Time after time

 Although it's only been a week, it feels like longer, as though time has stretched itself out and now I'm trying to recall what happened when. I left Antigua last Monday, having given myself a full day and a half after the conference ended. Getting to Santa Cruz del Quiché, which was going to be my starting point -- although I didn't have any "fieldwork" planned, since it is not one of the main sources of migrants to New Bedford -- is not so simple from Antigua. Antigua is a tourist town (as well as a place where regular people live), and there isn't any direct bus from Antigua to Santa Cruz del Quiché.  Unless you are traveling between the capital, Guatemala City, and certain other major cities, there aren't a lot of direct inter-city bus routes. Antigua is not on one of the two main highways, and in order to get from Antigua to Santa Cruz del Quiché, I would have to take a "chicken bus" (a converted old-fashioned yellow school bus) to the main highway, and then stand on the highway and wait for a bus going to Quiché, or I could take a chicken bus  to the "terminal" in Chimaltenango (in most places, the "terminal" is not a building but an open lot where the buses park and wait for passengers) and wait for a bus going from Guatemala City to Joyabaj to pass through. Although Santa Cruz del Quiché is the capital city of the department, it is not the final destination for the buses leaving from Guatemala City. Instead, buses travel through Santa Cruz del Quiché (SCQ) to finish up in Joyabaj, a much smaller town. And when I say "converted" school bus, don't think that they have been spruced up on the inside. The buses have just been painted bright colors, adorned with religious sayings ("Dios es mi guía" - God is my guide), and often a sound system has been rigged up so the driver and assistant can blast music. But they are otherwise just plain old yellow school buses.

There are shuttles from Antigua -- nicer passenger vans that charge higher prices -- usually only payable in dollars -- and that don't overcrowd but instead only take the legal number of passengers. But those only go to other tourist locations and to the airport. There is one tourist location in the department of el Quiché -- the city of Chichicastenango. But the shuttle only goes there on market days, when the main plaza is crowded with sales of art and artisanry, and Monday isn't a market day. But in talking to one of the shuttle companies, as I was wandering around on Sunday (in between pedicure and massage), I realized that the shuttles that were heading to Lake Atitlán would have to pass a place called Los Encuentros -- a highway crossing where there is a bus terminal (i.e. a place where a lot of buses gather) and where one can catch the buses that go into the department of El Quiché. So I asked if I took a seat on a bus going to one of the towns on the lake, could the driver drop me off at Los Encuentros so I could catch a bus to Santa Cruz del Quiché? The young woman said yes, and so I intended to come back later. I didn't, but Monday morning found another shuttle company down the block from my AirBnb, got a ticket on a 12:30 bus, and then set off to view a collection of photographs of Santa Eulalia, a town where I'd done research, at the Mesoamerican Research Center (CIRMA). And then I scooted over to the south end of town to get a sandwich at a bakery that made sourdough bread (a bit of an extravagance in terms of walking halfway across town for a sandwich, but I didn't want to bother cooking or eating out). But when I got back to the AirBnb at 11 so I could finish packing and eat my sandwich, a young woman from the travel agency came by to tell me that there was no seat on the 12:30 shuttle, but they would put me on a shuttle leaving at 2. 

There wasn't really anything much I could do with the extra 90 minutes -- not enough time to go anywhere. But it was closer to three when the shuttle finally came -- they pick everyone up at their lodging, and they start at the southern end of town and work their way up, and I was in the northern part of town, so I was the next to last pickup. The ride was uneventful and fortunately when they let me off at Los Encuentros, there was a bus leaving for Quiché, so I lost very little time. I looked longingly at the women grilling fresh corn alongside the road, but decided against buying some. As we waited a few minutes for the bus to fill, a small parade of vendors and hawkers entered the bus, including a young woman bearing some ears of corn. This happens on all non-tourist buses in Guatemala at bus terminals. Someone gets on to beg for money. Someone gets on with a spiel about some kind of miracle cure for 15 diseases or a special vitamin that prevents hair loss and helps treat indigestion. A woman gets on with a straw basket full of chuchitos (small tamale-like snacks -- cornmeal dough stuffed with some kind of meat, usually chicken, wrapped in a corn husk and steamed; they are firmer and less liquid-y than Guatemalan tamales). A child gets on selling candy or roasted nuts. Sometimes the vendors just stand at the front of the bus but usually they walk down the aisle and back up again. Sometimes one stays on as the bus pulls out and then gets off the next time the bus stops. Another idiosyncrasy of Guatemalan buses is that with the exception of the terminals and a few other pre-determined stops in towns, the buses stop wherever someone flags them down or wherever a passenger asks to get off. So you might have a group of people standing on the shoulder flagging the bus down, and then another group of people 100 yards up the road doing the same thing. 

Drivers are fond of talking on their phones while they drive, including on steep and curving 2-lane mountain roads with only the vaguest of guardrails. They are fond of passing other slower vehicles, including on the afore-mentioned 2-lane road steep and curving roads. They are not fond of slowing down for speed bumps, of which there are 60 between Los Encuentros and the next major town, Chichicastenango.

The road between Los Encuentros and Santa Cruz del Quiché (SCQ) is one I've traversed dozens of times, but I'm always interested to see what's new alongside the road. Not so much between Los Encuentros and Chichi -- a few new roadside restaurants -- but definitely quite a bit between Chichi and SCQ. There were some new fancy gas stations complete with slightly upscale stores, and a couple of hotel/motel/resort type places on the outskirts of SCQ. SCQ has never been much of a tourist destination but it seems that some developers think that it should be.

On the way up, I'd been texting the mother of two friends in the immigrant worker community -- brothers who have been active with Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores and have really emerged as leaders in the Pescando Justicia (Fishing for Justice) campaign. Once they heard that I was going to pass through SCQ they wanted me to stop and see their mother, and when I told them I was probably going to stay at the Hotel Rey Kiche, which is close to the bus station, the older of the brothers, A, drew me a little map and showed me that his mother's house was half a block from the hotel. So I planned to drop off my bags and then go to see her. I had barely gotten to the hotel when she met me at the doorstep, and was ready to carry me off, except I told her I had to leave my suitcases (I had one really large one). She then marched me down the street and I was quickly enfolded into the family circle. A daughter was visiting from New Bedford with her husband and three children. I hadn't known her, but it didn't surprise me that there were other migrant relatives in this family. The daughter, S, apparently had been in the U.S. longer and had received permanent resident status, otherwise she wouldn't have been visiting. A migrant lacking permanent residency or citizenship who traveled to their home country would only be able to re-enter the US by crossing the border without inspection -- that is, as a mojado (wet one). 

Doña F.  introduced me to everyone (I didn't get all the names right away) -- daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, and showed me around the house a little, crediting the two sons in the U.S. with having provided the funds to improve and furnish ("This is what they have done," she told me). She then sat me down and served dinner. The son I know best, A, had told her I was a vegetarian (I'm not strictly one but it's easiest to say that I am) and so she and her daughters had prepared me some cooked vegetables and a vegetable soup. That, together with tortillas and fresh chiles, was plenty.