Some preliminary observations about the pandemic in Guatemala

 By now (August 2), I've interviewed public health personnel in each of my three target municipalities, as well as members of the alcaldías indígenas. In addition to formal interviews, I've had informal conversations with people in stores as I have made minor purchases. Because these towns do not see a lot of foreign visitors, even if I'm just purchasing a bottle of sparkling water, the person behind the counter will often ask me where I am from and what I am doing in their town, and I am happy to oblige. In fact I am happy to tell them the specific object of my research (not just "I'm a researcher from the U.S." but "I'm here to look at the impact of the pandemic on rural indigenous communities" -- that's the short version), which sometimes leads to their sharing their observations and experiences.

So here are some threads that have run through my research:

• There is a fair amount of disbelief that the coronavirus exists, that the pandemic is not just a plot cooked up by the Guatemalan government. Several times, people said things like "Ellos dicen que hay una pandemia pero no sabemos si es verdad o no ("they - meaning the government -- say that there is a pandemic but we don't know if that is true"). I heard some variation of this in each of the towns I visited. This suspicion of government pronouncements needs to be placed in historical context -- there is a long history of the government-sponsored health care system neglecting or mistreating indigenous people. When I was here in 2011, Maya women reported that when they went to hospitals to give birth, if they had been attended by a midwife, the medical staff berated them for having worked with a midwife and only coming to the hospital when there were complications (i.e. if you had come to us from the beginning you wouldn't be in this situation). The public health system is underfunded and under-resourced and has been for a long time. There is a long, sordid history of government corruption --for example public funds that are designated for a particular purpose being diverted elsewhere or going into private hands. The U.S. Congress publishes a list of corrupt government officials in Central America (and also private sector actors) called the Engel list (named after former Congressman Elliot Engel) and this year's list includes the current Mayor of Joyabaj (a nearby town in El Quiché) as well as former president Alvaro Colóm, some Guatemalan congress people, and others. The annual State Department reports on Guatemala dating back well over a decade detail corruption in the government. So people have reason to distrust what the government says.
• There is widespread agreement -- among both pandemic deniers and those who believe that the pandemic is real -- that government has handled the pandemic very badly. We can argue about whether the toque de queda (order to stay inside) made sense from a public health standpoint. I will leave that aside. But the toque de queda was imposed in a very militarized fashion, and the fines for violating the curfew were extremely high (Q6,000 was what I was told). This was well beyond the means of all but the wealthiest Guatemalans, who were not the ones most likely to have violated it. The National Civilian Police (Policia Nacional Civil, who usually can't be bothered to do much in rural communities (like come quickly when there is an emergency), were patrolling in remote aldeas and handing out fines.
• The toque de queda had a disproportionate effect on the poorest Guatemalans -- mostly indigenous people in rural areas. The town marketplaces were closed. This meant that people who rely upon selling their surplus (or goods that they cultivate specifically in order to sell) were left without a source of income and the ability to buy what they need. After all, if you are growing radishes to sell at the market, so that you can buy something you don't grow, you can't really survive on radishes. Some ended up donating some of the food that they couldn't sell, while others profiteered by selling necessary items at inflated prices.
• The human rights situation has deteriorated. People in the communities we visited with the human rights delegation told us that the situation was the worst that it had been since the end of the armed conflict. One told us "We thought Jimmy Morales was the worst president but Giammattei is even worse." I'll write more about this later, but just wanted to mention it in this brief summary. Many communities have been subjected to forced evictions from their land to make way for various "development" or extractive projects. Additionally, there has been a closing of what remained of democratic space. Journalists are persecuted, as well as judges and prosecutors. In just the last week a well-known journalist from a major publication who is critical of the government was arrested on charges of influence peddling, blackmail, and money laundering.  The extent to which the pandemic has contributed to the human rights abuses is something I am still working out.
• Guatemala has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the region, and the situation is much worse in rural areas, where the population is largely if not almost exclusively indigenous. People are openly hostile to public health workers who have gone door to door in rural villages and hamlets to try and encourage people to get vaccinated. Every public health worker I spoke to told me of people refusing to open their doors, or opening them armed with machetes and axes, telling the health workers to go away and not come back. In Zacualpa the vaccination rate for the entire municipality is around 20%, but that in some villages it's as low as 2%. 
• The low vaccination rates result from several factors. One is the historic distrust of anything the government says or does. For centuries, ignoring or avoiding the government has been a survival strategy for indigenous communities. People have long historical memories. The government robbed them of their land, forced indigenous men to perform unpaid labor, carried out a genocidal war, and in the post-war period it has encouraged extractive industries, failed to abide by rulings from its own courts or international bodies like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alternating between ignoring indigenous communities and intervening militarily (current and past governments have frequently declared states of siege when a community has opposed an extractive project or otherwise protested government policies). Another is fraud, corruption and/or poor planning on the vaccine roll-out. Health workers told me that they often received large batches of vaccines that were expired -- perhaps a lack of planning for getting the vaccines to rural areas in a timely fashion. So people who wanted to get vaccinated were sometimes unable to do so. It is widely believed that the government misappropriated a lot of the funding that was intended for vaccine purchases or promotion.
• Additionally, there is a lot of false information and many rumors floating about. For example, that people who have received the vaccine have died in large numbers, and that people who did not get the vaccine are doing well. Several people (including people who are in leadership positions, and a few whom I know personally, not just random market vendors) that people who were vaccinated died soon after getting the vaccine.
• Despite the fact that vaccination is voluntary and not mandatory, nonetheless the government issues vaccination quotas for each Centro de Salud. As one health worker told me, "If they send you 5000 doses, you are expected to give 5000 vaccinations." 
• Economic inequality has increased during the pandemic. I don't think that needs a whole lot of explanation.
• The impact on education has been catastrophic in rural areas. Access to education was already a challenge in rural areas the government has historically under invested in public education, where people are poor and often have large families and schools. Even public school requires expenditures from families for books and school supplies. A young woman I met told me she was only able to attend school through fourth grade because she is one of 10 children, her father drinks to excess, and her mother couldn't provide the necessities for all 10 children to be educated.  When the pandemic hit and schools were closed, virtual instruction posed a challenge -- not just in terms of teachers retooling their pedagogy. Many rural families do not have electricity, let alone internet or smartphones. Even those who have smart phones find it hard to connect as the signal is often weak or non-existent in rural areas, especially in the mountainous regions of the altiplano. Parents who cannot read and write are not going to be able to help children with their lessons. Teachers did what they could (including traveling to rural communities to hand-deliver copies of lessons and worksheets). And so a generation of children has lost nearly two years of schooling.
• Migration has continued, and perhaps in some areas it has increased, during the pandemic. As the economic situation has worsened in rural areas, and there are fewer jobs, there is very little incentive for young people to stay. During at least a few of my interviews, the people I was interviewing told me they were seriously considering migrating to the U.S.

Back on track: getting started in Chinique

 

On Monday, July 11, I traveled to Chinique, as I've previously recounted. I arrived in the early afternoon, but I had already set up one meeting with the relative of a recent migrant -- Don Roberto, the father of Ken, of my key collaborators for this trip. Ken had given me Don Roberto's phone number before I'd left the U.S. in my hurried preparations, and I'd written to him on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is extremely popular in Guatemala; the major cell phone companies often throw in free access to WhatsApp and Facebook (also popular) when one purchases airtime, which means that people often use WhatsApp to make phone calls rather than using their limited minutes. So I shouldn't have been surprised when Don Roberto called me back instead of texting me -- while those of us privileged to have had enough education that writing comes easily find texting a good way to communicate, those who aren't so privileged (which would include about 70% of the 35+ rural indigenous population in Guatemala, where most people have had only a few years of primary school; people in their 50s or older would have had few opportunities to study as the 36-year long armed conflict would have interrupted what little and inadequate rural education there was) would prefer to call, finding texting difficult.

Don Roberto had been very eager to talk with me, and so I called him again when I'd arrived in Guatemala and he said that he would come into Chinique from the rural village of La Puerta; he assured me that he had a little Torito (little bull), which is the name of one of the brands of motor-taxis known as Tuk-tuks. When he arrived, I told him that I hadn't yet eaten lunch, and so I allowed him to choose a comedor for me. He drove me in the tuk-tuk (I could easily have walked but it would have been rude to not accept the ride) and he parked on a patch of cobblestone behind the parroquia (the parish church), which I recalled was where the fireworks took place during the patron saint feast. The comedor was one that has been there for a long time, and I think I'd eaten there once or twice before. I told him to order whatever he wanted but he had already had lunch so he just had a soft drink. The comedor had a small sign on the wall advertising pizza, but the proprietor told me it would take 45 minutes, so I nixed that idea.  I had scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onion (a safe bet and one of the few reliable options for a semi-vegetarian), and then we set off for La Puerta..

I had been to La Puerta exactly once, for the consulta comunitaria in 2012, and I hadn't remember much if anything about the trip to the village. All I remembered was the assembled residents of the community standing in neat rows in a large field that had a row of buildings on one side -- perhaps the school, or some offices of local institutions. One of the community leaders -- I think the head teacher at the school -- stood before the crowd, explained the process of the consulta, and then held the vote. Some communities used paper ballots, while others, like La Puerta, did it by a show of hands. 

So I hadn't remembered how far it was, or how steep the road. The Torito climbed and climbed, and then climbed some more, over roads that were paved in parts and dirt and rocks in others. Finally Don Roberto stopped and pointed to a house across a few fields. "That's our house", he told me, and then parked the in a small shed alongside the road. After securing his vehicle, he led me across a narrow path that went through his neighbor's fields, and then his own, and finally to the house. We entered through the back (that is the side facing away from the road) and stepped into a small courtyard where his wife was waiting. She pulled out a chair for me and I gladly accepted the seat. She spoke less Spanish than her husband, who occasionally had to translate for us. I admired the flowers and the view (the photo that accompanies this paragraph is looking out back from the house) and gave her the small present I'd brought. The women in the collective house where I'd stayed in the capital made soaps and other toiletries, and so I'd bought 10 soaps as small gifts for people. Although it is often customary for anthropologists to pay people for participating in interviews, I knew that this might be seen as offensive and so I decided upon small gifts. I thought about purchasing coffee but that is heavier and bulkier to carry around.

Don Roberto said that his son had not told him or his wife that he was leaving Guatemala. Ken had had several jobs working with NGOs and often traveled. He was not living in his parents' home at that time. He had told his parents that he was going to attend a training workshop (I think in Xela but I'd have to check the recording), and that he would not be reachable for a while. His parents accepted this (adult sons are given a fair amount of autonomy) and only learned that he was in the U.S. when he called after he had arrived. Don Roberto said that he understood why Ken had done that; he didn't want to upset his mother. He (Don Roberto) accepted what his son had done and said that he would have supported his decision if he'd known about it. 

The mother chimed in at this point (I don't remember her name so I don't have to invent a pseudonym for her) and started to cry as she spoke; it was clear that Ken's departure was still a sore spot for her, although almost exactly a year had passed.  I took some photographs and send them to him via WhatsApp while I was in his parents' home. I was trying to remember if he called or I called, but looking at this picture, it seems that his mother is talking on her phone, which means that he must have called her.

What struck me was the remoteness of the locale and the ruggedness of the terrain. I began to appreciate anew the challenges that people in rural areas face in obtaining an education. La Puerta has an elementary school, but anyone who aspires to complete the ciclo básico (the equivalent of JHS) or diversificado (the equivalent of HS) needs to travel at the very least to Chinique, which was easily 20-25 minutes away by tuk-tuk -- this is assuming that one can afford a tuk-tuk. On foot it would take at least 45 minutes going downhill, and a fair amount longer walking up. There is now a high school in Chinique -- when I was there in 2011, students had to travel to Santa Cruz del Quiché to attend a diversificado, which put it beyond the means of most. Even if one attends a public school, there are costs. In addition to school supplies and books, students would have to pay for the bus, as well as meals. The major universities offer extension programs in El Quiché, but they offer a limited range of majors (carreras or careers). Usually it's education, social work, and agronomy (or something along those lines). If one wants to study law, for example, they would have to go to a major city, which implies additional costs (housing, for example). 

We talked a little more, and then I walked around the house and looked at the surrounding mountains and fields. They gave me some oranges from one of the trees that are on their property, and then Don Roberto drove me back towards town. I asked him to leave me near the house of my friends Catarino and Sandy, with whom I'd promised to have dinner. I've already written about seeing their children, the older ones nearly all grown up. They've worked on their house, and so the kitchen is much bigger, and they have a gas stove in addition to plancha. Verónica has her own bedroom (as befitting her status as an older teenaged girl) and they've added a wicket and a little path to the front of the house from the main path onto the property (there are three houses belonging to family members along this path, and theirs is the third). 

Catarino had told me that Sandy had started to attend adult education classes. Like many indigenous women who marry relatively young and start having children, her education was interrupted. She is one of at least 10 children and her parents are agricultores (agriculturalists) -- people who work the land. That seems to be the favored term for subsistence farmers. But I was a little surprised to see a group of people standing around a computer in the outdoor covered patio of the house. The instructor at the center was explaining how to set up an email account. Catarino told me that this was an adult education class. On another occasion, Sandy told me that she was completing her high school and then wanted to go on to a university degree; I hope she is able to do so. 

Sometimes it pays not to prepare

AUGUST 1 , ZACUALPA:

Okay, this is completely out of order, but I wanted to write this before I forgot. As I write this I am close to the end of my trip here. My first fieldwork (after a weekend in the capital) was in Chinique, and then I went to Xela for the weekend, and spent part of the second week in San Andrés Sajcabajá. I then spent a week with a human rights delegation, and when that ended, I spent a weekend in Cobán. My last bit of fieldwork was to be in Zacualpa, the third town in the department of El Quiché which is heavily represented in the New Bedford Mayan community, and so I arrived on Monday, August 1, without having done a huge amount of preparation. I had contacted the alcaldía indígena -- I knew someone from the alcaldía indígena in Chinique and he was able to give me names and phone numbers for contacts in the other two towns. And I had contacted a friend with whom I'd stayed the last time I was here in 2019, a woman I'd met in 2011 and with whom I'd intermittently been in touch. I had wanted to find someone in the local Centro de Salud -- the state-sponsored health center. I'd gotten the statistics about reported infections and deaths for the entire department from one of the staff in the departmental office in Santa Cruz del Quiché, so I didn't need someone to talk about that. But I did want to talk to someone about the experience of health workers on the ground during the pandemic

I have a friend who works for the health workers' union in Santa Cruz del Quiché, and so I hurriedly texted her while I was on a long, long series of bus rides from Cobán to Zacualpa (there's no direct route so I ended up on three separate buses). Although I'd asked her about the health center, when she responded, she told me about people I could talk to about migration (those were contacts I already had). I asked again about the Centro de Salud and she said she didn't think anyone there was very interested in giving information.

When I got to Zacualpa, after leaving my bag with Doña Caty, my hostess, and chatting a bit with her, I decided to walk around and re-familiarize myself with the town. Like everywhere else, there is a lot that is new -- even since my visit in 2019. The municipal building was rebuilt after residents burned it down in 2015, dissatisfied with the elections of that year. But there were other, newer buildings -- some as high as 4 stories. I walked out on a road that I didn't know, just to stretch my legs a bit, and then when I returned to the town center, I decided on a whim to go to the Centro de Salud and see if I could make an appointment to talk with someone tomorrow (Tuesday). Thanks to Google Maps I was able to find the Centro pretty easily (I'd never been there before). There was someone at the gate, having what sounded like a complicated phone conversation. She paused her conversation to ask what i wanted and I told her it was a little complicated and I would wait. It was after 5 and so I didn't have very high hopes. When she finished her call (having ushered in a pregnant woman accompanied by an older woman, presumably her mother), I briefly explained that I wasn't looking for a medical consultation but that I was doing research about the pandemic in indigenous communities, and wanted to know if there was someone who could talk to me. She took me inside and led me to another woman, explained what I wanted, and the second woman looked into an office of the district nursing officer and said that he was in, and told him that someone wanted to see him. I cautiously entered, and explained again (this time in a little more detail) what I wanted, I apologized for intruding saying that I assumed that he wouldn't be able to talk with me but that I had just come to see if I could make an appointment for Tuesday or Wednesday. He explained that he had a report to turn in tomorrow, so I suggested Wednesday. Then he said, "Why don't we talk right now?" which was not what I had expected, and I pulled out my phone (which is what I usually use to record interviews) and notebook. 

I won't go into all the details -- I'll ave those for when I get through the more chronological narration, but it was a productive interview. Really as much a conversation as an interview, as I told him what I knew about the pandemic and the immigrant community. And then he took me around the Centro, pointing out the delivery rooms, which included one that was set up to accommodate women who came in with a midwife. This room had a regular bed (no stirrups) covered with a bedspread woven in a traditional Zacualpan pattern and a mat on the floor. On either side, there were two other more standard delivery rooms.

So, sometimes even if you're not especially well prepared, things can turn out fine. 

Revisiting the past

Another little detour here. My last post about traveling to El Quiché was mostly about the mechanics of the journey. But there's an emotional or psychic side as well. When we go back to place that we haven't seen for a while, there's always a mixture of anticipation and fear. Will the people I liked and cared about still be there? Maybe some of them have moved away, or perhaps a few have died. Will I recognize the place? And perhaps more importantly, will the place recognize me? Will the people among whom I lived many years ago -- but with only a very few of whom I have stayed in touch -- remember me? Will they still like me?

After I walked around and looked at my old house, I went into the small store that was owned by the grandparents of a friend in New Bedford. The grandmother -- I think her name is Doña Adela -- was still holding it down, and a young woman I did not recognize was keeping her company (and probably helping out). I went over to her and told her who I was -- that I'd lived in Chinique for a year, that I had been to her store several times, and that we had spent the evening together during the fiesta patronal. She looked at me somewhat blankly, not really blankly, but it was clear that she didn't really remember me. She must have been at least 65 in 2011, so she's undoubtedly close to 80 now, and it has been a long time. So that was a small disappointment. I snapped the photo above on my phone and sent it to the granddaughter in New Bedford, who immediately responded and asked me why I hadn't yet been to see her mother, Doña Chenta. I explained that I had literally just arrived and the place I was staying was right across the street from her grandmother's store and Doña Chenta's place was a little farther way, but I promised to go and say hello. 

Willy, however, the owner of the garage, remembered me well when I finally located him later that day. Of course, I lived across the street from his garage and therefore saw him at least in passing several times a week (Doña Adela's shop was about 2 blocks away). His brother had moved to Zacualpa so was no longer in the shop with him. 

We don't, of course, expect time to stand still. The adults we knew are often grayer, more bald, fatter, or thinner than they were in the past. Their faces are more careworn and show the effect of the passing years -- not just the literal time that has elapsed, but the troubles (familial, economic, political) that have beset them. Some of them are no longer with us. Children who were small are small no longer. Chubby little toddlers have become lanky adolescents.  

The children of my good friends Catarino and Sandy were, of course, not the small children I remembered, and they have had a third child in the interim, whom I had only seen in photos. Their daughter, Verónica, who was a sweet grade schooler, is now finishing up secondary school and is a huge fan of K-pop (see photo on the right). Brandon, who never spoke much when he was young but would throw himself around me and virtually smother me with hugs, is now that lanky and somewhat serious teenager, hardly recognizable. The baby - no longer an actual baby - looks very much like Brandon did when he was that age, but of course since he hasn't been accustomed to seeing me at his parents' kitchen table, he's not about to throw himself at me. 

The second day in Chinique, I went to the Centro de Salud to see if I could meet with the director, or someone who could give me a local perspective on the pandemic and its impact in the community. When I got there, the waiting room was full, mostly with women and children. There were people waiting outside as well, and one of the clinic workers was clearly giving some kind of educational talk. I could see that she wore glasses and was on crutches. I sat down, since I didn't want to disturb the talk, and waited until it was over, and then went in and asked for the director. As I was shown to his office, I recognized Doña Lola, the sister of my friend and collaborator Adrián, whom I knew worked there, and we quickly embraced. But then the woman who had been giving the talk looked at me and said, "Lisa? No me reconoces?" It was Naty, whose house I had stayed in when I first arrived in Chinique in 2011 for my Fulbright residency, and needed a place to stay while I looked for a place to rent. I hadn't recognized her at first -- she'd gained weight, and I don't think I'd seen her in her work uniform (although I knew she worked at the Centro de Salud). She asked where I was staying, and insisted that I come and stay at her house rather than paying for a lodging, I gladly accepted because it meant I'd be with friends rather than alone, and that I'd be able to cook. While I'm a very adaptable traveler in many ways, I like to drink my coffee the way I like to make it (or a good latte). I actually travel with an Aeropress coffee maker and for this trip I splurged and bought a travel model (yes, I know, a little obsessive -- so sue me). And I like having the option of not having eggs for breakfast every single day of my stay (that's what you get at most restaurants -- I've described a desayuno chapín in other posts). So I usually make one of my first stops at a supermarket, and buy the darkest roast ground coffee I can find, powdered whole milk (I don't know why we don't have this in the U.S.; powdered milk is really convenient when you travel and non-fat milk is too gross for coffee -- apologies to any vegans or skim milk fans), old-fashioned oats and carry them around with me. So staying with Naty (and her husband Oscar) meant that I could feed myself as I pleased for at least several days. I didn't move until the next day -- I felt that I needed to give notice to the person from whom I'd rented a room, and it was already mid-afternoon. 

Naty's house had grown since I was there last -- they'd added a second story, and moved the kitchen. Her daughter Jocelyn is now an adult and has a room upstairs (unmarried children, especially female, usually stay in their parents' homes until they marry and sometimes after). The last time I'd seen Oscar was by sheer coincidence -- I was at the bus station in the city of Huehuetenango waiting for a bus to Santa Eulalia, and Oscar called out to me. At that time -- this was maybe 2017? -- he was driving a microbus between Santa Cruz del Quiché and Huehuetenango; when we'd met in 2011 he was a health promoter. And now, 2022, he was working in construction, part of the crew that was constructing a new municipal building in Chinique.

I received some affectionate chiding for not having stayed in touch and for not having contacted them in advance. I told Naty that I didn't have her phone number any longer -- I've gone through a couple of telephones in Guatemala and each time I've had to get a new phone, I lose phone numbers from earlier trips. 

Another day I went to see Dona Chenta, the daughter of Doña Adela, with whom I had visited fairly often when I lived in Chinique. Doña Chenta has several children living in the U.S., and while I don't keep in close touch with them, her daughter and I follow each other on social media. I remembered very generally where her house was -- in a part of Chinique called La Cruz (because there is a large cross at the intersection of the main road out of town and a smaller, unpaved road that comes in at an sharp angle (what Guatemalans would call a cuchillo -- literally, a knife). The road that Doña Chenta lives on was still unpaved, but there were several new stores and eating places around this intersection, which  used to have nothing other than the cross, a kind of sad and dilapidated-looking gas station across the road, and maybe one small store. The gas station had gotten renovated and the whole intersection seemed more lively.. But I misremembered which side of the road her house was on, and I walked into someone else's house -- or rather onto their property, not literally into the house. I opened the gate and called out hello, and asked if it was Doña Chenta's house. The woman who lived there pointed me in the right direction and off I went. 

Doña Chenta remembered who I was and was glad to see me. I sat with her for a while as she and a helper sorted through large baskets of wild mushrooms. I asked her if she was going to sell them in the market, and she told me that she cleaned them and sent them off to sell in the capital. She didn't pick them herself but bought them from people who gathered them up in the surrounding mountains. I started to help her. As if to illustrate a point, while we were working, an old man came in bearing mushrooms he had gathered. Doña Chenta pulled out a scale, and put the mushrooms into the tray on top of the scale, and then told the man what she would pay for them. About 10 minutes after he left a woman came in, also bearing mushrooms to sell. While we were there I called her daughter on FaceBook or WhatsApp (I no longer remember) and let her speak to her mother a bit. She made her mother promise to cook me a dinner and we agreed upon the date, and that the meal would contain some of these delicious-looking mushrooms. 

Upscaling Guatemala

Tme to take a brief pause in my very desultory and delayed attempt to give a chronological narration of my work this trip, and discuss my immediate surroundings -- a brand-new multi-level centro comercial (shopping center) right smack in the middle of Cobán, which is I think the fourth largest city in Guatemala. Cobán is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz, where there has been a series of conflicts with indigenous communities over land rights. I was here with the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission Emergency Delegation in 2018, and we visited a community not very far away, Chotún Basilá, where a peasant farmer had been killed by the security guards of a company that was trying to force people to sell their land. The 2022 delegation (which I haven't gotten around to writing about) also went to Cobán, very briefly. We met with members of one of the main national organizations representing indigenous people, the Comité Campesino del Altiplano or CCDA (Peasant Committee of the Highlands), as well as people from two communities that had been forcibly displaced from their communities. One community is in the department of Alta Verapaz (Cobán is the capital) and one is in another department. For reasons of security, I am not going to name the communities or the people these are people who have outstanding arrest warrants on what we believe to be spurious charges, and one was the object of an attempted assassination, so this is not an idle precaution.

In any case, we were pretty much in and out of Cobán. We got here at night, had dinner, went to bed, and then had meetings one after the other in the morning, and then we left to head to Rabinal, a town in the department immediately to the south, Baja Verapaz. We didn't really have time to explore much, and although I went for a run in the morning and we must have run right past it, I didn't really take notice of the shopping center until I came back here and was talking with the manager on duty at the hotel where I am staying, just to orient myself. It was a hotel where I hadn't stayed before so I wanted to orient myself in relationship to the Parque Central. He took me up to the roof of the building and pointed out a huge multistory building with a La Torre supermarket sign very visible (La Torre is a national supermarket chain), at opposite end of the Parque  Central from the church. 

After divesting myself of my suitcase, I decided to go out and explore on foot -- only to have the heavens up with a deluge of rain, I made it to the corner across from the mall (about 2-1/2 blocks from my hotel) and decided to venture inside. The first thing I noticed was the ethnographic display cases, one of which is pictured above. There were three or four, all on the first floor. The next thing I noticed was that there were escalators and elevators -- somewhat of a rarity in this part of town, where a lot of the buildings are older. 

The stores in the Centro Comercial are a mixture of typical fast food (Pollo Campero, a national chain that specialized in fried chicken, usually called pollo dorado, which literally means golden chicken; it's not generally called pollo frito or fried chicken) and somewhat newer and more "artisanal" places, like an artisanal fruit-based ice-cream shop, a couple of places where you can get decent espresso drinks. And then there are some very utilitarian businesses, like a dentistry office, an optician, the office of a local cooperative, and of course the supermarket. 

As I've sat here this afternoon, trying to get some work done (there are a lot of tables that are not attached to specific eateries, and decent wifi, and no one seems to bother you if you sit and chat with a group of friends, or sit alone as I am doing, for a good amount of time. The clientele seems to be a mix of people whom I would classify as "professional" (based on their clothing and the fact that they are conversing in Spanish) and those who are dressed in traditional attire (the women, of course -- indigenous men in most parts of Guatemala have long since given up traditional garments). There may be indigenous people among the professionals but they are not dressed in garments that mark them as indigenous. There are some family groups -- women with infants in their arms, both parents shepherding small children around. In most of these families, only the mothers are dressed in traditional garments. Children of both sexes are usually wearing jeans and shirts. You won't see many people in these photos, however, because I didn't have a chance to ask permission, and it would have been hard to explain what I wanted the photos for.  

Why do I take this detour? Because this place seems indicative of how a sector of the national elite (I'm assuming that La Torre is owned by Guatemalans) is inserting itself into urban spaces, as well as the way in which international brands like Taco Bell, McDonald's, Walmart, and Starbucks, are also inserting themselves into the Guatemalan landscape. This isn't an isolated phenomenon -- you can hardly drive along a Guatemalan highway as it passes through one of the major cities without encountering a McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, and their ilk. And there are upscale malls in or near most major cities --some of these have been around for a decade or more (J.T. Way has written about Tikal Futura on Avenida Roosevelt in Guatemala City in his book The Mayan and the Mall ). But there's been a noticeable expansion since I was here last, and in at least one place that is not exactly on the main tourist path -- Santa Cruz del Quiché. 

Returning to Cobán, there is one stretch of the road leading into the city from the south where there have been some upscale shops and U.S. fast food stores for quite a while. But the Plaza del Parque is recent.  I don't know a hell of a lot about Cobán but I do know a few things. In the nineteenth century, German capitalists invested in Guatemala, and developed the coffee industry here. I think they also invested in the commercial production of cardamom (which is often mixed with coffee, and also with chocolate -- several places sell coffee with cardamom, and cardamom-flavored chocolate - both for drinking and eating).  Much of what is grown here is exported, although there are vendors at the market under the arches at the plaza, where I saw plenty of local Maya people shopping for güipiles and other textiles, who sell artisanal chocolate and a few were selling bags of coffee. There are still German-owned coffee companies (Disseldorf is the one that comes to mind). Additionally, Cobán is on the road to some popular tourist destinations in the farther northeast, like Semuc Champey and Tikal, so while it isn't swarming with tourists in the way that la Antigua, Panajachel or Xela are, there are some. 

 

Returning to Santa Cruz del Quiché, when I stopped over briefly a few weeks ago and went out for dinner with a dear old friend, I noticed that the area around the Parque Central, which had always had some commercial establishments, had been somewhat gentrified. Before, there was the church and the traditional covered market on one side, a few banks and pharmacies (well-known national chains that have been there a while), one big store selling housewares (a national chain), a few modest restaurants and one bakery. Now, there is a two-story upscale bakery/café, and a few blocks away, on one of the streets leading off the square heading west, a fancy restaurant where my friend and I ate. The restaurant interior would not have looked out of place in the U.S. -- track lighting, sleek surfaces, one wall covered with a multicolored array of mugs. Nor would a good portion of the menu: panini, salads, fajitas. Guatemalans still haven't gotten around to the idea of side salads, however, in most places. Most of the time if you want a salad you either need to make that the meal, find someone with whom to share it, or if you order a salad and something else, resign yourself to either stuffing yourself, leaving food on the plate, or seeing if the restaurant can wrap up the leftovers. 

There seems to be a new aesthetic afoot, also. I've seen lots of places -- including the hotel where I am staying, which is not the swankiest place around -- that have similar decorations. Old bicycles hung from the ceiling or hung on the wall. Wooden cabinets containing manual typewriters, old-fashioned (i.e. 1940s-era) rotary dial phones. Antique wooden sewing machine tables emblazoned with the Singer logo. The photo alongside this paragraph is from a very unassuming roadside eatery somewhere in northeastern Guatemala. 

Perhaps we might refer to this as the panini-ization of Guatemala. Nearly everywhere you, restaurants offer panini on their menus, even if the rest of the menu contains Guatemalan staples like a desayuno chapín (eggs, plantains, a slice of cheese, some black beans, a dab of crema -- Guatemala's version of sour cream, and tortillas; sausage or some kind of meat if you want) or pepián.  And crepes -- both sweet and savory -- have also become somewhat ubiquitous. I don't know if Chinique (total population of the municipality 13,000 as a generous estimate) has any restaurants that serve panini, but they do have a new pizza restaurant. 

And while there are no bicycles hanging from the wall, there is a similar aesthetic that is tied to the products of twentieth century (early to mid-20th century) consumer culture. 

But in general, from what I've heard and seen, social and economic inequality is worsening in Guatemala, so while there is a small Maya middle and professional class, and somewhat larger non-indigenous economic elites, one wonders who these upscale locales serve.

Traveling to El Quiché

The object of the research part of my trip was to look at the impact of the pandemic, and the relationship between the pandemic and migration, in the three communities from which the vast majority of New Bedford's Guatemalan Maya population come -- Chinique, San Andrés Sajcabajá, and Zacualpa, all in the department of El Quiché. Since 2013, most of my Guatemalan sojourns have been in the department of Huehuetenango, not in El Quiché. Huehuetenango is also in the highlands, and it lies to the west of El Quiché. The population is similar to that of El Quiché in that it is largely indigenous, rural, and poor. Both departments have high levels of extreme poverty, chronic malnutrition (especially of young children), maternal and infant mortality, and chronic neglect by the central government. Both regions "send" a lot of migrants to the U.S., although the migrants from different regions (and different ethno-linguistic groups) generally end up in different areas, as indigenous people tend to go where their relatives, friends, and neighbors have gone before. If you're going to make the long and expensive journey to the US, you want to know that there are people at the other end who speak your language, and who will receive you when you arrive from the long journey across Mexico and then across the deserts of the southwest. 

Quick factoid: the price of the journey -- that is, the standard fee that you pay a pollero or coyote -- has increased dramatically during the pandemic. Although I wasn't specifically looking at migration in most of the pre-pandemic years, I would sometimes casually ask what the price of the journey was. My recollection is that in 2018-2019, it was around 60,000 quetzales (Q60,000). At current exchange rates, that would be around $7,750). It has doubled, and it's now about Q120,000-Q125,000 (over $15,000). People end up taking out loans at extremely high interest rates (as they come from money lenders and not banks), or mortgaging or even selling their land to pay for the journey.

There are also important differences. Huehuetenango's indigenous population includes at least seven distinct ethnic/linguistic groups -  if I can remember them without looking it up: Mam, Q'anjob'al, Chuj, Akateko, Chalchiteko, Awakateko, Jakalteko (also known as Popti), and some K'iche' people. According to Wikipedia there's a 9th ethnic group, Tektik (yes, I did look it up to see if I'd remembered correctly -- so I missed one, but I've never been in that part of Huehue and so I've never come across any Tektik people). 

The department of El Quiché includes the historic homeland of the K'iche' people and most of the majority-Maya population are K'iche' (the largest Maya ethno-linguistic group in Guatemala). There is a region dominated by the Maya Ixil (pronounced Ee-sheel) -- the municipalities of Nebaj. Cotzal, and Chajul. This is where the massacres that resulted in the genocide trial against former dictator Ríos Montt took place -- specifically in Nebaj. This is not because there were more or worse massacres there, but because the prosecutors found enough evidence ot mount a successful prosecution. When I was in Guatemala last, in 2019, I did spend some time in El Quiché, but much of it was in the Ixil region which I'd only visited briefly once before, and I spent a few days in Zacualpa (where I will travel in about a week's time), but otherwise my time was spent elsewhere. So this was going to be a return to some places that I hadn't visited for a decade or more. During my first visit to Guatemala in 2009, I spent time in San Andrés Sajcabajá (SAS) and visited there again in 2010, but I hadn't been back there since. And the two people with whom I'd spent most of my time, and who were, in effect, my hosts (one of them quite literally), have both since migrated to the U..S., so aside from contacts that I'd solicited from within the community in New Bedford (a few recent migrants who are from SAS), I didn't really have anyone "local". Chinique is where I lived during my Fulbright year (if any of you benighted readers have been following my blog since I began it in 2011, you might remember that -- extra points for you, but no shade if you don't), and then I visited again in 2012 when I was an international observer for the consulta comunitaria -- the community consultation (also called "consulta de buena fé" -- consultation in good faith) against mining and mega-projects. But I hadn't been to Chinique since then. When I visited Zacualpa in 2019, the bus passed through Chinique but I didn't get off and look anyone up, although I had an unexpected encounter with some friends from Chinique, Catarino and his wife Sandy, when my hostess in Zacualpa and I went to eat at an outdoor food stall in the market place in the evening. The food served at the Zacualpa food stalls isn't any different from what's available in Chinique (at night, usually grilled meats and sausages, maybe something stewed) but I guess they wanted a change of air so they had ridden over on Catarino's motorcycle.

There is no "good" bus from Guatemala City into the department of El Quiché, except to the market town of Chichicastenango, a popular tourist destination, and then only on market days (Thursdays and Saturdays). Monday, the day I was traveling, is not a market day and therefore there were no "good" buses (i.e. relatively comfortable with reserved seats). There is a direct bus from Guatemala City that passes through Chinique on its way to Joyabaj, which is about an hour east of Chinique, and is actually a fairly major city (the third largest in the department, which I hadn't realized before). But that is a camioneta (converted school bus) and those tend to be very crowded. The ayudantes (helpers) seem to feel that they need to squeeze as many people as possible onto the bus (obviously more passengers means more money in the driver's and ayudante's pockets), and when passengers who are already seated seem reluctant to scrunch themselves in so another person can fit on the seat, the ayudantes often call out "Donde caben dos, caben tres" (where two can fit, three can fit). I didn't want to spend the entire trip in discomfort, and also because there is a raging pandemic, it didn't seem a wise move from a health standpoint.

But there were good buses to Xela, and I would be able to hop off the bus at Los Encuentros, a place where a lot of buses stop on their way to various destinations, and it is the entry point to the one highway in that part of El Quiché -- if you can use that word for a two-lane road with a lot of speed bumps, and steep, winding curves. I decided I would make this a three-stage journey -- good bus to Los Encuentros, camioneta to Santa Cruz del Quiché (SCQ), and then a microbus (a 15-passenger van) from SCQ to Chinique. The microbuses are more comfortable than the camionetas (if you are in the back of the camioneta, every time the bus goes around a curve, hits a pothole or goes over a speed bump, it's a bone-shaking experience). 

I hadn't been able to buy a ticket online for the good bus (seems you can only do that 24 hours or more in advance, not the night before, as the website offered me tickets for Tuesday) but I figured that the bus might not be full on a Monday morning, and so I trusted that I could just show up at the terminal and get on the bus. My figuring turned out to be correct. One of the people in the house where I was staying told me she was driving to work on Monday morning and could give me a lift as her workplace was close to the Alamo terminal (a local bus company, not the auto rental company; I don't think they are related), which I gladly accepted.

I had brought a large suitcase and a smaller carry-on, along with a shoulder bag, for a couple of reasons. I was going to be in Guatemala for a month, and I knew I would be in several different climates, so I would need some clothing options. In the altiplano occidental (western highlands) the nights are often quite chilly, so I knew I'd need long pants, long sleeves and some layers. The human rights delegation with which I would spend a week was going to some places in the northeastern part of the country that are more tropical, and so I would need warm weather clothing as well. And then my running stuff -- shorts, longer tights, tech shirts ranging from singlets to one LS shirt, the necessary undergarments, and shoes. This girl needs two pairs of running shoes since it's a good idea to not wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row if possible so that the foam insole can recover from the pounding. Then the hydration pack in case I were going to be able to get in some longer runs (it squishes down pretty small) and finally the physical therapy/recovery stuff. Which consists of a travel-sized foam roller, a foldable yoga mat, and a travel-sized slant board to stretch out my calf muscles. And then of course my travel coffee-maker (it's about the size of a 12-oz cup and everything fits inside but it's still one more thing). All of which necessitated more than a single carry-on bag. I also knew that I was not always going to be in places long enough where I would have time to wash my clothes and let them dry (especially during the rainy season, it often takes well over 24 hours for a piece of clothing to dry (even underwear which I can normally dry overnight in my bathroom in Brooklyn). 

So I arranged with the people at the collective house to leave a bag with them, so I would only be burdened with a shoulder bag (big enough to fit my laptop, camera, and notebook) and the suitcase. The smaller carry-on bag would be useful when I traveled with the delegation, since we were only going to be out of the city for three nights, and I could then (I hoped) leave the larger suitcase somewhere.

We arrived at the bus terminal with plenty of time to spare. I purchased my ticket and was shown to a waiting room and then more or less on time, onto the bus. There were more tourist-type places along the highway, some new restaurants and gas stations, and new gas stations and restaurants under construction. I was the only person getting off at Los Encuentros, but fortunately I didn't have long to wait before a bus stopped on the fork of the road that led to El Quiché. The road to Chichicastenango and then Santa Cruz was more or less as I remembered it -- lots of speed bumps between Los Encuentros and Chichi, lots of steep ascents and sharp curves on a narrow road without a lot of guard rails. The bus terminal in SCQ was much as I remembered it. As soon as I got off the bus, my white skin meant that several ayudantes (or maybe some of them were drivers) immediately approached me, calling out "A donde vas, señora? Chichi? Xela?", assuming that I would be going to one of the popular tourist sites. I responded that I was going to Chinique and asked where I could find the microbus to Chinique, and someone told me by the bank outside the terminal, so I went to wait.

On all of the buses, about half or more of the passengers were wearing masks (it is supposedly obligatory on public transport in Guatemala but it is not enforced. There was less compliance on the part of drivers and ayudantes. The good bus was only about half full -- I don't know whether that was deliberate or there just didn't seem to be that many people traveling that particular route on a Monday at that particular hour. The camioneta was perhaps not quite as jam packed as some of the camionetas I've ridden previously. All seats were taken, and there were some people standing in the aisle, but I didn't have to struggle to breathe or elbow 10 people in order to be off. The microbus was also somewhat less crowded than I'd feared, and had slightly better mask compliance.

I looked around as the microbus made its way out of SCQ -- there were new stores, new gas stations, new houses, both in the town and on the road. At the entrance to the town proper of Chinique, there was still the sign that always made me smile -- ZONA URBANA (urban zone). This referring to a town with a population of around 2000 or maybe 2500. 

I had arranged to stay at an hospedaje -- a generic term for a lodging house or even a small hotel -- run by a friend of a friend, in the town center. I'd tried to make an arrangement with the landlady beforehand so that I could arrive, drop off my stuff, and then start on my work. I'd been able to get in touch with both her and a few of the people I wanted to interview, so although she was not available to meet me (she was working), her nephew found me (her directions were not quite crystal-clear) and let me in. It was clearly new construction -- not a new building, but a conversion of an existing one into new uses. It was located above the store owned by the family who had rented me the house where I lived in Chinique, and across the street from a store owned by the grandparents of someone I know from New Bedford. They were acquaintances of mine when I lived there -- I wouldn't call them friends, but I would stop by their store every so often during my year in Chinique. They were active in the cofradia which played a key role at the patron saint feast, and at their invitation, I spent the evening of the patron saint feast tromping around the town with the procession, which ended at the headquarters of the cofradia for food and music.

The room was clean, a little sterile (no traditional textiles on the bed or decorations, just regular bedding. And, to my disappointment, no wifi, no kitchen, no place where I could wash clothes. As I walked around a little (the subject of my first interview was coming to pick me up) I regained my sense memory of where things were in the town (although as I started to explore in the next few days, there were things that had changed). The church was obviously in the same place, although there were some new benches in the plaza that hadn't been there before, and a new municipal building was under construction. I walked to my old block and past my house, and peeked in at the garage that was across the street from my house to see if I could find the owner, Willy, who had repaired my pickup on numerous occasions (and had once helped me out at night when I had had a breakdown on the road several miles outside of town). But there was no one in the garage when I poked my head in (I could see a pair of legs underneath a vehicle up the block, and thought that was probably him, but didn't want to disturb his work). 

Well, enough for the journey and arrival....

Pandemic-era Guatemala

A day or two before I left, Guatemala was hit by another wave of COVID-19 and the country's alert system went to "red". It was too late to change plans, and so I loaded up on masks and home tests and got my second booster shot.

The Guatemalan government has done a fairly haphazard job of responding to the pandemic. Like some other Latin American countries, the government imposed a strict lockdown for some months early in the pandemic -- people were restricted to their homes from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. (I think those were the hours).This was called the "toque de queda". Since a large part of the population works through the informal economy, this meant that people in the city (and in towns) who earn their living as street vendors, tending market stalls, couldn't work. It also made life hard for people in rural areas, who often support themselves by taking their produce to the nearest town on market days. Markets were suspended and people were unable to leave their homes if they needed to go to the nearest store (there are a lot of small stores in rural areas) to buy something.  The toque de queda was enforced by the police, who now started to partrol through towns and into the rural communities. Throughout the areas I visited, people told me that many people they knew had been fined by the police for violating the toque de queda. And the fines were not simple slaps on the wrist, the equivalent of a parking ticket. The fine was Q6000, which is nearly $1000. It represents more than a month's salary for a decently paid professional. For purposes of comparison, the official minimum wage in agriculture is Q2,831.77 a month as of January 2022 -- so the fine represents more than 2 months' wages for agricultural workers. However, many people in rural areas do not receive wages. They work on their own land and so they don't pay themselves for their work; they earn money by selling their produce.

It's only only been three years since I was here but so much is different and so much is the same. There is still a corrupt government that seems indifferent to the plight of rural and indigenous populations. And by saying this, I am not expressing an opinion so much as reflecting what the U.S. State Department has concluded about the Guatemalan government. Year after year, the State Department reports on Guatemala (which I read religiously for my work on asylum cases) note that government corruption and impunity continue to plague the country. And the State Department recently released a report on "Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors" in the northern triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) that listed 19 current and former Guatemalan government officials, including the mayor of the town of Joyabaj in El Quiché, and former president Alvaro Colom.

On the surface, some things seemed very familiar. When I arrived at the airport, the process for passing through immigration, grabbing your suitcase from baggage claim, and passing through customs seemed more or less unchanged. When I emerged from the terminal, there were still crowds of people waiting outside the terminal to greet their relatives and friends. Many were indigenous -- women dressed in güipils and cortes, men in jeans. People carry bunches of balloons, armfuls of flowers. There are barriers, but people still wait by the exit. The person who picked me up at the airport told me that there are more restrictions on vehicles entering the airport but I don't quite know what they are. 

I spent the first weekend in the capital, so it wasn't straight from the airport to the small town where I lived in 2011. And in the capital, I've generally stayed in guest houses, not in people's homes, so I have less experience with how people live their everyday lives in the capital, and didn't have much basis of comparison -- that is, to compare now with pre-pandemic. I stayed in a collective house that is occupied by four people (I think). At least, I saw four; three women and one man. But I had not known any of them or the house, before this trip.

From my somewhat limited perspective (I spent two days in the capital, and that was over a weekend), street life was somewhat subdued. The Plaza seemed less crowded. On Sunday, there were people but not a huge number of vendors. In the past, on Sundays, the Plaza was partially filled with a couple of rows of stalls and food carts offering a variety of things -- tamales or chuchitos  (smaller, drier versions of a tamal) reheated over a grill, grilled or boiled corn, tacos, pupusas. Sometimes there would be a large number of vendors with traditional (sorry I can't think of a better word; I know this one is imprecise and also loaded) garments. 

This time, there were only a few food vendors in the Plaza, along with a couple of preachers. Granted, I was there in the daytime and not at night - maybe there are more food vendors at night. However, there was a COVID-19 testing station right in front of the Presidential Palace. The Palace itself was barricaded off on the side that runs along Sexta Avenida (the front of the Palace opens onto the Plaza, but the building occupies a square block). There have been protests periodically against the government -- around corruption, around the government's response (or lack thereof) to the pandemic. 

Sexta Avenida, the central artery of the historic district, is closed off to vehicular traffic for several blocks, and on Sunday late morning/early afternoon, it seemed filled with people. This is a favorite place for capitolinos (residents of the capital) to stroll on the weekend, particularly on Sundays, Families bring their children, walk up and down, buy ice cream or other treats, and window shop (and sometimes actually shop). There was one marimba group and a few other performers, but the crowds seemed a little less full than in the past. The city cracked down a few years ago on ambulatory vendors, so they are not present on La Sexta. 

 Garifuna women were still stationed In front of the MacDonald's a bit farther down on the Sexta, braiding people's hair. However, the Garifuna restaurant that was on the second floor of a building is no longer there, and it has been replaced by a Middle Eastern restaurant. 

One one side of the Plaza, there was a brand new attraction -- a viewing platform that had been erected. I don't know what else to call it - it's called the Portal (doorway). You ascend a staircase, and then can walk along a platform that overlooks the Plaza. There are two "towers" at either end of the platform  -- this is where the staircases are that you have to ascend and descent. 

Down at the other end of the avenida, in Zona 2, where it is called Avenida Simeón Cañas, there was some construction going on -- looked like a monument was going to be installed, because workers were creating a big concrete circle alongside the stadium.

Otherwise, the small part of the capital that I saw seemed more or less the same -- a few businesses closed, a few new ones opened. More American fast food chains and brands visible throughout (and not just in the capital). 

One difference is bottles of hand sanitizer everywhere. Most businesses -- like the cell phone company Tigo - have bottles of sanitizer near the entry, and signs reminding people that masks are required. Compliance with masking is about 50/50. I didn't see a lot of enforcement, however, the few times that I took public transit (where masks are supposedly required). Nor were all police officers wearing them (hey, that's just like NYC). 

The pandemia in one family

Out of respect for people's privacy, I won't use names here but I will tell the story of one family's experience with the pandemic. These are friends of long standing, a family with three adult daughters. The mother runs a family business, and the father was a leader in both local and national indigenous movements. I have known them since 2011 -- I met the father together with some other friends and we've stayed friends ever since. I am very close with the oldest daughter, who was closest to her father in terms of their political leanings. They were both activists and very committed to the indigenous movement and oppositional politics in general; I had always viewed Doña C., the mother, as more or less apolitical. She is a member of an Evangelical church, and the two younger daughters also attended church; the father, W., and the oldest daughter, E., were not religious at all. I stayed with them often, but during the pandemic we were not in as close communication as we had been. One of the daughters is married but lives in the same town as her parents, and the other (I think the youngest) still lives at home with her parents. This is not uncommon in Guatemala, for unmarried children to live in their parents' home (and sometimes even to live in their parents' home after marriage or on the same piece of land in rural areas). 

E., the oldest daughter, has been an advocate and educator around sexual and reproductive rights -- a touchy subject in a socially conservative country where abortion is still illegal and where, in indigenous communities, people are reticent to talk about issues concerning the body, sex, and sexuality. E. had taken a job in Santa Cruz del Quiché, a few hours away from her family's home, starting in early 2021, and was traveling back and forth to her hometown -- something that many Guatemalans do, as they often have to leave their hometowns for work. It is not unusual for someone from Xela, for example, to work in Guatemala City, and return to Xela on weekends, returning to the capital on Sunday night or Monday morning for work. 

I don't quite know who in the family first contracted COVID, but the entire household, except the father, who travels a lot to the capital and elsewhere pursuant to his involvement in the indigenous movement, came down with COVID sometime in February 2021. That is to say Dona C., and the two daughters at home, E. and D. 

E told me that she almost never went out. The government imposed lockdowns (toque de queda) but even when that was lifted, she rarely went out. In fact, as we ate dinner tonight at an upscale restaurant in Santa Cruz del Quiché (SCQ), she told me that she still rarely went out except for work. "But at some point I had let my guard down and wasn't taking all the precautions and that's how I got infected."

At first they quarantined at home, but then all three were all hospitalized. They were afraid to go into the hospital because they'd heard bad things about the care that one received there. And as E. explained to me, the government set up special hospitals for COVID patients. These were usually housed in facilities that had not been designed as hospitals, according to E. In Xela (the nearest large city), the COVID hospital was set up in a big field near the local airport, in a building that was used for the fiesta patronal (the patron saint feast, colloquially know as la feria (the fair). The three women were all hospitalized, and to E's surprise, the treatment they received was excellent. "I really respect the health workers." But the facility had a high roof and since it hadn't been designed as a hospital, it was very airy -- and it gets quite chilly in Xela at night, as it is one of the highest-altitude cities in Central America. While they were there, the father, W., became infected with COVID -- they think from a meeting he attended in Guatemala City -- and was also sent to the same hospital. As Doña C. told me, "Just as we were leaving, he entered." 

But the three women recovered, and so they thought that W., the father, would also recover. E. told me that during the first several days that her father was in the hospital, he remained very active and engaged, using his cell phone to communicate with people on Facebook and WhatsApp, attending meetings and workshops and training sessions (capacitaciones) on Zoom. "People didn't realize that he was attending meetings from the hospital." 

But instead of getting better, like the rest of the family, he worsened, and was put on oxygen (not an intubation but non-invasively, through an oxygen mask). He didn't want to be in the hospital, and E. thinks that his resistance might have been part of the reason that he died. I won't go through the entire story of what happened from a medical perspective, but after three days on oxygen, he had a hemorrhage (I think cerebral) and died. Only one person from the family was allowed to go to the hospital to identify the body, "so that they wouldn't mix the bodies up and give us the wrong one." There were four other people who died the same day, and two of them within the same hour as W. E's younger sister D. went to the hospital to identify the body, and E started making phone calls to other members of the family.

But there was a problem - the family did not have a burial plot in the local cemetery. Doña C. had told me a bit of this. "We had been talking for years about buying a plot in the cemetery, but he always kept putting it off, saying, 'later, later.'" The hospital only gave them 7 hours to arrange the burial (something to do with the COVID protocols). Doña C's parents had purchased a burial plot, and they had erected a monument with 4 spaces -- two for the parents, and the two on top for Doña C and her sister. According to E, "But my father never got along with my mother's family. My mother's mother never liked my father, and my father never liked my mother's mother. So if they didn't like each other when they were alive, why would we put him to rest with them?" But they still had to find somewhere to bury him. E called some of the cousins on her father's side of the family, and one of the cousins had purchased several burial plots in this cemetery, and gave one of them to the family so that W could be buried. 

E also decided that it was important to let W's other children know about this. He had had a few children outside of his marriage, but E was the only one in his "official" family who kept in touch with her hermanitos -- the ones she knew about (she thinks there were probably others). This part of W's life wasn't something that I knew about until my last trip to Guatemala in 2019, when E told me that her father had another family (not entirely uncommon in Latin America). After her father died, E simply told her mother that she was going to let the other children know, "because he was their father." And so they all came together for the burial (or maybe this was after the actual burial).

Ironically, Doña C's bakery did very well during the pandemic, according to E, because bread was something easy for people to consume; they could come into the bakery and buy bread for the family and then would have food for a while.

W's death left a big gap, however, in the local community where the family lived. He had been a member of the alcaldía indígena (indigenous mayoralty) in the municipality -- I remember attending his initial installation some years back (maybe 2013 or 2014). And even before I sat down to eat and chat with E, another mutual friend had told me that when W died, the alcaldia indígena had kind of fallen apart.  E is trying to continue in her father's footsteps. As she told me, "Each of us [the three daughters] is carrying on a part of what he did." One daughter, D., is a lawyer and works with groups on human rights. The third daughter, A, is a teacher. E works around sexual and reproductive rights and is also involved in the indigenous rights movement. 

According to E, "My father wasn't just a national leader, he had a presence in the local community." She is very concerned about the gap that his death left in the indigenous mayoralty in their town. But, as she told me, "I have my own trajectory."  Nonetheless, she says that she tried to participate in some of the meetings, more or less in her father's place, when they were held by Zoom. But, she told me, there is one person in the mayoralty, a woman, who was opposed to E's participation. "Every time I attended a meeting and tried to speak, she kept blocking me."  

But E is thinking of trying to find a job closer or in her hometown, so she can live at home and try to play more of a role in the local community.  

Pandemic-era Guatemala: planning and arriving

 Well, time for true confessions. I didn't do the best job in the world of planning for this trip. Although I'd had it in my mind for a few months, and had more or less figured out the time frame (early July to early August, timing it so I could get back in time for a friend's wedding), I hadn't done anything concrete like make research contacts, or flight arrangements, and figure out what to do with my cats (don't worry, I won't bore you with those details).

Thus, in mid-June I began to sketch out plans. I hadn't kept track of who were the recent arrivals during my weekly stints at Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT), so I had to start asking around. Luckily, one of the people I'd remembered was someone who had jumped right in to volunteer nearly as soon as he had arrived. Ken, as I will call him, was in some ways not the typical Maya K'iche' immigrant to New Bedford as he had achieved a higher degree of education than most and had been trained as a bilingual (K'iche' and Spanish) educator. He came to CCT in the summer of 2021 and, together with two other immigrants who had been in New Bedford somewhat longer, started teaching K'iche' classes for the children of Maya immigrants. Ken had also received some training in photography and videography, and began to help with documentation of many of CCT's activities starting in the summer of 2021 -- material aid distribution, vaccine education and promotion, vaccine clinics. 

Another recent arrival who had become a steadfast volunteer was a young woman whom I'll call Mary. She was a constant presence during the weekly educational talks, and always came to help out for aid distribution and vaccine-related events. I knew Mary was from San Andrés Sajcabajá because she often came to events wearing the style of güipil that is specific to San Andrés, but since very few Maya men in Guatemala wear traditional garments (and basically none in the immigrant community) I didn't know where Ken was from without asking.

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A sidebar here: during the 15 years that I've been observing the immigrant community in New Bedford, in the last few years more women and girls are wearing traditional garments. Indumentaria is the preferred word in Spanish- it's a generic term for clothing or attire and Mayan activists argue for its use instead of traje típico -- "typical" clothing, or "folk costume", which smacks of folklorization. I don't really know how else to refer to this clothing in English without a long-winded explanation. We can argue about the term "traditional", but suffice it to say that there are styles of clothing that are specific to Mayan communities in Guatemala. In most parts of the country, Maya women and girls wrap long lengths of patterned cloth (mostly woven on foot-powered looms or machine looms these days) around their waists (this is called a corte), fastened with a woven or embroidered belt called a faja (fah-hah), and a woven and/or embroidered tunic called a huipil (wee-peel) -- in Guatemala it's usually spelled güipil. In some areas (San Andrés is one) these are not handwoven but instead sewn from pieces of store-bought fabric and decorated with ribbons and/or lace and sometimes other adornments. Of course these garments all have names in the various Maya languages but these are the most common Spanish names. 

When I first started to work with and in the immigrant community, women rarely wore indumentaria except on very special occasions. Because the journey to the U.S. takes a long time, migrants carry very little with them, and the indumentaria is relatively expensive compared to, say, jeans and a t-shirt purchased from a used-clothing store or Paca. So migrants wouldn't want to carry that much bulk or weight (the cortes are usually several yards long and handwoven güipils can be pretty heavy), or to run the risk of losing costly and valuable items. But as people became more established in the U.S., they asked relatives in Guatemala to send them, and (this is my hypothesis) they began to feel more secure in making visible their indigenous identity and their presence in the town. In other words, claiming space in the variegated ethnoscape of New Bedford.  Okay, end of sidebar.

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However, I was able to get in touch with him and learned that he was from Chinique, the town where I had lived during my Fulbright year, and more specifically from an aldea (village) called La Puerta, which I had visited in 2012 on my first return visit to Guatemala after my Fulbright ended when I had been recruited as an observer for the community consultation about mining (consulta de buena fe or consulta comunitaria). He told me that his father was a member of the COCODE (Consejo Comunitario de Desarrollo -- Community Development Council) and would be able to speak to me. As we talked, I learned that we knew some people in common in Guatemala. As Ken had been a teacher, he knew my friend Catarino, who was also a teacher. Chinique is a small municipality in terms of population. The 2018 census counted 11,382 inhabitants in the municipality, and over 9000 were counted as Maya. This makes it the third smallest in the department of El Quiché, ahead of Pachalúm, which is on the eastern end of El Quiché, and Patzité. One of the alcaldes indígenas -- indigenous mayors -- told me it was the second smallest, and that there were 13,000 inhabitants, so maybe he has access to more recent figures than the census from 4 years ago. Nonetheless, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that everyone knows everyone. 

Ken gave me his father's phone number, and also that of his girlfriend, (I'll call her Jenny), who had migrated to the U.S. together with him. Jenny is also from Chinique, and she gave me the phone number for her sister "Carmen" (I usually use real names when permitted but I haven't had a chance to ask everyone). The other contact I had for Chinique was a man named "Andy", who had come to the U.S. with his son, leaving his wife and two daughters behind, and he gave me the phone number of his wife, who lived in a different village in Chinique. 

And then Ken told me about a man named Al also from Chinique, whose mother had recently come to New Bedford with Al's young son. Al gave me the number of his aunt, Flora. Ken gave me the name and number of one of his cousins, also from La Puerta, but I didn't have time to contact him before I left. I figured naively that I would be able to contact his family through Ken's father but I ended up not trying.

Turning to San Andrés, I had two contacts of pandemic-era migrants: Mary, who is still in her teens, needed to consult with her parents before providing me with a name and phone number of a relative, but eventually she gave it to me. And there was one other person who had been a consistent volunteer at CCT, Zee. Zee gave me contact information for a cousin in San Andres.

There was another recent migrant whom I met by coincidence when he came into the CCT office about a week before my departure, and I explained my project to him. He gave me his phone number but never responded to my messages so I had to leave that aside.

Ken had given me a few other names, thinking they were from Zacualpa (which is the next town over from Chinique heading east), but they were from more distant municipalities. One was from Joyabaj, which is the next municipality to the east of Zacualpa, but he told me that his family lived in a distant village three hour from the town of Joyabaj, and I doubted that I would be able to travel there. The other was from Pachalúm, which is even farther away. Since these were not municipalities that had sent a lot of migrants to New Bedford, I wasn't sure it would be worth the time and effort to get there. 

Then I set about trying to reach people in Guatemala. I had asked all the recent migrants to whom I'd spoken to call their relatives first and explain who I was and tell them I would be contacting them. People in Guatemala are often hesitant to answer calls from unknown numbers. This has been the case for many years because extortion, scams, and fraud are widespread, and people fear that an unknown caller might be trying to extort, scam, or defraud them. So this was an important precaution because otherwise, friends and relatives of migrants would probably not have accepted my messages or calls. 

Many people in Guatemala -- at least, the relatives of migrants -- have smartphones and use WhatsApp (a lot of the local phone companies will throw in some free access Facebook or WhatsApp when you purchase some airtime -- most people use prepaid phones, not monthly plans -- and so it's often more economical to make calls via WhatsApp than just dialing), so I was able to chat with most of the people I wanted to see in Guatemala before I left.