Artsy Restaurant San Pedro

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone (This is when I wrote this)! Sorry that I haven't posted in such a long-time. The internet has been really slow and difficult to upload pictures. Things haven't been that interesting, as I mentioned in my last

post the funding got cut for the programs we were doing. So, there was about a month

where I wasn't really working on

anything in particular.

On the Boat to San Pedro

However, at the beginning of the month of September it was another interns b-day and she decided that she wanted to come visit the lake ! So we went to San Pedro la Laguna for one night. 

Night Out for Rachel's B-day, San Pedro

The town is really artsy and charming, there are several nice cafes and restaurants. These are the pictures of some of the places we went. This is the bar we went to at night, where they had an outdoor campfire! We had baileys and coffee around the fire it was perfect.

Dessert, San Pedro

 Indian Restaurant, San Pedro

The lake is rising, everytime I go to the lake its risen a few feet! As you can see alot of businesses that have bought water front property have gone under, literally.

Breakfast, San Pedro

 I am also broke so I haven't been really doing anything very touristy. I have been spending several weekends at Amandas at the permaculture institute, eating a lot, drinking wine, swimming and teaching her 200! These are some more pictures of what her place looks like it so beautiful and peaceful I really enjoy my time there!

Little Scorpion friends that are occasionally found at Amanda's house. 

The elections were on September 11^th and things have been really unstable in our municipality ever since. Unfortunately, the same party was elected in San Lucas with just over 2,000 votes, second and third place were also just over 2,000 votes, which shows that the majority of the people are dissatisfied with the mayor. On the day of the vote, the political party currently in power “UNE” was buying votes outside voting stations.

View from Amanda's Living Room

Also, while the votes were being counted the government arranged a power outage so that votes could be shuffled. Lastly, they announced victory before all the votes were counted and proceeded to burn all the ballots. Needless to say, the whole process was corrupt. 

The kitchen is a separate building from the house as viewed from the window here

Violence erupted that evening and the people all rose in protest in the central park, threatening the life of the mayor and threatening to burn down the municipal building. Certain groups also blocked the highway coming into San Lucas to control who was coming in and out of the town.

Eating Supper when Gwen came to Visit!

They had to call in hundreds of police to maintain stability, which seemed to work ... temporarily. A United Nations representative who was observing the vote process annonced that they would repeat the vote as it was illegitimate 

which calmed the 

people down.

On my way home after getting produce at the local market.

During the elections we were pretty much on house arrest and I had gone to Amandas, and got stuck there because the highway was blocked, it was a really fun weekend and another intern from Rabinal also joined us there. Laura moved out of Quixaya to another town, so now have a room all to myself and its much better!

Me at the Reflection Weekend

A week or two ago, the committee or tribunal in charge of the elections annonced which municipalities would repeat the vote. San Lucas wasn't on list, and violence really erupted. The people all gathered in the centre of the town, lighting gas bombs, they burnt down the houses of people that are known UNE supporters (the political party) 

Getting a braid in my hair, San Lucas

 They also ransacked three local businesses, and there was an attempted assasination of someone affliated with the UNE political party. They were really close to burning down the municipal building in San Lucas too, but someone talked them out of it, as the building belongs to the people not the government. The police and military were called in again. They started to use pepper spray and threaten to use their weapons on the crowd.
                                                                                                                 

Walking through the cornfields during a workshop on seed selecting.

I am currently working on a funding proposal for the women's program so that we can carry-on doing our work. It is challenging in Spanish but I am happy that I am acquiring new skills! Anyway, thats all for now! I will post again for the month of October in a another week or so!