Farewell ...

Thanks for traveling with us on Zeth’s volunteer excursion! These 16th birthday trips started as a way to share our love of exploring with our grandkids, and to show them how different people around the world live. Previous grandkids selected volunteer work in the Andes mountains of Peru, with the Roma people of Romania and in a small rural village in the West African country of Ghana; we’re delighted Zeth chose this charming Central American country.

The first picture below was at the end of our cement floor project, and the rest are just a few of Jim’s lovely photos that provide a glimpse of life in Guatemala’s Lake Peten Itza region.

The heart of the Mayan empire

Towering above the rainforest floor, the spectacular Mayan ruins at Tikal National Park date back to 900 BC -- around the time of the rise of Ancient Greece. Successive periods of building, often one temple on top of another, make this one of the largest archaeological sites in the Americas. There are dozens of excavated plazas, temples and pyramids, and countless others still buried under giant mounds of jungle vegetation.

The Maya were advanced in agriculture, astronomy, calendaring, mathematics and architecture for thousands of years, but gradually their cities were abandoned by around 900 AD. One of the more probable theories? Ironically, in light of today’s global crises, is that the Maya had depleted the environment around them. 

Over the centuries, the Maya used slash-and-burn techniques to clear the rainforest for their cities. They cut down countless additional trees to burn with limestone for the mortar used between blocks. At some point the deforestation became unsustainable for animals and people … a not-so-subtle lesson for today. 

Needless to say, Zeth delighted in scrambling up the steep-sided temples faster than we did. 

But I still have Braggin’ Rights: in the Mayan calendar I was born on a day of the Jaguar, so this amazing structure – the Jaguar Temple – is mine! (Zeth is only a Bat and Jim is a Deer; no cool temples for them ;-) 

There is also great bird watching at Tikal  … 

… as well as the ever-present spider monkeys and large families of the racoon-like coatimundi. Cute, but watch out for those teeth and claws.

Guatemala is rightfully proud of its impressive history, and more than 50% of Guatemala’s population today is of Mayan heritage. This backstrap weaver is carrying on ancient traditions of her people.

Jungle Healer

If our visit with Dona Nico the healer for humans was special, then equally so was our day with Danny Diaz, a healer for the earth with his replanting project on a tract of land adjacent to Lake Sac Peten. 

Danny left Guatemala during the country’s long civil war because, he explained, it was not a good place for an outspoken young man. He moved back in 2004 and purchased 65 acres that had been cut down first for lumber, then later for growing corn and cattle grazing. Since then he has been painstakingly rebuilding the rainforest.

While trekking through the renewing jungle we had all kinds of adventures: seeing snakes and monkeys, searching to scare off poachers when we heard the “whack, whack” of a tree being illegally cut (he says they're never caught, they are like ghosts), and even finding Mayan pottery shards at a likely burial site.

But best, and inspirational, was putting small Spanish Cedar saplings in the ground. If we’re lucky, maybe half will make it.

It was a great day!  Here are some additional nature shots Jim took there and elsewhere ...

Helping the women … hugs from a healer

Back at Projet Ix-canaan's Women’s Center, we spent a morning helping in their “food forest.” 

(Yes, yes, we can hear the laughing. A picture of the Brown Thumb Kleins who loathe yard work actually gardening is pretty hilarious. Fortunately, it was mostly helping hoe and spread manure on raised vegetable garden beds; pretty sure we didn’t destroy anything living in the process.)

There are nearly 30 women from the village who are part of the collective, divided into sub groups, each with their own unique style. They come together to raise chickens, grow food, make meals and for lessons, events and experiences.

Zeth wanted to see inside a coconut, so Jim used a machete and we gave the halves to the really skinny dogs we fed earlier in the week. 

AND … we had an amazing experience with Dona Nico, a local healer/midwife/herbalist. She took us on a long tour through her garden and neighboring fields, explaining (through a translator) the different leaves, roots and stems that could be boiled or baked into various concoctions, rubbed on the skin or chewed. 

Diabetes, cancer, headaches, sore throat, liver ailments, stomach ache, arthritis, pregnancy, kidney disease, wounds … you name it, she has a plant for it. 

She also collected specific branches and rubbed them down our backs, heads, face, chest, arms and legs. 

Dona Nico learned from her mother (who likely learned from her mother, and so on). Now age 68, Dona Nico gave birth to fourteen children, of course all with her own herbal medicines for pregnancy and childbirth. She’s never been to a doctor in her life. Isn’t she gorgeous?! 

She gives these long, lonnnng hugs … you can feel her energy, sort of like a Guatemala’s micro version of the Hugging Saint Amma.

This photo was at the end of our walk with her, Lake Peten Itza in the background. Gratitude for her time, energy, and the healing she has given countless people over the decades.