Just a brief update to explain an upcoming absence: I'm heading out tomorrow morning to La Escuela de la Montaña, the rural school run by PLQ. As of a couple weeks ago, they didn't have any spaces at all in July, but when I asked again yesterday (without much hope of things having changed), there was a space! So I am able to head up there to study for a week amid two communities of people who formerly worked as glorified slaves on coffee fincas, as well as among the mountain trees, animals, and coffee. (I am pretty damn excited about the coffee, I must admit.)
The Mountain School has a capacity of 14 students, so it is very laid back and remote. All of the students live on the school grounds in the same building and share a communal kitchen. But for the official meals, we go into the neighboring communities to eat with families. [Many of the families in these communities are poorer than folks in Xela and would have a hard time actually putting up students full-time, but the school wants to include a homestay-type experience, as well as supporting the communities' projects.]
I'm working right now on a loose translation of "Those Three Are on My Mind" for graduation in a couple of weeks. For some reason, the assassination of the three SNCC workers keeps coming to mind as an event from our own history that can touch my memory in at least a similar way that the war here does.
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