A Dry Day First in a While
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Fri 20 Aug 2010 02:51
clarification) and 2 self study, so my brain, is feeling a bit numb, but
certainly progress is being made. Sean loves his sessions and enjoys the 1
on 1 teaching, but he is coming home after 4 hours pretty warn out, but
excited. Tracy has realized the amount of work and time needed, she has been
doing a week 4 hours a day on Spanish Grammar and is pretty full of it, so
we go back to Antigua tomorrow, and then onto El Salvador Saturday hoping
for a shopping stop in San Salvador. But we are all looking forward to the
returning Gijima, it funny as last time it took 2 months to get to want come
back , but the climate and activities, and toys everyone has enjoyed the 9
days we have been away but want to get back home.
Today we did not get rain, strange as up here we have got a lot of rain, so
while I was at class the boys played in the garden here with two big german
shepherd dogs which they could throw the ball for hours both boys and dogs
had a great time, they also got to paint and run about with the ball, all
good after the exploring they have done. This afternoon Alex and I explored
the markets looking for a particular cloth that one of the other boats got
here 3 months ago, as they want to make cushions, not much chance of finding
that. We can get close but since all the textiles here are done by hand I
think you need to get a run of it at one time then you loose it.
Honestly walking around the lake is just such a pleasure Alex and I sat on a
wall eating ice cream, watching the pangas, the sky was a nice blue with
scattered cotton wool clouds. But the lake was a deeper blue with it's green
steep sides running off in both directions, and opposite 3 volcanoes rise
high up on the other side in their up side down cone shape, with a slight
mist cloud on their peaks. Today little wind so the lake is like a mirror,
reflecting mountains, and the ripples of the boats running out to lakes
edges.
Traditionally dressed people come past in their traditional olive blue
cloths, carry great bundles of textiles on their heads, often stopping to
offer us something, and take a look a Alex's blonde hair and blue eyes. The
Mayan culture is like the Inca but lives on, but really runs on a day to
day, you wonder how they get by but 80Q about $10USD a day will feed the
family so when they have that they are satisfied.
I also ran into a volunteer at the Spanish school this morning who is down
for 2 weeks learning Spanish and in the afternoon doing volunteer work for
an organization out of the USA, which has a unique and intriguing model,
which I am going to investigate to possible look at other variations. They
have set up a workshop here, where they have gone around the villages and
found a series of products the villages can build naturally specifically the
women, they then train the women on how to bring the quality up to a
standard needed with packaging to go to USA. They have then made specific
contracts with a number of retail outlets boutiques in the USA where they
will sell the products. The program is unique in the fact that it is a
sustaining model that enables these mountain village women to gain their own
income, and depend on the man. What it has done is allowed a village to
build a school etc, and the organization helps gets teachers and books and
now instead of one child in a family been educated all the kids can be
educated. This model or a derivative of it could work else where.
Life can be so simple!!!