Guatemala Life and Culture

As I look out my kitchen window this early morning, my neighbor, wife of the gerente or manager, walks across the grass toward her one-room building - which is home to at least four people - carrying the morning’s bread, fresh from a local bakery. She does this every morning, usually accompanied by one or more of her grandchildren, the youngest of whom always lives with her. She then cleans one of the other houses, several times a week, does her family’s wash by hand in the pila of the house across from me, and keeps her own home spotless, as I learned once when I had to use their gas stove to heat water because the electricity at my house was off. Her older children visit often, one bringing her two grandchildren with her, and the women sit in the area they’ve created adjacent to the building, just recently roofing it with corrugated plastic, and creating a foundation, so it has become a room with two walls, the other two open to the garden. This is where the family spends its daytimes and sometimes evenings. And this is her life. She rarely leaves the “compound,” though she sometimes goes with her grandchildren out into the plazuela in front of our houses to look on at an event. She seems to have no friends in the community, or at least none visit and she doesn’t spend time anywhere else. My friend Katrina complained that a woman she has come to know here has a similar life, working all day in a small hotel, and going home to her own home with her son at night; nothing else. But Maria’s life looks okay to me. Her children and grandchildren adore her and are very affectionate with her. Her son evidently studies hard, and is playful and good with the little children. Her husband, who looks quite a bit older, is a sweet, loving and hard-working man. They have created a life, as managers of this little compound, that is better than that of many people in the community. What more does one really need?

Yesterday a funeral, and later a carnival for the kids and some sort of dancing in the evening – from the distance of my house it looked like those figures with big comic heads. And of course bombas – the big ones, going off from time to time. Today there is a barrage of 80 million firecrackers going on down the alley past my house, following a play of some sort which was held in front of the church, with figures costumed as kings, queens, and knights, with play sword-fighting and much shouting; now a band consisting of several horns and a tuba just went walking thru the pine needle alfombra on the street and past my house, down the alley, followed by 50 or so people from the village. There is a statue of the crowned Virgin up in front of the church, but I have no idea what it’s all about. I don’t see Maria and her kids in the yard, perhaps they are in that crowd. Tono just came back all dressed nicely and with his hair combed back. Usually he is in the yard with his pants rolled up and his hair every which-a-way. I moved here to be part of a community…..but I don’t take part, really. Primarily because I have noone to go out on the plaza with. I should get the phone number of another volunteer who lives down the street next to the store, so I can see if she wants to attend with me, the next time something’s going on. Don’t know why I think I need that, but I always feel I stick out like a sore thumb. Probably I’m un-noticed. I have been out there of course – once for a good futbol game, twice with our clowns, once or twice for music or some other event, and of course I used to work with our teachers in this school. But no mucho. 

I went with our young teachers on a bus to Alotenango today. I expected to find it a small pueblo on the side of that volcano, like Santa Maria is on Agua, but instead it is a fairly large, probably once colonial town, like Ciudad Vieja (the first Spanish capital) down in the valley some distance from the foot of the volcano of the same name, which can be seen from the streets in Antigua, companion to Fuego. In this town streets are paved with interlocking cement blocks, like so many. There are some large stately buildings, most in disrepair, some half-destroyed. This pueblo is also dominated by Volcan Agua and probably received some of the brunt of that deluge. Their cemetery is one of the grandest I’ve seen, with figures on top of the omnipresent cement biers, possibly these were internments in colonial times, although at a quick glance I thought I saw flowers on those graves. The people of the town, as in Santa Maria, are more indigenous than in Antigua…..browner faces, shorter bodies, more traditional traje. But there are also a few young women in pants suits….maybe teachers from other towns...and young t-shirted girls on bicycles. The school is quite large, grey, dirty, ill-lit but spacious. The teachers all looked friendly. No kids in class, yet. The sub-directora was hospitable and seemed intent on introducing the idea of our program to her teachers at a meeting tomorrow. It seems word of the program has been spread there by a teacher who took the training and used the exercises. That’s nice to hear. Coming back, I was glad to have time to do some grocery shopping before my Spanish class at home this afternoon. Carrying my groceries home, stopping at the internet shop to email family and friends, it suddenly seemed awfully nice just to be here. I have always been so set on accomplishing something, being of use, being valuable to others, on having a purpose in what I do…so Capricornian, really most of the time, although if I have a Grand purpose then I am comfortable fooling around on my “off-hours.” But for this moment it just seemed nice to be in THIS town, even at this juncture (although modernization continues creeping in,) to be seeing these faces, and expressions of this culture (which, as soon as I had decided the other day that it was becoming overly modern, seemed to show me one face or another of its traditional activities – the procession, WITHOUT a motorized carrier for the large religious figure, the band very slow and traditional….drum and out-of-tune horns., all these somber people in black, walking and chanting. Lovely, really. ) That it was nice to live here, regardless of how productive or helpful I’m actually being. Just that I like living in this town and this culture. Although as usual it’s hard for me to say that without quickly saying…..of course I’d rather live in the country. Yesterday an older man (well maybe my age) made the rounds of the plazuela, trying to get people to write letters complaining about the noise. His wife is ill, he said, and the noise makes it impossible to sleep. Well, I told him, I understand completely, although at times I rather like the music, but I don’t want to write letters complaining, because I’m a visitor here. This is their pueblo. If I don’t like it, I can move. He explained that he and his wife have rented a house here for some years, since moving from the house they own in Panjachel. He’d like me to come visit his wife, as she has no social outlets. After telling him about my volunteer work, he said, well you could consider it a deed much-needed. He is originally from Trinidad and has lived in the U.S. and Europe. His wife lived in Argentina at one time (and danced Tango, he said when I asked) during the Eva Peron era. The gentleman told me that the factory behind his house, of which I see the East gate from my house, and the employees at lunch break in the calle North of me, is owned by an American and makes rugs which he imports somewhere. Well there’s what I railed at in my political days…..American jobs going overseas to take advantage of the low wages and no benefits. But in this town this is the ONLY industry, and except for the many vendors and few cabinetmakers, etc., the only job in town. What a huge difference these jobs make for the people of Santa Ana. The other face of CAFTA. 

I am sending ideas to my two friends who are planning to visit here in February. It is wonderful to remember all the trips I’ve taken and the lovely or interesting places I’ve been, and would like to take them to, and of course we will see some new areas, as well. I have been dying to get to the jungle – having a fantasy about listening to the night sounds – for some time, and we will go to Tikal. My wireless internet at home has not been functioning since the first days of the electrical blackouts, which happened daily for a week or so, about the same time every evening. That was during our coldest days (maybe 48 degrees F) so perhaps lots of people had electric heaters turned on. But the phone in the house across from me ceased functioning, and that is my internet connection. And then nobody did anything about it, since those young volunteers come and go. You’d think connection with home in Belgium would prompt some action, but no. I finally had to call repair service – which came the following day to my amazement. But internet still doesn’t work. So tonight I called Julio – a smiling family man who has a small shop in the front of his house ½ mile closer to town. I had recently taken my thumb drive to him, when it developed a virus and wouldn’t open. As I walked there, I caught him in the doorway of his shop with his arm around his 10 year old boy. There is now an internet shop next door to him; perhaps he has expanded. He fixed my thumb drive with no charge and a big smile. 

Yesterday about 5 pm, as I accompanied my Spanish teacher to my gate when she was leaving, there were cacophonous noises from the church nearby. We stood for a moment with the manager of this place to see what would emerge. My teacher surprised me by asking the manager’s age. He said he is 73 and that the tiny girl with him is his daughter, not granddaughter as I had thought. He also said his wife, who looks perhaps 40, is only a few years younger. So none of this adds up, but perhaps is the story they tell this little girl. At that moment a large anda began to emerge from the church, carried on the shoulders of about 25 people. My teacher and the manager surprised me by instantly dropping to their knees, though we were 100 yards away, and making the sign of the cross, then kissing the tip of their joined thumb and fingers, as people do here. They remained kneeling for another few moments. The figure on the anda looked black, from my vantage point, and I asked if it was the Christo Negro. I had heard that his figure, famous in Esquipulas, some several hours distant from here, and that people came there to worship from Mexico, Nicaragua, and so forth. My teacher told me there are numerous copies of this figure, and evidently one here. The musicians following the anda were the worst I’ve ever heard, the cacophonous quality of a 6th grade band of horns and a single booming drum. Yet somehow the primitive quality of the music was appealing. About 60 people walked in front, beside, and following this anda with its brightly illuminated Christo, wearing head coverings and carrying candles. The group stopped some 20 feet from where I stood, taking photos (after asking my manager if it weren’t rude,) and lowered the anda to arm's height for a few minutes, then shouldered it again and proceeded. The usual firecracker explosions followed along with them. I want to learn more about these various figures, because far more are celebrated than fits the schedule of each village having its saint’s day.