May began the corn season with controlled burns. By the middle of july, the charred plots were bristling with green stalks high enough to hide a Pedro. The corn is ready in September, but harvest is delayed for a month while the stalks dry where they stand.
On October second, I surprised the men of Sanimtacá when I went with them to q’olok (harvest corn). The tracts of cropland are steep in Sanimtacá and this late in the rainy season, muddy and slick. While the men trooped downhill from the road to the corn, I lagged behind, warily negotiating the muddy grade.
The procedure for harvesting the corn is fairly simple. The ear is pulled from the stalk and the stalk is bent to the ground (to mark it spent). The apical remainder is snapped off the ear and the outermost leaves come with it. What’s left is a heavy elongate teardrop of a missile. At this point the corn is pitched toward a common pile somewhere in the field. From a distance, the process resembles trench warfare. Potato-mashers rain in on shared targets from obscured positions.
The harvest was fun. The haul was not.
Each man loaded up a huge sack with as many ears of corn as it could hold. It’s important to make use of the natural wedge-shape of the ear to maximize your carrying capacity. Each person then takes his 100+ pound sack of corn, straps it to his head, and hikes to the house.
I chickened out and (taking the distance ahead of us into account) carried about forty pounds over my shoulder. The climb back up to the road was even trickier than the descent. Back on the road, I did manage to slip and fall, corn and all. The president of the cooperative offered his cargo for me to carry. He thought it would make a good photo. I assured him that it would kill me.



In keeping with the cooperative nature of the community, all the men pitch in with their neighbors’ harvests and receive help with their own. So we all worked the same plot of land that day and we all carried the day’s harvest to one house.
The houses in Sanimtacá are wooden structures with dirt floors and peaked thatch or corrugated zinc roofs. Living and cooking space occupies the bottom floor, but most buildings have a second-floor attic space for furniture and supply storage. The space above the kitchen is blackened by cooking fire and receives twelve hours of heat and smoke every day. This is where we deposit the corn.
Sanimtacans are tough. Even so, as we neared our destination, heavy steps quickened and furrowed brows dripped. Each of us in turn climbed the ladder to the second floor to add our hauls to the larder. When I got to the second level, the hot smoke hit me hard. I emptied the bag and got myself outside in a hurry, coughing and tearing up.
It’s possible to grow corn twice annually. But where we live, cardamom and coffee season block the people from growing corn more than once. Corn is a staple crop in Guatemala, but it’s not a cash crop. It’s worth the investment for a family to grow its own corn, but it doesn’t pay to grow more than they need. So in October the people harvest all the corn they’ll need for the year. Then the small mountain of corn is stashed above the daily fires where the smoke discourages weevils, mice, and moisture from ruining the family’s reserve.
Over the year, the corn is separated from the cob by hand and ground on a heavy stone with water to make a masa, or corn dough. The masa is used to make tamal and tortilla. Corn tortillas (wa) are the dependable companions to all meals. We have tortillas with our breakfast eggs. We have tortillas with our lunch beans. We have tortillas with our dinner (eggs again). And in the city, it’s not unusual to see someone at a comedor scraping their spaghetti into a tortilla.
After the work, the women brought us hot fruit drinks and we waited for everyone to come in from the fields. Once everyone was back, there were a few prayers and we had chicken stew with tortillas. Everyone took turns asking if I was tired.
“Lublukat?”
To which I replied, “Tawajenaqin, usta yo’o jun sut chik.”
I’m tired, but let’s do it again.
And in typical reaction to my Q’eqchi’, they laughed and repeated it for anyone who might have missed it.

When I arrived in Sanimtacá last week they informed me that the fiesta for San Francisco was approaching (October 11, which I knew) and that our work would be on hold so we could celebrate (in preparation. This was news).
So we made our way to the house where the first party would be. Under the mild influence of a boj I sipped politely, I helped weave pacaya fronds into broad mats we hung from the rafters. While I dozed in a chair, they lit candles and covered the floor with pine needles.
As the sun started to disappear, the guests began arriving. The party kicked off with prayers to San Francisco and an incense blessing. There was a candle shrine at one end of the long room with offerings for a small saint behind glass. The only other light came from a single incandescent bulb connected to a gas-powered generator. The music equipment was hooked up to the same generator and the amps belched marimba, keyboard, saxophone, and bass into the room.

After dinner, a few men stood in front of the shrine to give thanks. They shuffled through a dance with their hands behind their backs. After the men danced a few songs, a group of women approached the front. The women repeated the dance but with arms flat against their sides and eyes on the floor. Between songs, each woman covered her face with a hand (probably in devotional reflection, but it appeared to say, “Oh dear, what am I doing?”)
After the ceremonial dances, the floor was open. But Mayans can be timid, so it took some time for the swinging to start. I had already been to a dance in Samac (I even spun a few Q’eqchi’ women across the pine straw once or twice in Samac), so I was not surprised to see the women dancing with each other. But something I had dismissed as an exception in Samac turned out to be a socially-acceptable convention. As the partners rotated around the room, I saw more than a few boy couples. Some of the male pairs were young men in their late teens and twenties.

By the time men were slumping on the benches, it felt late and I was ready to go. A quick check of the watch showed 10:30. Since a handful of us were leaving, I assumed the party was winding down. No, they assured me, the party wouldn’t stop until three or four in the morning. And I was high in the valley when I brushed my teeth to the sound of an invisible but thriving fiesta in the cloudy darkness.

In the third grade I wrote my name on Dominic’s shoe. We’ve been friends ever since. But in the nearly twenty years we’ve known each other there has never been a stronger demonstration of best friendship than the time he came to visit me in Guatemala. I know this because for five days he wouldn’t stop saying it.

September 15th is Independence Day in Guatemala (no worries if you have trouble remembering that, it’s written right on the flag). Dominic arrived just in time for the celebration. In Cobán this meant martial parades of schoolchildren with burning coffee cans on sticks, salsa dances in the square, and explosions in the sky.
Back in Samac, they were throwing candy in the schoolyard. I was winged by a lollipop and swarmed by piranha children. While the piñatas were meeting their brutal fates, the cooperativistas asked us to join their soccer team.
The teams were grouped by committee. Dom and I played on the ecotourism team, but our uniforms were pure Madrid.
The Q’eqchi’ don’t have a name for “Dominic,” but they decided it was close enough to “Domingo” that they could use their word for Sunday. So Qawa’ Lu’ and Qawa’ Cu’ joined the field on defense, towering over the opposition (and the support) for ninety minutes on the pitch.

I tried to ease the transition to campo life so as not to shock his system. He had a few days to process what took me six months of acclimation. He was a trooper. But there were a few moments when I suspected Dominic had a different picture of what life would be like here. Some excerpts:

“But there’s a bathroom, right?”

“Where’s the regular food?”

“They’re stopping? The bus is already full.”

“No beans for me. Why do they keep bringing tortillas?”

“I’ll just buy some postcards in your village.”

“They didn’t give us spoons.”

We went to a Mayan ceremony in Sanimtacá. Dom sat down to rest near the coffee patio while I watched the climbing ceremonial fire. The next time I looked up, he was completely surrounded by children.
He had taken out his camera to shoot a quick panorama. As he panned from right to left, the kids noticed he had a camera and crowded in to look. When we watched the video later, there was a sweeping shot of the empty coffee patio with a few people in the distance. And as the camera turned back, the frame was suddenly full of curious young faces.
The people offered us boj, a sugarcane moonshine, which made us both very dizzy. We had to climb most of the way out of the valley to find a place to lie down.
The next morning we had to hike the rest of the way out. Dom sat down on a pile of cinderblocks at the top of the trail to rest. As he was explaining how tired he was, a Sanimtacan arrived behind us, loaded three of the cinderblocks on his back, turned around, and headed back down into the valley.

A brief visit, but a good one.

Also, buddy, I didn’t want to embarrass you while you were here, but “Guatemalteco!” is not how we say hello.

Some of us had a project design management conference at Peace Corps headquarters last week. After the two-day seminar, a few of us escaped for an earned beach weekend in Monterrico on the west coast. Besides beach soccer, beach volleyball, beach baseball, and beach beach, there was swimming in the pool and fruit licuados in the shade. A nesting sea turtle kicked sand in my face.
My father once told me how to watch the sun set twice on the west coast, but I had never had the chance to try it. I explained the idea to the others, but we weren’t sure if it would work.

Until now I have failed to mention a recent addition to my independent studies. It isn’t easy to explain with words or pictures alone, but Tex shot a video that explains everything.
Click the photo below (and do not try at home).


photo by Chris Barry

And at that very moment, “McAfee, you’re gonna miss it!”
I looked back to see the sun sinking, and we all got down on our backs in the sand to watch the sun set. As soon as the last sliver disappeared, we jumped up and climbed to an elevated point just in time to watch the sun go down again.
Success all around, all injuries were minor and sports-related. Now back to work.

What am I doing now?

Apologies for the lack of updates. Work picked up. Now they’ve got me out in the campo, hiking caves, teaching classes, and scouting trails in the cloud forest. When work doesn’t extend into the weekend, I have Q’eqchi’ classes and (todavía no tengo mujer) washing to do.
I plan to catch up as soon as I catch up.

Wan chik.

Beautiful the days

Antigua Guatemala was Guatemala’s second capital city (after Ciudad Vieja, before the current Guatemala City). Capital status was passed to Antigua after the devastating earthquake/mudslide in nearby Ciudad Vieja in 1541. Antigua remained the Spanish capital for 233 years, from 1543 to 1776. The desertion of Antigua in favor of Guatemala City was inspired by the earthquakes of 1773, which were the most destructive in an era of bad quakes.
The sudden withdrawal of economic influence and resources in the late 1700’s virtually froze Antigua in time. The original colonial architecture predominates, including abandoned earthquake ruins. The city was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979 and the government has invested wisely in its protection and maintenance.
The city lives under the constant watch of three volcanoes; Agua to the south (pictured), Fuego and Acatenango to the west. It’s not unusual to see a gnarly plume of smoke reaching up from Volcán Fuego in the morning or glowing red at night.
Antigua is a popular destination for tourists and expatriates. When the streets and central plaza are filled with the day’s traffic, you can catch the international milieu in the mingling Spanish, French, German, English, and Mayan conversations.
Antigua is also an important R&R destination for Peace Corps volunteers.

On the third, we returned from the field for an all-volunteer conference at headquarters. Our modest but widespread community converged on the city’s affordable hostels; small rooms and small beds to rest strange but generous foreign heads.
We had workshops on food security, immigration, and municipal government. This serious exercise in continuing education was not only good for work, it was sufficient justification for Independence Day’s serious exercise in conviviality.

For me, this marks six months complete in-country and three months in-site. This was also my first real trip out of site since my arrival.
I travel back and forth between my site and Cobán weekly for food, water, and mail, but it’s a short trip. The road to the city is so bad that the shuttle never gets above 15 miles per hour. For three months this was the norm for me.
So I boarded the bus to Antigua without suspecting anything was different. But as the bus left Cobán’s one-way streets behind and turned south toward Tactic, I noticed a dangerous acceleration. Suddenly the bus was hurtling down the highway at a blistering speed. I saw or imagined the faint red glow of atmospheric friction across the outside of the van as we streaked down the paved meteor trail. So I turned to Tex and asked in my most unpanicked voice if we were going a little bit fast.
“Fast? I don’t think so… I think this is a normal highway speed.”
Clearly Mr. Yeager here did not understand the unnatural danger of fifty-mile-per-hour travel.

I went to visit a friend in the city. When he stepped out to speak with someone, I started looking for the restroom. I couldn’t find it. I searched every logical place and even a few illogical ones. When he came back I asked where the bathroom was. When he told me it was indoors, I realized that it hadn’t occurred to me that the bathroom might be inside the house.

We spent half the week in Antigua. We had a Fourth party for volunteers and staff in San Lucas with hamburgers and hot dogs. We had soccer balls, frisbees and potato salad. We were under the tent for the talent show when the rain started. But the rain couldn’t diminish our dance party in defiance of George III at the end. It was an event that would have impressed Washington (paternal bureaucracy and founding father alike). And the ride back seemed even faster.

So tell all your giant beetle friends that if I find you in my house, I’m not above fitting you with tiny blonde pigtails and humiliating you on the internet.

The rainy season is here -which means a lot of time under this roof. I’m evaluating (with celebration and regret) the wisdom of creating a blog to publicly document my precipitous unraveling.

In May we plant the corn.
Before planting, plots are stripped and burned. They call this “cleaning the mountains.” (I don’t detect any irony.)
Playing my part (the encyclopedic yet pathetically ignorant North American), I ask if this is really the best way to prepare the land for planting.
If we trust my sources, not only is it the best method, it’s the only one.
(I consulted an agricultural engineer who told me that if they cleared the land with machetes in February, it would be in good shape for planting by May, but burning is customary)
Even though I know this is going on, it’s alarming to see, especially at night when the mountains (dotted with wooden houses) blaze unattended.

As part of an agricultural aid program, MAGA (Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación) donated tomato and chili seedlings to Cooperativa Samac. This was an opportunity to demonstrate burn-free agriculture to the kids. So we invited the kids to clear a little plot themselves before planting.
In theory, this was ideal. But when thirty children showed up with machetes, a flaw appeared in the plan.
Thirty blades in fifth-grade hands were flying in all directions. And seeing the wild backswings, I wondered if my pocket sewing kit would be called for by the afternoon. But not only were none of the adults concerned (try pitching this project to an elementary school in the states), but the kids handled the work like professionals. No reattachments needed and they cleared the plot in about an hour.

The origin of the name Sanimtacá (sometimes pronounced Sanimta’a) is not disputed. Sa’ is ‘In,’ Nim means ‘Big,’ and Tak’a means ‘Hole.’ In a big hole. It stirs the imagination.
(Incidentally, Watemaal is derived from an ancient Toltec-Mayan name meaning Place of Many Trees, which is where we get the modern name Guatemala).
But what Sanimtacá’s name lacks in inspiration, it makes up for in literal accuracy.

There is only one road to Sanimtacá, the same road that passes through Samac. But beyond Samac, the road degrades into a winding course of muddy ruts and rock. A traveler can make the rough trip with a four-wheel drive vehicle or a sturdy motorcycle, but few do. No one in Sanimtacá owns a motor vehicle of any kind.
Instead, we walk. It’s about an hour on foot from Samac to the edge of Sanimtacá. The road ahead is always winding out of sight and one has to look across the valleys at the distant emerging curves to get an idea of where they’re going.
At the outskirts of Samac, tomato farmers whistle ‘wank chik helloes from their steep plots, but beyond Samac, the only people to be seen are the occasional road travelers.
Women balance wide baskets of produce and bags of supplies on their heads. Men wear huge loads of cargo on broad leather straps over their heads. They can support more than 100 pounds with their necks and backs for the hour-long hike over the broken road.
There’s a fork in the road just after Samac that leads to Chituj, a neighboring community. In Chituj they don’t speak Q’ekchi’, they speak Pokomchí. My capacity for confusion has been exceeded. So when I meet anyone on the road, I say hello in Q’ekchi’ (actually goodbye) and let them sort it out themselves.
But during the hour, passing travelers are few. Usually the only signs of other people are the tracks in the mud; rubber boot soles, small sandals, and occasional bare footprints.
Independence and solitude don’t have much value in Guatemalan society. So when I have somewhere to go, there are always offers for company (someone needs to be around to keep the gringo from crying). But I did eventually convince Samac that I don’t need help getting to Sanimtacá.

So here I am, ascending the bends alone, stopping for water, checking the time. I pause in the curves to scan with binoculars and take advantage of the last splash of shade before continuing. The quiet is welcome; I’m finally free to slip on loose rocks without safety reminders.
On one side, sheer rock faces are painted orange and green with lichen and maidenhair. On the other side, the earth drops away into grassy slopes, pine groves, and low shrubby thickets before rising again across the valley. On either side of the road, pink-flanked Sceloporus lizards scramble noisily for cover. Buff-throated saltators and purplish-backed jays bicker in the stands of secondary-growth pine. In the morning the intricate metallic notes of the brown-backed solitaire weave through the valleys while huge banded millipedes pull smoothly across the path like tardy commuter trains.

Approaching town, the road widens and reveals the remarkable valley that is Sanimtacá. On a relief map, the valley appears as a distinct rounded triangular pock in the middle of rippled but otherwise ordinary terrain. The valley is probably the product of an oblique meteor strike. Laguna Lachuá, the perfectly round lake 45 kilometers to the northwest was likely formed from a fragment of the Nim Tak’a meteorite.
Sanimtacá would itself be a lake if not for a cave system that opens at the very bottom of the valley, a geological drain. It’s not known where the water goes, but there’s probably a village somewhere in Alta Verapaz that owes its mysterious freshwater spring to Sanimtacá’s unique geology.
From the edge of Sanimtacá, it’s a three kilometer descent to the center of town. Despite its beauty, this descent makes me question the wisdom of locating a village in the center of a crater.

Like Samac, Sanimtacá was part of Gustavo Helmerich’s coffee and cardamom-producing property. The isolation of the village was probably an obstacle to the planter’s ability to develop the area. Sanimtacá doesn’t have the original architecture or historical artifacts that Samac retains.
In fact, except in natural magnificence, Sanimtacá is the poorer of the two communities in every way. While Samac has more than 700 inhabitants, Sanimtacá has only slightly more than 200. Samac has electricity and occasional cell phone signal. Sanimtacá has no electricity and no signal inside the valley. Sanimtacá has a lower standard of living and less assistance from government and volunteer agencies.
But while the people of Samac can be a bit eager with their courtesies, Sanimtacá is more reserved. They are interested in working with me; they solicited Peace Corps for a volunteer, but they don’t readily trust outsiders.
When I first arrived, they took me to the coffee patio at the bottom of the village. The president blew a few notes with a conch shell that reverberated through the valley. Within an hour and a half the entire population had congregated in the main hall. They introduced me, I introduced myself, and they discussed (me?) in Q’ekchi’ for a few hours.

In my pre-service imagination I had considered the prospect of living without electricity for two years. Pan comido, piece of cake. Electricity’s a luxury, not a necessity; if they can live without it, so can I.
When I received my site assignment and the dossier explained that Sanimtacá has no power (and omitted the fact that Samac does), I suddenly discovered that I wasn’t as hardcore as I had imagined.
Even though I prefer Sanimtacá, I live in Samac for the electricity (something I won’t admit to either cooperative). But I regularly spend the night in Sanimtacá.

The Sanimtacá day ends at dinner. As soon as the natural light is gone, the productivity of the day plummets. The opportunity to write or read wanes at 6 pm unless by candlelight.
And as a result of its geography, Sanimtacá has incredibly short days. Since the town is at the bottom of a big hole, the sun appears late and disappears early. After four pm, a shadow falls across the center of town and the sun starts to vanish. A few hours after dark the air starts to cool and clouds begin to roll into the valley. For the rest of the night and into the morning, the village is entirely hidden under a blanket of clouds. Sanimtacá remains hidden until late morning when the sun finally burns the mist away. In total, Sanimtacá only receives about six or seven hours of full sunlight on a clear day.

When I descend the road early in the morning I like to watch the sun rise as many times as I can. I wait for the sun to come up from behind the ridge and then walk a little further down and watch it again. The mist thickens in the descent and rich oil colors give way to bleeding watercolors until the sun rises as a soft circular moon. Still further and by degrees, the morning light is completely blotted out by blankets of vapor.

With the fleeting sun, heavy mist, and lack of electricity, one could assume that Sanimtacá ought to be the most well-rested society in the whole world. And if the villagers ever decide to put down the coffee, they just might get some rest.
But even without day-long caffeine benders, the people have no time to lounge in the gloom. The work day starts early, whether they can see or not. So when I wake up and the air is still soup, I’m met by the morning sound of machete bites in the vegetation and the angry early mutterings of chainsaws across the crater.

The slopes are planted and populated, but the valley top is an unbroken crown of protected forest. The forests are a part of the Sierra Sacranix system. The Sierra Sacranix contains a variety of habitat types, from pine woods to cloud forest. With the intermingling of different habitats, there’s a convergence of animal species that are not usually associated with one another. Counting native and migratory species across the seasons, The forests of Sanimtacá are projected to accomodate 350 species of birds. Sanimtacá is a promising destination for bird-watchers, and cultivating this potential will be my focus in this community.

They took me to the forest to show me around. The ascent is steep and dry. Guatemalans are mountain goats; sure-footed and tireless. Suitable footwear is the only advantage I have over them. The steep trails are muddy then grassy as we pass from cardamom plots to maize fields to montane woods. But entering the high forest, the heat shuts off.
Cicadas switch on, like tiny electric power tools in the jungle. Heavy boulders seem to defy gravity as they protrude along the muddy trail with broad vertical sides and narrow bases. The vegetation is thick and pendulous, bursting and hanging on all sides, making a tunnel out of the path. The air is cool and clean.
“How rich the air is,” they say (because clean air deserves recognition in Guatemala).
They name the jungle for my education. This is the k’iiche’, there’s a cojoj, that’s a tz’unun, watch for the k’anti. I’m able to nod at the nonsense, even repeat it. But I can’t retain their abstract syllables without paper. They tell me what they know about the forest and I tell them what I know.
When we find a column of leafcutter ants I explain that the ants (eb’li teken) don’t actually eat their scraps of leaves, but instead use leaf litter to grow the fungus that they eat. Like little farmers.
My guides don’t seem impressed.
But when we find a bright green pitviper, nearly invisible against the other swarming forest greens, I tell them it’s deaf. They politely inform me that I’m wrong because when they approach, the snake hears them and retreats. So I explain that it can feel vibration through the ground, but it can’t actually hear. As the snake lifts up to a branch, I clap and whistle. No change. This was a revelation.
Maak’a eb’li xik!, no ears!
And to find a formidable reptile on my first trip to the forest was more than I realistically expected. How long was it waiting here in the leaves? Was its existence inspired by my approaching imagination? Or is the forest’s chance combination of mystery, virulence, and color coincidentally faithful to what my eyes are always looking for? We stare at the incandescent green of its solid length. Paired black stripes run sharp from glass eyes through wide venom glands like details on a dangerous racing machine.
To the natives, my enthusiasm was strange and entertaining. Their nervous tension slid easily into laughter and discussion beside my wide-eyed, professional excitement.
She moved away without the haste of vulnerability. While she assumed a position of indifference in a low tree, a small group of humans clapped silently and cursed themselves in the same silence for leaving their cameras in the valley.

Dinner was lit by the cooking fire. While shadows stretched and wavered across the dirt-floor kitchen, the family conversed in Q’ekchi’. They asked me if I was going to watch the procession as if I knew about it, as if it weren’t my first night in town.
The descent to the center of town was easier in the cool of the night. The black valley flickered with fireflies like an immense stadium lit with camera flash. At the bottom, we found a wooden building thick with incense and people. They were reciting prayers at candlelit altars draped with flowers.
Sanimtacá, like Samac, is a Catholic community. To me, this discovery was a disappointment. When I set out for indigenous Mayan country, I had visions of feathered serpents, cave portals to nine winding levels of underworld, and black jaguar princes. But instead, the people worship the less relevant Christian saints.

During the Spanish conquest in the 1500’s, the conquistadors entering this region (Alta and Baja Verapaz) encountered the Rabinals, exceptionally ferocious and warlike Mayans. The Spanish were unable to defeat the Rabinals in combat. Instead, the natives were pacified and converted by Fray Bartolomé and his clergy. This bloodless conquest is what gives the region its name: Verapaz, True Peace.

The faith-based invasion was a complete success. Today there are the same distant, bearded expressions of holy virtue in every dining room shrine. But it’s puzzling. Their icons and saints look more like me; fair-skinned and fed, unbent, unbruised, and untouched by the smoke and strain of life in Guatemala.
Is it fair for me to feel personally cheated out of a fascinating cultural dimension? I’ll admit that I’m grateful that human sacrifice and ceremonial bloodletting are a thing of the past, but the replacement of the colorful ancient Mayan religion with a staid European faith seems unfortunate. My consolation is in the indisputable Guatemalan flavor they give their Catholic ceremonies.

Once the prayers concluded, the people gathered up two great wooden images. Eight women carried Mary and eight men supported a cross-bearing Jesus. The rest of us trailed the procession with candles. They pressed the images with difficulty through the dark overgrowth on the way to the road. A generator-powered stereo played a cassette of old-fashioned symphony music. The tape was repeated many times during the procession. A man with a guitar filled in every time the tape had to be rewound.
Even in the dark, the people continued to stare at me. Two little girls, paying more attention to the gringo than to the road, rolled past me in a giggling tangle of huipiles.

This has been my reception in both communities. The people, especially the young people, are completely fascinated with every ordinary thing I do. The boys are eager to be my friends and they call my name on the road or whisper it through the walls when I’m indoors. When my window’s open, they come up to stare silently for as long as I will let them.
The girls have a more discreet style. Sometimes when I’m a dinner guest, I can feel the eyes on me. When I look up, I usually catch them ducking behind a door or squeaking and skittering out of sight. On the road, they try to play it cool. They usually cover their smiles with one hand and steady their baskets with the other. We exchange customary greetings as we pass, but as soon as I’m five paces away, I hear their overflowing squeals and laughter.

For some that night, the foreigner was making the procession difficult to focus on. For me, the steep road of loose rock was a renewed challenge. By scant candlelight, just staying upright required intense concentration. The idea of carrying heavy wooden icons up the valley in the dark seemed prohibitively difficult. But this emphasized the power of symbol and tradition in the community. It’s a physically difficult ceremony, but it’s too important to skip or change.

Without electric lights, the sky was clear and complete. Instead of darkness, the night was a glistening jelly teeming with stars I’d never seen before. As I watched, a passenger plane blinked across the exposed circle of air.
I imagined that the plane was headed to Rio from Los Angeles, passing above Guatemala in the dark. I knew there were laptops blazing up there. People had earbuds in. Someone was messing up a Sudoku. Someone was watching Transformers with director’s commentary on a portable DVD player. Someone was browsing remote-controlled mini-blimps in the Skymall catalog. I knew all of these things. But no one up there could have any idea that there was a Catholic Mayan candle procession picking its way up a black mountain road in a pre-electric crater valley below.
The plane was a stray fleck of pond water, alive with foreign life, dripping between metropolises. Down here, I knew and recognized that life. Surrounded by villagers that had never even been to an airport, I was suddenly aware of how alien I really was. Piebald concerts, LOLCats, Star Wars movies, Calvin and Hobbes comics and a sea of now-culturally-irrelevant material filled my head. I found myself straddling worlds; a mental citizen of one, and a physical resident of the other.
Ernesto was standing next to me, also looking up.
“What a big world it is,” he said.
“It’s certain,” I replied.
And I brought my attention back to the slipping rocks on the candle-lit slope and tried not to fall into the flickering crater below.
And the clouds seeped in like phantom cushions just in case.