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).
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