“Buenas tardes” they call out from the short steps of tiendas down the cobbled main street of San Andres Itzapa, Chimaltenango , Guatemala
“Buenas tardes” I reply with a polite nod.
I walk about five minutes to the center of town where buses to the tourist hotspot, Antigua pick up and drop off passengers, and the daily farmers’ market takes place, and where one can purchase a choco-banana for 1Q (1 Quetzal (local currency)= $0.12 US).
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| Daily farmers' market in San Andres Itzapa |
Everywhere I walk I find grinning muchachos, smiling abuelas and giggling chicas who know in a glance that I’m not from around here.
In fact, just about the only people in this ciudad of some 30,000 people who aren’t from around here are the 8 of us volunteers at Maya Pedal (www.mayapedal.org), a bicycle repair shop that makes bike machines (“bicimaquinas”) as well as pumps up the occasional soccer ball or sharpens a dull machete or two.
Maya Pedal was founded in 1997 with the help of the Canadian organization PEDAL, and has since been enriched and operated by mechanical engineering genius Carlos Marroquin and the countless volunteers who live above the shop during their stay.
Many bicimaquinas have been designed and produced in this shop, including pedal-powered water pumps (“bicibombas”), bike blenders (“bicilicuadoras”), and bike nut-shellers (bicidescascaderos).
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| Bicilicuadora in action, photo courtesy of Maya Pedal |
The living space in the shop is communal and a fee is paid monthly by volunteers to keep up with expenses such as internet and necessities like sponges and soap. We keep tabs on who bought the last bag of fresh pan dulce (sweet bread) or pina on a notebook in the kitchen, and eat most of our meals together.
It is exciting to live with, and to some extent, live like, the people of Itzapa. While Maya Pedal has contributed immensely to rural agricultural communities in the area with its machines (especially the bicimaquinas which increase the efficiency of processing corn, assist in making tiles for rooftops, or which pump water uphill for drinking and irrigation), the building itself is not what a typical American would call “fancy”.
The cots we sleep in look like they’re reaching the three-decade mark, sometimes the water refuses to leave the spigot, we’re lacking a sink in one bathroom and a working shower in the other, and as I write this, my housemates are trying to figure out why the lights upstairs aren’t working.
But believe me, this is no complaint. This is a “hallelujah!”.
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| View from the roof ("techo") of Maya Pedal. |
I grew up in a middle class family in a 2-story house in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of town. I never had to worry about having “enough” of anything. Christmas and birthdays were excessive when I was a child, and the same mess of strewn wrapping paper and mangled boxes that filled the scene in my adolescence remains the norm for my young nieces today. As soon as one gift has been opened, it is briefly inspected, then literally tossed into a pile to open the next.
Young children can’t be blamed for their reactions; it is a family’s job to teach children respect for materials, and gratitude for them. This is the price of too much wealth.
This year, I won’t be around for the holidays. I won’t be there to watch feigned appreciation or forced smiles over the wrong gift, or hear the common tune of, “Wow. How nice. Didn’t you get me one of these last year? I think I have three already.”
Rather, this year I will be celebrating simply with Carlos and the other volunteers at his home with his family. “Nadie esta solo en la Navidad ” (No one is alone on Christmas) Carlos told me when I inquired about his family’s tradition.
In fact, family is much of the focus in Guatemala
On my way back from hiking Volcan Fuego with a couple of other voluntarios last weekend, I had a conversation about this with a local man in the back of the speeding pickup bed more than half a dozen people were crammed into.
“It’s a religious holiday for us”, he said in Spanish over the revving engine and clashing of the truck’s wheels against the uneven dirt road. “It’s a day to spend with family”.
I fumbled for the words to explain how much different it is in the States, what with the glaring advertisements and holiday decorations towering ominously over the sales racks of Halloween, but I gave up and settled on, “I like it your way better”.
People are always more fun to talk to on public transportation.
This year, there will be no Christmas tree. There will be no family within a half hour bike ride. There will be no hugs from my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephew, or even the smell of my mom’s infamous nut bread or lemon squares.
But that’s okay.
My Escape is meant to be a learning experience. You never learn quite so much as when you’re far away from everything familiar, and you’ve up to your neck in avacadoes.
Or something like that.
This year, it’s “feliz navidad” for me, and I hope for you as well.
Simplify, simplify. Hallelujah.
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| Thanksgiving with Carlos, Alan (the shop's one employee) and the volunteers. |
