Yes we had a wonderful time. Thanks to B, D & Stella, our hosts.
Van still had a cold as we left and was wondering if he should be traveling, but felt better after a day or two of rest at Casa Zimmer. We moved slowly, but that was fine. Brian was out in the wilds with an
adventure bicycling partner leading a tour - grueling, but about ten or 12 paid
customers - for our first week. Stella had a cold and my excuse for holding her through entire naps
was to help her breathe and get some sleep. I gramma-ed up for lost time. Their
housekeeper left daily at about 4:00 and Denise didn’t get home until 6 or
later - so we were a help.
Brian came home for the last 4 days and we changed up the pace a bit.
It is indeed a different world, and totally engaging if you are flexible. Stella
is a delight, of course, and amused us easily and constantly. Their bedroom has
an open arch to the area where she sleeps, which has both pros and cons when it
comes to sleeping through the night … it is lovely and peaceful, with a
balcony that opens up the whole wall to her part of the room in the sunny part
of the day, no safety issues, no screens, she can just crawl right out there.
Big glass French doors. Birds and trees and a view of the volcanoes toward
their end of the room. They’ve decorated tastefully and simply.
An interesting aspect of the housing there is how it incorporates
the out of doors. Everything is open to the outdoors in one part or another,
thought it gets chilly at night in the high altitude there is no central
heating or cooling, just a few fireplaces. Being a little directionally challenged I
had a hard time getting a Gestalt on how the rooms and gardens and patios and
balconies and courtyards are laid out, and how things connected, so it was a
continual delightful maze. Yes, there are some bugs, but mostly on the floors
and slow moving. Sort of like when you go camping, you just work around them.
Stella is crawling, a tiny little bidget scooting down the hallways,
shouting hollering and growling, with a ready toothless open-mouthed grin
- and cruising furniture and walls, sometimes standing unsupported - she
started waving, just this week I think -
Claudia adores her and the feeling is mutual. Claudia also carries her around
all day, very attentive - and makes food for her, like poaching an apple into
baby food consistency - or scooping out a banana, or mushing an avocado - along
with her bottles and sit down meals where she eats grown-up finger food in very small pieces. Still no teeth!
While Denise was at work, Claudia took us by bus to the
bank in Antigua to exchange currency and wore Stella in a wrap on her back
& front. We went for daily walks with Stella in a new stroller (big tires
on the cobblestones) and the two dogs, who also adore Claudia. Claudia was
generous about letting us have Stella time, of course, and she has other
duties. Her daughter Marisol and grandbaby Allison visited twice - baby Allison
is a couple months older than Stella. Stella is quite enamored with
Allison and all other babies and children and dogs and cats.
The only thing she watches on TV (they are not hooked up, so only
use it for DVDs) which is “Signing Time with Alex and Leah” (ASL for
babies and toddlers) - great to watch before bedtime, very calming and
friendly. With Brian and/or Denise, we took her into Antigua by car and
bus a couple of other times (they live in what I guess you’d call a suburb, a
gated neighborhood outside a small village we never really saw - poverty &
basic) and she is always big-eyed at the marimba players on the square, and street performers
- some giant people costumes related to folk tales and the holidays are starting
to pop up.
These people love Christmas, and they love fireworks 365 days a
year, round the clock. (you can expect
friends and explosions outside your house on your birthday). There was often
music at night even out where the kids live, local celebrations wafting over
the walls. The walls are painted yellow and other bright colors, and topped
with bright decorative coils of … concertina wire, designed to discourage
climbing over. There is a pocket park winding through their neighborhood, quite
beautiful – the flowers and plants are exotic by Iowa standards and constantly
tended for very good reasons. Stuff grows profusely.
We went to Thanksgiving with Denise, Stella and a group of their ex-pat friends and
children - very fun to meet them. And to a second
Thanksgiving at an NGO called Common Hope, very interesting to see their
programs and compound and meet the people who worked there - it was their staff
and families and friends, expats, not the people they serve, who probably
wouldn’t really be real Thankful for the Conquistadors who “discovered” their
Mayan ancestors’ land if they knew the “rest of the story” … maybe they do, as
they live it.
I missed the tour opportunities to other sites for Common Hope due
to being on call with Stella, but of course that was okay by me. We had muchas
rocking to do.
I also met the woman who founded the Women’s Justice Initiative, at the
Ex-pat Friends Thanksgiving, but did not get to see any of their work.
But I insisted on making it all the way back through Antigua and
across town and a half hour up another road to El Hato school, and spent a half
day with the preschoolers (they are on summer break but this is “day camp” so
there were about 25-30 kids, some of the older siblings come too - not much to do at home, no pencils or paper
and rarely a TV (which might be a blessing?) or activity available, so the
older sibs seem to find the preschool program as interesting as the younger
kids - during their school year this is a public school, the staff and
volunteers for Manos de Christine are like an auxiliary, teaching English,
adding preschool programming, supporting a library the kids can spend time in
and take home a book each night - and there are two computers with headphones
and games and learning programs in the library for the older kids.
okay, the pictures inserted themselves here - this is my first blog:
Socrates
Anyway, YES there are plenty of ways to be involved without speaking
Spanish - it was very engaging, the kids are extremely respectful of being in
the classroom, as humble as it is. No activity centers, painting easels, trucks
and toys, or little stoves and baby doll beds and dress up things… just a few
puzzles and books and tables and chairs. A woven mat for story time, the
Spanish speaking assistant in charge the day I was there was the delightful Alexandra - she
and I rode the bus back to Antigua so we visited a bit, as best I could given
my rudimentary Spanish and her rudimentary English, and she is a belly dancing
teacher by profession. You can bet she has the kids up and moving and shaking! She had 4 weeks of training in doing preschool. I think
there are other teachers also during the school year, and there was an English
teacher (from abroad, she may have been a volunteer) who came in for about 45
minutes or an hour and did a lesson with a felt board on shapes and colors and
counting and a couple of songs.
They were going on a field trip to the Lutheran Center school in
Antigua the next day (where Stella will go to Montessori when she is 1 1/2) the next
day.
I had quite fun with the little ones, the little girls were very shy
but tolerated my presence, a couple of the little boys warmed up to me and we
sat together at a table and I hid some of the tangram wooden pieces behind my
back and they guessed which hand had the yellow piece, etc) - and we looked at
a book about caterpillars, and I sat by them while Alexandra read "GoodNight
Moon" in Spanish and we did the hokey pokey. Their older sisters eventually sat
closer too. She said they take stuff home (like pencils) and she has to talk
them into returning it. Nobody owns anything.
Back at the ranch Denise was making a basic felt Christmas tree for
Stella, to go on the wall, with felt ornaments to take off and put on. So I
went to the Bodagona and bought a pile of felt and made trees for 30, and
cut out a kajillion ornaments in other colors, and arranged to get it to the
school for their last day before Christmas break which was the day after their
field trip. But I didn’t go back myself. Getting there required meeting the
director (an American) at the Lutheran School front gate on the far side of
Antigua to get a ride, early, and impacted Brian & Van & Stella’s
schedule as well - the day she took me up we bussed in to meet her, walked ten
blocks to the Lutheran School to catch her on her way up the mountain, and her
daughter needed to go the to Dr. so she turned around after dropping Alexandra
& me off (Alexandra rides out with her) and went to the dr - that’s why we
took the Chicken bus back to town- which turned out to be an hour later than
what I thought I would be, since I thought I was riding back with Selina the
director… Brian waited in Park Central on a bench, not knowing if I was ever
coming. We did not use our cell phones there (roaming = $$$$$$$) and the spare
he kept for company got borrowed by someone or
went missing.
El Hato School is supported by Earth Lodge, also owned by friends of
B & D - it is up and down the mountain nearby - and if you volunteer at El
Hato you can stay at a reduced rate. They also offer reductions for teaching
yoga and washing dishes, not sure whether dishwashing is at the lodge or
school. Although it is already a
bargain. Most of the units are tree houses, not something Van could probably
do. Or, one could stay IN Antigua, which would at least be closer than the
kids’ place, and come back at noon on the bus.
But the place really close to Brian and Denise, within walking
distance, is Common Hope. I’d say Common Hope is the equivalent of your family
services agency, roughly. They have support services and work with a community
right between Antigua and B&D (short hike to their house) and another village
some miles away. They also have a library and school/preschool, although they
don’t do English particularly, there are other things English speaking
volunteers help with. They offer families the opportunity to build their own
houses, kind of like habitat for humanity, with sweat equity and agency
resources - probably just a few each month. We saw the area where they do
the pre-fab stuff and also the school/library and some of the health care services,
when we went to the Thanksgiving dinner.
We didn't have time to do any of the recreational things, like some
inviting tours of villages, historic sites, go up to the lake, get
massages, take language classes – thought we did a wee bit of shopping in favorite shops in
Antigua - eating out was FABULOUS, and Claudia made us a couple of smaller
meals at "home", one with these wonderful small green squash with cheese inside and pasta
with sautéed peppers and onions…
Their friends own Pitaya, a juice bar/small
restaurant (well, two - one in Antigua and one in the City), great food, and B is going in on another venture
with them in a building just rented that may involve carry-out delivery by
bicycle. He took us to the building. It has excellent potential.
The places that use volunteers were quite welcoming - I didn’t feel
like a dork or Lady Bountiful - they actually are spread thin enough that
having even random people show up with ideas and energy is welcomed. The family service
agency, however, might put non-Spanish speaking volunteers to work in filing
etc, or with babies who require fewer
language skills - whereas El Hato school is wide open for teacher creativity.
Anything you can come up with is a change of pace, and the long-term staff and
volunteers welcome new ideas.
I will post a few photos, but we mostly took photos of Stella and around the house, not of the scenery or Antigua, this time.
Will I go back in the winter? I don’t know for sure. I could easily imagine renting a place in town for a couple of weeks, or staying part of the time at Earth Lodge, and visiting Lake Atitlan (maybe even a girls' night out with yoga and massage) but although Van loved seeing the kids, doting on Stella, and taking in Antigua, he probably isn't into all the tromping around on cobblestone streets or sitting on the cement floor at some school, or Spanish lessons.
In my wildest dreams, I imagine Vinton Lions' Sight and Hearing Team in Antigua using the special camera with pre-schoolers, sending photos through cyber space to the U of I Eye Center for vision screening, but of course we'd need further resources on site for the follow up with those tests that indicated incipient vision problems. But I'd settle for the Hokey Pokey with some preschoolers. I might need a partner in crime.
Meanwhile Brian, Denise and Stella will be home for Christmas in a couple of weeks and we are going to see E's Pillsbury House Naked Stages grant production in Mpls very soon!
