend
to try to document in photos the various activities and to get out more
than I did years ago, when we barely noticed the processions before Good
Friday and only rarely went to the vigils. Aura says she plans to leave
town for Holy Week, as she has always done, because "too many people, too
much racket, too much incense."
Today I spend time at the university and have various meetings to plan the upcoming visit of several colleagues from Cleveland State. We are excited about the possibility of several collaborative projects in art and other fields.
Friday 27 February 2004
Today is the first Friday of Lent and the vigil is at the cathedral in the
main square with a funeral march concert in the evening. Meanwhile, the
streets begin to fill with people making pilgrimages to the various venerated
images and sites. One of these is the San Felipe image that was venerated
on Ash Wednesday and another pilgrimage site is at the San Francisco el
Grande church a couple of blocks from my house. There people worship at
the tomb of Saint Hermano Pedro, canonized just a few years go and Guatemala's
only saint. Some people walk all the way from the capital to Antigua to
pay homage at these pilgrimage points.
Sunday 29 February 2004
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Today there are two processions. One leaves Santa Catarina Bobadilla, another small village near Antigua, and the image circulates on the procession route from noon until 11:00 p.m. The Santa Catarina Bobadilla image was consecrated in February 1632, and was previously associated with the third Sunday processions, but since 1947 has been taken out on the first Sunday.
The other procession, apparently also dating back to colonial times, leaves the San Felipe church at 1:00 p.m., moving along a different route, and returning to San Felipe at around midnight. Both processions feature an image of Jesus the Nazarene,that is, an image of Christ carrying his cross. Doña Aura and I always know when a procession is approaching the main square because we can hear the drums and horns of the processional band and we can smell the incense. So in the afternoon, when we hear the Santa Catarina procession coming close, we go out to watch the images pass in front of the cathedral.