Every time I return from a trip anywhere, whether inside Guatemala or out of the country, I have to remind myself how privileged my life is. We become so accustomed to traveling regularly, for classes, for meetings, for work, that we forget, sometimes, that for a great part of the world's population, this mobility is an unimagined luxury. Yes, thousands of people migrate each year from the Guatemalan altiplano for jobs on coastal plantations, or make the long and dangerous journey to the U.S. But at the same time, many people in the altiplano, especially women, rarely travel outside the boundaries of their municipality. Women who are involved in civil society organizations have the opportunity to visit other municipalities for training sessions, workshops, and meetings - and that has to be part of the attraction of 'becoming active', that it gives one the opportunity to experience other places. My friends who are lideresas in Ixmukane and other organizations travel to the capital regularly, sometimes more than once in a week, and some have been able to travel to other countries as part of delegations. And so I sometimes forget that a lot of women (and men too) have not had these opportunities.
This was brought home last night as I was chatting over the course of a few hours with my friend Caterino, who lives on the outskirts of my town. We were talking about my imminent departure from Guatemala (well, it is nearly two months off but I feel it looming in the distance). Caterino has offered to store my things and also my pick up, until my return. I told him that I wanted to think about where I would leave the car since I wanted to be able to drive myself to the airport, which means that someone with a license would have to come with me and then drive the car back. He told me that his brother drove and had a license, so that was a relief.
Later, as I was driving Caterino back to his home, he started to fumble around, trying to say something that was obviously hard. 'Well, I don't know how to say this, I'm not sure....' Very uncharacteristic of him, since he is usually very articlate and clear-spoken. But here he was, clearly uncomfortable. I started to get a little uneasy, since I could not imagine what he had to tell or, more likely, ask me that would make him so ill at ease. I thought maybe it was something big, or very unpleasant (we had been talking earlier in the evening about the police having assaulted a man in Tapesquillo, and broken his jaw). I urged him to tell me whatever it was and braced myself. At first I could not fully understand what he said, something about his wife and Guatemala and my taking her. Could he be asking me to take her with me when I left the country? People ask me that all the time as a joke -- a joke that expresses the great disparities. I asked him to repeat what he was saying, and then I understood. He wanted to accompany me to the airport when I left the country, together with his wife. Not just because they are my friends and want to see me off, but because his wife, he told me, had never been to the capital city. "She doesn't know Guatemala City at all," he told me. "She has only been to Santa Cruz del Quiche." I asked if she had been to Chichicastenango, which is about 18 km. from Santa Cruz (and thus just under 40 km from our town). No, he told me, she hasn't been to Chichicastenango. And thus I realized just how exotic and unimaginably privileged my life seems to my friends here. One day I pick up and just head to New York on a whim because I want to participate in Occupy Wall Street. Admirable, perhaps, from a certain perspective, but also a tremendously privileged use of scarce resources. Then less than two weeks later I pick up and go to California for a few days for a conference. And eight days after my return, I head off again, this time to Canada.
Wistfully, longingly, my friends say that they would love to visit me, that they want to come in my suitcases, that they want me to bring them to the U.S. And it nearly breaks my heart every time, although these requests or expressions of desire are often couched in a joking tone. I cannot overcome the structural inequalities with a wave of a magic wand, I cannot change visa requirements or immigration laws in a way that would make such trips possible. And so I live, albeit uneasily, with the contradictions.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving
Well, it turns out that I get to spend today all by myself at the radio station, as my colleague Jeanet has to be at a meeting in Guatemala, and we don't really have enough volunteers that anyone is coming on any kind of regular basis. We are still very much flying by the seat of our pants, and so it is my turn to take to the airwaves. Thanksgiving, according to the national newspapers here, is beginning to catch on among the urban professional classes in Guatemala. Turkey is already a very common food here. Sometimes pepian is made with turkey, and a week or two ago a friend brought over a dish she had made with lentils and turkey. A Guatemalan friend thought that the new interest in Thanksgiving had to do with people who will ape and adopt almost anything that comes from the U.S. -- U.S. culture is seen as more fresh, modern, interesting, cosmopolitan, and so forth. The article in yesterday's paper, which I read quickly while I was waiting for my order at my little upscale cafe in Santa Cruz, gave a bit of history about the holiday, and some descriptions of the foods that we eat in the U.S. Not noting, of course, that these are highly regional -- I just checked in early this morning with a friend who is a displaced New Orleanian Creole and his Thanksgiving feast features stuffed merlitons with crab and shrimp, chicken gumbo and dirty rice.
But of course the concept of giving thanks is deeply embedded in highland Maya culture. Every meeting that I have attended -- every meeting that has been run by Maya -- includes an invocation, sometimes very simple and sometimes more elaborate. Sometimes the invocations include Christian prayers, Our Father, or something else, but without fail the invocations start and end with giving thanks to the creator and former, as well as the abuelos and abuelas (grandfathers and grandmothers, which terms are used to indicate not only one's direct lineage but all of those who preceded us), and the madre tierra (mother earth). Maya oratory -- at least the little I have seen and heard of it -- also includes many expressions of thanks. Yesterday I sat in on part of the weekly meeting of the alcaldia indigena (indigenous mayoralty) of Chichicastenango. A man came to present a petition to the mayoralty about a party he wanted to hold around the time of the patron saint feast in December, and I was able to observe a bit of the formality of his presentation to the alcaldes and their response, and although my K'iche' is very limited, I was able to distinguish the word 'maltyox' (thanks) sprinkled throughout the proceedings. First the petitioner thanked the alcaldes for hearing him, presented his petition, and then in their responses, each of the alcaldes who spoke also gave thanks. After presenting a case of Coca Cola to the alcaldes, and having his petition granted, the man then kneeled in front of a small altar in the room on his way out.
So, although I have conflicted feelings about the holiday -- the true story of the relationship between the English colonists and the native peoples of New England is anything but peace, love and understanding -- I do feel the spirit of thankfulness all around me.
And I do miss my loved ones in the U.S. For many years I have celebrated Thanksgiving with the family of my now-ex-husband -- and I have continued to spend it with them most years, although he and I separated in 1996. I love the smells and tastes, being able to sink into the comfort of a large gathering where not much is demanded of me (they are very low-key, not much family drama there, and even less than involves me). At the same time, even putting aside the problematic nature of the holiday as reflected in the dominant narrative (happy Pilgrims and Natives enjoying a feast) that whitewashes the land theft, enslavement and massacres, I always feel a bit uneasy knowing that hundreds of thousands of families in the U.S. do not enjoy food security, so a holiday that celebrates abundance rings hollow when because of the structural violence of our economic system, so many go without. According to the New York Coalition Against Hunger, 1 in 4 children in New York City, my hometown, live in a state of food insecurity (i.e. their families cannot guarantee an adequate supply of food). Those statistics resonate here in Guatemala, where over a million children (out of a national population of just under 14 million) suffer chronic malnutrition.
But of course the concept of giving thanks is deeply embedded in highland Maya culture. Every meeting that I have attended -- every meeting that has been run by Maya -- includes an invocation, sometimes very simple and sometimes more elaborate. Sometimes the invocations include Christian prayers, Our Father, or something else, but without fail the invocations start and end with giving thanks to the creator and former, as well as the abuelos and abuelas (grandfathers and grandmothers, which terms are used to indicate not only one's direct lineage but all of those who preceded us), and the madre tierra (mother earth). Maya oratory -- at least the little I have seen and heard of it -- also includes many expressions of thanks. Yesterday I sat in on part of the weekly meeting of the alcaldia indigena (indigenous mayoralty) of Chichicastenango. A man came to present a petition to the mayoralty about a party he wanted to hold around the time of the patron saint feast in December, and I was able to observe a bit of the formality of his presentation to the alcaldes and their response, and although my K'iche' is very limited, I was able to distinguish the word 'maltyox' (thanks) sprinkled throughout the proceedings. First the petitioner thanked the alcaldes for hearing him, presented his petition, and then in their responses, each of the alcaldes who spoke also gave thanks. After presenting a case of Coca Cola to the alcaldes, and having his petition granted, the man then kneeled in front of a small altar in the room on his way out.
So, although I have conflicted feelings about the holiday -- the true story of the relationship between the English colonists and the native peoples of New England is anything but peace, love and understanding -- I do feel the spirit of thankfulness all around me.
And I do miss my loved ones in the U.S. For many years I have celebrated Thanksgiving with the family of my now-ex-husband -- and I have continued to spend it with them most years, although he and I separated in 1996. I love the smells and tastes, being able to sink into the comfort of a large gathering where not much is demanded of me (they are very low-key, not much family drama there, and even less than involves me). At the same time, even putting aside the problematic nature of the holiday as reflected in the dominant narrative (happy Pilgrims and Natives enjoying a feast) that whitewashes the land theft, enslavement and massacres, I always feel a bit uneasy knowing that hundreds of thousands of families in the U.S. do not enjoy food security, so a holiday that celebrates abundance rings hollow when because of the structural violence of our economic system, so many go without. According to the New York Coalition Against Hunger, 1 in 4 children in New York City, my hometown, live in a state of food insecurity (i.e. their families cannot guarantee an adequate supply of food). Those statistics resonate here in Guatemala, where over a million children (out of a national population of just under 14 million) suffer chronic malnutrition.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Autumn light
The sky is shockingly blue, and the cornfields have faded to shades of dusty brown, beige and gold. There are now yellow flowers growing along, on top of, between, the dried stalk, so that the fields seem to have burst alive again just as the corn has been cut.
I wish I could photograph the light itself, which comes in at an acute angle, casts sharp shadows, and seems to be highly charged. In my private mental catalog of things I'll miss intensely, deeply, achingly about Guatemala, high on the list is this light of the last part of the year, these fields, these mountains, with the deep green of the pine trees stretching over hillsides and valleys, misted softly in the morning with a layer of light, fluffy fog. Every time I walk up in the hills, on the road that eventually leads to San Andrés Sajcabajá, and look back down at the valleys with their fog and their pines, I want to grab it all and embrace it. throw myself into it, find a way to wrap it up and bring it home with me, not just the sight but the dry scent of the fields, the sweetness of crushed pine, although I know this is not possible.
This morning I saw a woman I've seen many times before, with her small flock of goats and a few cows. This time she was accompanied by a young girl, maybe her daughter, both of them wearing straw brimmed hats against the sun that was already rising rapidly as we walked, and carrying switches to encourage the animals along at a good clip. There was a very young little black and white goat that scampered along the sides of the road, but trotted back as the flock moved on, not wanting to get separated from the group. We said our good mornings, but the angle of the sun was too sharp and the light too intense for me to photograph them, except from the back, as they were walking away from the sun and to get their faces I would have had to shoot into it.
So that goes into the mental memory banks, the things we have to keep catalogued without the help of photographic aids. These walks have become such a part of my daily routine; they are a space as well as a time for me to think, breathe, absorb. The quiet crunch of the dirt, stones, gravel, leaves underfoot soothes me, along with the steady rhythm of my walking, the cadence of breathing. But at this time of year the light nearly literally takes away my breath.
This morning I saw a woman I've seen many times before, with her small flock of goats and a few cows. This time she was accompanied by a young girl, maybe her daughter, both of them wearing straw brimmed hats against the sun that was already rising rapidly as we walked, and carrying switches to encourage the animals along at a good clip. There was a very young little black and white goat that scampered along the sides of the road, but trotted back as the flock moved on, not wanting to get separated from the group. We said our good mornings, but the angle of the sun was too sharp and the light too intense for me to photograph them, except from the back, as they were walking away from the sun and to get their faces I would have had to shoot into it.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Politics of representation in the new government
The president-elect of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, has been rolling out the members of his administration over the last several days. He has appointed some members of "opposing" political parties, such as Harold Caballeros, an Evangelical pastor who ran for president on the Viva (Visión con Valores -- Vision with Values) party ticket. According to an article in today's paper, only 4 of the 14 top posts went to women (just over 1/3) and only 2 went to indigenous people, although over 50 percent of the population is female and over 50 percent is indigenous. Indigeneity is somewhat harder to tabulate than gender and also more contested and problematic; the statistic cited in the article was that 42% of the population is indigenous. Why the undercount or the divergence? For one thing, the label is quite abstract and many people in rural communities may identify with a specific ethnic group (Mam, Qeq'chi, Ixil) rather than a catch-all term like "Maya" or "indigenous". Because "indigenous" is a lower-status category, people who might fit an indigenous rights activist's or anthropologist's definition of indigenous often try to "pass" or identify with a higher-status category. My Maya activist friends say that 60% or more of the population is Maya, but not all of those 60% would necessarily self-identify in that way.
But even if we take the article's estimate of 42%, the general is not doing a good job at creating an image of a pluralistic, multicultural state. The four women who were selected (one of them Maya) were appointed to the following positions: Presidential Secretariat of Peace (responsible for guaranteeing compliance with the Peace Accords); head of the Ministry of the Environment; some post in the Ministry of Education (not specified); and some post in the newly-formed Ministry of Social Development. The one Maya woman, Marta Estrada, was named to head the Secretariat of Peace. So, these are mostly more traditionally "female" areas -- social development encompasses what we would call in the U.S. social welfare programs (it is being established to coordinate anti-poverty programs). The one indigenous male was named to head the Ministry of Culture. The remaining positions are all occupied by non-indigenous male professionals, including military personnel, politicians, businessmen and academics.
So, the much-heralded "change" that was promised by Pérez Molina when campaigning doesn't look all that promising. Not that I expected much different.
But even if we take the article's estimate of 42%, the general is not doing a good job at creating an image of a pluralistic, multicultural state. The four women who were selected (one of them Maya) were appointed to the following positions: Presidential Secretariat of Peace (responsible for guaranteeing compliance with the Peace Accords); head of the Ministry of the Environment; some post in the Ministry of Education (not specified); and some post in the newly-formed Ministry of Social Development. The one Maya woman, Marta Estrada, was named to head the Secretariat of Peace. So, these are mostly more traditionally "female" areas -- social development encompasses what we would call in the U.S. social welfare programs (it is being established to coordinate anti-poverty programs). The one indigenous male was named to head the Ministry of Culture. The remaining positions are all occupied by non-indigenous male professionals, including military personnel, politicians, businessmen and academics.
So, the much-heralded "change" that was promised by Pérez Molina when campaigning doesn't look all that promising. Not that I expected much different.
Transnational anthropology, transnational activism
Although living in Guatemala this year, I am still deeply connected to the community in New Bedford, which was how I got started being interested in Guatemala in the first place. I am in contact at least once a week with my comrades and co-workers there, especially in the organization Centro Comunitario de los Trabajdores, and often they give me tasks to accomplish, or consult with me, or ask my help. Frequently, there are pleas for my presence: "When are you coming back?" "When will you be here?" These cut my heart sometimes: I can't be here and there at the same time. We had originally thought we could do meetings via Skype but we have not been able to get the audio working on the new computer we bought for the organization, so it hasn't been possible, although we have been able to chat on Skype.. but for some reason the audio doesn't come through when we try and talk. One of my students, Danielle, has been working at CCT for her internship at the university (she also did this over the summer, as an independent study/experiential learning), but we haven't been able to be in touch as much as I would like either. One of my colleagues in the business school, with whom I had gotten a grant to do work with the women's organization, has been doing some technical support, but also we have only been in touch sporadically.
So, I try to keep in touch and help out as I can. From time to time Adrian sends me information and asks advice. A few weeks ago he asked me to get in touch with his cousin here in Guatemala who is working with an organization of people who were displaced after the war. We finally met, after much back and forth, but I am not certain how much I will be able to help out -- I do feel, sometimes, that upon learning that I am from the U.S., or that I am a university professor, or both things, people have some kind of exaggerated expectation of how I might be helpful. Or they don't have any very specfiic idea of what I might contribute, but think that I must be able to do something for them, being from the U.S. and all. In general, I try to hear them out, to listen and then be very moderate in my responses; I can't promise what I cannot accomplish.
Recently, the director of CCT asked me to review the text for a brochure that they were doing for the organization, and also a brochure for the women's association that we founded last year, Oxib' B'atz'. So, via Skype and email, I reviewed the text, rewrote some parts of it, and then sent it back to them.
Then they asked me to help get a passport for the mother of a friend. The friend lives in New Bedford; her mother is here in Guatemala, in an aldea of Zacualpa. The mother is an experienced weaver, and the idea is that we could solicit a visa for her via the university, on the basis of her weaving experience, and her experience as a Maya woman in Quiché. They were concerned that Doña J, an illiterate woman who doesn't speak much Spanish and who does not travel much outside of her town, and certainly not much outside of the department, would have some trouble navigating the trip to Guatemala and also navigating whatever bureaucracies she would need to confront in order to get her passport. So they asked me to go to Guatemala City with her - this is as much a matter of cultural practice, because people here rarely do things on their own if there are family members around. For example, when a friend here, Alicia, went to the U.S. a few months back, three family members accompanied her to Guatemala City to the airport. When I have come through the airport, I often see large family groups (6, 8, 10 people) waiting together outside the arrivals area.
We negotiated the date, since they were eager to get her the passport soon, but I was leaving the country for a few days, and didn't want to turn around immediately and return. I arrived from the U.S. around midday on Monday, November 7, and we agreed that I would return to Guatemala on Thursday, the 10th. I suggested that Doña J should come to Chinique on the night of November 9 and stay with me, so that we could leave early in the morning of the 10th. I wasn't very clear on what she needed to do for the passport application but figured that at least if there was anything to read or write I could take care of that for her. They offered to cover my costs; I wasn't sure how much gas would be but figured 500 quetzales (as it turned out, it was a bit more, as I had to pay for parking, and then bought some fruit and paid for lunch).
The coordination involved a few phone calls to the U.S., as I called Doña J Wednesday afternoon to make sure she was going to arrive in Chinique, and because the call wasn't very clear it sounded as though she didn't remember or didn't understand my Spanish (she speaks some but not much) so I called Adrian in the U.S. and asked him to call her. He confirmed that she was set to come to Chinique, so then it took a few calls for us to actually meet up -- she got to Chinique before I did and was waiting in front of the church. I drove up -- there was a basketball game in progress and a lot of people in the plaza -- and called her and then waved so that she would see where I was. Three of her daughters were with her -- she has six kids living at home and two in the U.S., so it made sense that she wouldn't leave them all at home but only the older ones. I hadn't realized I would be having 4 house guests so I quickly bought eggs and they had tortillas (Doña J had been at a a capacitación all day and had purchased a few quetzales worth of tortillas for snacks) and I threw together a very quick dinner.
The next day we set off as early as I could make it: because of Maya codes of modesty, taking showers and changing took a long time as I let the four of them shower first, and they all changed in the bathroom after showering, and combed out and arranged their hair also in the bathroom, which meant that it took 45 minutes before I was able to take my 2-minute shower and throw on clothes so we could leave.
I made some watery oatmeal (this is the way most people eat it here; when I make oatmeal the way I like it, friends say it is hard to eat because it is so thick and "hard") and heated some milk, and then made thicker oatmeal and strong coffee for myself, and we set off.
We started out all in the cab of the pick-up, but before we had gotten to Los Encuentros, which is about an hour and 20 minutes or an hour and a half away, one of the girls had gotten nauseous and threw up in the back of the car, and so I stopped to let her stand and get some air. Then another one got car sick about 5 kilometers farther. Then after we'd passed Los Encuentros the first girl got nauseous again, and they decided that they needed to ride in the bed of the pick up so they could have air (not very fresh air, actually, as we were on the Panamericana and although there was not a lot of traffic, what traffic there is, spews lots of fumes and I always have sore lungs and a scratchy throat after I've been driving for any amount of time on that highway). I had a few moment's qualms about this -- I would drive as safely as possible but we were on the major highway, and inside the cab is a hundred times safer than the bed of the pickup. However, they seemed determined, their mother had no objection or even comment (in Guatemala, people ride in the back of pickups all the time, including mothers with infants strapped around their chests or shoulders, and very elderly people), and they were not my children. So I let them do it; the alternative was a car full of very cranky, whiny, and nauseous children... and having to stop frequently so one or the other could vomit.
We made it to Guatemala in good time, and luckily I decided to call a lawyer friend to check on where we needed to go for the visa. My friend in the U.S. who had asked me for this favor was very fuzzy about what I needed to do and where I needed to go, and Doña J seemed equally if not more clueless. She did, however, as it turns out, have all the right documents and the correct amount of money. So, as we entered the city on Boulevard Roosevelt, I pulled over and called my friend Juan, as the only time I have dealt with Guatemalan officialdom it was at the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores which is in Zona 10. He told me he THOUGHT we had to go to Migración in Zona 4. I decided to text an American friend who recently traveled to the U.S. with her Guatemalan boyfriend -- she, surely, would know where to get a passport. She confirmed: Migración on Sixth Avenue (Sexta Avenida) in Zona 4. That was fine. Now how to get there? It's not as though you can stop along Roosevelt and ask anyone for directions; traffic moves quickly when it moves and there is no place to pull over. I had a vague idea and made another call to Juan, but luckily I have a good sense of direction so I made it to 7th Avenue (7th goes up, 6th goes down) and asked at a business, and it turned out we were 1 block away. The man directed me to a nearby parking garage and we walked to Migración. There we saw lots of people packed into a small strip mall where Migración was located. There were hawkers on the street offering to help with paperwork, get visas, but they were able to tell us what steps we needed to take. First pay your fee at the bank, then photocopy your documents, then go to Migración proper and hand in your receipt for payment, your original and copies, and get your passport.
Doña J had unfortunately left the plastic bag containing the folder containing her documents in the car so I told her to wait with the girls and I returned to the car (which meant running across a big avenue) and retrieved the documents. We then stood with her and went to the bank, then the copy place, and then she went into the Migración office and emerged about 20 minutes later with her passport. It seemed amazing that one could get a "same day" passport, but when I queried Guatemalan friends, they said that passport fraud is relatively common, and also fewer people here request passports than in the U.S. While it is relatively easy to get a passport it is quite costly: you have Q235 to spend on the payment, which works out to almost 4 times the minimum daily wage of Q60 which most rural folks don't earn anyhow. You also cannot do the transactions anywhere other than Guatemala City so you need money for the multiple buses you will have to take if you are traveling from a rural area, and bus fare for multiple family members even if you not acquiring passports for everyone since people rarely travel alone to handle these kinds of transactions. Virtually everyone who was on line with us was accompanied by at least two family members who were not getting their own passports. So it is an expensive proposition. On top of that, it is extremely hard to get visas for the U.S., and also costly (travel, doctor's examinations) and then even if you get a visa, the ticket is costly... so the economic factors provide a barrier.
But we accomplished our mission. We took a photograph of Doña J holding her new passport and I emailed it to the friend in the US. as evidence.. and then we got in the truck and drove back to El Quiché. I had had a moment's thought when I first agreed to do this of trying to take advantage of the trip and setting up some meetings that I needed to have, but I realized that Doña J and her daughters would need to get back to Zacualpa and then to their aldea once I got them back to Chinique... which meant at least another hour or more, depending upon how long they'd have to wait for buses. Thus, working backwards, that didn't leave us any time (since we would need to stop and eat lunch at some point).
So, I try to keep in touch and help out as I can. From time to time Adrian sends me information and asks advice. A few weeks ago he asked me to get in touch with his cousin here in Guatemala who is working with an organization of people who were displaced after the war. We finally met, after much back and forth, but I am not certain how much I will be able to help out -- I do feel, sometimes, that upon learning that I am from the U.S., or that I am a university professor, or both things, people have some kind of exaggerated expectation of how I might be helpful. Or they don't have any very specfiic idea of what I might contribute, but think that I must be able to do something for them, being from the U.S. and all. In general, I try to hear them out, to listen and then be very moderate in my responses; I can't promise what I cannot accomplish.
Recently, the director of CCT asked me to review the text for a brochure that they were doing for the organization, and also a brochure for the women's association that we founded last year, Oxib' B'atz'. So, via Skype and email, I reviewed the text, rewrote some parts of it, and then sent it back to them.
Then they asked me to help get a passport for the mother of a friend. The friend lives in New Bedford; her mother is here in Guatemala, in an aldea of Zacualpa. The mother is an experienced weaver, and the idea is that we could solicit a visa for her via the university, on the basis of her weaving experience, and her experience as a Maya woman in Quiché. They were concerned that Doña J, an illiterate woman who doesn't speak much Spanish and who does not travel much outside of her town, and certainly not much outside of the department, would have some trouble navigating the trip to Guatemala and also navigating whatever bureaucracies she would need to confront in order to get her passport. So they asked me to go to Guatemala City with her - this is as much a matter of cultural practice, because people here rarely do things on their own if there are family members around. For example, when a friend here, Alicia, went to the U.S. a few months back, three family members accompanied her to Guatemala City to the airport. When I have come through the airport, I often see large family groups (6, 8, 10 people) waiting together outside the arrivals area.
We negotiated the date, since they were eager to get her the passport soon, but I was leaving the country for a few days, and didn't want to turn around immediately and return. I arrived from the U.S. around midday on Monday, November 7, and we agreed that I would return to Guatemala on Thursday, the 10th. I suggested that Doña J should come to Chinique on the night of November 9 and stay with me, so that we could leave early in the morning of the 10th. I wasn't very clear on what she needed to do for the passport application but figured that at least if there was anything to read or write I could take care of that for her. They offered to cover my costs; I wasn't sure how much gas would be but figured 500 quetzales (as it turned out, it was a bit more, as I had to pay for parking, and then bought some fruit and paid for lunch).
The coordination involved a few phone calls to the U.S., as I called Doña J Wednesday afternoon to make sure she was going to arrive in Chinique, and because the call wasn't very clear it sounded as though she didn't remember or didn't understand my Spanish (she speaks some but not much) so I called Adrian in the U.S. and asked him to call her. He confirmed that she was set to come to Chinique, so then it took a few calls for us to actually meet up -- she got to Chinique before I did and was waiting in front of the church. I drove up -- there was a basketball game in progress and a lot of people in the plaza -- and called her and then waved so that she would see where I was. Three of her daughters were with her -- she has six kids living at home and two in the U.S., so it made sense that she wouldn't leave them all at home but only the older ones. I hadn't realized I would be having 4 house guests so I quickly bought eggs and they had tortillas (Doña J had been at a a capacitación all day and had purchased a few quetzales worth of tortillas for snacks) and I threw together a very quick dinner.
The next day we set off as early as I could make it: because of Maya codes of modesty, taking showers and changing took a long time as I let the four of them shower first, and they all changed in the bathroom after showering, and combed out and arranged their hair also in the bathroom, which meant that it took 45 minutes before I was able to take my 2-minute shower and throw on clothes so we could leave.
I made some watery oatmeal (this is the way most people eat it here; when I make oatmeal the way I like it, friends say it is hard to eat because it is so thick and "hard") and heated some milk, and then made thicker oatmeal and strong coffee for myself, and we set off.
We started out all in the cab of the pick-up, but before we had gotten to Los Encuentros, which is about an hour and 20 minutes or an hour and a half away, one of the girls had gotten nauseous and threw up in the back of the car, and so I stopped to let her stand and get some air. Then another one got car sick about 5 kilometers farther. Then after we'd passed Los Encuentros the first girl got nauseous again, and they decided that they needed to ride in the bed of the pick up so they could have air (not very fresh air, actually, as we were on the Panamericana and although there was not a lot of traffic, what traffic there is, spews lots of fumes and I always have sore lungs and a scratchy throat after I've been driving for any amount of time on that highway). I had a few moment's qualms about this -- I would drive as safely as possible but we were on the major highway, and inside the cab is a hundred times safer than the bed of the pickup. However, they seemed determined, their mother had no objection or even comment (in Guatemala, people ride in the back of pickups all the time, including mothers with infants strapped around their chests or shoulders, and very elderly people), and they were not my children. So I let them do it; the alternative was a car full of very cranky, whiny, and nauseous children... and having to stop frequently so one or the other could vomit.
We made it to Guatemala in good time, and luckily I decided to call a lawyer friend to check on where we needed to go for the visa. My friend in the U.S. who had asked me for this favor was very fuzzy about what I needed to do and where I needed to go, and Doña J seemed equally if not more clueless. She did, however, as it turns out, have all the right documents and the correct amount of money. So, as we entered the city on Boulevard Roosevelt, I pulled over and called my friend Juan, as the only time I have dealt with Guatemalan officialdom it was at the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores which is in Zona 10. He told me he THOUGHT we had to go to Migración in Zona 4. I decided to text an American friend who recently traveled to the U.S. with her Guatemalan boyfriend -- she, surely, would know where to get a passport. She confirmed: Migración on Sixth Avenue (Sexta Avenida) in Zona 4. That was fine. Now how to get there? It's not as though you can stop along Roosevelt and ask anyone for directions; traffic moves quickly when it moves and there is no place to pull over. I had a vague idea and made another call to Juan, but luckily I have a good sense of direction so I made it to 7th Avenue (7th goes up, 6th goes down) and asked at a business, and it turned out we were 1 block away. The man directed me to a nearby parking garage and we walked to Migración. There we saw lots of people packed into a small strip mall where Migración was located. There were hawkers on the street offering to help with paperwork, get visas, but they were able to tell us what steps we needed to take. First pay your fee at the bank, then photocopy your documents, then go to Migración proper and hand in your receipt for payment, your original and copies, and get your passport.
Doña J had unfortunately left the plastic bag containing the folder containing her documents in the car so I told her to wait with the girls and I returned to the car (which meant running across a big avenue) and retrieved the documents. We then stood with her and went to the bank, then the copy place, and then she went into the Migración office and emerged about 20 minutes later with her passport. It seemed amazing that one could get a "same day" passport, but when I queried Guatemalan friends, they said that passport fraud is relatively common, and also fewer people here request passports than in the U.S. While it is relatively easy to get a passport it is quite costly: you have Q235 to spend on the payment, which works out to almost 4 times the minimum daily wage of Q60 which most rural folks don't earn anyhow. You also cannot do the transactions anywhere other than Guatemala City so you need money for the multiple buses you will have to take if you are traveling from a rural area, and bus fare for multiple family members even if you not acquiring passports for everyone since people rarely travel alone to handle these kinds of transactions. Virtually everyone who was on line with us was accompanied by at least two family members who were not getting their own passports. So it is an expensive proposition. On top of that, it is extremely hard to get visas for the U.S., and also costly (travel, doctor's examinations) and then even if you get a visa, the ticket is costly... so the economic factors provide a barrier.
But we accomplished our mission. We took a photograph of Doña J holding her new passport and I emailed it to the friend in the US. as evidence.. and then we got in the truck and drove back to El Quiché. I had had a moment's thought when I first agreed to do this of trying to take advantage of the trip and setting up some meetings that I needed to have, but I realized that Doña J and her daughters would need to get back to Zacualpa and then to their aldea once I got them back to Chinique... which meant at least another hour or more, depending upon how long they'd have to wait for buses. Thus, working backwards, that didn't leave us any time (since we would need to stop and eat lunch at some point).
Tanto tiempo//So much time
It's been hard to keep up the blogging energy as I have been out of the country three times in the last month -- once to visit Occupy Wall Street, once for a conference in San Diego, and most recently for a conference in Montreal. But I'm back, and will not leave Guatemala again until I leave in January to return to my regular job teaching at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
It feels as though I have been playing catch up since the start; there are events I had meant to report but didn't that are now months old, like the Rabin Ajaw election in Coban back in August. Will I get around to doing it? Don't know for sure. The blog has been useful for me as an aide-memoire; it sometimes has taken the place of field notes (I'm notoriously bad at those; usually when I finish up a long day and get back home, make dinner, wash out clothes and clean a little, I have little energy for anything more strenuous than checking up on the news).
Now I'm in Antigua for the day; I arrived last night late and had no plans on driving up to Quiché and arriving at 3 in the morning. Those winding, narrow, steep roads are not pleasant or easy to drive during the day time, and although I've not read of a lot of armed assaults in the wee hours on those highways, I don't want to be the target of the first one. There was an announcement in the papers that the transportistas (drivers of collective buses) are blocking the highways again today, from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m., so it seemed to make sense to stay here for a day and try to catch up on writing. I will treat myself to a yoga class this morning and then try to get some work done. I feel a wee bit guilty: although I've hardly been lounging around, I have been away from the field a lot this month and I am beginning to feel the crunch of my time here winding down and a bit of dissatisfaction with what I've been able to get accomplished, or rather what I have not been able to accomplish in terms of my own research.
Thanks to the internet, I am never far away emotionally even when I am out of the country. I usually am sending messages on Facebook and text messages via mobile phone in the departure lounge of the airport, and stay in touch with my dear friends here throughout my stay abroad if I have access to the internet. I've gotten spoiled but having a USB modem here which means I can log on just about anywhere, and this contact with my dear ones in Guatemala has become an essential lifeline, and I hope that will continue once I return to the U.S. I was about to write "return home" but this has become home, in a way, too, and I am dreading the process of uprooting myself in January (although I will continue to return here as regularly as I can) and relocating myself back in the U.S.
It feels as though I have been playing catch up since the start; there are events I had meant to report but didn't that are now months old, like the Rabin Ajaw election in Coban back in August. Will I get around to doing it? Don't know for sure. The blog has been useful for me as an aide-memoire; it sometimes has taken the place of field notes (I'm notoriously bad at those; usually when I finish up a long day and get back home, make dinner, wash out clothes and clean a little, I have little energy for anything more strenuous than checking up on the news).
Now I'm in Antigua for the day; I arrived last night late and had no plans on driving up to Quiché and arriving at 3 in the morning. Those winding, narrow, steep roads are not pleasant or easy to drive during the day time, and although I've not read of a lot of armed assaults in the wee hours on those highways, I don't want to be the target of the first one. There was an announcement in the papers that the transportistas (drivers of collective buses) are blocking the highways again today, from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m., so it seemed to make sense to stay here for a day and try to catch up on writing. I will treat myself to a yoga class this morning and then try to get some work done. I feel a wee bit guilty: although I've hardly been lounging around, I have been away from the field a lot this month and I am beginning to feel the crunch of my time here winding down and a bit of dissatisfaction with what I've been able to get accomplished, or rather what I have not been able to accomplish in terms of my own research.
Thanks to the internet, I am never far away emotionally even when I am out of the country. I usually am sending messages on Facebook and text messages via mobile phone in the departure lounge of the airport, and stay in touch with my dear friends here throughout my stay abroad if I have access to the internet. I've gotten spoiled but having a USB modem here which means I can log on just about anywhere, and this contact with my dear ones in Guatemala has become an essential lifeline, and I hope that will continue once I return to the U.S. I was about to write "return home" but this has become home, in a way, too, and I am dreading the process of uprooting myself in January (although I will continue to return here as regularly as I can) and relocating myself back in the U.S.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Encuentros de casualidad (traducción de "Chance Encounters"
Justo antes de irme a California el 3 de noviembre, me detuve en mi café favorito de primer nivel en Santa Cruz para recoger a un café con leche por la carretera. Es en realidad el único, por lo que es una buena cosa que me gusta. Bueno, me gusta lo que sirven y me gusta ser capaz de sentarse en un cómodo lugar con wi-fi y tomarme un café con leche. Sin embargo, tengo sentimientos contradictorios, ya que también parece ser el lugar de reunión favorecido de la familia de Batres - una de las familias más ricas del departamento de El Quiché y entre el alto nivel nacionalmente. La familia es propietaria de una cadena nacional de farmacias (Farmacias Batres) y el actual patriarca de la familia, Arturo Batres, fue elegido recientemente al Congreso por el Partido Patriota (uno de los partidos de extrema derecha, aquella a la que el presidente electo Otto Pérez Molina pertenece). Yo sabía que algo pasaba cuando vi a unos tipos con gafas de sol y la SUV - guardaespaldas privados. En una mesa en el interior (esto fue unos días antes de la segunda vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales) estuvieron dos hombres vestidos con chalecos de color naranja (el naranja es el color del Partido Patriota) - el diputado electo (Arturo Batres) y Estuardo Galmez, que fue un capitán en el ejército, se postuló para el Congreso del PP en el billete, pero fue descalificado porque resulta que no es un residente de Quiché, pero vive en Escuintla, en la parte sur de Guatemala. Creo que estaba estacionado en Quiché durante la guerra (lo que significa que sus manos están manchadas de sangre, probablemente, difícil de imaginar de otra manera), mientras hacía algunas afirmaciones aparentemente sincera acerca de lo bien que sabía el departamento en el acto de campaña que yo vi. Me estremecí un poco, pensé en tomar una foto, decidí no hacerlo (a pesar de que el diputado electo es una figura pública, yo no quería pelea con sus guardaespaldas), esperé a que mi café con leche y luego me fuí.Varios días más tarde, después de mi regreso de California, me detuve de nuevo, en mi camino a la estación de radio, para obtener un café con leche para mí y un capuchino para mi colega Jeanet. Esta vez, cuando salí de mi coche, mi atención fue atraída por algo completamente diferente. El centro comercial en el que se encuentra el café tiene varios locales que no se alquilan y que están en construcción. Por el rabillo del ojo vi a un hombre que llevaba una camiseta que pensé que dijo algo acerca de Everardo. Everardo fue el nom-de-guerre de Efraín Bámasco Velásquez, comandante de la guerrilla, que se casó con la abogada nacida en Estados Unidos Jennifer Harbury. Fue capturado en 1992, torturado y luego asesinado en 1993. Pero durante años después de su captura, Jennifer no pudo obtener ninguna información del Gobierno de Guatemala sobre él. Ellos negaron tener conocimiento de su paradero. Se llevó a cabo dos huelgas de hambre y, finalmente, se enteró de que había sido detenido y torturado durante un año y luego asesinado y que la CIA estaba íntimamente y directamente relacionados con la tortura y el asesinato.
Aún más suavemente, le pregunté al hombre si podía tomar una fotografía de su playera. Debido a que el texto de la camisa estaba en Inglés, no asumir que necesariamente sabía lo de la playera dijo. Puesto que hay muchos PACA (tiendas que venden ropa de segunda mano que se entrega a granel de los EE.UU.), se ve un montón de gente con camisetas o chaquetas con el texto en Inglés, y es razonable suponer que muchas de las personas que llevan estas prendas sólo las compró porque le gustó el color o el diseño o que era lo que estaba disponible en ese momento. Con cautela dije que yo sabía sobre el caso de Everardo. En Guatemala, 15 años después de los Acuerdos de Paz fueron firmados, me siento como si yo debería tener cuidado de hablar con la gente desconocida de la guerra, sobre la guerrilla, sobre cuestiones de derechos humanos, a menos que se puede deducir algo acerca de sus simpatías. Nunca se sabe quién puede haber estado en las patrullas civiles (PACs), que cometieron una gran cantidad de las atrocidades (a menudo debido a que fueron obligados por el ejército), o en los propios militares.
De buena gana dejó lo que estaba haciendo y me permitió fotografiar a ambos lados de la camisa, y luego empezó a hablarme de la organización de derechos humanos con lo que trabajó. Mencionó el nombre de Amilcar Méndez, un conocido activista de los derechos humanos, cuyo hijo fue asesinado hace varios años, y cuyo sobrino fue asesinado a principios de este año en Santa Cruz del Quiché. Conversamos un rato y le dije que yo trabajaba con una estación de radio de las mujeres indígenas, y que yo había conocido a Amilcar. Hablamos brevemente de la situación de los muchos casos pendientes de derechos humanos, a través de él fue muy cordial y agradable, y realmente parecía interesado en hablar. Lamenté no poder quedarme más tiempo pero ya era tarde para una reunión, pero dijo que él estaba allí todo el tiempo y disponible para hablar.Por lo tanto, a veces vale la pena detenerse y hablar con un desconocido, de hacer algo que puede parecer un poco imprudente o hacia adelante o de riesgo ... no siempre es fácil saber cuándo va a pagar, o cuando se recibe una en problemas.
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