Hi all! So the Pitt project team will be taking shifts to write weekly blogs. The first week goes to me, Emily Hwang!
Some things I have learned about Panajachel, Guatemala since I have arrived:
- It’s Pana for short. Like sauna, Ghana, etc.
- There are a lot of dogs. Dogs everywhere!! All dogs I have encountered are kind and are no danger to us. All kinds of dogs, mostly mutts, some are family owned, some are stray, all are cute.
- Guatemalan banks are picky about the money they exchange. They look at your bills very intensely. Must be in perfect condition, if they aren’t…they may reject you or just reluctantly take them.
- Cakchiquel is a Mayan language spoken among most of the older generation here in Panajachel, but most people speak Spanish! We’ve all been practicing our Spanish cada dia!
- The people are very welcoming and kind. A simple “buenos dias” to a passing local easily produces a smile.
We have arrived to Panajachel, Guatemala on Monday, May 4th, 2015.
Four of us arrived to Maya Traditions Foundation’s office in Panajachel around 5. Julianna got to Guatemala earlier; she was visiting family in Xela, Guatemala. We were introduced to Erin, executive director, and Alison, the sales and marketing director. We also met Laura, Marisol, Flori, and Jeannette. You can read about them and Maya Traditions Foundation here: http://www.mayatraditions.com/. We also met Chamulte and Shakira, the office dogs.
Brianna giving Shakira the best belly rub of her life
Since it was a long day of traveling for some of us, we were met at the office by our host mom, Dona Virginia, and went straight to our host home. Dona’s house is beautiful. A perfect harmony between outdoors and indoors. The rooms themselves are enclosed, but the once you step outside you are met with a medley of sounds that include chirping birds, barking dogs, roosters crowing, and the occasional fireworks popping in the streets. Dona has a beautiful family, she has two daughters and one son, Marleny and Norma and then there’s Joselino (Lino for short). Maribel is also a close friend of Norma’s and she helped the family prepare our meals and hangs around the house all the time. Dona and her family are amazing cooks. We were not expecting so much good food! Tamales, chuchitos, pasta, and other delicious meals! Here is a picture of our family, minus Lino since he had to work:
We were given a tour of the medicinal herb garden which is overseen by Oseos and Edgar. They showed us the process of making tinctures for fevers, nervousness, digestion, and pain. They also showed us how they make balms for sore muscles. We worked in the garden three days out of the week we have been here and took the time to cut all the herbs that went into the tinctures and balms. The process is pretty time consuming, but rewarding once you see the end product. Oseos is the only main staff member that works to make all these products; Edgar works when he isn’t at University studying.
Making tinctures
Above: Finishing off the tinctures, Edgar is on the right and the beautiful Christina and Julianna are on the left
Above are the final product of tinctures. We made over 270 tinctures. We started from the very beginning, from cutting the herbs in the garden to putting on the labels on them!
Making the balm for sore muscles
Oseos, on the left, and Edgar, on the right, squeezing out the olive oil from the herbs to make the balm. MUY FUERTE!
Christina filling up the containers with the balm
Our very efficient team!
Besides working in the garden, Maya Traditions Foundation brought a spiritual guide, Marta, and a bone setter, Don Juan, to talk to us about Mayan culture and medicine. Don Juan talked about his journey to being a bone setter. We will be working with him when we go into the communities to hold health clinics. Marta held a Mayan ceremony for us to bless us on our travels and projects.
Above is Marta performing the ceremony
Additionally, May 10th was World Fair Trade Day. We set up shop next to a restaurant where Maya Traditions brought in Mayan weavers to show people walking by how much work they put into the products. They also set up space to show/sell their products.
Panajachel has been really good to us. Since we’ve been here we’ve taken yoga and salsa dance classes. We watched people perform flamenco, a style of guitar playing, visited Lake Atitlan twice, and went to the local nature reserve (pictured below).
While we only arrived on Monday it feels like we’ve been in Pana for a long time. We’ve just got familiar with our host family and met a few locals, but now we are off to San Juan la Laguna, just a 25 min ferry boat ride away, to build a new medicinal herb garden, hold health clinics and teach English classes. We are all very sad to leave Pana as the town has been very accepting. The trip to San Juan tomorrow has us feeling nervous, yet excited.We can’t wait to report back next week!
Thanks for reading!
–Emily