Across the Lake

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Launchas took us to pueblos across the lake to La Trinitaria and Santa Lucia Cotzumaguapa (again, zoom the map and see volcano between them). About all you can do here, or any small town as far as I can see, is shop, visit the church, and sit on benches without backs in the central parque. Sitting with us were caballeros with arthritic hands and hips no longer able for manual labor sunup to sundown, looking at nothing because they had seen it all.

Differences among the countries

I was surprised by the differences between all three countries experienced at the street level. Guatemala is 60%!M(MISSING)ayan and proud of it. Their poor have their culture, their heritage, their rituals. In an article about Atitlan, “The handwoven garments worn by Mayan peoples of Mexico and Central America and the textiles used in ceremonial observances are tangible manifestations of a potent culture that has endured countless hardships…. Mayan babies never cry. They are constantly carried or held. They never touch the ground until they are 3 years old. They are often not given a name until their first birthday.” About all you can do here, or any small

town as far as I can see, is shop, visit the church, and sit on benches without backs in the central parque. Sitting with us were caballeros with arthritic hands and hips no longer able for manual labor sunup to sundown, looking at nothing; they look like they had seen it all, or had enough.

As a tourist I sensed a substantial groundedness and vibrancy in Guatemala, and in a different way, Belize, that I just did not feel in Honduras. I began to see Honduras as also culturally poor. The Mayan Civilization, and therefore culture, only reached as far south as Copan, far in the Honduran north, only eight miles from the Guatemalan border. Spanish conquistadors wiped out whatever Mayan remnants were left, and subsequent intermarriage left them without an indigenous culture, only a colonial culture. This culture was in turn wiped out by the banana republics and contemporary trade. The U.S. supplies 52% of Honduran imports and purchasing approximately two-thirds of Honduran exports. As Ronald Reagan said, “Central America ... is so close. San Salvador is closer to Houston than Houston is to Washington, D.C. Central America is America.” Close, like Harlem is close to Central Park, like the South Side is close to the Loop. I hear Barbara Streisand singing “There’s more between me and Fifth Avenue than three blocks I’ll tell ya.” Cofradia is a backwater town in a backwater Country. Not far below their warmth and friendliness is a quiet desperation that the rest of the world is passing them by and doesn't care.

Bargaining

By this time I had lapsed into turista Spanglish, a mélange of high school Spanish, one syllable English words, and pantomime─the last being the most endearing to them. Sometimes I would trot out what Maureen called “your sentence.” “Hace quarenta anos que yo estudiaba Espanol.” = “It has been forty years since I studied Spanish.” What they like is the correct use of the imperfect and the “hace…que” construction. I could rattle it off with élan, I gave it up because it only invited a torrent of questions. Although my Spanglish was adequate, I still only understood half of what they said, and could only say half of what I needed. Maureen did the heavy lifting, anything that required real description or negotiation. I just sat back and let my guide do the talking. Of

course all the teachers at school were fairly fluent. Perhaps through the bias of father ears, I felt Maureen spoke better in the rhythm and melody of the language. Perhaps through the bias of father ears, I felt Maureen spoke better in the rhythm and melody of the language. She has always talked in her sleep but now she talks in Spanish.

Street vendors don’t show prices because bargaining is presumed. I really like this custom, which makes exchange personal unlike here.

The bourgeoisie…has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash nexus”. The Communist Manifesto

Not bargaining feels cheap, acting out my American entitlement in their feudal community. Still, when I started to bargain I could watch their eyes flicker to my shoes, my luggage, my obvious age. They would look back to me in the same way my cat looks at a mouse, “Why are you even trying?”

“How much is this scarf? Oh, ten dollars! (flinch like it is $100). Too bad, I only have a dollar (remove from a pocket, wave it like it is $100.) Oh, $8? Hmmm, well my mother does really like blue (find a dollar in another pocket). $7? No, that is too much (fondle the scarf). You have so many!...and it is getting dark and it’s a weekday and you’re hungry. We’re not done until I walk down the street and they run after me offering $2. Sometimes I feel ridiculous to take fifteen minutes bargaining someone down from $10, and still get ripped off. I just give them the ten bucks despite the dirty look for being rude and impatient.

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Photos

Our launcha
...is the smaller one.

Grief Support Group
The priest offers earnest short prayers and the women, in counterpoint, wail and sob.

Got two masks
My day to buy souvenirs and gifts.

Geezer
Who is the geezer by the lake with white hair and lizard skin? He looks like my father, and like my mother’s father. Large beers.

Comments

[Marcia Billings]

I love how you love Maureen.