DAY 24...SAN PEDRO TO SAN CRISTOBAL

DAY 24

5:00 am. The nice little hotel has turned out to be a hot bed (maybe hell hole would describe my mood better?) of loud back packer activity until God only knows how late. So, it’s 5 now and I have just decided what the hell I will get up and just start getting ready without the last minute rush thing.

I am honestly worried about how to end this account of my trip. I guess you just end. That’s simple. But I have never been very good at being simple, so I will need to think about that a little. I hope it hasn’t been a bore to anyone because I have truly, truly enjoyed writing this account over and above loving the experiences that I have had. I guess you don’t have to read it if it’s boring. Anyway, I will have a lot of time to think about this on the 11 or 12 hour trip today back to Mexico and Chiapas. I know they are going to expect me to hoist my bag up to the top of the microbus since that is where everything gets stowed, but there is no way that I am physically capable of lifting this bag above my head.

6:30 pm. Arriving in San Cristóbal. The city seems to be packed. I drag myself over to the inexpensive hotel I stayed at on my trip down. Really tired. They have no room! This hole can’t be booked full! Oh, great, so now I get to hit the streets in the rain and find a hotel. Next one is full. And then I just give up on being economical and walk into a VERY NICE place and they do have a room and they should at these prices and in the door walks the family group that has been following me around trying to find a hotel. Guess they are going to pay lots of money, too. Oh, well, I won’t mind a hot shower, a good bed, internet connections. Will head out to a great Chiapaneco restaurant my brother and sister-in-law and I found last summer. Guess I didn’t end the blog yet. But I will, I promise.

7:40 pm. Sitting at the restaurant, it hits me about one thing I need to do to end this. It’s something like nearing the end of a wonderful evening with friends. The hosts need to be thanked for letting you come. Friends need to be thanked for listening to you and sharing themselves, too. The universe needs to be thanked that all of this and all of us came together at one time our of some random cosmic fuzz.

And so here I am in this beautiful restaurant that is so full of feeling and connection with beautiful things of the soul, hearing guitar music and an old, out of tune marimba. I am so thankful that I get to be here. Only God might know where I could have ended up. But here I am surrounded by a kind of beauty I love. And I am thankful that I got to experience a piece of Guatemala and endlessly thankful that she opened doors to me to see amazing things that I could easily have missed. Thankful to Ramón for organizing a great school in a setting of amazing beauty. Thankful to David for being with me in this adventure. Thankful to Javier for being alive and full of spirit and knowing what I needed without a moment´s hesitation and for loving surrealistic medieval painting and passionate Chilean poets. Thankful to fleeting sun, endless rain, clouds that cascade down, deep blue water, green and blue volcanoes.

Ok.

So, obviously I could just go on and on.

I won’t.

DAY 23...LAST DAY OF INSTRUCTION

DAY 23

1:00 pm. My last day of instruction is over. It’s a tradition that students leaving the school make a speech on the last Friday, so I did mine. I know I missed one subjunctive moment…saw Javier flinch slightly and I know I used one subjunctive where it wasn’t supposed to be, but anyway, got through it and meant what I said.

Have been really concerned about how not to loose whatever I have gained here when I get back to San Miguel, which is a little strange since it is a Spanish speaking country, but we know the problem with foreigners who can’t or won’t speak Spanish and Mexicans who insist on speaking English and then just the fact that for many of us English is our first language and it’s natural to revert to it amongst ourselves. Anyway, am just trying to come to terms with the fact that the situation is not going to change in San Miguel no matter how much I wish it would and that I have to do something different. The good news is that Javier is willing to continue helping me. And that is really wonderful. I gave him today my copy of the Zafón book….Juego de Ángeles, and I will pick up another copy in the airport in Mexico City and we will form a 2 person book club and discuss the book by skype!! And since the guy is writing a spanish textbook for English speakers, I will check his English and then we will trade English and Spanish lessons by skype. This is so good I can hardly believe it.

Now am back at the apartment. This place is deserted which is just fine with me. I need to go pack now and move to the hotel close to the shuttle service. I am hoping that I can pack and get over there before the inevitable rain hits. The idea of dragging my very large suitcase (remember?) along the muddy pathway is not appealing at all. I admit that my room has come to look like a Guatemalan textile shop. Hope I have room for everything.

Whops, there is that cool breeze that precedes the rain.

2:30 pm. Ok. Almost packed, including the Guatemalan textile shop. I know I will be over weight for the flight from Chiapas, but I will worry about that when I get to San Cristóbal de las Casas. And the rain hasn't started yet, but you can bet it will and I want to be safe and sound at Hotel Lola when it does. The Blond Beautifuls are wondering around half naked again. Cute.

3:10 pm. Here I go dragging my huge suitcase along the path, over the 3 drainage ditches, through the little coffee plantings and past the skinny horses munching, eventually reaching the street which leads down to the dock to Santiago. There I wait with a bunch of other people for tuc-tucs. Eventually, one comes and everyone gets into the little thing which is actually already full with just my luggage. And up to the top of the hill to the centro and back down because the streets through to this side of the harbor are too narrow even for the tuc-tucs. These nice people at the little hotel that is costing me $12 usa have everything waiting and take me to the room. Everything is very simple and very clean and the place is right on the water. One more task and I am in permanent departure mode, so I take the keys to the apartment back to the school and head back to the hotel along the back paths and decide today, if there every was day, is the day for a swim. I find an absolutely wonderful place and get in, paddling around like a very white fish or maybe frog. When it begins to look like rain, I think that I had better get back to the hotel or it will rain and I will be sitting in wet clothes for at least a day because things dry very slowly.

For those who are interested: there are apparently no mosquitoes here. At least I haven’t met any. Strange, eh? All this water, etc, but, no …there are virtually no screens and everything is open. I did hear one girl complain about mosquitoes, but I can only wonder where she was hanging out.

I jump into my clothes, balancing precariously on rocks jutting out over the water trying not to get anything wet and then take off straight up the hill, climbing across weed covered boulders, leaping like some kind of a goat and eventually, despite misgivings, reach the top. I wanted to do this because I had found this place before on an excursion and I thought it felt like a sacred place. It’s on a point of land jutting into the lake, the highest place around, stunning views of the volcanoes and huge trees with bark like European beeches, but strange pre-historic leaves.

It’s a little like a druid clearing. I know, I know: wrong continent. But it feels like that and, what’s more, there are fire pits up here with half-burnt flowers circling the space. It just feels like something is going on here and even if it nothing, it is still magically quiet and, well, magic.

And back at the hotel I manage to find an outlet that has 3 prongs so that I can write this. I am sitting in the little portales of the hotel just outside my window with the cord to the 3-pronged outlet trailing out the window, just reaching me and my plastic chair. A light breeze blows from the lake in front of me, one of the last boats arrives to San Pedro for the evening and from the top of the mountains just on the other side cottony clouds begin cascading towards the lake. Somewhere there is deep thunder. The evening rain is on its way. And it is massively cozy sitting here with almost chilly temperatures and the grey evening closing in around us.

I think the rest of this little hotel is filled with Israelis and, strangely, Hebrew sounds a little like the Mayan. I know those children of Israel wandered around, but….do you think?

Before I go looking for dinner, I am having a definite urge to brag. My last assignment for Javier was to write a letter to an unborn child whom you will never see because you are leaving on a trip and will never return. Sort of scary, isn’t it. It was actually really sad to write it. But it’s a great chance to use every verb tense conceivable. And so here it is and here I am, venturing into really new areas of Spanish (for me):

Querido niño:

No sé siquiera si debo saludarte como querido niño o querida niña, ni conozco tu nombre. Pero sé que tú en esos días estás en espera de entrar el mundo y al mismo tiempo yo tengo que salir para siempre del mundo que tu conocerás. Que irónico y que doloroso, este destino.

En los años que entran tu habrás oído las historias de como salió tu padre a un viaje y como nunca regresó. Y yo sé que nunca te veré y que tú nunca me verás y por eso tengo ganas de decirte muchas cosas por medio de esta carta que una dama desconocida te habrá entregado. Entiendo que tú puedas creer que yo no tenga el derecho de decirte nada porque no he sido parte de tu vida. Y podré entender y aceptar que te sientas así. Sin embargo hay unas cosas que te quisiera haber dicho. Si tú quisieras conocerme mejor, podrías leer más.

Antes que nada, esperaría que hubieras encontrado felicidad aunque tu padre te dejó una herencia de incertidumbre y tristeza. Querría que tuvieras coraje y que siguieras, en todo lo que hicieras, los deseos profundos de tu corazón. Esperaría que encontraras un mundo lleno de oportunidades en que pudieras vivir y en que realizaras cada uno de tus sueños. Esperaría también que te viera un día aunque no habláramos, aunque solamente nos pasáramos en una calle desconocida.

Desearía que el vacío, que te dejé, pudiera ser rellenado de amigos quienes te quisieran mucho, quienes te animaran cuando sintieras no poder continuar, que encontraras un gran amor quien pudiera ser tu gran compañero en todo lo que la vida te llevara.

Bueno, quisiera que supieras que en alguna manera estaré siempre contigo, siempre llorando nuestra separación y odiando al mundo que te me robó cuando cerré la puerta antes de ese amanecer que no podré olvidar.

Con cariño desde demasiada distancia,

Tu padre, Joseph

The microbus leaves tomorrow morning at 6:30. I really hope this velador wakes me up. Starving.

DAY 22...BULLIES AND FLOATING ROCKS

DAY 22

This is my next to last night here. Am I sad about leaving? Yes. Clearly. I feel so good here and I remain stunned by the beauty of the place. I must honestly say that my head is full to the point of not being able to absorb anything new. Maybe it’s worse. Yesterday, I was in a conversation group and was asked about the verb ‘conducir’ in the imperfect and simply and totally blanked. Just blanked. Couldn’t think of it. Couldn’t think at all. Just sat there looking at the maestro with a small group of people looking at me strangely. And all I could do was go: uh, uh, uh. And then finally give up.

And then after the conversation class as it got dark outside and began to pour rain, we heard from a guy by the name of Filipe who was actually kidnapped by the military in the civil war and tortured. Filipe told how when he was 16 (this would have been in the 1980’s) San Pedro was stormed one night by the military. They broke into his house. There were no lights, but the military had lights like mining lights mounted on their heads. They shot into the dark hallway of the house and hit Filipe in the arm and thigh. When they realized he wasn’t dead, they dragged him down the hill to the boat dock to Santiago, just a few steps from where I live, and took him to a destination across the lake with 4 other young guys. Two of the boys were ‘released’ and then shot as they walked away. The others including Filipe were tortured. I don’t feel like going into details tonight. But it was scary and brutal even to hear. When Filipe finally was let go he walked through the mountains back to Santiago and saw people on the dock that he knew from San Pedro. They wouldn’t speak to him or even look at him. They were sure they were seeing his spirit.

And Filipe tells it with an amazing objectivity. He even refers to himself in the 3^rd person, as Filipe. ‘Then Filipe didn’t know what to do. His arm and leg were bleeding and he couldn’t walk.’…or…’Filipe could translate from Mayan into Spanish for the others who couldn’t speak Spanish and were being punished because the military thought they were refusing to speak and only acting as if they didn’t understand questions.’

Today was a bright, sunny day and after finishing my assignment for Javier this afternoon, I walked all along the lake. Sort of saying good-bye and wanting to savor the sights and feel the place again. Tomorrow will be pretty busy getting ready to depart. I have decided that after I pack tomorrow afternoon, I will move to a little hotel ($12 usa) for the night so that when I have to be to the microbus by 6:30 in the morning I won’t have the fun of dragging my backs along this always slightly muddy path. It’s best.

I will never forget the play of light this afternoon as I walked along the lake. In one minute, looking back at the volcano San Pedro, it is dark like black-green velvet against the sky and the next minute the smallest crevices are lit in details. The lake this afternoon looked bluer than I have every seen it. Glistening blue and always changing. There are places along the lake you can’t walk now because the water is so high. I would say that in flat places along the shoreline maybe as much as 75 feet of shore is now flooded. Fields of corn are under water, citrus trees obviously standing in water. I stick to the bolder fields that edge the lake and imagine how the volcano must have tossed these house size boulders here. There in the late afternoon light, standing on boulders dipping half way into the water, are the bathers, skin golden in the slanting golden sunlight. I admit it: I stare. And then I return along the Bali-like back paths to the school for conversation group. It’s the last one for me.

When I reach the narrow street I see 3 young girls, as in 10 years old. Two of them have on the traditional dress and one of them is dressed in shiny sweat suit pants and a tee shirt. I think they are playing, teasing each other but when I get closer I see that two are really harassing the other one. And then I see that the girl being harassed is exactly the size and my grand-daughter Fidelina and the fatherly, grandfatherly, protector of the world side of me goes into action. I go up to the girls and stop them. I tell the two harassers to go home and leave the other one alone. She has her face turned towards the wall of a house and is crying. And then I notice that the two toughies have their hands full of money, coins and bills and I find out that they have taken it from the girl who is crying. I am sure it was grocery money that the girl’s mother had given her to buy something for supper. Well, we just can’t have this! No, I am not wearing a cape and don’t look anything like superman! But that doesn’t stop me and I have them give the money back, tell them to leave and go home and watch out that I don’t come and tell their mothers what horrible ‘mal educación’ they have. The girl that had been crying says, ‘Gracias, señor, por ayudarme.’ That feels so good and I realize how I hate bullies, physical bullies, emotional bullies and intellectual bullies, all of them.

It’s freezing down here in the open air kitchen. Finally the horrible wailing of the woman who sings at the protestant church up the hill as subsided. She must go on for 4 hours singing her horrible roller rink songs of devotion. Is this the cultural heritage the missionaries brought to these people of ancient culture? How sad. How totally inexcusable in my eyes. God forgive us.

Eveyone else here has gone to bed. Well, of course they have! It’s almost 9:30. So, I will gather up my things and go up stairs, have some of my secret stash of Nutella, a plastic glass of wine, try to get some more Spanish in my head watching the news, read two pages of Zafón and eventually fall asleep until somebody starts their wood fire for breakfast at 5:45. This will be my last night to sleep here in this room.

Oh, as for the floating rocks, they are pumice from the volcano. They weigh nothing and are so full of air that they float. The first time I saw them in the lake, I wondered what all the Styrofoam was about and then I picked up a piece and it was a floating rock. Am bringing some home.

FOTOS...FESTIVAL OF SANTIAGO ATITLAN

...arriving at the harbor of Santiago...plenty of sun for a change

...huipiles, huipiles...these typical of Chichicastenango

...coming into the festival in picup (correct Guatemalan spelling)

...the church with the Mayan steps in Santiago

...Mayan women on a ferris wheel

...Mayan women with their children in porticos of church

...picup selling pottery below the church

...a woman and her son at the fiesta in Santiago on carnival rides

...the Spanish noblemen

...women of the cofarde in Santiago

...men of the cofarde

...typical headdress of Santiago, a long band wound around the head

....the embroidered pants of the men's traditional dress

...woman on the street in Santiago selling 'cortes'

DAY 17...THE LAKE & FEAST DAY OF SANTIAGO

DAY 17

Where ever I go around little San Pedro, the lake is a constant companion. Down one street you run into the wide blue reaches of it stretching the equivalent of a 40 minute boat ride to the other side; at a turn in a path the lake opens up mysteriously glinting through marshes of rushes hiding a fisherman gliding silently in his boat; at the end of a melancholy garden opening to the lake, flooded palapas wait questioning the boundaries of water and land. The lake is always with you here. It isn’t an accessory to the place. It’s more like the deep liquid heart of this place. In the rain there is no horizon across the lake, everything disappears into lowing lying clouds and endless space. At night if the clouds lift for a while the lake reflects the very distant lights of mysterious little villages perched at varying heights along the caldera. The lake watches you silently, always present but always separate like a wise mother.

I was thinking the other day riding on one of the boats that plow the waters from one village to another that it actually reminded me of Lake Como. It’s deep like that. It has a kind of eternal feeling about it. It’s not capricious. And this lake like Como seems to hold its own unhurried and uncensored melancholy. I wish I believed that it absorbed our melancholy and cleaned us of so many feelings.

I am on my way to Panajechel by boat and today there are about 8 people onboard with me. Well, actually, the number keeps changing with people getting on and off at the little docks at the villages. After Panajachel I plan to make it back to Santiago Atitlán to the Festival of the Patron Saint of the place, Santiago Apostel.

I am stunned by the beauty of this little trip around the lake. The step hillsides that come down from the mountains are covered in a myriad of trees that weave countless textures of green. The trees seem to grow out of huge rock formations. The water is blue, crystal blue. It all looks like some kind of perfectly kept Japanese garden. And I am stunned by the beautiful houses, villas along the shore. These places are built where I cannot imagine that they would have access by any road. The people at these fascinating places must get in by boat. And they are surrounded with gardens that are beautiful in a kind of forgotten way.

A Mayan family gets on board just before we reach Panajachel. It’s becoming very chilly. The mother in this group is young. She wears one of the traditional head dresses which is a piece of dark burgundy velvet wound and twisted into her coal black hair and they tied in front so that it rises about her face. I think there should be a law that all female human beings have to wear this! And then she has on one of the dark green, blue, purple huipiles that are typical of Santa Catarina here on the lake.

Panajachel is more or less the tourist hub of the lake. Well, I am sure it is more, but it’s a little hard on one trip to get around the huge amount of tourist commerce going on. However, I will say that you can buy Guatamalteco textiles here from everywhere and that there are some good buys and that’s really interesting, and, of course really overwhelming.

A couple of blocks from the tourist hub-bub, I happen accidently onto the actual market of Panajachel. Ah, here is a different world. And I wonder how many people actually stray up this way. I am aching to take more fotos of people in these clothes. I would say here at this market half the men are also in the tradition dress and all the women. Sometimes I feel like I am surreptitiously chasing someone around the market trying to find a moment to get a shot without being gross, well obviously gross. And then it hits me: stand still and let them come to you and it works. You just hang out some place and wait.

I have also found another really interesting way to get price negotiations started favorably. And I wasn’t the one who dreamed this up. Ok, here is how it goes: You hesitate and act like you can’t make a decision. Well, that’s normal for me. However, at that point one of the people selling something said to me: ‘Oh, you need to get your wife’s opinion on this, don’t you.’ Well, I almost jumped into explaining to the poor innocent woman why that wasn’t really a problem, but instead said: ‘Oh, yes I really should, because I am horrible at this and she has much better taste than I do.’ And then I tried to leave. At that point the seller thought she had a stupid guy that shouldn’t be making decisions on his own and off we went negotiating the price like mad. It works! I confess to having broken down and buying a really beautiful ‘corte’, the wrap-around skirt that is old, in perfect condition, woven in fine, fine wool and in patterns and colors so complex that it defies description. And because of my wife who was doing something else at the moment, I get it for a super prize. It is going to be used as a runner on the table for a Guatemalan feast when I get back.

Am anxious to get to Santiago. And apparently everyone else around the lake is anxious to get there, too. The boats are packed. The usual schedules have been abandoned and boats are leaving as soon as they are full and they are very full. I stand in the space at the prow and meet by accident the young couple who are also living in this complex where I live. I call them (to myself) the blond beautifuls. She is German and he is Dutch. They are both more than 6 feet tall. Very slender, muscled with blond hair and tan skin. Totally fluent in God knows how many languages. Their English is without accent. She is Elke, always dressed rather provocatively and he is Martin, usually hanging out without a shirt or less. They are on their way to Santiago, too.

Passing the usual stands selling Mayan/Guatemalan things that lead up from the lake in Santiago, I turn a corner at the top of the street and here is where the Feast Day of Santiago is happening. The streets have been converted to a market place. One can hardly move. At times one can’t move. There is virtually no one not dressed in traditional clothes, an amazing sight.

I am just having a hard time getting used to tiny Mayan women pushing me aside as they barge their way to who knows where. Everything is being sold here. There are huipiles of every imaginable design, the men’s pants with their embroidered legs and woven sashes, cortes and hand-woven cloth for making cortes, fruit, street food (yummy little chubby Guatemalan tacos), shoes, plastic ware. And as I push my way through crowd, there is no other way to come out alive, I see the church of Santiago. My god, the stairs are the same as the stairs leading up to the church in Chichicastenango. This was an organized Mayan covert movement, I think, in which they built stairs to churches and did it with Mayan symbolism. Maybe with these stairs they were telling their people that the way you will understand this big edifice above you called an iglesia is to climb the Mayan stairs?

Suddenly, religious images appear from the top of the steps and I realize that I have happened onto the procession part of this celebration. These people in the procession are the cofrades, the keepers of traditions and ritual, who are preceding the images. First the women come. Not many, maybe about 15 of them. They are holding huge banana leaves wrapped around lit candles. They wear the remarkable headpiece of Santiago which looks like a red disc and over this they drape the traditional shawls (they don’t call them rebozos) folded and piled up so that the shape of their head looks as if it were rectangular and all of this juts out in front and shades the face. Then the men come down the Mayan stairway, their heads wrapped in red hand-woven pieces, wearing over the traditional dress very old looking black/brown cape like things. And there is a brass band. It is a sight truly from a different world and then they disappear around the corner.

I thank my lucky stars that I have been able to see this moment and proceed up to the church from which there is a great view of the 4, yes 4, Ferris wheels in the courtyard of the church.

And there he is standing more or less at the entrance to the church, the young gringo who is the more or less leader of the covert missionary group. And I notice that he is carrying his bible with him, exhibiting before like a preacher. Is he going to ‘witness’ to these people right now? Or later? I can only head the other way and get lost into the crowd.

Down the street and around the corner, I bump into the procession again. I thought they would have long disappeared. But no, now they have been joined by a troupe of extravagantly dressed Spanish noblemen in reds and yellows and spangles and gold and masks with pink, pink faces, little skinny lips and delicate beards wearing tennies. Everyone moves down the street to the tune of the brass band. And lo and behold, the guys carrying the images begin doing a unison, well, more or less unison, dance step to the music as they carry the images. Sometimes the men move all together and the whole apparatus sways back and forth as if it were on a ship in a storm and sometimes they get off and one side almost falls trying to force the other side to adopt their version of the rhythm. And the faces of the cofrades remain very stern.

On the way back to San Pedro, as I sit on the boat in very hot sun for a change, I decide that today will be my swimming day in the lago. I look for a place along the lake and here I find very busty Mayan women topless in their cortes bathing, and there a whole family washing and bathing, but finally I find my little rocks, strip off to my underwear and into the cool, cool, blue water with the floating rocks.

That’s right: floating rocks.

DAY 15.....HIERONYMUS, NERUDA AND THE CIA

DAY 15

The days seem to be getting away from me. I have spent way too much time trying to figure out how to do this blog thing and my Spanish teacher, Javier, is keeping me very busy in and out of my 4 hours with him daily. My god, but what a great time we are having. We spent more than a day analyzing two Hieronymus Bosch paintings and now we are in the middle of a Pablo Neruda poem about a strange deserted city. Fantastic! And this guy cooks this stuff up in order to force complicated practice with the language. So, we do things like using the Neruda poem (La ciudad destruida) to deal with ‘what would it have been like in this destroyed city if things had gone differently.’ It really feels great to be doing this and we are having a great time working like this. I think tomorrow we are going to deal with Nietzsche. Yikes.

Ok, here’s the skinny on all of this: Instruction starts for me at 8:00 am which means waking up when I smell smoke from a neighboring house wafting in my window. It must be some family’s morning tortillas being cooked. It’s always there, the smell of wood smoke, just before 6:00. I find it comforting to wake up like that and imagine a simple kitchen with a certain family waking up, too. The abuela in the kitchen patting out the little fat Guatemalan tortillas and tossing them on a hot surface. A single bulb hanging from the ceiling for light and a single mother is getting the kids ready for school. Tortillas, platanos fritos, and frijoles negros served from the wood fire on white plastic plates. At any rate it is my wake up call and I venture down the caracol steel stairway that connects me to the ground and make my way to the outdoor kitchen. No coffee machine or filters, so this is what I do: step one: put a lot of ground coffee into a pan with water, add milk and simply boil it; step two: lug the whole thing upstairs with a water glass since there don’t seem to be any cups around; step three: wait for a couple of minutes for the grounds to settle. And there you have it, coffee, and it’s not half bad. Then watch a little Guatemalan news, jump in the shower that has a shower head with electric wires hanging out which are heating the water, don’t be afraid of electrocution, pack my backpack with my computer, jacket, notebooks, umbrella (very important), take the coffee stuff down to the kitchen and wash it so no one complains, grab my stuff and take off along the path through the coffee plantings, the corn fields with horses neighing when they see me, hoping I am bringing them food and tromp along the lake to the school. Mornings are usually sunny and I love this walk along the lake with bright vistas to the mountains across from us. More hot coffee will be waiting at the school and breakfast! I usually get a great omelet with black beans on the side and the Guatemalan tortillas which are more like gorditas than tortillas as we know them in México lindo y bello. By then there is just enough time to hook up my computer and check email or go over some homework and correct really stupid last minute mistakes. Then Javier arrives and invariably says: “Take your time, don’t rush!”

And all of this is costing $150 dollars a week and that includes 20 hours of private instruction; 4 hours of conversation practice, the apartment and breakfast 5 days a week. Pretty amazing, really. Lunch I have at the apartment. Usually tostados and black beans or tostados and tomato paste topped off with tostados and nutella. Don’t barf. It’s really kind of good and cheap and easy and I refuse to try to cook anything. And then evenings it’s dinner out after the conversation class. The best places are ‘Buddha’, believe it or not, very hippy and delicious or “Ventanta Azul” which has wonderful traditional Guatemalan food, is tiny, candle lit with lots of flowers. It’s hard to spend more than 8 or 9 dollars for dinner including drinks and tip. So, that’s good, too.

Am not doing too well with some of the fellow of students, well, specifically a group of covert 20 something year old missionaries. I say covert because they say they are working for a non profit. But I pressed for a little more information because I thought that was really cool and they said the organization was called ‘Mana’. Oh, just wait a minute, I think. Can’t fool me. I grew up as a Southern Baptist minister’s son and any idiot knows that mana is the food from heaven that was given to the Israelites on their trek through the wilderness. And I guess these kids are supposed to be bringing food from heaven to the Guatemaltecos?? And just what might that food be??? I bet it ain’t tostados. What arrogance. I talk to Javier about this and his eyes get sad and he talks about this as a deep offence over which he has no control, but he does say that the village they are going to has control over how they will receive them. And that suprises will be in store.

And then I finally ask him the long awaited question: ‘Javier, what part did the United States play in the civil war?’ He very calmly tells me about two progressive presidents who were making good changes for the people of Guatemala but who were assassinated by the CIA. He tells me about violent right wing military dictators being backed by the USA because they stood by international companies and their concerns instead of the common people of Guatemala. There is amazingly no rancor in his voice. Just facts. I feel a little sick at my stomach and more than sick, just plain old embarrassed. How horrible to hear this. I feel like going around like some idiot apologizing to these people and I do apologize to Javier that this happened to his country and that the big bastion of liberty and democracy supported what amounted to genocide. I feel really ashamed about this and think that today I will just hang out alone at the apartment.

What do you do with information like this? Get really depressed? Try to forget it? Shoot yourself? Try to ask some higher power for forgiveness on behalf of bastards who have defrauded us of the meaning of liberty and deceived all too innocent kids who thought we were all about truth and goodness and leading the world with a flaming torch…you know as in, the “bring me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” cast iron lady in the big harbor? This is like seeing someone who has had their arms and legs cut off. There is nothing you can say. There is just nothing you do about it to make it right. It’s no more and no less than horrible. I am thinking there might be forgiveness in the fact that the earth permits green things to continue growing, covering the past in tangles of vines, offering yet another new chance for better things.

FOTOS...CHICHICASTENANGO

...rising above San Pedro cross the ancient caldera

...an expected little procession in a neighboring village

...market Chichicastenango

...more market

....more market

...and more market. here huipiles and cortes

...Iglesia de Santo Tomas with its Mayan steps

....flower vendors on steps of Santo Tomas

....interior of very nice old hotel in Chichicastenango

...patio of the hotel

DAY 10...CHICHICASTENANGO

DAY 10

I figure that if I am up at 6:00 am and on my way by 7:00 that I can easily walk to the place where we are supposed to meet the micro bus for the trip to the much talked about Sunday market at Chichicastenango or Chichi, as one hears here.

I have wondered a lot about where I got my ideas about this place, Chichicastenango, seeing as how I have never been there. I know we have a book about Guatemala and I know that the famous church and probably some of the market appears there in photographs. In my imagination it is a place at high altitude, lots of rain. It feels dark to me in my imagination, mysterious somehow. I think I have read somewhere that the Mayan religious customs are totally mixed up with Catholicism there. I somehow feel that this is no ordinary place. I looked up on the internet the traditional clothing of Chichi and it is all blacks, with embroidery and stitching in deepest of reds and blues and purples. The embroidery is not fantastical and florid, but strict, geometrical, like some cosmic, hierarchical order that one has given up on trying to change.

Somehow as we roar up the mountainside, topping the huge caldera which forms the lake, I have the feeling of pilgrimage to some sacred place. That is until the backseat group starts talking. Oh, dear God, please put me in a sound proof cabin! I have never heard so many ‘valley girl likes’ in my whole life. I am loosing my mind:

“Like, I told him, like how could he really not like understand, like who is he trying

to fool, like, I told my mother and she didn’t like understand at all and then I

like thought how would she like understand she’s like so out of it…..”

Dios mio. And on and on. The main culprit of this group is a girl who is in medical school at Vanderbilt or some place similar. God, what have we come to. I am trying really hard not let my ears focus on their conversation but it’s like not wanting to look at a car wreck and not being able to take you eyes off it. And they are shrill. I have now progressed from thoughts of a pilgrimage to a sacred place to needing badly to find some narcos who could knock off the back seat. See, with that comment I am trying to humorous…..or am I?

Outskirts of Chichicastenango! Relief is in sight!. Soon I will jump out the door of this micro bus and escape. Neither do the jaw dropping sights out the windows of the micro bus stop the back seat likety-likety-like. Passing along outside the car windows the dress of the woman actually changes as you move through the various colonias of the outskirts. Amazing, these colors in the rainy morning against the green of these lush, high tropical mountains. Huge round baskets are being transported full of fruit, all held together by a net that looks like it would belong to stevedores. Women balance huge, loaded baskets on their heads with a small child in a shawl tied over her shoulder and other small ones on each hand, stepping gingerly over rocks, dodging the growing number of tuk-tuks and all looking as if they were going to some extraordinary festival as they tread through the mud.

Now we are in the heart of Chichicastenango. We wend through the narrow, narrow cobble-stoned streets. Suddenly, there is a parking place. The driver is giving us instructions about when we are returning to San Pedro and I am getting my butt out the door as fast as I can and hitting the street with the ‘likes’ mercifully disappearing into the far past.

Two blocks down the street and then one block to the left and there it is, the Sunday market of Chichicastenango. And it is cold, and it is misty here and just as I thought it is a mysterious place. These streets of the market are drapped with woven and embroidered textiles of the most amazing colors and patterns. People are scurrying. I am much bigger than they are, but they bump into me with impunity. This surprises me, but soon I get the hang out it and forge my way through the moving masses of people who seem as if they somehow had lost a foot of height on the way to the market.

It’s a maze. It goes on and on. Now I think I must be lost. I really can’t remember exactly how I got here. Well, yes I can: I saw something amazing and went down a little street to check it out and then just around the corner were more huipiles of Chichicastenango with their mysterious, rich colors on black. And then another corner and another crowded passageway. That’s how I got here and that’s how I got lost.

No matter, I really don’t care. I want to understand the art of these people and ask questions, but the pressure to buy is high. I must appear really comical to them as I try to explain that I don’t want to buy, am just looking right now. Suddenly I remember the experience from the rainy market at Santiago Atitlan. I have spoken the magic words of serious negotiation (I don’t want to buy)! Ok, so here we go and I buy one. I think it’s a good price for this huipile that is also antique/old that I will hang on the wall in an honored place in Casa Curtidores in San Miguel. And then I find a stall with the most amazing work I have seen yet. I stand there fingering the work and to my amazement no one, but no one pressures me to buy. The women there at the stand seem hardly interested in me. Finally, I turn to one of them and ask the price. She casually looks at me, gives the huipile in question a look and utters a price that is more than 10, as in diez, times more expensive than what I had been quoted as starting prices, and more than 20 times what I had actually paid. Thankfully, someone runs into me from behind and almost knocks me off me feet and I think this is a good moment to escape from the Dior of Chichi with my Quetzales still intact.

Now I am on overload. It’s like an overdose of colors and shapes and people and sounds and smells. One of the streets opens onto a small, small plaza and there it is: the famous church of Santo Tomas. Steps rise to the entrance. The story is that when the church was built that the Mayan builders insisted on building steps instead of any other kind of approach and secretly they built steps in the exact number of divisions of the Mayan calendar. The steps are filled with flower vendors. The church is white and looms narrowly above the scene rising into a background of rain laden clouds and sharp edges of green mountains. Shaman have taken their place on the steps. They burn ritual fires and speak prayers. The smoke of the burning coals and incense rises and veils the whole scene in a sense of irreality and magic. Inside the church, I am amazed at the condition of the building. It looks as if it hasn’t been taken care of, as if no one has done anything to maintain it for many years. In the center aisle shaman have lit a forest of small colored candles. I move down one of the side aisles towards the front. It is dark. I sit in one of the front pews and try to feel what this place is like and just as I sit down a young Mayan couple is led to the front by a shaman. She is carrying an infant in a shawl tied around her shoulders. Her eyes seem fearful. I imagine that there is something wrong with her baby and that they have come to this special church to ask for help. The baby lies there wrapped securely in her arms and fixes its eyes on something I can’t see in the dark air above us. The shaman instructs the couple in a mixture of Spanish and Mayan. I hear him say ‘seis veces’ and see him point to a place behind us. The couple walk slowly, not reluctantly, but with no energy to a point half way to the back of the church, kneel and begin to walk on their knees towards the main altar. When they reach the altar, they stand and return and kneel and walk on their knees again to the altar. This happens 6 times. I am caught in the middle of this ritual, but I think it is better not to move, just be quiet and stay put. The Shaman all the while remains at the altar with his array of candles and talks and sings with his eyes shut, gesturing with his hands in his plaintive conversion with…..? I really don’t know with whom. The bad spirits that have made the baby sick? The gods that should be prodded to wake up and do something for a change? The animal ‘nahuals’ that must take on the inner support of the child and are only sniffing it cautiously now? I don’t know. I sit and wonder. The couple get up from their knees for their last peregrination to the back of the church. They seem to me almost shameful and that’s strange. The husband moves past me, head down, staring at the worn wooden plank floor. The young mother follows behind him. I am watching her secretively from the corner of my eye. As she moves past me she almost stops, turning her head towards me. I am startled but turn my head a little towards her. Our eyes meet. She looks long and deep into my eyes and almost smiles and then continues her quiet walk.

FOTOS...SANTIAGO

...APPROACHING SANTIAGO BY BOAT

...TRADITIONAL MEN´S DRESS IN SANTIAGO

....AND THEN THE TEXTILES

....THE HUIPILE FROM NABAJ

...IN A TUK-TUK IN SANTIAGO

...ON THE BOAT BACK TO SAN PEDRO

...MAYAN WOMAN WAITING FOR BOAT TO LEAVE TO SANTIAGO ATITLÁN

...BOATS TO SANTIAGO ATITLÁN

DAY 9... BOAT TO SANTIAGO ATITLÁN

DAY 9

Weekend. No classes. I plan to play it very much by ear and just see what today brings. I find myself standing in front of the pier for boats to the neighboring town of Santiago Atitlán. And I think to my little devious self: Why not just get on the boat and go to Santiago and see what happens? So I do. It’s somewhat warm and sunny today for a change and for that reason I have donned a t-shirt, beach pants and flip-flops, trying to be a little touristy for a change. It’s another 30 minutes until the boat leaves. They say the trip will take about 40 minutes. I watch Mayan women get on, carrying their huge bundles, dressed in amazing pieces of almost totally embroidered clothing. One young woman sits at the stern of the boat, a little sideways and tips her head to one side, peering into the grey water and it is a picture I never want to forget. A young man gets on. He, too, is in traditional dress, really cool looking in striped blue pants that stop at the knee, a matching blue shirt, a woven sash of many colors and one of the sort of western, cowboy hats that you see here. These hats are hugely high, as in the hat part of the hat is about 8 or 9 inches inches tall and worn sitting on the top of the head, not pulled down on the forehead. A little strange looking. Exactly like I hate for a hat to sit, as if it is way too small for your big head and you were really stupid and never figured out that your hat didn’t fit you.

Well, this Mayan guy turns out to be my new best friend at least for this boat trip. As the boat putters along, skirting the edge of the volcano we talk. We trade questions and he teaches me some Mayan words. I never realized that they have sounds that are simply glottal clicks. It’s amazing. These people are totally adept at both Spanish and their particular Mayan language group, at least most of them speak Spanish. My new friend tells me that he works in a shop in Santiago that sells artesanías. His name is Domingo.

We steam into the almost hidden inlet where Santiago is perched on the edges of the volcano It’s charming looking and Domingo is obviously proud of his town and not at all reluctant to let me know that I am crazy to be in San Pedro and not in Santiago. We hop onto the pier and Domingo invites me to take a look at his shop. I hope it is not full of a bunch of kitsch tourist stuff because as we make our way up the hill we pass unbelievable Mayan textiles. He, however, is not interested in looking at anything on the way. And, you guessed it, his shop (I meet his boss) is pretty much certifiable, solid kitsch. I know this will take some slippery maneuvering to get out without spending any money here or hurting anybody’s feelings, but soon I am on my way back to see those textiles. It begins raining, well, pouring. I must be the only person in this whole town out looking at textiles in the rain. I go from place to place telling people that today I am not buying anything, just looking and find that I have discovered a great way to get negotiations started:

‘How much will you offer me for it?’
‘No, señora, today I am just looking’.
(Gringo tries to leave the shop)
‘But, señor, I will make you a good price.
You can have a special discount!
(Gringo aims at some ridiculously low price in order to be able to leave the shop)
‘I cannot offer you more than 220 Quetzales.’
‘It’s not much, señor, for 6 months of work. 250 Quetzales!’

I have almost unwittingly become the proud new owner of an amazing huipile from the area of Nabaj for around $30 dollars. It is totally embroidered in a illogical array of geometric patterns and abstracted animals shapes in colors of deep green, burgundy, yellow and tan on heavy, hand-woven caramel colored material of two lienzos which means the base material was woven on back strap looms and two separate pieces were then sewn together to give the huipile it’s width of perhaps something like 33 inches.

If you were here on the boat with me back to San Pedro you might be thinking that the other people on the boat were sad. They are indeed very quiet. They move very little. They look far into the distance without straining. There is quietness. Mostly people don’t speak. They seem to communicate by touch or by glance. There is no filling the air with busy chatter. And there is timelessness as the boat moves through the rainy afternoon lake. I don’t think this is sadness. It’s something else. Something like being able simply to ‘sit with time’, sit plump with it, just letting it be, realizing that if anything is eternal, time is eternal; and then looking long and deeply into its eyes like trading long glances with an old friend.