Dear Maura,
It’s Thanksgiving! I miss being with you but know that you are having fun with Poppy and Uncle Liam. Who is running in the turkey trot this year with your dad and his friends? Is your mom running again? Uncle Liam? Even if Gaia was there with you today she couldn’t run. Her legs are VERY sore especially her calves and knees. She walked up a big mountain a few days ago which is actually a dormant (asleep) volcano called San Pedro. It is really far up (almost 10,000 feet) and at the top the air is cool (I think I even saw my breath at one point!) and once you get to the top the view is spectacular of the lake. It is the farthest I have even been up in the air when not in a plane.
The people who live at the lake are called Mayans. They are born here as have their moms, grandmothers and onward for many generations, thousands actually. They know how to live on the land and make their own food and clothes. They are practical and do not waste anything. Everything that they do they do is with a lot of thought and care even though they are able to move and do things efficiently. For example they make their own traditional clothing that they also design with intricate stitch work that might tell a story in the detail.
Yesterday we went to a coop in San Juan to visit and learn about how their clothing is made —The coop is comprised of twenty family owners. They share an organic cotton farm (organic meaning no chemicals or pesticides). Once they pick the cotton, they take it home and have to clean it by pull out all the seeds—cottonseeds. Once they get the seeds out they save them to be replanted. (this is what I mean about being careful “conscientious. Nothing is wasted.) Once the seeds are out they beat the cotton to make the fibers stick together and to make the cotton more soft. Then the pull out the strings and spin them on a piece of stick, that is then wrapped in a cotton ball. There are three colors/shades to start. White, Kaqui and Ixcaco (which means the color of the Mayan women’s skin). From there they boil the cotton to make different colors of yarn—they might use, mint leaves, coffee beans, cinnamon, rosemary, or walnut indigo to dye the yarn (Hilary who is visiting here from Canada bought a beautiful purple poncho which was dyed from walnut—who would have thought walnut would dye your fabric purple indigo!) They use a banana leaf in the water which helps the dye work faster on the cotton. Then it is ready to be spun around a piece of wood to weave. They have a strap around their back that holds the wood in place so that they can use two hands. In places they tie the yarn so that another color can be interwoven in. It is all pretty amazing! It takes about two weeks of work to make one scarf. I bought one for GG for Christmas!
When we were in San Juan we also went to a healing center. We learned about each herb in their garden, ones that treat tummy ache, cholesterol, acne, sadness and anxiety. All kinds of herbs for all kinds of things! At the center they have midwives—women who help other women have babies—they don’t have a hospital for this. They also do bone setting there. If you break your bone they fix it with a rock that they rub along your arm. Very different than the way we do things in the United States but it works for them!
The lake is beautiful here. It has its own mood. Sometimes it is calm and other times very choppy. This time of year there is a kind of fish that dies because of the change in the water temperature during this two week period of Thanksgiving--literally so. The fish float to the surface of the water and the people who live her scoop them up for their meal. We were taking a boat across the lake yesterday and our driver turned around when he saw one of these fish floating and scooped it up and smiled at us and said DINNER! They don’t eat a lot of meat here because there isn’t a lot of meat around. Even the cat has to fend for his own dinner. They don’t have cat food here so he has to catch every one of his meals just like the people. The chickens are killed, plucked and boiled by hand.
Some people swim in the lake and find that it has a special magical element to it. The towns around the lake are so spiritual practicing Catholism and traditional Mayan religions that the lake picks up on these energies. So when you go in the lake you feel cleansed like a baptism. But like anything in life there is always a good and a bad—the bad is that they don’t have good systems to get ride of waste so some sewage gets into the lake and bacteria counts can be high. Gaia has been swimming in the lake and so far it has made her feel better not worse!
I am looking forward to telling you more about my trip and why I chose to come here in December when I see you at Christmas time. For now though, enjoy your Thanksgiving and say a special hello to your other grandmother. Tell her to be nice to poppy in the kitchen. Hopefully no kitchen wars on who gets to do what!
Love, Gaia
It’s Thanksgiving! I miss being with you but know that you are having fun with Poppy and Uncle Liam. Who is running in the turkey trot this year with your dad and his friends? Is your mom running again? Uncle Liam? Even if Gaia was there with you today she couldn’t run. Her legs are VERY sore especially her calves and knees. She walked up a big mountain a few days ago which is actually a dormant (asleep) volcano called San Pedro. It is really far up (almost 10,000 feet) and at the top the air is cool (I think I even saw my breath at one point!) and once you get to the top the view is spectacular of the lake. It is the farthest I have even been up in the air when not in a plane.
The people who live at the lake are called Mayans. They are born here as have their moms, grandmothers and onward for many generations, thousands actually. They know how to live on the land and make their own food and clothes. They are practical and do not waste anything. Everything that they do they do is with a lot of thought and care even though they are able to move and do things efficiently. For example they make their own traditional clothing that they also design with intricate stitch work that might tell a story in the detail.
Yesterday we went to a coop in San Juan to visit and learn about how their clothing is made —The coop is comprised of twenty family owners. They share an organic cotton farm (organic meaning no chemicals or pesticides). Once they pick the cotton, they take it home and have to clean it by pull out all the seeds—cottonseeds. Once they get the seeds out they save them to be replanted. (this is what I mean about being careful “conscientious. Nothing is wasted.) Once the seeds are out they beat the cotton to make the fibers stick together and to make the cotton more soft. Then the pull out the strings and spin them on a piece of stick, that is then wrapped in a cotton ball. There are three colors/shades to start. White, Kaqui and Ixcaco (which means the color of the Mayan women’s skin). From there they boil the cotton to make different colors of yarn—they might use, mint leaves, coffee beans, cinnamon, rosemary, or walnut indigo to dye the yarn (Hilary who is visiting here from Canada bought a beautiful purple poncho which was dyed from walnut—who would have thought walnut would dye your fabric purple indigo!) They use a banana leaf in the water which helps the dye work faster on the cotton. Then it is ready to be spun around a piece of wood to weave. They have a strap around their back that holds the wood in place so that they can use two hands. In places they tie the yarn so that another color can be interwoven in. It is all pretty amazing! It takes about two weeks of work to make one scarf. I bought one for GG for Christmas!
When we were in San Juan we also went to a healing center. We learned about each herb in their garden, ones that treat tummy ache, cholesterol, acne, sadness and anxiety. All kinds of herbs for all kinds of things! At the center they have midwives—women who help other women have babies—they don’t have a hospital for this. They also do bone setting there. If you break your bone they fix it with a rock that they rub along your arm. Very different than the way we do things in the United States but it works for them!
The lake is beautiful here. It has its own mood. Sometimes it is calm and other times very choppy. This time of year there is a kind of fish that dies because of the change in the water temperature during this two week period of Thanksgiving--literally so. The fish float to the surface of the water and the people who live her scoop them up for their meal. We were taking a boat across the lake yesterday and our driver turned around when he saw one of these fish floating and scooped it up and smiled at us and said DINNER! They don’t eat a lot of meat here because there isn’t a lot of meat around. Even the cat has to fend for his own dinner. They don’t have cat food here so he has to catch every one of his meals just like the people. The chickens are killed, plucked and boiled by hand.
Some people swim in the lake and find that it has a special magical element to it. The towns around the lake are so spiritual practicing Catholism and traditional Mayan religions that the lake picks up on these energies. So when you go in the lake you feel cleansed like a baptism. But like anything in life there is always a good and a bad—the bad is that they don’t have good systems to get ride of waste so some sewage gets into the lake and bacteria counts can be high. Gaia has been swimming in the lake and so far it has made her feel better not worse!
I am looking forward to telling you more about my trip and why I chose to come here in December when I see you at Christmas time. For now though, enjoy your Thanksgiving and say a special hello to your other grandmother. Tell her to be nice to poppy in the kitchen. Hopefully no kitchen wars on who gets to do what!
Love, Gaia
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