Month: June 2018

Two days ago marked three weeks of me pretending to speak Spanish for the purpose of my survival, and I would say I have been doing pretty well so far. Despite the fact that my last attempt at Spanish was four years ago, I have discovered that I remember just enough of the language to survive* in a predominantly Spanish-speaking country. (*exist) That is, just as long as the situation at hand is of minor importance.

This was not the case when I was trying to get to my hotel in Guatemala City.

Natalie and I had just gotten off of the plane and were nearly done with what couldn’t be any better described than us blindly slamming our way through the airport. Everything was spinning by the time we reached the exit to the arrivals lot, and my main objective was to find out how to get a hold of our ride. His number was online, so I would need wifi (at this point, I did not have wifi or a cell plan). Learning that there was wifi in the cafe to my left, I went out in search of it and landed myself at the cafe counter, trying to order a Coke – if you wanted access, you had to make a trade. I would have been fine, if I had understood the exchange rate from American dollars to a foreign currency whose name had escaped me. I could find both of these things and translate all of my questions had I had wifi. Unfortunately, I had to know these things to get wifi. It was kind of like a riddle, except the words were in a different language and the answer didn’t exist. I was able to get around this, but only through a long and painfully awkward sequence of failed beginnings to sentences, wild gestures, and stares at the two women working behind the counter, who would occasionally laugh at me and then point at something (which would usually just confuse me more). Finally, after twenty minutes, I had my $3 Coke and 5 minutes of well-earned wifi access!

Same day, different Coke.

Everything turned out fine – I found the number for our driver about thirty seconds before the wifi expired, I called him using Natalie’s cell phone, and we found a way to split the Coke so that we could both handle our fear of germs. The next hour was spent waiting around the cafe and doing the different cafe activities like looking at cute stray dogs, avoiding middle-aged men trying to sell us bug-zappers, and talking to my new friend Miguel, who made a living selling homemade orchestral mixtapes. By the time our driver arrived, I was well equipped with eighteen Quetzales and an hour of intensive Spanish practice, ready to start new Spanish adventures with other unsuspecting souls.

Me, triumphing over my fears of communicating in Spanish!

Hola, hola! So, I guess to begin, I should introduce myself. I’ll keep it brief! My name’s Andres M. Garza, I was born and raised in Mexico, and I’m a senior anthropology student at the University of Texas. Currently, I’m in Guatemala doing a study abroad program over Maya art – but within the time I’m here with school, I’m also given a bit of leeway to explore and learn about subjects that interest me. As many people do, I love coffee. I think I know a little bit about coffee, or at least that’s what I thought. The one thing I did know is that Guatemala is responsible for some of the world’s most delicious coffee and that I had to try some. By some, I mean a lot.

I signed up for a coffee tasting workshop with a few of the friends I’ve made here. We took a quick shuttle few minutes out of the city of Antigua and arrived at this tiny little office in San Miguel Escobar. We were met by a super friendly and enthusiastic volunteer, Jonathan. He showed us the room he laid out with three different sets of coffee beans he self-roasted the day before. Roasting beans is extremely difficult to do on a small scale and requires expensive equipment and a lot of time. So, that was neat!

Now, I feel I can’t continue without mentioning this: as we walked into the office, we heard what sounded like raindrops falling on the thin-metal roof. Stuck my hand out into the open area of the building (most buildings are a blend of indoor and outdoor). No water wet my arm. After a few seconds we realized it was ash. Volcanic ash. Tiny little rocks fell, and continued to fall throughout our tasting. To clarify, the area we were at ended up being okay. The city was primarily covered with ash, but no casualties here.

Volcanic ash, Jonathan informed us, is part of what makes the soil in Guatemala so fertile and great for growing coffee. Though, not when it is in large quantities or as destructive as this eruption was. He began by giving us a sheet to circle and rank each different kind of coffee. Also, he explained to us the difference between Arabica coffee and Robusta. Arabica are high-quality beans grown specifically in the highlands. They are grown in an artisanal way, at an altitude over 600m, though he said that the higher they’re grown, the better they’ll taste. Robusta, well, they are what Arabica are not. And they are cheaper.

The beans were ground and we sampled them in small cups. We began by smelling each batch, describing their aroma. Jonathan gave us a list of descriptive words as we are “beginner” tasters and he was right that our vocabulary is not on par with professionals.

Following that, we slowly poured water from a kettle onto the ground beans to let them bloom. Blooming the beans, as Jonathan described, allows their aroma to strengthen, and we let that sit for some time. It really did look like it was alive, the water breathing and its body awake.

Apparently, professionals slurp their coffee. Each cup has its own spoon and there is a little washing cup with clean, hot water. This is to not cross-contaminate flavors. Slurping allows the flavors to be more present on one’s tongue, and I could see why they do that. We ranked their flavor profiles, notes, mouth-feel, and after-taste for each and scored them according to the chart he gave us. I did… pretty bad.

After that, Jonathan showed us a variety of brewing methods and allowed us to choose three to try. We were already feeling the caffeine at that point. He pulled out the Chemex, his personal favorite brewing method. It’s a slow-pour with 10 second intervals after certain quantities of water.

The taste was quite light, floral, and felt very spring-like. Each method was very precise, having us measure the amount of water and coffee, checking the temperature of the water, and timing each act of the process. To contrast this, he pulled out a French Press. This method is probably more recognizable to most of the American audience. The beans were significantly coarser so they wouldn’t must the coffee. The taste was heavier and darker — what one would think would be good for a gloomy winter morning.

Finally, the last method was an Aeropress. I personally hadn’t tried it before, but it was a method that brewed a single cup rather than a large amount like the rest. It was compact, strong, yet much smoother than the French Press because the beans were ground the finest possible. I wasn’t able to get any pictures of those since I was the one doing the process. But at that point, my friends kept passing me their leftover coffee and since my caffeine tolerance is high, I thought I could handle it. It was too much, and I was jittery.

We left soon after. Jonathan was so genuine in speaking about the organization De La Gente. It is an NGO that helps the farmers of Guatemala sell directly to consumer or to cafés rather than the process of selling to big buyers where their profits are fractioned. One thing he mentioned was that the farmers themselves had never tasted the extent of the quality of what they were producing, unable to self-roast the beans and unable to afford adequate brewing equipment. A goal of his is to get them to realize how beautiful the product they are growing is, while helping them financially and informing an audience about the process. I can’t thank him enough.

It was great!

Hey guys! I can’t believe that we are halfway through this program, time sure flies!  It’s really difficult to get to ALL the many experiences I’ve had here in Guatemala, but I’ll try to at least get through some highlights!

The first weekend we were here, I stuck around Antigua, and didn’t do much except settle in and get comfortable. This was nice because it allowed me time to adjust to completely different surroundings than where I had been just a week before.   As you all know, however, there was an awful eruption at Volcan de Fuego that Sunday.  When the eruption occurred, I honestly thought little of what was happening, or how things looked outside.  I had become accustomed to frequent popping noises outside, and given the dark skies and the fact that it had rained on a near-daily basis since we arrived, I figured it was just another storm.  However, I quickly became wary when the “rain” hitting the roof sounded more like hail, and it was difficult to see outside my window.  My homestay mother explained there was a volcanic eruption, and ash was raining down as a result.  She didn’t seem too concerned with what was occurring though, so I was under the impression that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that I was in no immediate danger. I didn’t come to the full realization of how bad the eruption was until I saw international news reports coming out about it roughly six hours later.

While I sympathize with anyone who endures any natural disaster anywhere, I think that actually being near this disaster zone, and experiencing or suffering its repercussions, is entirely different.  After the eruption occurred, I couldn’t help but think about what could have happened had I gone hiking up near Volcan de Fuego that weekend. Because of my proximity, I felt more impacted by this event than by other natural disasters that I see all the time on the news.  I was grateful that I was situated where the volcano didn’t pose an immediate danger, and that I didn’t have to experience the trauma that so many others had to go through.  I also felt more obligated to do something to help those who had suffered.  I bought a couple of items (toothpaste, canned food) to send to those who were left much worse off from the volcano.  I have to admit that if I had been in the United States when this happened, I may have done nothing to help (though I’m not a bad person, promise!).  But this situation made me more likely to want to try to help people whenever and wherever they may be suffering, because obviously these kind of national disasters can happen to anyone at any time, even to me.  And I would want people helping me!

Another highlight of this program was the trip we took to Lake Atitlan two weekends ago. There were so many different experiences I enjoyed during that trip!

While it may seem weird, one of my favorite parts of this trip was the beauty we came upon as we arrived to Panajachel and the surrounding areas.  I think that areas with bodies of water are always beautiful (even though we were told that the water here was kind of gross!) and the view here did not disappoint!  I also really liked the boat rides we took every day from Panajachel to different cities.  While I was a little nervous on the boats at first (a subconscious fear of the boat sinking), that was soon replaced as I came to appreciate the feeling of not being able to predict what would happen while on the boat.  It was fun to experience things that I didn’t expect –like the boat hitting a wave and causing it to jump mid-air for a few seconds!  I also got a lot of enjoyment looking at the surrounding scenery while riding the boat.  As someone who has lived in Austin her entire life, I don’t see massive mountains and volcanoes in the background of my city too much, so I find their grandeur to be simply awesome.  It seems almost as if these towns and cities are at the mercy of these mountains and volcanoes as they display their true power, and at the mercy of the dominance of nature.

I also found I really appreciated the strong connections that these towns and the people we met (including in Antigua) have to their past.  Back home in the United States, the hectic pace that life runs at makes it seem that the past is hardly thought about, and doesn’t especially impact our daily lives.  I personally like to reminisce about the past, it gives me context for my life.  It helps me to see what others have done in the past or what I’ve done in the past, and how far we’ve all come.   I feel glad knowing that there are people and places that like me value their history.  Here I’ve seen I’m not the only one who feels tied to the past, sees it as a part of who they are, and actively uses and learns from it as they move into the future.

It’s hard to believe that we only have three days left in Antigua! There’s been so much stuffed into these past two and a half weeks. My first weekend I went from hiking a volcano, all the way to a volcanic sand beach.

Then when we came home, Fuego had dusted Antigua with a thick coating of ash. Basically the theme for my first weekend here was VOLCANOES, VOLCANOES, VOLCANOES. The next week I got to see my first Maya site and was able to observe ancient and contemporary Maya culture come together with Maya people performing a ceremony at the site. Our second weekend here was probably my favorite, as we traveled to lake Atitlan. I was able to collect a lot of research for my project while getting to observe the creation of craft goods. I had a great time learning about the process of Maya weaving and ceramics. While this weekend was fun, it also made me confront the extreme poverty of Guatemala, as many children were selling things on the street. Another low point of this trip was getting sick and having to miss out on the jade workshop, When I was sick I felt pretty homesick, but thank goodness for FaceTime! I’m happy to be feeling a lot better now, and I’m looking forward to exploring the lowlands of Guatemala and Belize!