Today CJ and I went on a trip with the school to Salcahar. We saw a lot of different things. They have a weaving process there that is typical to Guatemala, though it was originally brought over from Spain. We walked through the market, and then saw the place where they were making the string that they were eventually going to use in the weaving. There are 14 different parts to the process and obviously it´s very time consuming. They can´t do it indoors because you need probably at least 50 yards of space to stretch out the thread for the early parts of the process, so we stood in a field while one of the people working on it explained their process to us. They make the designs much like tie-dye in that they tie strings around differnet parts of the fabric that they don´t want to get dyed before they put on each color of dye, and the parts that are covered remain they color they were while others are dyed. I can´t imagine how long it would take to make the intricately detailed things they make out of this fabric using that process, but they do it. Also, they had to take the whole set up down each time it started raining (which is seemingly at least once an hour) so that it doesn´t get messed up in the rain. Very, very slow process.
After that, we went to see an old historic church (the oldest in Guatemala, I believe). Since Salcahar is an old colonial city, it has the original church that the Spanish built in the 1500s. It was intersting, beautiful and of course reminiscent of many churches in Spain and Italy from the same time period. Now it is only open for mass on Saturday mornings at 6:00 and the rest of the time you have to use one of the other area churches. We had to get the woman who I guess is the caretaker of the church to come over and unlock it so that we could see inside.
Next, we went to the home of some local people to see the later stages of the weaving, after the threads have been dyed, as they´re making the threads into fabric. The house was very tall and fairly narrow with steep Europe-style stairs that were like three feet high in places it seemed. At the top, the man had his loom set up and was weaving amazingly beautiful fabric. He talked some about the process and we got to watch him work. It was amazing how quickly he could do it!
Downstairs, we (all but CJ) got to have a taste of a local liquor made from fermented fruit. We also got to taste the fruit, which was kind of like the apples in sangria or the stuff they make in coolers in college, but was very good, and quite sweet. The liquor itself was very good too, and is popular here. I got a bottle of it for Claudia and Cesar (the parents in our host family) for a goodbye gift when we leave because Claudia talked about how much she loves it when we told her we were coming today.
Other than that, it´s been a fairly uneventful day.
Yesterday we spent some time teaching our host sisters how to knit, which was more challenging because of the language barrier, but in reality possibly one of the easier things we could have done with them because it is so visual. Andrea, the older girl who is about 13 or 14, got the hang of it really well.
Shockingly, it´s been raining here a lot. The house hasn´t flooded again or anything, and they filled in part of our skylight with cement that seems to have stopped the leaking there, but the kitchen is leaking now. Luckily it´s not leaking onto anything important but pretty much just in an open, out of the way area, but that´s still not what you would hope for in your house. This seems to bother Claudia and Ceasar but not the point that they seem to be jumping to action. I´ve noticed that people here often address the more superficial problem with things like that when I suspect that there is often a bigger underlying problem. If your roof keeps leaking in many places, it seems like there is a good chance that there is something very wrong with the roof itself, but then again, what do I know about Guatemalan home construction. It´s clearly vastly different from how things are done in the States, and even that I know next to nothing about.
At the moment, I don´t have access to the picture computer, but if I can, I´ll add more in a little while. I´m super tired today, so I want to go home and go to bed early. I hope we eat earlier (7 or 7:30) rather than late (8:00 or after).
After that, we went to see an old historic church (the oldest in Guatemala, I believe). Since Salcahar is an old colonial city, it has the original church that the Spanish built in the 1500s. It was intersting, beautiful and of course reminiscent of many churches in Spain and Italy from the same time period. Now it is only open for mass on Saturday mornings at 6:00 and the rest of the time you have to use one of the other area churches. We had to get the woman who I guess is the caretaker of the church to come over and unlock it so that we could see inside.
Next, we went to the home of some local people to see the later stages of the weaving, after the threads have been dyed, as they´re making the threads into fabric. The house was very tall and fairly narrow with steep Europe-style stairs that were like three feet high in places it seemed. At the top, the man had his loom set up and was weaving amazingly beautiful fabric. He talked some about the process and we got to watch him work. It was amazing how quickly he could do it!
Downstairs, we (all but CJ) got to have a taste of a local liquor made from fermented fruit. We also got to taste the fruit, which was kind of like the apples in sangria or the stuff they make in coolers in college, but was very good, and quite sweet. The liquor itself was very good too, and is popular here. I got a bottle of it for Claudia and Cesar (the parents in our host family) for a goodbye gift when we leave because Claudia talked about how much she loves it when we told her we were coming today.
Other than that, it´s been a fairly uneventful day.
Yesterday we spent some time teaching our host sisters how to knit, which was more challenging because of the language barrier, but in reality possibly one of the easier things we could have done with them because it is so visual. Andrea, the older girl who is about 13 or 14, got the hang of it really well.
Shockingly, it´s been raining here a lot. The house hasn´t flooded again or anything, and they filled in part of our skylight with cement that seems to have stopped the leaking there, but the kitchen is leaking now. Luckily it´s not leaking onto anything important but pretty much just in an open, out of the way area, but that´s still not what you would hope for in your house. This seems to bother Claudia and Ceasar but not the point that they seem to be jumping to action. I´ve noticed that people here often address the more superficial problem with things like that when I suspect that there is often a bigger underlying problem. If your roof keeps leaking in many places, it seems like there is a good chance that there is something very wrong with the roof itself, but then again, what do I know about Guatemalan home construction. It´s clearly vastly different from how things are done in the States, and even that I know next to nothing about.
At the moment, I don´t have access to the picture computer, but if I can, I´ll add more in a little while. I´m super tired today, so I want to go home and go to bed early. I hope we eat earlier (7 or 7:30) rather than late (8:00 or after).
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