Today Emily had to go to Huehuetenango for a committee meeting, so I had one of my few days alone. As luck would have it, Manuel came by and offered me the chance to go with his family into the hills to gather food and firewood.

We walked for about half an hour in the beuatiful countryside, and eventually came to a pine forest. “There are mushrooms here,” he said, and sure enough, there were. Some types are poisonous and others are tasty. I am going to pass on the wild mushrooms, thank you; though they must know which are which since they are all still alive. We then continued over the mountain to the other side, where his wife has some property. We picked a huge bag of ub’al (beans) and looked for potatoes but didn’t find any. Then, they got downto cutting firewood.

This is all done with machetes, mind you, which they take with them anywhere they go. I got to give it a try. It’s kindof fun, on the small stuff, but it’s really hard to cut up logs 6″ in diamater with a flimsy sword. When the cutting was done, they tied the wood in to ricks and strapped them to their backs with headstraps to take back down the mountain. I explained that I used to help cut wood on my uncle Leon’s farm in Oregon, but instead of machetes and rope, we used chainsaws and a pickup. They thought that idea hilarious. Check out the two pix below; the first is the baby, watching us cut wood. The second is loading up everyone for the hike back. Click to enlarge and check out the little girl doing her part, with a single log on her back. I think she’s 4 years old. Some how I just can’t imagine Brian (Y. or F.), or Mark, or Karl, or any of my other friends with little kids being like, “hey, honey, strap that log on your back, we’re going hiking!”