True Color

I was surrounded and overwhelmed by the colors of Guatemala. Our mosaic project, of course, consisted of color. Every day I reveled in the panoply of colors around us, boxes full of tiles, all purchased in Guatemala City at the beginning of the project, plus some that remained from the previous year. They sat on the ground around us, sorted basically by color, many versions of blues, greens, oranges, browns, etc. Some were flat, others had some texture or mottled appearance.

We worked under our blue tarp, several hours each morning and again in the afternoon, each of us using our nippers to cut the tiles to match the images designed by Deb and by Cindy. The more skilled of us worked at the more detailed part of the panels. The murals themselves were bright and extremely colorful.

The point of the project is to beautify the town and make it known as a mosaic destination, in order to attract more tourism. There were a few groups there while we were, but very few tourists. One group whose stay overlapped with ours was from Habitat for Humanity in Washingon State.   Other towns around the lake are more well known and much more touristed. Frankly, the lack of tourists was part of the appeal of the place to me. But of course, from the local point of view, more tourists means a better economy.

The town is also brightened by a series of spray painted murals done by a local collective of young men. They are also quite colorful, and very different from our work. Oliver is the mural designer, and directs the making of the murals. Unlike our mosaic workshop leaders, who carefully design everything in advance, he designs as he works. This one represents a famous marimba player from St. Lucas.  Oliver also told us that every marimba has its own name, the way we name boats in the United States and other places, Guatemala included. But not every car or plane. I wonder how that evolved, and what other things people name in other places.

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But the most dominant sense of color in their environment is seen in the beautiful textiles in the markets, the weaving cooperatives,  and sold by a multitude of street vendors. And especially so in the garments that nearly all the women, and a few of the men, wear.  Each town has its own patterns and colors of weaving, that identify them as belonging to a certain location.  This is also true in Peru, in the clothing and hats that people wear. But there it is only the indigenous people in the more remote locations that dress in the traditional garments.  In Guatemala, it is the majority of the women, in the towns as well as in the countryside. So there is color everywhere. And that is my predominant vision and memory of the country.

This, I am guessing, is a girl and her grandmother, in the three times weekly St. Lucas market. I think the granddaughter was reading to the grandmother. But it is the colors that caught my attention. This may be my favorite photo from the trip. But there are a couple more contenders.


Interestingly, we were told that the traditional clothing of San Lucas Toliman, where we were living, was a red and white striped garment. But the women did not wear that, rather, they wore a variety of multicolored clothing. It seemed as though they had "modernized" by wearing colors other than the traditional ones.

At the weaving collective that I visited twice, once with each group, we had a demonstration/lecture of all the natural dyes that were used to color the cotton they spun and wove. It was fascinating. They used a variety of vegetables, plants, insects (cochineal beetles, which live on prickly pear cacti and have been used by a variety of cultures over the centuries) and dyed them for various periods of time, in different temperatures of water,  to achieve different hues. The woman also indicated, both weeks, that the phase of the moon effected the strength of the color. One more thing to try to research further.

But when someone asked where the glittery thread that was woven into some of the material was obtained, she chuckled and answered that it was from China!

The two ceramic workshops we visited were also full of color, primarily shades of blue and brown, with lots of hummingbird and fish designs. On our very first day, I saw tiny shards of ceramic mixed in with the pieces of tile we were using, and fished them out. Cindy told me they had been bought by someone in last year's group at the ceramic factory. And so when we visited, I bypassed the beautiful whole pottery pieces, as well as the seconds, and went for the "terceras"  - thirds, broken pieces in a cardboard box on the floor under the display shelves. They will sit on my work table until I am inspired to incorporate them into a project.

The colors in the environment were also bright. When I arrived, there was a tree with bright orange flowers in the view of the lake from the restaurant porch, and another one with bright purple flowers.  And those trees continued to blossom over the entire two weeks I was there. They were incorporated into the mosaic design that we worked on, itself based on a photo taken from the porch by Walt Ali, local photographer and guide.  It was Walt who had led many from the first week's group into the forest in search of the elusive quetzal bird, itself very colorful and the symbol of the country.

The plates of food were colorful as well, with  tropical fruits  and juices and the beautiful salads.  Some salads were decorated with edible nasturtium petals. There were many other flowering plants throughout the property, and people working constantly in the gardens.

The vegetable garden, just to the side of our working space, was the domain of head gardener Jose Luis. Some of us went on a tour of the garden with him.  Many of the vegetables and herbs used in the restaurant were grown in the garden. And there were many flowering plants there as well.

Also adjacent to the work space was a bush with stunning large pink flowers. Deb, horticulturist as well as mosaic artist, identified it as Dutchman's Pipe.  A rather prosaic name for such a beautiful plant. It has the look of an orchid or a lady's slipper, but much larger and more impressive.



On our last day, after all of our work was done, some of us worked to inventory all the tiles left over, which will be stored at the hotel for use next year.  Deb and Cindy had purchased more than they realized. There were so many variations of color, including some we hadn't even used. We counted them and had fun giving them descriptive names, as well as photographing them all. One was the lime green similar to the color of my car, as well as to the orange -moringa juice blend we had one morning, and also my favorite coffee cup at the hotel.

And for a less pleasing mention of color, there are the red spots outside the ice cream shop where I fell the first week. I went back the next day to see what mark I had left. But I was disappointed to find out that the red spots on the sidewalk were paint from the wall of the shop, not blood. I guess they had washed the blood away!   Oh well, I left my mark in the  varied blue tiles of the mosaic mural's sky, the white and gray of the clouds, and the brown of a few branches.  And, in the small shards of pottery that we incorporated into the children's clothing in the mural that was installed on the wall of the school.

I did bring back a few souvenirs, of course. A pair of  multicolored shorts for myself.  A couple of beaded lizards with pin backs. I have been wearing  them on my hats, inspired by Antonio, from whom I bought them, who wore one on his Yankee baseball cap as he plied his wares at the entrance to the hotel.

And a huipol, the colorful blouses that the women and some men wear, along with their skirts, belts and aprons.  They don't use anything to attach them. The skirts are simply large rectangles of fabric which they wrap around their bodies.  The blouses are tucked in and the belts wrapped and tucked. The aprons, which are decorative, not utilitarian, are highly embroidered, sometimes with glittery flowered appliques,  and are tied at the back as our cooking aprons are. And a couple of those eyeglass lanyards that have a name I can't think of, brightly colored thin woven items that the children make when they are learning to weave. I bought one and then was given one as a gift.

I've worn the huipol already, plan to hang the belt on the bedroom wall, will wear the shorts when the warm weather comes north.  And I have the photos and the memories of the mosaics, the people, the ones of me being dressed head to toe in traditional clothing at the weaving coop. And the food.

But most of all, the people. I was struck by the friendliness of the people, especially the ones who stopped by while we were working. Some of them just watched, but many took time to say how beautiful the work was, and to thank us.  And virtually all the people we passed on the streets of the town said either Hola or Buenos to us, if we didn't say it first.  They seemed remarkably comfortable and welcoming to the gringos in their midst.

The wait staff, housekeepers and gardeners at the hotel were also friendly and comfortable with us. They didn't seem in the least subservient or shy, much more noticeably outgoing than in other places I have visited.  It might have been partly because we were part of an ongoing group that had spent time there before. But if that was at all a factor I doubt that it was much of one.  They were as eager to practice their English as we were to practice our Spanish. It may be partly due to Chati's values and management style, but I think it is also due to the Guatemalan psyche, something I can't quite put into words, but definitely felt while there.

I hope that the mosaic project will continue, and expect it will, due to Cindy and Deb's commitment and hard work. And I hope that some of the locals will remember us when they look at the art we created, and that it serves to bring a little more economic support to their beautiful town and the lake upon which it sits.

As a small  afterthought, not especially relevant, Suzie, the Guatemalan/American woman who lives part of the year in Massachusetts, told me that Chati, the hotel manager's nickname rather than given name, means woman with a small nose.  I told that to some of our group, but I don't think they believed me, and I am not sure I believed it myself!  Yet I did find, in the Urban Dictionary when I returned home, that it does indeed mean a beautiful woman with a small nose. But it took a lot of googling before I found it.  If there's any lesson there, it may be to stay curious and be open to new knowledge.

And Flash!  I just also googled the decades-old name for those eyeglass chains:  croakies!! I think that's the name of the original company that made them in the 70s.  Does anyone but me remember that?  Or is it just one more piece of not very useful trivia filed away in my head, like the song One Last Kiss from Bye Bye Birdie?  (see the One Last Quiche post if this doesn't make any sense.)

And that's where I will end this saga of my latest journey, before it descends even more into trivial pursuits.

But if you are a facebook person, I am also about to post a photographic album of my travels  there. 

signing off, Joanna

until my next adventure in travel.  hasta luego.