Seeds for a Home

Ride by ride by ride I made my way to Belize and back in less than a week, getting bit by a thousand mosquitoes and getting just a very small peak of that small English-speaking nation that borders Mexico. I really would need to spend a lot more time to formulate a real opinion about it, and right now I'm more interested on writing about something else, but I did meet a wonderful Russian family there with big hearts and strong determination who shared their wonderful home and farm with me.

When I came back to Guatemala I got my last ride of the day in Melchor Mencos by a truck driver and his whole family and I got to ride in the back with all the children and the candy, with the lateral door opened wide away and our legs hanging by the road! Another beautiful Central American sunset and... Arrived once again to San Benito.

Somehow the firemen there convinced me of going to Tikal. I try to avoid touristy places, but Tikal was quite worth it for many different reasons. The animals walk around the paths with the visitors and for me, the biggest joy was to find thousands or Ojoche trees, also known as Ramon, the seed I got a chance to try in Ometepe with the Lnuks, and which was believed to be the base of the Mayan diet. 

I spent a fair amount of time walking around the ruins collecting some seeds to cook them later and I also found a couple that were sprouting. 

It was a really beautiful day that reminded me to take my time to enjoy the things around me instead of just rushing clumsily to the next unknown destination. The Peten lake's sunset was my view in my pick-up ride back to the San Benito Fire Station, and I had time to reflect about the last few months and really, the last year, since I started hitchhiking and discovering the many different layers that the word freedom has in my life.

The next morning I left San Benito pretty early and hitchhiked down La Libertad road towards Cobán, to try to find the Rainbow Gathering I had been hearing so much about since I started traveling in the USA at the beginning of the year.

An ex-truck driver took me to the spot I had written down in my notebook for the gathering directions and there I was... next to a beautiful blue river, surrounded by nature and with no sound except the birds and the wind.

I wasn't sure I was in the right spot because right above the rainbow drawing at the entrance of the road there was a big sign that said "Private property, don't go in," but I went ahead down the path hoping not to get shot.

I was very relived when I saw the first tents and then, under a big blue tarp, a bunch of people who greeted me yelling "Welcome Home!"

Some of them went ahead and hugged me and I was pretty happy to see Jordan, who I had met before in Vipassana.

I had no idea how true those first words I heard were... I was, for real, just arriving home...

Meditating, singing, cooking, playing, swimming, face painting, teaching, working, and of course, being in nature are just some of the few things I have gotten to do so far in this seed camp.
I realized after a few days of truly loving these wonderful strangers that I finally felt home for the first time in a very long, long time.
This gorgeous place mixes the incredible wealth of the Guatemalan landscapes and cultures with the border-free, label-free effort of the people that come together for this encounter of love and sharing.
We are building a temporary village over here! And it's hard work! Pulling corn from the fields and cutting wood and making trails and constructing stuff! And all this just with the purpose of making that home that we had been dreaming of coming back to... Travelers, creators, farmers, spiritual seekers of all forms, from all places, coming in buses or boats or planes or by foot, all coming together for this... the new beginning that we are hoping for humanity.

Our neighbors from the Quechi communities came to visit a couple of times so far and I found it very inspiring to share with this people who come from such a different culture and traditions our love for nature and earth, these parents that sustain us with love and patience. Gabriel, the guardian from the land, was very pleased to get some of the Ojoche seeds and was excited to plant them and see of the majestic Ramon trees would grow in that colder land.

I was planning on leaving next week to go back to Mexico, but now that I found home, I don't think I will be leaving any time soon. I'm exactly where I need to be right now.

The Revolution will be Feminist or it won't be

An exhausing early morning, riding through foggy mountains covered on corn, welcomes me back to Guatemala.

I have spent the last few weeks exploring Nicaragua and Honduras and it was finally yesterday that I crossed back to to guatemalan land, which for some reason makes me feel more at home.

Life moves way faster than my fingers can type, and once again there are a lot of things I would like to tell and remember. Remember and tell...

Like, two nights ago, on the top of the world!

"Duck!" they yelled, "dodge those branches!"
Trees and clouds and fresh air, all available on the roof of that yellow firetruck that we rode like the heroes who just tamed the wildest animal.

I never hopped a train, but I can imagine the feeling being quite similar.

There was a pick-up stopped on the side of the road, and the firetruck driver, without a trace of hesitation, pulled over with a violent movement and the firemen: so fast!
I barely had time to realize what was going on and I already see them all with their bright yellow shirts pushing hard, hard and the lights of that pick-up turned on and ram!!! The motor comes back to life and the driver celebrates with a festive honk that sounds like a chaotic concert of out of tune trumpets!

Kurt Vonnegut always praised the firemen in his books and I understand why. I find it truly inspiring to see people helping each other like that and sharing whatever they have.

Ah! Wa! Agh! Drunk on happiness and strong wind on our faces.
"You learn a lot in the street!" one of them tells me.

And that's the best thing about hitchhiking. That one ends up in a bunch of unexpeced places, meeting people who one would have never met if it wasn't for the addiction and almost devotion to the uncertainty of each one of our steps.

Jack Londn used to say that the hobo's life is always full of surprises, nothing is monotonous about it.

That's what I was thinking about when I got out of Granada a few weeks ago, with just a vague idea of heading North.

Outside of Masaya I got a ride from Carmen, a Nicaraguan writer who had done a Vipassana course a few years ago. I interpreted that encounter as a sign to get re-united with some of the other Vipassana servers, and I headed to Matagalpa.

I spent a night in the Sebaco firestation, where I hear a lot about the history of Nicaragua and its multiple interpretations.

Next morning I arrived to Angels' house, the coordination of the course, who welcomed me with open arms.

So much generosity and affection!

"I just treat people like people treated me when I came to this country."

She came from Spain many years ago and made Central America her home.

On top of being a beautiful city surrounded by mountains, with an almost perfect weather, Matagala is also a very important cultural place, with a very strong and important feminist movement.
It was just for a couple of days that I missed the pro-choice protest in which many women got naked in front of a church procession, asking the priests to "keep their rosaries out of our ovaries." It's been already several years since aborting was banned completly in Nicaragua, even in cases of rape or high risk pregnancies, beacuse of the pressure of the church on a govermen that declares itself "christian and solidary."

But what I luckly didn't miss, thanks to Angels, was a beautiful street theater performance under the September full moon, in which dozens of men and women, all dressed in black, represented the hopeful fight that is lived everyday in Nicaragua for a true freedom, a freedom in which we will stop being each other's jailers. It was very inspiring to get in touch with art again! Specially this kind of collective art, without egos, which felt both handcrafter and full of heart!

Walking through the beautiful Matagalpa streets I found a graffitti slongan repeting itself over and over again on the walls.

"La revolución será feminista, o no será." "Revolution will be Feminist, or it won't be." The importance of the feminist movement has been a constant topic of reflection for me this year. Probably becuase I started hitchhiking alone in February. In the USA many people saw it as a suicidal act, but in Central America many people see it almost as an offense.
"But how are you not married!? Why are you all by yourself? That shouldn't be. What's your mission?"
Mission? What could that possibly mean?
"Of course, a mission. There had to be a purpose for taking such a huge risk. If I were your husband, I wouldn't allow you to go around like that. But don't worry, stay here in Honduras and we will find you a boyfriend, a husband."

In a hostal of Matagalpa I was able to exchange one of my books for a little novel by Vargas Llosa. "Los Cachorros," which would translate as the cubs, or the puppies.

More than a nove, Los Cachorro is a long story about Pichula Cuellar, a young boy who is castrated by a dog, and the effects of that castration in his life as a teenager and a young adult.

I kept thinking about that story while I listened to the men yelling stuff at me in the street, or just the sexists conversations that one has to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner in Central America.
"Nowadays is so difficult to find a good woman who wants to get married and have a family. They all want to just go travel the world with a camera."
The indirect was acually quite directly aimed to me.
"What the world needs is more house wives. Some women don't even want to wash their husband's clothes."

And I find myself diveded between two constant thoughts...
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE FEMINIST, OR IT WON'T BE.
How can we aspire to a wolrd of social justice, if we can't even treat each other as equals at family level?
I'm not saying it's wrong to be a housewife, cook for your children, do laundry. But I just don't believe those things should be impossed. I don't think any roles should be impossed to anyone. That means, in my opinion, once again becoming each other jailers.
Revolution must be a feminist one because it must be humanist. Because it must reclaim the right of all beigns to be whatever we decide to be.

"If we all thought like you, humanity would be extinguished already," a man told me in Nicaragua, offended by my current lack of enthusiasm for family life.

And that leads to my other thought...
After Matagalpa, I headed out to Esteli, to Stephen's farm, the other course coordinatior. I spent some days there, not doing so much. Just peacefully observing nature, handmaking chocolate, laying on a hammock, talking, meditating.

And meditation, trying to observe things without judging them, makes me question everything again. "At the end," Stephen told me, "everything is going exactly who it is supposed to go. It's just from out anthropocentric perspective that we see problems, but everything is part of a cycle: The fight of energy, the hierarchies... you can observe those same patterns amongst animals, bacteries, plants..."

But the fight, at the end, is part of our reality...

I keep on reflecting about that poor Pichua Cuellar and the castrating sexism that crushes our humanity. But I find it a more enthusiastic reflection now, more hopeful.

In Villanueva, Honduras, I met many firewomen. Like the little Jessica, who is 12. Yeah, it is true that firewomen are expected to do more cleaning and cooking in the station, but little by little... Because when the bell rings, they also climbed fast to the firetruck and head with determination towards the fire, the flood, the beehive...