LIVINGSTON, Guatemala – Ecotour options abound in this offbeat Caribbean village; there’s Seven Altars, the spectacular series of waterfalls and pools; Playa Blanca, with its pristine white sands; Lake Izabal, the country’s largest, with a host of wildlife-watching, birding and hiking options.
I wanted to do something that would bring me a little closer to the local inhabitants, in particular the Garifuna people. You can see them everywhere, but to have an interaction that goes beyond “hey baby,” a musical performance or a pitch to have your hair plaited in tiny braids, it takes a little effort.
So when an earnest young man with dreadlocks and a rasta hat approached me in the center, handed me a flyer and invited me to come and check out his cultural center, I took him up on it. “We have cooking classes, vegetarian food, and live music every night,” he said. “OK,” I said.
That’s how I met Eduardo “Mega” Estero, a 20-something Rastafarian with a decidedly different approach to environmental education, and Amanda, his lighthearted, dreadlocked wife. Amanda, from Baltimore, met Mega on the beach in Belize and the two of them have been together ever since. In 2008, Mega decided to return to his native Livingston, and the two of them decided to start their own cultural center in the heart of the Garifuna community.
Here they conduct workshops and classes on traditional Garifuna cooking and art, for tourists and locals alike. They also host a range of activities for local children, teaching them about their culture and about the environment. A sketch of the solid waste cycle hangs on the bright-red wall.
“Our people been throwin’ our wrappers on the ground since the beginning of time, and it’s never been a problem – plantain peels and banana leaves and cassava peels. Now all of a sudden things have changed, but the habits have not,” says Mega. “I try to help them see the difference.
“I tell the kids, ‘It’s not trash until you throw it,’” he says. He teaches them to reuse plastic bottles to make seed planters, baskets, maracas and receptacles for other items.
I came for vegetarian lunch – Garifuna food was on the menu, but they were out of ingredients, so I got a huge plate of Garifuna-style sushi – an Amanda fusion creation – with plantains, green bananas, pineapple and carrots in the place of crab and avocado.
I ended up signing up for the Garifuna ecotour, which was a daylong adventure with lively commentaries from Mega and Amanda, all for the rock-bottom price of $12. There was a hike and a swim along the coco-palm-lined beach to the neighboring village of Quehueche. There was a tour of the Garifuna temple with a glimpse into the Garifuna religion, a fascinating blend of African animism with Catholicism.
Then there was a tour of the family farm and a hike through the rainforest, ending up with a back-door entrance to the Seven Altars.
As the grandson of one of the community’s spiritual healers, Mega has grown up learning about the traditions and the various ingredients needed to carry them out. He showed me plants along the way with various healing properties, as well as the ones he uses to make what he calls a “spiritual bath”: an herbal bath which is done for cleansing at the particularly auspicious hour of midnight, when the spirits of the ancestors are available to help with the healing work.
The Garifuna temple was set back from the beach on a hillside. A massive structure with a tall, double-peaked thatch roof, it was unlike any temple I had ever seen. First, there were the hammocks – strung along the front of the building to catch the breeze, and hanging from the rough-hewn rafters inside, as well. When the time comes for a ceremony, people come from all around and the ritual goes on for days, so the hammocks and nearby sleeping facilities provide a place for people to stay, Mega explained.
Greenish light filtered through the fiberglass skylights embedded in the thatch, casting an otherworldly air on the offerings below: Three massive drums, suspended over the floor in the center. On the soft dirt floor, interlaced throughout with the intricate pattern of chicken tracks, was an incense burner, a bowl of dried herbs, a glass of water and coals from a previous fire.
Mega was telling us about the Garifuna belief in ancestor possession, when the elders come back to remind you of important things you may have forgotten.
“It’s like, you’re not even a fisherman and all of a sudden you’re out on the sea in a boat with a hole in it, catching fish like crazy, and you’re not sinking,” he explains. “That’s ancestor possession.”
He laughs when he tells the story of how it happened to him one time. It was the middle of the night, and he was going door-to-door, waking everyone up and urging them to the temple. Later, when he awoke, he had no recollection of the incident – but his neighbors did.
Such occurrences happen for a reason, he believes. “It’s to remind us that we’re connected to them,” he says. “Sometimes they’ll come to us when we’re not living the right way, just to show us that this is what life is about – to remind us, to get the bad energy out.“
But it’s not just about possession, he clarifies – one honors the ancestors by inviting them into one’s life. One does that by living according to tradition – cooking, playing music, planting in the traditional ways.
“When you’re cooking the cassava, you’re reenacting their lives, using the tools they gave us,” he said, referring to the tools he shows us in the kitchen – the giant wooden mortar and pestle, used for mashing plantain; the wooden grater, embedded with sharp stones, used to grate the cassava; the large wooden tray, used to roll out the cassava bread.
“Playing music is a spiritual thing, so you want to get in touch with the ancestors before you do it,” he explained. “Their souls are not separated from this life. I can see that; you can see that in the temple. We don’t just give gratitude to Jesus; we also give gratitude to our ancestors.”
At the back of the temple, in an enclave set off from the rest with a lace curtain, was a room where two candles burned in front of a crucifix with a black Jesus. “We have a lot of respect for Jesus – he was a good example for us.”
We visited with the temple caretakers and got a tour of the cooking hut, with its traditional implements and giant wood cookstove designed to feed hundreds of faithful. We learned about some of the many plants surrounding the temple, grown for their curative properties as well as to feed the faithful. Noni, a fruit now in vogue in health food stores, has been grown and prepared in juices here for generations for its healing properties. There’s basil and sweet potato and jackass bitters, used to prepare Gifiti,– sometimes served as a tea, sometimes as a rum tonic, but always with a potent kick.
The tour wound its way up a lush jungle path through massive palms, hanging vines, birds of paradise and ficus trees to the family farm, 500 acres divided among uncles and cousins. They opened out into a milpa, or a field of corn, furrowing the hillside to our right and the field to our left. This was a cash crop, as the Garifuna don’t traditionally eat corn, Mega explained. Cassava and yams, beans and squash, pineapple and plantain grew here in abundance, and we stopped for awhile at the local “bar” – a cluster of thatch huts where the Maya farmworkers live – to order a glass of fermented corn “wine” and relax in the shade under the drying laundry. The tangy white fluid was definitely alcoholic, but there the wine resemblance ended.
The farm was full of life. A Maya mother and daughter headed across the field with plastic buckets to fetch water, while a boy trudged down the path with a bundle of firewood on his back. A cow grazed on lush grass while a sow nursed her tiny newborn piglets. The path meandered back into the forest and down the creek to Siete Altares, the Seven Altars. We were at the end of the dry season, so the normally spectacular waterfalls were not running. Still, the mossy green platforms leading down into darkly mysterious pools were peaceful and picturesque in a different sort of way.
The trip home was an exhilarating, bone-soaking, white-knuckle boat ride up the coast by one of Mega’s uncles. Dinner was traditional Garifuna Hudut, a mashed plantain dish served with a rich coconut broth, rice and chicken. The night included a cooking demonstration, a little shopping among Garifuna and Maya jewelry and clothing in the gallery, and a three-generation musical performance with traditional drumming and a punta dance performance by little Candy, Mega’s youngest sister.
It was just another day at Rasta Mesa. But for me, it was a 12-hour trip to another planet – a full-fledged Garifuna immersion.
Rasta Mesa is a must-see stop on your Livingston tour. It’s a bit out of the way, but well worth the walk. Ask for directions to the cemetery and walk a few paces more, and you’ll see it on your right. Besides providing a full lineup of economical tours, classes and activities, nutritious traditional meals and live music at night, many take advantage of the volunteer opportunities and stay for awhile. There are rooms for rent, as well.
The couple supports the center and their work with the Garifuna community through sales of their crafts and the fees of volunteers. Learn more at Discover Izabal and at Rasta Mesa’s web page, and contact them through their Facebook page or at rastamesa@gmail.com.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Livingston’s colorful cultural blend, its party atmosphere and surrounding ecotourism activities have combined to make it a natural tourism destination, and I’m surrounded by backpackers from around the world. The town is especially full this week, when Semana Santa brings tourists from all over Guatemala, as well. Overhead, the street is laced with red plastic flags advertising Gallo, the national beer; in the air is the thrum of the Garifuna drums.
