Even though this was my fifth year leading a small group to Sumpango to experience the story behind the Giant Kites, the wonder, devotion and larger than life creations are always fresh.    Every year the kites are different.  Some of them are Gigantic, as high as a six story building.  Others of them are simply Giant, from 4 to 6 meters  -- taller than a person and requiring a team to fly them.  Regardless of size each and every one of them is made from Chinese tissue paper and glue, an effort directly involving over 700 members of this Kachiquel Maya town, who work every night for months to make kites for this day, the Day of the Dead. Every kite has a theme of life, death and transformation. 

 Each pueblo around lago Atitlan is different, with distinct municipalidads and community traditions.  San Juan la Laguna is one of the most organized of the pueblos, with women's weaving collectives and coffee and construction collectives. They are also pioneering in the renaissance of using natural dye in Maya weaving.  The walls of their town and boast an extensive collection of murals, most featuring Maya images and traditions.  Despite it's relatively small population--  around 5000 mostly Tzutujil Maya people, the scope and creativity of San Juan's alfombras. were spectacular.

          The pre-hispanic Mayans made carpets of flowers and pine needles for their sacred processions.  In the 1500s, the Spanish Catholic church, in addition to vigorously converting the Maya, introduced the Spanish use of colored sawdust for creating street carpets especially for holy week, over which the statues of Jesus, Mary and the town’s saint would be paraded.

            These elaborate temporary carpets or alfombras, continuously line the route that the procession will take.  In Guatemala these are called  Aserrin de Alfombra, or “carpet of sawdust” or simply alfombras, to include the traditional alfombra which uses seeds, plants, and carefully separated parts from trees and flowers to create designs.  These are constructed on Thursday or Friday of holy week and will pave the way for the processions.  Though the lifespan of an alfombra is a matter of hours, they are the culmination of weeks and even months of creating new designs, carving stencils from cardboard, hand-dying sawdust to achieve the colors, collecting natural materials for alfombras and hours of communal labor before the procession. Each group pays for its own supplies and most begin collecting quetzals in February to cover the cost.  The collaborators are family, neighbors, friends, or organizations, together focused on creating a work of art worthy of the divine. 

I just wanted to share my article on Uaxactún, one of the most interesting and relatively undiscovered historical and archeological sites in Petén, Guatemala.

Follow this link to read it with my photos at Que Pasa magazine http://www.quepasa.gt/born-in-heaven-uaxactun/_ or read it right here. 

Over a year ago now, December 2012, marked  the change of the Maya epoch.  I attended Maya ceremonies  and celebrated the new era by visiting my good friends at Hostel Akumal in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.  I was fortunate to witness the 10,000 Maya Zapatistas who marched into San Cristobal and stood in affirmation of a new age of indigenous visibility, participation and acknowledgement on Dec. 21, 2012.  And at hostel Akumal, I experienced the most beautiful guitar music I had ever heard, gracias a Ivan Renedez and John Masters.  I felt as if the angels themselves were singing in a new era and to celebrate gastronomically we created an international Christmas feast. 

This year, 2013, I traveled to Belize and Nicaragua but spent most of my time in Guatemala. Although there are wonderful aspects to both of these countries, I missed Guatemala when I was away and was happy to return.  It has been a year of deepening and expanding my connections with friends and feeling daily gratitude for the beauty of Lake Atitlan and for the Maya culture that surrounds me.   Every day I am so happy that I am here, in San Pedro, and that here I feel at home.  And so it was right that this year I stayed closer to home and celebrated the holidays of December with the families and communities who most deeply touch my life here in Guatemala.  

 December began with the 4th birthday of my friend, Jacqueline, who is the daughter of my dear friend, kitemaker Julio Asturias. Over the years I have had many meals at Julio's house in Sumpango and been honored to know the other members of his extended family who  live together with Julio's family in a traditional Guatemalan family compound. Still I hadn't met many of Wilma's family as they do not live in Sumpango.    "We would like you to come," Julio had written.  "Our whole family will be there."  "How many people is that?" inquired.   "Oh about 50," he said.  I tried to imagine that many people in their courtyard as they also have 5 duchsands, 2 large dogs and a variable number of rabbits.

When I got to Julio's house after  a scenic and comfortably seated 3 hours on the chicken bus, several family members were steadily  blowing up balloons.  Eventually there were over a hundred balloons surrounding us and which afterwards would provide the main toy for the kids.  Periodically a balloon would pop, but in  this land of intermittent firecrackers and bombas, the sudden explosions startled no one.  Personally I was delighted this birthday was being celebrated with popping balloons and not with the traditional exploding gun powder.