Local – Not Local

The Petén is the type of tourist location where many people want to experience a controlled jungle adventure.  I find that, in general, a majority of persons living in developed countries have an internalized vision of what a developing country looks like and what services are available. 

Doña Bety is the owner of Doña Bety’s Tienda.  Her tienda is three blocks from our rental house and one block from where we will be building our house.  We have known Doña Bety for many years.  In her little tienda I can purchase almost everything that I need to eat, clean, or even a treat.  If she does not have an item in stock, she will get it for you and have it ready the next time you stop by her store.  Shopping local and providing economic opportunity.

Living in the jungle is beautiful.  It does, however, require that you keep everything clean if you don’t want to attract a lot of insects such as ants, scorpions, and mosquitoes.  I have found that having someone come in and clean our little rental house a minimum of twice a week keeps the house clean, and provides an economic opportunity for someone in the village to earn some hard currency.  Cleaning in the tropics is much more time consuming than cleaning my Pacific Northwest home.  I appreciate the gift of a clean home that Saira provides.

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I have watch the main street through the village over the years increase the number of businesses and I have watched the local children grow up to young adults.

I have watched tourist arrive.

First Harvest – Local

I have been returning to El Remate almost every year since 1998.  I have watched the village grow, people come and go, and tourists.  The village is reliant on tourism for hard currency and job opportunities.  In 2009 I attended the American Anthropology Associations annual conference in Philadelphia.  One anthropologist presented a paper titled: “Without tourists this village does not eat.”  His premise that an over reliance on wage labor had eroded knowledge of traditional food gardens and farming resonated with me.  Harmony Station has as part of its mission to be relearning and passing on traditional knowledge of jungle gardening and rain forest conservation.

On Sunday we began our day, a community universal day of rest, enjoying our surroundings.  We were due out to Harmony Station for lunch to enjoy Harmony Station's first harvest of organically grown maize and an afternoon of rest.  We enjoyed a leisurely walk over to Laguna Sal Petén and Harmony Station. 

We were greeted by one of the local women in the village who we have known for some time with an embracing hug.  Danny had her arrive that morning to make tortillas and empanadas for our ceremonial first feast. 

In addition, Danny made a vegetarian India/Mayan fusion rice dish that combined highly nutritious native plants (one a relative to nettle) that are high in protein.

A New Screened Room!

When we rented Casa de Carolina last year we kept on thinking over and over again that the covered porch spaces needed to be screened.  The jungle has many insects, among them mosquitoes.  In order to be able to enjoy the covered outdoor spaces – screening seemed like the perfect solution.  We actually ended up asking the new owner if we they would allow us to pay for the improvement.  The owner wisely agreed.  After all as a landlord he is receiving both rent and a paid upgrade.

We arrived in El Remate to a finished screened porch on the second story.  This space is now my office space and where we spend all of our time when we are here.  Cost of materials and labor – about $230USD – no mosquitoes and able to sit outside in the evening --- priceless!

Emersion, Re-acculturating or not, Re-emersion

It has been almost a year since I have posted to this blog.  It is not that I had abandoned writing or thinking about how an interdisciplinary perspective allows one to see the inherent interconnections of our systems (human and nature).  It is the disconnectedness that is created through our social construct of internet-connection, obsession with “the future”, and accumulation of …. Everything and anything.

I traveled a journey from connection with the present, connection in the moment, connection to the systems of our shared DNA all the way back to the beginning of the cosmos.  I traveled from emersion of the self in a shared system back to the world of individualization to an extreme.  I then existed in the world of speed, rush, hurry, and external pressures to press-on even faster. 

Until one day I journeyed back to be re-immersed into a slower connection to the rhythms of nature and the cosmos.  I have returned to El Remate - to the jungle.

Local fisherman in Lago Peten Itza

Harmony Station - Laguna Sal Peten

Meditation in the Now

There are probably 100's of CDs, MP3s, and other megabit sized downloadable tropical jungle sounds for meditation for sale.  I personally, at this particular space and moment in time, have no such need to download tropical rain forest sounds.

Being in a quiet space that is not over-run by massive human noise intrusion (traffic, car stereos, jets, vacuum cleaners, etc.) is the perfect place to meditate.  The absolute beauty of meditating in a subtropical rain forest is that there is no need to visualize being in the space.  Meditation then takes on a new form.  It is not sitting softly, with your body relaxed, and the eyes closed.  This is the meditation of "Now."  Being absolutely present in the moment, to allow the moment to wash over oneself.  The natural sounds of breeze through the trees, the calls of different birds, the flashes of butterfly wings --  watching the sun play with the light and shadow of foliage.

Mindfulness soon sets in with this meditation.  One NOW moment leads to the next as a Blue Mot-Mot moves through the garden from tree to tree.  The NOW is the hummingbird darting and drinking nectar as he passes through.

The mind stills it ceaseless quest for a future that has not happened and peace fills the space formerly filled with anxiety.

Simplicity - Consumerism

Two words, two worlds, and two languages are swirling about my existence.  I am physically in one cultural paradigm while simultaneously engage in a completely different world view in the spatial plane of the internet cloud.  I hear the ice cream truck and its owner calling out, “Helados por cinco queztales, por niño’s, por todo de famila….” And at the same instant have the screen blare at me an offer for an iPhone 5. 

Simplicity and sustainable living confront the global marketplace and its race to have consumers increase the profit margins of multi-national corporations annually.  Living in harmony with our eco-systems or living off our eco-systems – these seem to be choices that have potentially gone beyond the tipping point in places. 

Consumerism and consumption of resources drive the social structure and the social construct of the “developed” world; a place sometimes called “The First World.”  As I gaze out from my outdoor covered living space in the middle of a subtropical jungle, where the air is fresh and clean, I wonder if the analogy of “first” and “third” worlds is in error.   I turn my eyes back to the laptop screen and read a headline from NPR.org that says, “Why New York is the Hub of the Trinket Trade,” an article that explains how a wholesale market in the middle of Manhattan thrives on providing cheap plastic trinkets to business owners who purchase them for retail sale in Africa and Latin America.  As I look back out to the jungle in front of me, I wonder, “Where do they think all that plastic will go?  Even here in the jungle plastic does not decompose.” 

Another headline catches my eye,” ‘Million Dollar Blocks’ Map Incarcertation’sCosts,” an article where through mapping software technology researchers have discovered that incarceration rates are high in specific areas of low income, poverty, and areas lacking in opportunity – specific city blocks.   These are areas that depend on public education --- areas where increased money spent on education would seem to be money better spent than on incarceration.

There are no “million dollar blocks” in this village due to incarceration or in the state of Petén.  This village and the parents in the village have found it better to invest in their children’s education.  The thought of what an education can do makes me smile as I think of Tonya and Allen, here in the village, who attend school every day.  Tonya has many awards for being the number one student in her school.  She has told me she wants to be a teacher.  Here is the village life is simpler, families talk to each other, eat together, work together, and enjoy life together.  As Sonya, Tonya’s mother told me, “It is a good life, it is enough.

Cooking Fresh and Local

At sixteen degrees north of the equator you have a large variety of local fruits and vegetables available to eat.  The local Mercado Central has papaya, onions, tomatoes, chilies, platanos, carrots, cilantro, parsley, and --- more.  Bananas and avocados are two items in the United States that are both tropical in their growing habitats. Avocados are able to be grown up into the southern part of California because they require the warm heat and very little frost danger.  Because these two items are shipped, the varieties that United States consumers generally have available are only those bananas and avocados that will ship well and can be picked green so that they ripen after they've arrived on the supermarket shelf.

In the current season, here in El Remate, there is available a delicious, meaty, deep rich flavored avocado that grows in "jungle" conditions.  It is ripe and ready to eat when it falls off the tree and hits the ground.  They are the size of a large softball.  The skin is both durable and delicate.  The pit is large, but there is more than enough in one avocado for two people.  Because the skin is thin, you scoop out the meat of the avocado onto a plate, sprinkle with a little salt, squeeze of fresh lime juice and serve.  Of course, if you add in some fresh tomatoes and a fresh tortilla -- well, you have now gone to another level of incredible taste.  The cost for these avocados is -- nothing -- they are supplied daily by Danny Diaz who has an abundance at his Harmony Station project.  The same is true for the lemons that are currently in season.

Bananas are one of those foods that I don't eat very much of in the United States.  They don't have very much flavor.  In the Mercado Central on Thursday, Danny, Terry, and I purchased a banana bunch of small bananas for 30Q -- or a little less than $4USD for 10 pounds of bananas.  They are on the stem and will ripen in an order so that we'll have enough for two people ripening every day for a week.  These bananas are also not shipped because they have a delicate skin.  They are creamy to eat with a dense banana flavor -- perfect with yogurt (made fresh by my friend Anne -- so local) and granola.

Platanos are a cooking banana (5Q for 3 platanos -- about $.80USD).  There are different dishes to make depending on if the plantanos is green, partially ripe (yellow and black), or completely ripe (all black). With a yellow and black plantano, one of the simplest ways to cook them is to peel it, cut the platano in half and then slice through the middle so that you have four lengths of plantano.  In a saute pan heat up on a low heat one teaspoon of butter, place the plantano in the pan and let is simmer slowly to cook until it is all a nice golden brown and serve.  If you want a fancy dessert you can add a little rum while you are cooking the platanos and let it all simmer, then top with some shavings of white chocolate (also a local product purchased in the market).

Chayote is a pear like squash that can be purchased in the United States in areas with hispanic populations.  Here it is a local fresh food and they call is Jiskel instead of Chayote. Sauteing this squash is fabulous and is a great dinner.  A little oil and butter, garlic, and onion in pan until starting to caramelize, then add the chayote sliced in 1/4 inch slices, and let simmer covered until browned -- adding in a little cumin and pepper.  Just before serving top with a little dried tarragon. 

A complete dinner for two persons includes:  rice made with capers and olives, one jiskel sauteed as the main course with platanos made with rum and topped with white chocolate for dessert.  Meal pairs well with a light red wine or a chilled white wine.