La Clinica, Palmar, Y la semana tercera.

Just returned from a really great morning with the other students at Pop Wuj, and Oscar, one of the teachers. Oscar, bless him, crammed 8 people into his small truck. Granted, if we were all tiny Guatemalans, that would have been enough space for an elephant. But we are huge Americans and Canadians. He took us about an hour outside Xela to the coastal region. In the region called, Palmar, is one of three coffee cooperatives. Here men and women work for decent wages, by Guatemalan standards, at about 5 dollars a day.

The coffee plantations in Guatemala have a history of exploitation, beginning with Germans coming to the country in about 1874. They bought huge plantations where people worked for nothing to grow the coffee bean. Only two contries in the world have mountains high enough to grow gold coffee, Colombia and Guatemala. After world War II, The Americans kicked out the Germans and took over huge plantations. Now, about two dozen families own most of the land, and the workers are severely exploited.

Men, on average in a coffee plantation work for about 25 quetzales a day, where women work for about 15. Children work for between 8 to 10 quetzales, which is about a dollar. Even though child labor is illegal in Guatemala, it is still rampant. The coffee plantations control every aspect of the worker's lives, much like the sharecroppers of the restoration period, and early twentieth century in the US. Think "The Grapes of Wrath". Workers will work all day, and when they bring in their harvest, be told that they owe the plantation money for food, rent, water etc. At the end, many workers find themselves in more debt than if they had not worked at all. It is, in essence a system of slavery. There are a few cooperatives in Guatemala, and some plantations are trying to become organic, but Oscar pointed out that, it doesn't solve the poverty problem to just buy fair trade organic, because the majority of workers rely on the work of the major plantations to feed their families. Coffee prices have plummeted in recent years due to a flood of coffee from Vietnam and Brazil. Now, plantations are needing to diversify their crops to bananas, fruits and vegetables.

None of the gold level of coffee stays in Guatemala. All of it is shipped abroad. The lowest level of coffee stays here, which is why the majority of Guatemalan's drink instant Nescafe. Oscar walked with us throug the Coffee processing area of the farm, which is one of the few that does not use chemicals to cure the coffee. They ferment it, as they did in the middle east thousands of years ago.

Just above the plantation was a volcano which erupts every 30 minutes. It has done so for 80 years, and 10 years ago, displaced a village when ash blocked a river and cause the small town to flood and wash away. The river is not permanently redirected through what not too long ago was a thriving town.

We walked to a small lagoon that is fed by a natural spring and took a break before coming back and stopping at a very touristy attraction...a zipline!! It was fun, but I kind of wish it didn't go over a major overpass where cars spewed black smoke into the air. Granted, it was really beautiful and fun to fly over the trees. It was well worth 7 dollars!

I worked in the clinic yesterday with Dr. Vanessa who is a Guatemalan Doctor. She was super sweet and allowd me to perform a pregnancy test and several glucose tests on patients. We had a lot of people with diabetes come in as well as hypertension. One woman had such high blood pressure she couldn't stand. She began crying when she explained she needed to work, and is scared at what is going to happen to her. Dr Vanessa and I tried to explain to her that the medication will help, and it did...within 10 minutes. She walked home after we took her blood pressure again, and it fell. It was really great to see the medication work, and I was so glad it could help this woman. She was really terrified.

We did a clinic at Dona Ana's with the medical Brigades on Wednesday as well, which was amazing. About 100 people waited outside patiently at Dona Ana's for medical care. People are so patient and amazing here. I've learned a lot from the people of Guatemala and I hope to learn more.

I had a great conversation with my teacher, Minor. He is one of the founders of Pop Wuj. I asked him what were his favorite Guatemalan filmmakers, and he said there are no Guatemalan filmmakers....at all. The only films coming from Guatemala, are terrible racist stereotypical anti campesino films called "Nito and Nieto", which he made me swear that I would never ever watch. He went on to say there are no film schools in Guatemala, no culture of filmmaking because it is so poor. That's not to say that people don't watch films, they just watch films from Mexico, South America, Europe or the US. There are filmhouses here in Xela, but they are not well attended because they are expensive and it's cheaper to buy bootleg DVDs.

I suggested to him that maybe Pop Wuj could have a film school, or a documentary project to make docs about current struggles and Guatemalan history. All it would take is a computer and a video camera. He was REALLY interested in the idea. I promised him I would try to get a descent computer with some software on it to Pop Wuj in the future. I told him he could have my old Apple G4, then realized, they would need one with a DVD burner. I want to keep that promise. If anyone knows of someone who wants to get rid of a G5 or newer computer with a DVD Burner, let me know. I could maybe throw in a little money. I would like to come back and train folks on how to use final cut pro and make films. It is important that countries like Guatemala have access to these technologies so that stories like that of Dona Ana are recorded and shared with the world. It is about recording history, and Guatemala has for too long had its history erased.