the unknown

I’m back in the biggest city of the most violent non-warring country in the world, I’m alone, and it’s getting dark. But the tree begs to be climbed. Its branches hang low and strong, crossing each other to form a ladder that leads up and out on stretched limbs sprouting bright plastic leaves.

The city is preparing for night. Doors open and close abruptly. Footsteps quicken. I grab the lowest branch and pull myself up into the safety of cradled sky. Or so I think.

As I step into the tree a car stops. At a four way intersection. And stays there. I can feel them watching me though I can’t see their faces, like the hermit crabs at the beach somehow know when you’re near. I don’t move. I have no shell. We both wait. For a few minutes. Then I jump down. Actually I check to make sure there’s no glass under me and cup a limb between my hands and hang and drop. I start walking immediately upon impact. My left foot hurts a bit but I wait until I get to the street lamp to make sure it’s not bleeding. Another car pulls out in front and the one watching me must pass. They have to. Otherwise everyone would notice. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

learning to read water and sky

I made it home. I made it to the ocean—my ocean, the Pacific. Bathwater warm and black sand. The sand cradles my body. It’s like holding hands. We press against each other and drift in and out of delirious sleep. I confuse my own breath with the slurred whispers of waves.

Two little boys fly a kite from atop a rock island. It catches the last sun in gasps whipping back and forth. Peachy cream curls with silhouettes floating through open sleeves. The sun sets red in the west, and the moon rises orange and upside down like a bowl. We think for the first time in years how the moon we see is an illusion, our angle of reflected light. Somehow the earth feels the same.

How strange that we have only one word for light when there are so many experiences of it. We should have thousands of words to describe the intimacy of each relationship: the rose of sun on ocean ripples—maritessia; the brilliant corona on a blue day—shontan; the first glow on mountain outlines—spectoscura. How can we have one word to describe all of existence, all of energy, and not recognize that we are all one?

A star falls on an arc long enough to breathe but not create a dream. In the glow a massive boulder struggles to break free from the sand. Front flippers rise and press down but without water are too weak to lift the massive shell-cased body where it lies. She strains her neck and eyes bulge and search for answers and find mine. I want to help her but I see the trail she has made up and down the beach, the slow progress of primal nature, smooth belly stokes punctuated by fin prints, and I know she will make it back alone. A great wave comes and wraps around our feet and lifts her body back to the ocean. She’s gone. I silently pray for her baby.

la triste verdad

San Marcos is a divided town. The main road splits it into two disparate worlds and few cross the boundary. On one side lies the maze of restaurants, resorts and healing centers. The extranjeros live here and the gringos have a space in which to play. On the other side are the barrios where the natives dwell. There are steep cobbled streets and a few small tiendas, empty dirt lots with sticks and futbol goals and children one tenth their size guard them. A single gnarl of rose brush crowns an alley in arch, dripping goblets of crimson onto steps below. Coffee fields with rich ripe berries—yellow, red and dried to brown. Young boys march in at early morning with empty milk crates on their backs and return to fish hooked weights and tally the harvest and go home hungry. Buildings stenciled with Unionista sun symbols and branded murals: Tigo, we are with you.

The people are surprised to see us pass. Some of the children chime greetings. Others run and hide. Because of my sunglasses, Israel tells me. The sun is not bright enough. It makes me seem frightening. I take them off. We reach the mirador, a plot of land owned by his friends.Lago Atitlan spreads her fingers before us, intertwined with golden inlets rising into mountains of cross hatched crops, colored crosses and green jungle. Beams of prismed colorless light strike each lakeside town. De dios, I say. No, de San Pedro. This is his land.

The man is wearing overalls with bleached patches on his joints and building a hospital on this plot. They have carried the construction materials up the hill—the same way we have come but with cement and glass and steel and wood. He asks me where I’m from and tells me how it came to be known. The Jesuits, he says, were like the conquistadores. They wanted all the land for themselves, so they gave the towns good Spanish names to show their strength and solidarity. From Los Angeles and San Diego through San Antonio across to La Florida. All of this. To name a thing is to try to take its power.

I never learned this in school, I say. This is why I travel. To come to know new things. And old things in other ways.

Learn from people, Israel tells me. They experienced it. Son historia viviendo—they are living history. But the books are necessary too. For names and dates.

La cosa es que, I begin… it’s easy to remember that the stories people tell are their own. It’s more difficult with books. Books are stories too. Each one has a perspective. But because they are written and bound we believe they are truths, facts, and we trust them . En realidad, you must find many ways to see a thing and decide for yourself which you feel is right.

Twenty three Mayan tribes exist today. Each with its own language. Each with its own style of clothes. The clothes themselves speak, showing language, tribe and town. Patterns of peacocks, of rain, of crops, of blood. The Mayan Cross is a universal symbol. Its four points represent the cardinal directions, the four colors of corn, and the four realms of social life: priest, king, artist, and the rest.

Ixchel Diosa is the goddess of the moon and the textile. She comes often to this world in the form of the serpent. The women wear almolongas, long, intricately designed bands around their heads to serve as snakes that connect them to her. In Guatemala, most wear the traditional dress. But still, little by little, they are losing their heritage. People come to see them as puppets and take photos, and buy trinkets, and leave. Con ojos que no vean, corazones no sientan. With eyes that do not see, the hearts do not feel. I am told that "the elders and leaders often stand fast and steady in their homes, suffering silently with sullen hatred in their eyes" as the others pass blindly by.

of darkness and light

A man darts onto the trail, scrambling through the heavy vines and bushes that hold up the cliff. He shifts his weight with the grace of a white buffalo. He carries a load of fresh wood on his back, a day’s work though its early morning. A silver machete is strapped to the bundle; a broad brimmed, felt hat rides low to keep the heat in and the sun off his face. The weight of three days food and warmth digging into my shoulders seems to lift.

Strange plants peer down from their perches in the great trees they’re slowly killing, red cactus-like creatures with menace towards the world. Occasionally, it seems, the trees purge themselves of these parasites and discarded carcasses liter the path. Flowers everywhere: giant yellow daisies, purple mourning glories, orange curls, pink petals that cover a cupped palm and float across red mud and river pebbles. Butterflies frolic much faster than my mind can move at this steady gait. But not many other insects. It is a strangely quiet cloud forest.

In the early 1900s, Santa Maria erupted, spewing out about five and a half kilometers of magma and killing over 5,000 people. The volcano had been dormant for 500 years and the local people never knew the signs of seismic activity. The king at the time did not want the world to know of this disaster. So he denied it and refused aid, while his people suffered greatly. A great epidemic of malaria broke out in the aftermath, and the world finally heard. Toxins to kill the mosquitoes were poured into the jungles, the villages, the streams and rivers. Life has returned and recovered, but we see no ants for the first two days.

Maize grows tall and strong—higher than the adobe houses. Beans and squash intertwine to cover the land between town and jungle. Children lead herds of black sheep across dusty roads to green knolls rolling in the grass, squinting, echoing hola, hola, hola to passerbys.

Mist swallows the mountains one by one before the departing sun. The last solemn shapes of tree covered crests disappear with the valley. A wave of isolation sets into the small ghost town. No flowing water can be heard. The few people walk with heads down. Broken ceramic bowls. Closed comedors. We are cut off from the world and I shudder. Descanzo en paz.

A blood curdling scream rips through the darkness beyond our glow of dying embers. The children have just run out of the house where we’re staying the night, threading arms through sleeves as they run. We look at each other in the pale light, afraid to investigate, more afraid not to, and slip out the gate. A great beast is being carried upside down through the street: a man holds his front legs, another his rear and his tail. He thrashes wildly as they heave him into the flatbed of the truck where two other enormous pigs are waiting'

Mine’s bigger, says little Alvarado. Want to see?

We look down. Yes. He leads us back into the compound and grabs a flashlight. We creep up to the back gate and look over it. Alvarado looks between the two top planks and shines his light through at bushes a few feet away.

He’s over there.

Oh. I’m sure he’s really big.

Si, muy grande. I will show you in the morning.

But we will be gone.

There is no sun rise. Just a gradual becoming of light. It first infuses the clouds, bringing gestures of volcanic mountain ranges, then the water, tracing the currents softly. Slow spreading across the sky to dim the stars and breathe form into inlets and coves. Not rose like its counterparts but cream—leche con café—see the warmth before feeling comes to the world. Stirring of birds. Sensual realization and confusion, of sounds and touch; water begins to boil as raindrops on a bundled body. Glowing wetness blanket wrapped.

a poem for the people

With feet deep in the earth

and souls guarded by the angels,
we climb the stairs
formed by silhouettes of
cloud forest.

In the shadow of the mountain
we bury our forgotten dreams,
worlds that would have been.
Rain falls and tears and sweat.
Corn grows, beans, and squash.
The three sisters with faces to the sun
feed the people, so that
this world may continue and dream on.

Swallows carry seeds across the valley:
the voices of our ancestors;
the hopes of our children.
We work from birth until death.
And we sleep, and we listen, and we live.

una poema para el pueblo

Con pieses profundidos en la tierra

y almas cuidadas por las angeles,

subimos las escaleras

formado por las siluetas

del bosque de las nubes.

En la sombra de la montaña

Enterramos nos sueños olvidados,

de mundos que habrían sido.

Lluvia caye y lagrimas y sudor.

Crecen maize, frijoles, calabacera.

Las tres hermanas con caras al sol

alimenta el pueblo, para que

continue este mundo y sueñe.

Las golandrinas llevan semillas a través de el valle:

las voces de nos ancestors;

las esperanzas de nos hijos.

Y trabajamos de nacimiento hasta la muerte.

Y dormimos, y escuchamos, y vivimos.

darning holes

Traveling rekindles gratitude. For the little things we often overlook. Pillows. The color of real coffee. Clean socks. Free water. The love of strangers. Children’s dirty hands.

A steep cobbled street turns sharply off the main road. I follow it and climb until the rocks turn to soil beneath my feet and the path stops at a large flat patch of grass. The children see me and come running. Gringa! As if they’ve never seen one before. There are many and no adults to be seen. They are beautiful, with horribly crooked teeth and giant smiles, eyes both bright and dark, and tiny mud-creased fingers that reach out for anything I have.

Que es este? I ask. Un parque?

No. They all laugh. El campo.

Then it is their turn. Where are you going—always the first question. Just passing. Just walking. Here. Next my name, my age, where I’m from, am I married, do I have a boyfriend, a picture, a dollar? What do my bracelets mean? What is my religion? What is in my bag? Can I see?

I take their pictures and show them how they look. I wonder if they’ve ever seen themselves like this before—in an instant of frozen color. It seems like magic and they want more: one with the baby, one with mi primo, one with the flower.

They ask me to play futbol and everyone giggles as I jog across the rugged grass and stumble on the rocks. I kick the ball once, and my shoe flies off. I missed the goal. I bow. They burst out laughing. Then we fly kites. Thin pieces of plastic scraps held together by straws. I can’t get mine to stay in the air so I ask them to show me how. They are so proud to teach me, though no one else can make it fly either really. Good job, I tell them. They take turns. They take care of each other, the older ones holding the babies on their backs, giving them the ball.

It’s time to go; the dark clouds of late afternoon are coming in. They ask when I’ll return. I don’t know what to say. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. I never lie to children. But even without promises, they ask me to come back with little gifts. To make one girl a flower for her hair like the one I wear. Another asks for a piece of candy. A little boy wants shoes.

I decend back from neverland into the city below. The colors of peeling paint on cracked cement buildings are a strangely overwhelming beauty. Red flowers grow out of ruddy brown ceramic tile roofs, but only on certain homes, and I wonder why they chose just these. The flowers, not the people. A stray dog sleeps in a doorway, and his muddle clotted coat and mustard fur match the backdrop. A bicycle with two flat tires sucking along the street. Black hat, black sweater and spectacles knocking on a door. Twisted tree framed by crumbling walls. Women in woven cloth balancing baskets and bolsas overhead. Se vende tortillas.

Memorias Muertas

For a long time I thought it was a canon. The explosions seemed to come from everywhere at once, unlike gunshots that let you feel their direction of origin in your belly. The noise bounced off the mountains and a puff of smoke held high overhead. It isn’t until the old man lights one off next to me, and the sound makes me almost deaf but leaves just enough so I can hear the second blast a few moments later that I understand these are fireworks.

I watch as he reloads. He holds a small newspaper bomb up to the sky and against his breast to bless it. There is a cringle of paper as he wraps another layer around it and slips it into the metal cylinder. I suppose it is like a small canon. He moves the cylinder around on the dirt, finding solid ground and searches his pockets for matches. When he bends the fuse down a woman nearby stops wailing and walks away, just behind a concrete grave. The man stoops to light the wick then takes several swift steps back. It explodes. Little pieces of charred newspaper hang in the air like black snowflakes and fall to the ground. And the man moves on, to honor another ancestor.

Each mausoleum is painted in bright colors and patterns and adorned with wreaths of plastic flowers, bouquets of lilies and marigolds and gaudy garlands. Offerings of thin burning candles and scraps of food and juice frame the names of loved ones. Families eat ice cream bars and smoke cigarettes and sit and talk. Several marimba bands move from one group to the next, playing the favorite songs of dead relatives competing to make themselves heard by the living and the dead. Libations of alcohol and water and coconut juice pour upon concrete.

In other towns, people fly spectacular kites that represent dreams or messages to the gods, to the ancestors. The tails carry evil thoughts back to the earth while the pure ones remain in the sky. I remember that ala means both wing and soul and almost understand.

I have no altar, no family here. I buy a garland of paper flowers to give as gifts to the women I love when I come home. A drunken man tries to interrogate me when I place one over the gated entrance to the cemetery. I watch the others mourn and think of my own ancestors-- the ones I’ve known, the stories I’ve heard, and the ones that are lost, except in me and my brothers. Invisible hands that shaped our minds, bodies, hearts. But my soul belongs to me alone. I move on and feel the eyes of angels.

Todos Ganan

It’s only 8 am on Dia de Los Santos, but the men of Todos Santos are already completamente borrachos. They have been celebrating through the night, and several are slumped over on staircases or in gutters. Pools of dried blood stain the dirt but no vomit. Streams of drool spill from the sides of mouths and a pile of clothes begins to twitch as we pass.

Despite the incredible debauchery of the local people, Todos is a pueblo from fairytales. The clouds roll in and the rest of the world disappears, until its existence is forgotten. We are an island in the sky. A certain silence passes in waves, of rushing water and whispered secrets, broken by the burst of whistles and trample of hooves, the confused rooster’s crow and the melody of a marimba trio. Shots ripple through the valley and a puff of smoke rises high above from homemade fireworks.

The children, like their parents, are all dressed in the same traditional trajes. Boys in red and white striped trousers, shirts with embroidered collars and straw hats with thick blue bands. The girls wear blouses that all but the littlest ones have made themselves and sheets of thick purple fabric as skirts. With raw cheeks and large dark eyes they look more like dolls than real children. They stay close to their mothers, and some cling to aprons spattered with the grease of fried chicken and samosas.

The riders lean far back in their saddles and swagger back and forth with the movements of their horses, tempting fate. Colorful streamers fly behind their hats and fake feather plumes protrude from the tops. Occasionally, one lets out a long ululation and his face cringes with pain. A man beside him hands over a clear bottle of aguardiente, whispering toma, toma. He takes a swig and passes it back. The air is heavy with emotion… anticipation, celebration, defiance.

When the conquistadores first came here, they did made it forbidden for the Mayans to ride horses. This was an incredible form of oppression for a people cut off from the rest of the highlands by steep and narrow passes, but they did nothing for a long time. Finally, one day, an old man became very drunk. He stole a horse and rode it round and round the centro. He was killed but his legacy lived on and the people of Todos Santos have celebrated his courage for the last 200 years. When someone dies in the fiesta, their life is considered a sacrifice to the ancient Mayan gods. With this gift, the whole village will prosper.

A burst of whistles is blown and the horses turn and trample the sand, kicking it up into the faces of people pressed against the railing, who squeal and gasp in delight and dismay as the riders fly past and fall. A few cling to the sides of their saddle when they begin their decent, and breaths are held and bodies lean in closer. Each time a man lands in the sand there is a moment, a pause, where the collective crowd wonders if he will move. Then he does. And there is a sigh of relief. Or disappointment.

The riders shriek at the horses and crack leather whips against rolling flanks. As they day wears on, they fall more often. The ones in the lead are given beautiful chickens as symbols of their strength and sacrifices to the gods. Most beat the horses with these gallinas until resistance and motion die. Then feathered carcasses are thrust toward the crowd and passed out of sight. One man rides with no hands, gliding over the horse’s body. When he is given a speckled hen, he holds her wings spread wide out in front, and she acts as the carving on the prow of an ancient warship.

The riders, the horses and the crowd are growing weary with this test of endurance. The ones that remain on their horses until the end are said to have blessings for the next year. The ones that fall, mala suerte. The horses get no reward, but, as one man explains, this is tradition. Eso si que es. Y en realidad, los que ganan son dioses.

Agua Pura

El Zaite is built into a steep slope that is now cloaked in green. The cement and sheet metal shacks, like the trees that surround them, seem to cling to the wet earth and teeter towards the valley below. Despite the grey clouds, the air is hot and heavy and traps you in your own clothing. The children are dressed in collared shirts and jumpers but run and climb and swing about, uninhibited by the polyester pleats.

The first one I meet has high white socks worn to brown. She is coming to class late and shows me a bandaid on her elbow where she’s just had blood drawn. Carlos tells me she may have parasites. She tells me only that her arm hurts. But she soon forgets and hugs me close, swinging her long dark hair across my hips.

“Sueno con un mundo lleno de paz, armonia y solidaridad,” is painted across the stucco wall beside the mural of a world held by children of all colors. I recognize the faces of our children from the pictures I've seen. They look healthy—much better than the ones in Africa. Their cheeks are round and rosy, and their eyes are bright and alive. Their uniforms, though patched and printed with dust are not in shreds. I am grateful that this center is here, and I wonder what they would be like without it.

It’s snack time—though for some this may be the only meal they have all day. They eat with an eagerness that exposes their hunger. They rip their papusas to pieces and lick their fingers when they finish. They have no water to drink but sip the hot chocolate before it cools and burn their tongues. It's so good they say, too good to wait.

They proudly show off loose teeth, colored drawings, and the way they wash their hands—all in a single shallow bucket using antibacterial gel rather than soap and a shared towel they play tug-of-war with. Then the cook washes the stack of plastic plates with another single bucket, this time of soapy water, throwing a cupped handful on each one. I notice that no one—not the principal nor the staff is drinking water, but they give a small amount to each plant.

Water is a major problem in El Zaite. During heavy rains the streets flood and the uncovered walkway becomes treacherous for little running feet. The crops are drowned by torrential rains. One of the teachers was unable to use the rope pully system to cross the river from her house, so they moved her closer to the center. And all this water is contaminated, by trash and human feces. I’m reminded of some fragment from my childhood—a song or a poem… water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. The lack of clean water is the underlying cause of most illnesses in this community. Last month, there were 841 reported cases of diarrhea, 671 of parasites, 329 of amoebas and 29 of giardia in children under the age of five in Zaragosa.

In a focus group with eleven mothers, every one had family members who have become sick from drinking contaminated water. Often the illness had spread to other children or even the entire family. One, a woman with 7 children, gets her water from their well without treating it. Her oldest (age 13) recently got sick with amoebas, which quickly spread to the four-year old girl, then the boy, then the mother. She never was tested herself, but the children were, received appropriate medication and are doing fine now. Still, she does nothing to treat the well water and prays that her youngest, a four-month old infant, will not contract a dangerous disease. As one woman tells us, “sin agua, no vida.” No water, no life.

Marta, one of the teachers at the center, is young and beautiful and never stops smiling. She was sick for a full month before doctors realized she had amoebas in her brain that had attacked her central nervous system. She was tired and pale, and it gave her great pain to see light or hear sound. She had a lazy tongue and tremors so bad that at times she thought she might fall over or faint. She got treatment, she's taking vitamins, and the pain has subsided, but she still gets migraines. I'm told that amoebas can lie dormant in the body for 3-5 years without symptoms. With the worst cases, like hers, treatment will kill the adult amoebas but not the "juevitos". Marta will undergo treatment every six months for the rest of her life.

Three other children at the centre have been infected. Alonso, who is three, Marta who is six, and her sister Maritza who is 13 and attends the tutoring program. I can only imagine how many of these children many have them without yet knowing, and how many others are suffering in silence.