Day 2 of the BTS Delegation
Today, we left Guatemala City first thing in the morning and headed for Lake Atitlan.
The drive in our mini bus was fast and furious while taking in 4 hours of breathtaking views and sneak peeks into the life of Guatemalans. We drove by monculture plantations of pineapples, coffee, and sugar cane, and made a pit stop for a refreshing coconut.
We arrived in San Lucas Tolimán for a nice lunch and then settled in at IMAP where we will stay for the next few days.
We were welcomed by Ines Cuj who explained some of the Mayan culture, the Mayan calendar, and the 13 energies. She also talked about the programs they are working on at IMAP, such as teaching people about biodiversity, saving heirloom seeds, food sovereignty programs, and institutional strengthening. She mentioned that some people would rather they not do this kind of work (and they have been the recent victims of hacking) so they’ve taken their Facebook page and website down for now.
We were then given a tour of the property, which is very impressive between the accommodations, the gardens, the amaranth processing, a solar dehydrator and a solar oven, composting toilets, sweat lodge, eco construction and biochar production. Some of their land is also dedicated to the protection of biodiversity by being a bird sanctuary.
Day 3 of the BTS Delegation
On Wednesday morning, we started the day with a fire ceremony with our group, including 2 staff from IMAP, led by a Nana spiritual leader.
We started with an explanation of the nahual of the day, one of the 20 different energies from the Mayan traditional knowledge. We had the opportunity to speak with the 20 energies during that ceremony, thanking them and gifting them candles and other meaningful gifts, such as sugar, cacao, and medicinal herbs.
It was a very powerful ceremony and our ancestors were very happy with our offerings.
In the afternoon, we rode in the back of a pick up truck to get to Gregorio’s food forest. We did get soaked by a shower but it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm as we walked through the amazing diversity of plants.
In his food forest, Gregorio grows food for humans as well as animals, medicinal plants as well as ornamental plants. The goal is to imitate nature: as we are putting more thoughts into the system, we can limit the human intervention and thus not have to work so hard to produce the same amount of food.
On the second piece of property, the food forest was even more diverse, and is also used for workshops, as part of agro tourism where people can camp there, with a magnificent view of Lake Atitlan.
Gregorio also offered us many fruits to try, as well as a perennial squash.
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