Hand-Painted Signs in Solala Have Soul-la-la

My favorite:

An Absence of Disruption

Today I went to Juanita and Candace’s home in Santiago to learn embroidery. It was a perfectly lovely experience, marked by very little “noise.”

We don’t speak the same language [Candace knows some Spanish, but for the most part they both speak the local dialect], so we were sitting there in silence as I worked, and they watched me, and instructed me with their fingers. There was no music playing. There was nothing on the gray walls, except a hand-made sign that said “Happy Birthday Dad” in Spanish. There was no television. No pets. The only bit of print media in the room was the magazines that I brought for Candace. Even when their brother Santiago quietly came into the room, he stayed awhile, watching me tentatively as I worked.

The absence of disruption exposed quickly the sheer difficulty of what I was doing, and the discomfort and confusion I was feeling about learning something new from people that I couldn’t speak to. It also allowed me to fully be present and appreciate that after 6 hours I not only had a little birdie sitting in my lap, but I had also developed a special bond with these women without sharing words.

And in such synchronicity, I happened to read this right after my experience:
“Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it’s so touching when you get to see something real and human.” P 215, Traveling Mercies, Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott

Bearing Witness to a Dying Tradition

San Marcos at Lake Atitlan used to be covered in maguey plants, and harvested to turn into a fiber, and then sold as twine or made into bags. But since coffee plants took over [more profitable], finding a maguey plant in San Marcos is a rarity.

Meet José and his dad Lucas. Making the maguey into a fiber, and then bags has been tradition in their family for decades. But since the coffee plants took over, and the invention of plastic [used for twine], there is no demand for the fiber due to its laborious [note:expensive] process. José's only incentive for continuing this craft is to keep the tradition alive.

Our class had the special opportunity of bearing witness to this process. It is likely that José and Lucas' family are the only people that are still doing this in the world.

Cut the leaf from the plant

Hit the leaf. Be careful, the juice stings!

Let leaves sit in the lake for 5 days

Scrape to reveal fiber



Hand-spin


Crochet

The total process to make a bag takes about 25 days [!!].