Ch’eken and other turning points of the rainy season’s arrival

The rains have arrived and transformed Rabinal into a misty, lush and green landscape.

By: Romi Fischer-Schmidt, New Hope Foundation cooperant

Late on Monday June 10th, around 10 p.m., I received a call from Luis Tecú, the new agriculture teacher at CECBI, the Fundación Nueva Esperanza’s (FNE) high school. CECBI’s groundskeeper, Tomás, had called Luis with fantastic news: the Ch’eken are making their once-a-year emergence from their nests. Ch’eken is the Achí word for zompopo, or a type of flying ant native to the Rabinal region (scientific name Atta cephalotes). Luis’ voice was ablaze with excitement.

Throughout these four months of cooperant-ting with Nueva Esperanza, I’ve noticed that opportunities for learning, listening, and collaboration often emerge at unexpected times and the option spontaneously presents itself: do I stay, or do I go? I notice a greater fluidity in time itself; the certainty and scheduling that I’m used to in the North is exposed as an illusion of control. This illusion isn’t worshiped here in the same way, it simply cannot be. Time cannot be tamed: instead, it is accepted as beyond control, with power outages and funeral processions, protest blockades and cultural events, river floods and illness, even Ch’eken emergings inserting themselves into life beyond any individual’s will or schedule. We must adapt and be flexible.

Taking a new path, exploring a new direction, Chisaliya, Rabinal.

As a cooperant, and as a newcomer, I try and choose YES, and accept invitations as much as I can. I leave my laptop projects behind and step outside, into the uncontrollable, into adaptability…

In this case, I slipped out of my bed and stepped outside, waiting for Luis to come pick me up, my body buzzing in a swarm of anticipation. Folks had been telling me about Ch’eken for weeks now, everyone speculating about which moment they’d emerge this year. We zoomed through the darkness up the road that heads eastward out of Rabinal town to the aldea (village) of Korelab’aj, to the CECBI school grounds.

Ch’eken are a complex society of ants that can grow into cities with populations in the millions, extending over 200m squared. Ch’eken worker ants harvest leaves from the forests, cutting them up and carrying the leaf shards deep into their cities to feed a subterranean fungal mycelium (Rozites gongylophora) who in turn feeds the Ch’eken. Once a year, after the first rains, the queens grow a pair of single-use wings, and leave their home nests with a mouthful of mycelium, just enough to inoculate a new city. They make the hopeful dawn flight to a new place, taking advantage of the freshly moistened soil to burrow a new home. Within weeks, her first workers are born. The rainy season is here.

In the northern-invader-colonized worldview our science has traditionally categorized Ch’eken as a plague, a pest that can devour crops and forested areas. Organic and chemical pesticides are offered as a solution. But for the Maya Achí of Rabinal, and many Indigenous cultures across Abya Yala (Ch’eken’s range extends from USA to Perú), Ch’eken is food, an exquisite delicacy at that.

Ixoq Chavela slow-toasting ch’eqen to perfection on her wood-fired comal, in Pacux, Rabinal.

Luis and I were greeted by a group of Ch’eken-seekers outside the school entrance, young folks convening with their friends before heading to their ‘spot’ on the mountain. We exchanged excited emotions with them briefly before Tomás arrived at the gates and let Luis and I in.

In the darkness, we walked up the mountain, leaving behind us the place where Monday to Friday, from January to October, students fill the CECBI grounds with study, play, laughter and creativity. Since I joined the learning community here on February 5th, I’ve slowly begun to put the pieces together towards understanding the complexity and multifacetedness of the FNE. Taking direction from Jesus Tecú, founder and president of their board of directors, as well as the acting Director Gloria Gonzalez and (now former) Principal Olga Sical, the month of February yielded a plan for three major projects to work on during my stay with the FNE:

  1. Documentation and systematization of the FNE’s methodology, with a historical view;
  2. Supporting the FNE’s fundraising efforts towards new buildings; and
  3. Designing and conducting a feedback survey for students and teachers.

Students gather for presentations for World Environment Week, created by grade 11 peers.

The documentation and systematization of the FNE’s methodology has been the main crux of my ‘work.’ I’ve worked out a methodology that relies heavily on interviews, mainly with current staff, but also with ex-employees who are still in the community. I’ve also spoken to some of the folks in the BTS Network who are alumni of the Cooperant Program with the FNE. I am collecting bits of archival photographs and documents, so please do get in touch if you’ve got some of those to share. The aim of the project is to tell the story of what makes FNE’s education program unique, and how it got here over the past 21 years since the school first opened in Korelab’aj.

In the darkness of night, Tomas leads Luis and I up the mountain, we leave the Path of Memory onto a windy trail through thick brush, taking care to not whack each other with the many branches that have grown over the unkept mountain path. Warm light appears in the distance, a small fire fills a thicket-bound grove with a soft orange glow in the otherwise pitch darkness. The grove is cut in half by an old boundary wall, one of those stone constructions that no one knows who built it, and that criss-cross this ancient land. The old fence is about a meter tall, and oozing from its crevices are the conical openings of a vast Ch’eken city.

There’s 6 or 7 gates to this ant city, and tonight is the one time a year where the gates are open, brimming with mid-sized workers (who give sharp stings), smaller ants and the occasional winged queen (she’s about 4 cm long) pouring out of the nest. The ground is swarming with stinging ants. Tomas has got rubber boots the ants cannot climb, but Luis and I in last-minute unprepared fashion had to pull plastic garbage bags up to our knees, which, combined with the occasional swat, would keep the stinging ants, angry about our crashing their annual fiesta, at bay.

We pick up the Ch’eken one by one, filling our hands with them before tossing them into the slowly growing pile of queens at the bottom of the Ch’eken jug. I feel discomfort and queasiness picking up the queens, they squirm and I follow suit, clumsily rushing to toss them into the jug. Over time I calm down and improve, slowing to notice the beauty of the queens, their 3-segmented bodies, and I remind myself of the teaching that only the workers sting.

Calming down, noticing improvement, slowing to notice. Reminding myself to learn.

Many of the discomforts of living in Rabinal have become routine now, and I begin to see the lessons and beauty in the scarcity of water, for instance. I notice my dependence on water, how little I need to shower, really, and the much costlier amount needed to wash clothes. I improve at reducing my wasted water. I tend to my water filter daily, and I am grateful whenever there is water in the tap. Here, water is most often referred to as liquido vital, or vital liquid. How apt.

This is a dialogue I wrote at one of my weekly Achi classes, at the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala, together with three girls I was grouped with:

Roc: Utzilaj ke’eek q’iij qachib’il. Sa’i’anoom. / Good afternoon friends, how are you?

M: Lik utz. / Very good.

Rom: Utz awach? / How are you?

S: Kimb’isonik rumal ri y’a katzajik. / I’m sad because water is scarce.

M: Ah, qatzij. / That’s true.

Rom: Jela’. / Me too.

Roc: Chi wochoo’ jin taj chi y’a. / There is no water at my house.

S: Ja chi a wochoo’ ri at k’o y’a? / Is there water at your house?

M: Jun taj chik. / There isn’t any.

Rom: We k’o y’a pa raqana’? / Is there water in the river?

M: Ri raqana’ lik ch’ul. Utz taj re katijik. / The river is very dirty. It’s not good for drinking.

S: Kariqitaj taj chik raqana’ choom. / There aren’t any more beautiful rivers left.

Roc: Sa’ qa nom? / What can we do?

M : Qa’an taj ch’ulaal. / Do not contaminate.

Rom : Ka chajij ri y’a. / Conserve water.

S: Ka chapeej kalaak ri y’a. / Recycle water (Use water twice).

Roc: Tikoj chee’. / Plant trees.

Rom: Ri chee’ kukoj ri y’a re jap re ku q’a’aj ri uleew. / Trees preserve the water that is below the earth.

Everyone: Maltyox chiwe. / Thank you all very much.

Of course at the Achi class that week we made sure to learn the word Ch’eken. Everyone was grateful for the arrival of the rainy season and the many changes it brings.

The Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala holding ceremony at CECBI, June 13.

At CECBI high school, the rainy season also brought significant changes, pointing to important contextual realities of a broken public education system in Guatemala. Two of the eight full time teaching staff have moved to the public sector, and so has our former Principal Olga Sical. This is a staggering shift mid-year, representative of one of the challenges that the FNE faces: keeping staff, when moving to the public system offers a very significant pay raise, pensions, and permanent contracts (note: all FNE staff are on year-to-year contracts, reflecting the annual funding commitments from the charity industrial complex). The new 2024-2028 national government, hailed as a new Guatemalan democratic spring, is cracking down on deep corruption in the public education system, with the previous government being exposed in charging new teachers up to 25,000 Q (~$5000 CAD, or 8 months’ salary at Guatemalan minimum wage) for these coveted contracts. The new Education Ministry had announced early this month that 3,500 new teaching positions were opening up in 8 Guatemalan departments, of which Rabina’s department (Baja Verapaz) was included.

Many more teaching positions are to open nationally when the remaining 14 departments are considered. This explains, in large part, the massive exodus of educators from the private sector this month, which is ultimately a step in the direction of important public sector reform. Educational overhaul is much needed, as only 22% of Guatemala’s enrolled high school students attend public institutions. This broken public education system, stunted by decades of military rule, has resulted in a deep dependence on international charity, the primary source of funding for the remaining 78% of high schools. These funders notoriously restrict salary funding, resulting in most high school teachers being paid minimum wage (or less) in the private sector, of which CECBI is a part.

Coming up to our first corn harvest at CECBI.

The compensation for spending five hours from 11pm to 4am picking giant winged ants, one by one, and filling up a jar with half a pound of them is deep and fulfilling. After a short rest and a sleepy work day, I made my way in the afternoon heat to the village of Pacux, where Luis’ parents Isabela and Jesus (founder of the FNE) live. Isabel (Ixoq Chavela) had also harvested her own half pound of Ch’eken from beneath the street light outside her and Jesus’ home where they congregate, attracted by the brightness. We combined our grub bounty onto the comal (wood fired stove), toss and rinse them, keeping the fire on low for the hour-long toasting of the Ch’eken. The house begins to smell divine, a sultry combination of cumin, popcorn, bacon and pepper.

Tossing ch’eqen on Ixoq Chavela’s comal. We are careful not to burn our hands as we brush back the ants who try and crawl away.

Being in Rabinal and supporting the work of the FNE has been full of challenge, mystery, and the making visible of assumptions, routines, and ways of being from my own culture. I am looking forward to this rainier, muddier second half. We have a new principal, I am starting to teach English classes, and I’ve decided to stay with the FNE until the end of the school cycle in mid-October. I am also joined by Ally, who will be starting as a BTS Intern with the FNE. Amidst all this change is an opportunity for deeper learning and wider relating across differences, cultures, and towards liberation.