San Juan Sack Of Potatoes

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Sunday, March 13

San Juan Sacatapequez is interesting, a kind thing to say about any unlovely town. Seen from the window of a moving bus, the morning mist just burned away, the flower market is its obvious centrepiece. All the extravagant beauties - the lilies, chrysanthemums, gladiolas, Brazilian torches, sunflowers, heliconia - spill out of wicker baskets or are crammed into bins, a riot of colour. The only sight more colourful is the women themselves, selling their wares from makeshift stalls or while seated on plastic camping stools. Along the arcade, trestle tables display red and green chilis, hearts of palm, sliced mangoes and maize. An iguana stew bubbles inside a turquoise crockpot.

From a painted doorway, an old woman, her wrinkled lips clamped around a lollipop, peeks her head out. Each shack shares a wall with its neighbour and most of the houses are hopelessly plain. Some are made of blistered stucco and others are made of corrugated tin. Occasionally, a villa turns a bland face to the street. Blue and green bottle shards poke up from the top of its walls, a deterrent to intruders, and I can't help wondering who lives there, and why.

A man with a load of firewood draped across his shoulders struggles up the road ahead of him. Further on, two women, with outstretched palms, petition us for coins through the windows of the bus. One carries a stack of fabric on her head and has an infant strapped to her back. The other is holding a toddler by the hand. I notice, with a start, that even though they have the sexless stature of eleven-year-olds, no hips or breasts, they are already burdened down with children. Old girls, that´s what they look like.

Chicken buses belching plumes of black smoke inch through the centre of town. Amidst the blaring of car horns and a drum band incongruously practicing behind school walls, comes an image so vivid I know it will remain with me for a long time. A woman with deformed stumps for legs, dressed in full Mayan garb, is crawling on her hands and knees down the middle of the busy road, knotting up traffic as efficiently as any other vehicle.

It is eight in the morning when the bus pulls up beside the rock wall where families are already waiting, and the Centro De Salud Barbara feels like a world in itself.









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Comments

[carolyn]

Another world, or another side of the same?me?
Reading this description of poverty and basic existence gives me that 'how the other half of the world lives feeling ',until I look at the wonderful photos. These people look happy enough, at least at the moment of being photographed, certainly more cheerful than many you see here. So, this may not be another world after all, but another side of the same world, where expectations aren't so unrealistically high and where every good thing, like flowers in a basket, is taken to heart. Carolyn

[cabochick]

caught the emotion in this pic
looks almost like a painting. nice pic

[Miri]

Flavour of a different kind
Liz, your photos of stillness, simplicity, contrasts and colour are teeming with life. Well done. Your words evoke so many scenarios and have captured the essence of village life. Amazing descriptions. Love, Miri

[David Goldberg]

San Juan
Reading your blog brings back Mexico. That whole wonderful colour and dry dust. Bedford buses belching smoke, with the vegetables inside and the animals on the roof. The first visit to DF where there was nothing bus noise and fumes. People everywhere. In the south was Oaxaca, the jewel of the south. People selling their wares. A boy who had his mother and sister weaving trijui with the threads tied to trees, refused to sell something to me. He kept saying no sah-le, no sah-le. It was years before I realised what he meant as I thought he was saying someing in Spanish which I didn't recognise. There were fishermen catching tuna and landing them on a beach west of Oaxaca. Oh! yes I remember it well. It was full of excitement and colour, vibrations, and tremulous noise. I found a hotel in Oaxaca from which I could paint roof tops and a church. I loved it. There could I marvel. If you have time visit my new gallery on line. davidgoldberggallery.com Carinos, David

[Betty Purdy]

Potatoes
It must be hard to see any beauty in the world they live in. Altho! they all look very happy, I guess that old saying what you dont know wont hurt you. We are so lucky to live in the World we do. Betty

[zena]

The pictures are wonderful.

[Coral]

Good to follow you.

[Liz]

The depths of sight in travelling.
Everywhere there is beauty, even though quality of life is different. The smell of the towns flowers simply arranged, to the faces of women, wrinkled faces and smiling within their simple life. We really could learn much from them as we rush through our own little world. I love the writing and pictures throughout your blog and feel such energy coming from you, while you are exploring another part of the country.

[Judy Fern]

Thanks!
I typically write up my trips, and mine is almost ready to go, but I have to thank you for the names of the dialects. Keep writing -- we'll share. Did I mention how nice it was to have met you? If not, it was. If so, here it is again. L, J

[Michaela]

Iguana stew
No wonder you werent feeling well by the end of the trip, you should have laid off the Iguana stew!