El Día de Todos Los Santos by Cris

November proved to be a very busy month here in Guatemala.

Halloween came and went without a trick or a treat. Although Tyler and I had bought a bowl full of Hershey Kisses and gum wrapped like gold coins, not one trick-or-treater found his or her way to our front step. Perhaps it was the scary music Tyler had playing outside through hidden speakers?

However, November 1st, All Saints Day, was much more lively. On this day we headed down to the local cemetery where we witnessed a sea of colors. Flower vendors, kite sellers, and fruit hawkers were lined up outside the cemetery while young boys walked around the graves selling cotton candy. Rather than a day of mourning, it looked much more like a day at the fair.

In Guatemala, as in some other Latin American countries, while All Saints Day commemorates the saints (as its name implies), November 2nd, All Soul's Day, remembers those unfortunate souls stuck in purgatory. During these two days, the souls of the underworld walk among the living. If family and friends don't bring offerings to their passed loved ones, the living may be punished by illness, crop failures, tax auditings, and a pimple on the end of their nose. (Okay, so I made up those last two.) People may also decorate their houses and leave a sort of offering of liquor, food, candles and flowers on a shrine. While I did see these shrines in Mexico when I lived there, I did not witness them here in Xela. Customs range somewhat from country to country and even from village to village.

In Quetzaltenango, it is a happy coincidence that the winds pick up in November, and as most cemeteries are flat and devoid of trees, the conditions are ripe for kite flying. The Maya village of Santiago Sacatepequez has become famous for the 10-20 foot bamboo and tissue paper kites that are flown in its cemeteries during these first two days of November. The tradition began back in 1940 when three young men built the first large kite to entertain the families as they swept the dirt off grave sites, trimmed overgrown grasses, painted weather-faded tombstones, and layed flowers on headstones. It has now turned into a competition to see who can build the largest kite. As is written in Culture and Customs of Guatemala, Kenneth W. Smith, an anthropologist who spent time studying the kite flying tradition in Sacatepequez, "believes that the practice became a way of attracting single, young women of the town, who were generally inaccessible during most of the year, as virtuous women should not be seen conversing openly or flirting with men" (Shea, 2001, p.42). For our single friends out there, forget Internet dating. Go fly a kite. It sounds like more fun.



































The following weekend Tyler and I headed to Guatemala City for the NTC (National Teachers' Conference) put on by IGA-Guatemala (the administrative headquarters for the school I work for in Xela). The conference took place over the course of three days with about 900 people in attendance. This made for 150-180 participants in each of my four workshops. Luckily Tyler was there to assist me as I tried to arrange the crowd into groups of four. However, it wasn't all work and no play. Tyler and I had the pleasure of sharing a cocktail or two and swapping stories with Monterey Institute professor Kathi Bailey who was also presenting at the conference. In addition, we shared a very nice evening at IGA's cultural center where photographs of Native Americans taken by Edward S. Curtis were on display. The exhibit, "Sacred Legacy", (of which there is a book of the collection by the same name) is sponsored by the Public Affairs and Cultural Affairs sections of the US embassy here in Guatemala. As I understand, one purpose for the exhibit is to celebrate the beauty and traditions of indigenous people and to introduce Guatemalans to the native people of the US. Examples of these incredible photos can be seen at the following website: http://spanish.guatemala.usembassy.gov/curtisfotos.html


Just five days after returning from Guatemala City, I began teaching a four-week, 60-hour teacher training course for 12 pre-service and in-service English teachers from Xela and the surrounding areas. The course covered topics ranging from first and second language acquisition, to cooperative learning, to grammar in context, to using authentic materials. Tyler even cameoed with two workshops on speaking and listening activities. The course culminated in each participant presenting a lesson plan and teaching part of the lesson to the other course participants. I am happy to report that everyone involved felt it was a very worthwhile, informative experience. I, personally, am thrilled to now know 12 more people in Xela.

From left to right, back row to front: Brenda (Director of IGA-Xela, http://www.igaxela.org ), Jorge, me, Glenda, Irma, Tyler, Javier, Veronica (in pink), Ana, Lilly, Astrid, Rufino, and, Cesar. (Miryam and Claudia were not present.)

With the NTC and the teacher training course now under my belt, Tyler and I are leaving once again, on the 4am bus, to meet my father at the Guatemala City airport on December 12th. Our next posting should be of our exciting trip through Honduras and Northern Guatemala as we visit different Maya ruins and howler monkeys. Stay tuned, and happy holidays!

Work, Play, and the United Fruit Company by Cris

Work: It’s hard to believe it’s already been a month and a half since we arrived in Guatemala. I’ve been keeping very busy at work observing teachers and writing up observation reports, working with teachers and administration on testing students and placing them into levels, evaluating and choosing student textbooks, and facilitating teacher trainer workshops. My office is downtown at IGA-Sede (http://www.igaxela.org) . (Sede means central seat or office.) Here classes are offered in the mornings before work or school from 7-9am and in the afternoons from about 3-7pm. It is also the home of the bilingual secretary program for girls in grades 10-12.

The building where IGA-Sede is located used to be a private house and then a hotel. The rooms are arranged around a central courtyard, as is typical in Spanish architecture. Saturdays are the busiest days at IGA when both university students and elementary kids come to study for 3-6 hours. Therefore, most of the teachers at IGA Sede teach six days a week. I only go in on Saturdays when I have to observe. Having the weekend off is one of my cultural customs I’m clinging on to.

Although IGA-Sede is non-denominational, it coordinates and runs the English programs at two local Catholic schools: Liceo Guatemala, the boys Catholic school, and Maria Auxiliadora, the girls Catholic School. Both schools are Kindergarten through twelfth grade with the 10-12th graders specializing in a profession. The boys are offered careers in Computation, Graphic Design, Medicine, and Sciences. The girls are offered a career in…being bilingual secretaries. IGA-Sede is currently working on getting a teaching program for the girls approved by the Ministry of Education; however, it is currently an uphill battle. Of course other options are available to both male and female students if they study in a bachillerato or college prep program and continue on to college.

I don’t work so much with students but spend most of my time with the teachers. They are a really great, hard-working group, most of them teaching both at IGA-Sede and in the Liceo and Maria programs. Brenda, the Director of IGA-Xela (which includes Sede, Liceo, and Maria), was a Fulbright scholar in the States and has a background in non-governmental organization (NGO) administration. Before directing IGA-Xela (a non-profit organization), she was both a teacher and worked for the NGO Save the Children. She runs her programs very professionally and, at the same time, treats her faculty and staff like family. I have told Brenda that I feel as if I have won the English Language Fellow lottery, having been placed under her direction. Needless to say, I am really enjoying my job.

Play: As one can note from his previous posting, Tyler’s mission in life here is to find the best mountain biking trail and something more diverse to eat. Just recently Tyler participated in a night race, 4km (about 3 miles) almost all up a steep slope. He has become a familiar fixture at the local bike shops. Tyler also scored for us yesterday when he bought a 2 pound bottle of Tahini from the local restaurant owner of Café Babylon. Tyler has been a big support to me both at home and at work. This week we team facilitated a workshop on Teaching Grammar in Context.

The weekend of October 7th Tyler and I finally took a trip out of town to Panajachel (Pahn-ah-ha-chell) with an American, Scott, who works at IGA-Sede and who has been living in Xela for the past seven years. Panajachel is a small village located on the beautiful Lake Atitlán, about a four-hour trip on one of the local chicken buses if the road is clear. (Hurricane Stan caused a lot of damage last year, so bridges are being built where roads were washed away.) Panajachel was once populated by the Tz’utujil until they were defeated by a rival Maya group, the Kaqchikel, with the help of the Spanish conquistadors. Panajachel is a quaint little town with cobblestone streets, but it has long been discovered by gringos. Therefore, much of the businesses along the main drag pander to foreign tourists. As a result, the spectacular views of Lake Atitlán and the surrounding volcanoes are somewhat spoiled by aggressive locals selling their wares and services.

Lake Atitlán is a spectacular sight; however, it has faced it's own share of environmental degradation. One of the islands the lake surrounds is a nature preserve to protect the local species of grebe from extinction as the island consists of reeds that are necessary for the birds' survival. Unfortunately, however, with the introduction of black bass not native to the lake's ecosystem, the birds were unable to avoid their tragic fate as the carnivorous fish feasted on the small grebe offspring.

Panajachel and the villages of Lake Atitlan are the first places we have seen where Maya men still wear the clothes of their ancestors. Due to the prejudice against the Maya, many Maya men who had to deal with their European brethren found it easier to do business if they succumbed to wearing the clothes of westerners. However, many Maya women in both the larger cities and smaller villages honor their traditional heritage by weaving and wearing the multi-colored huipil (blouse) and corte (woven wraparound skirt), the skill of which has been passed down through hundreds of years. Maya men and women wear only the colors and patterns of textiles that represent the region where they are from.

The central plaza in Santiago Atitlan is a meeting place for both young and old. The plaza is where you'll find the local shool, church, and market. It is the cultural center of town.

A common sight in the streets of towns and cities in Guatemala is the large loads Maya women carry on their heads to and from the market. I never cease to be impressed by how much they can balance on their heads.

Keeping one's shoes cleaned and shined is a serious business in Guatemala. Most of the shoeshiners are young boys who will offer their services for 2 or 3 quetzales (about 30-40 cents). It's somewhat controversial engaging in commerce with such a young person for their are two sides to the coin. On the one hand, by taking advantage of his services you could be supplying the shoeshiner with much needed quetzales in order to get something to eat. On the other hand, one wonders if one isn't encouraging him to stay in the streets to make his living (rather than going to school) and encouraging his parents to send him out into the street to earn for his family.

Our afternoon in Santiago Atitlán ended with the 20-minute boat ride back across the lake to Panajachel. Our small lancha was occupied by Americans, Europeans, and a few Maya locals. The Europeans shared with everyone the small, sweet bananas they had just bought, and I couldn't help thinking how such large cultural and language barriers can so simply be crossed with a piece of fruit. Of course the irony is how much conflict was also brought to the country of Guatemala over bananas. Anyone who has studied the history of Guatmala, especially the years which led up to the bloody civil war only 10 years past, knows what a significant role the United States played in Guatemala's very recent conflict.

United Fruit Company: In 1931 Jorge Ubico was elected president of Guatemala. According to Maureen Shea's Culture and Customs of Guatemala (2001), for thirteen years he ruled "with an iron hand...tolerating no dissent." Paraphrasing Shea, Ubico was able to keep the Guatemalan economy from total collapse by courting, largely, US investors and through exploiting the Maya people as a labor force. In order to maintain power, Ubico continued to grant US investors, particularly the United Fruit Company, with the most fertile lands, lands that were often already being cultivated by Maya, in return for US support of his "illegal, fixed reelections" (ibid). Ubico permitted the United Fruit Company to continue to exploit the Maya workforce and made the company exempt from import duties and property taxes. Nine years after Ubico's first election, 90 percent of Guatemala's produce was being sold directly to the US. During World War II, as many educated Guatemalans became aware of the ideals of freedom being espoused by the US, many students protested and were joined in a strike by laborers during the October Revolution. As a result, in 1944, Ubico, the largest landowner in Guatemala, was forced to resign.

The period from 1944-1954 following Ubico's resignation is known as "The Ten Years of Spring". A provisional government run by two military officers and a civilian governed until Juan Jose Arevalo, a progressive, was elected, largely with the help of student support. Although Arevalo brought about reform in literacy and voting rights, it was not until his successor Arbenz Guzman, elected in 1950, was the issue of land reform addressed.

In order to decrease Guatemala's economic reliance on the US and bananas and in order to improve the conditions of the Maya people, Guzman "attempted to diversify crop production and establish alternative institutions to compete with those that United Fruit dominated" (ibid). In 1952, the Guatemalan government passed into law the Law of Agrarian Reform which called for the redistribution of unused or underutilized land to the landless Maya people. "Lands that were to be redistributed were public lands, those that were not farmed or those in excess of 488 acres, with exceptions made for those that were efficiently farmed" (ibid). The elite landowners saw this as a threat to their wealth and power, as did the United Fruit Company which only utilized 15 percent of its landholdings. Also, the Board of Directors of United Fruit were "angered by the provision that the value of their land would be determined by what they had reported for tax purposes, since they had misrepresented this value for years" (ibid) and that they were required to pay $10.5 million in back taxes for the International Railway Company in operation in Guatemala, a branch of United Fruit. As a result, the United Fruit Company began a smear campaign in the United States during the McCarthy era and labeled Guzman and his government as communist. John Foster Dulles, then US Secretary of State, and his brother Allen Dulles, then head of the CIA, had close ties to the United Fruit Company, and they were able to persuade President Eisenhower that United Fruit was "being victimized by the communist regime in Guatemala" (ibid). The Catholic church in Guatemala, itself a landowner and ally to the landowners and conservatives who supported the clergy, also protested the land reform measure and cried 'communism'. "In short, the Catholic Church, the United Fruit Company, and the US governement formed a powerful alliance and began to pressure the military" (ibid) which resulted in a CIA-led military coup in 1954 of a democratically elected president, ending the "Ten Years of Spring". Guzman was replaced by Castillo Armas who led the invading forces into Guatemala City and who, shortly thereafter, "annulled the 1945 Constitution, did away with the Law of Agrarian Reform and returned the expropriated lands" (ibid). Shea has named the period that followed the coup the "Era of Darkness" from which arose the bloody Guatemalan civil war that would last until 1996. One cannot help wonder what life would be like now for Guatemala, especially for the Maya, if the reforms Guzman had put into place had been allowed to stand. It sure makes once think twice about buying bananas from United Fruit Company, now known as Chiquita.

Bicycles & Food

Biking:
We’ve had many opportunities to mountain bike in the month we’ve been here. Cris has been out a few times, and I’ve been riding about 10 times since we arrived a month ago and put a good coating of mud on the xtracycle. So far, we’ve ridden with: our doorman, Santos; Cris’s colleague from IGA (http://www.igaxela.org) , Hector; the owner of a local bookshop, Colin; and a group of guys from 2 different local bike shops.

The terrain here is quite different from mountain biking in CA or WA, where rolling hills are most prevalent and you’re constantly switching from climbing to descending. Here, if you go on a 2-hour ride, you spend the first hour and 45 minutes climbing up one side of a mountain and the remaining 15 minutes descending the other face. I’ve only seen one descent where I had to think about what I was doing so I didn’t crash. Otherwise, the biking is not technical as most trails are built for daily transportation rather than for extreme sports entertainment.





Food highlights:

Tortillas:
The tortillas are excellent, thick, and very filling. And there is a shop on almost every city block where you can buy tortillas hot off the fire. But best of all is watching 2 or 3 women “tortilleando” at the same time. They get a ball of corn dough, flatten it out, and then they slap it back and forth from palm to palm – all three women in near unison – slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap. Making tortillas makes a sound that took me only a few instances to recognize without looking, and now I already feel nostalgic for that sound because I know I won’t be hearing it for much longer. The bad news is that I’ll never be able to eat another tortilla from a supermarket in the US – or maybe that’s the good news.

Batidos & licuados:
It seems Latin America was the birthplace of the smoothie, which they call batidos and licuados. They’re usually simple with relatively few ingredients, usually just one fruit blended with milk, but the selection is broad. Papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe, banana, mango, strawberry, and more.

Food lowlights:
After a month in Xela, the food situation is improving. During the first week, we mostly ate at restaurants, which is hit and miss in any new city. Weeks 2 and 3 were pretty rough because I started cooking, or rather, trying to cook, but I was constantly missing key ingredients for many dishes that I often make. I couldn’t get sushi rice, Japanese ingredients, Chinese ingredients, Middle-Eastern ingredients, Mexican ingredients, Thai ingredients, Kalamata olives, good baguettes, etc. There just aren’t enough immigrants here! All the foreigners are gringos and they open restaurants rather than markets.

By week two, I was getting desperate. I noticed a Chinese guy selling pastries on the street in front of a store. Here was my chance: I closed in on him and started with 20 questions about where to find Asian food. After about a minute of peppering him with food complaints and questions, he got a glazed look and I realized that his Spanish was marginal to non-existent as he tried to reply with one-word answers. Sorry I asked. Never mind.

There’s no phone book for Xela, so you can’t just flip it open to “Grocers” and find out where the groovy grocery stores are. We’re learning that in order to get what you want, you have to know the right people who have gone through the same hassles that you’re going through now.

For example, at the main farmer’s market, you can find garbanzo beans, lemons, garlic, olive oil, and now you just need tahini so you can make hummus. Good luck finding tahini, right? Well, one day, while I was talking to a cook at a restaurant, I mentioned that tahini was impossible to find and he offered to special order me a bottle of tahini from Guatemala City. I’m supposed to pick it up tomorrow.

A colleague of Cris’s from IGA, Scott, told us where to get sushi rice, soba noodles, miso paste, wakame, and many other Japanese products. You should have seen me. I looked like I was preparing for Armageddon because I bought so much food. This market, incidentally, was about a block from “Almacen Zhang” that I mentioned above, but you’d never know it was an Asian market judging by the front of the shop. Maybe I’ll stop by Zhang’s place and let him know.

I only found Mexican mole sauce by chance when I stopped at a place that was selling unrelated foods. The mole was sold in plastic bags tied with rubber bands. They looked like little bricks of opium. We also went to a café and had a coffee and pastry, and as we turned around, there on a shelf were 6 or 7 Chinese food products. A café is not the first place I think of when I need to get oyster sauce and black bean paste, but now I know. “Yes, I’d like the raspberry and mango tart, and a bottle of super-hot sesame oil.”

Another time, I was across the street buying eggs and tortillas and (again) complaining that I hadn’t been able to find fresh fish. The 3 women who run the shop invited me to go shopping with them the following Friday where you can find the best fish in town at…get this…THE MAIN BUS STATION, OF COURSE! Why didn’t I think of that?

So, one-stop shopping is out of the question. Four or five stops seems pretty reasonable.

Satellite Photos of Xela

Here is a series of photos from Google Earth showing the exact position of our house among seismic events and volcanic neighbors.

Guatemala City to Xela

C&T in Guatemala City, September 1- September 7, 2006

Well, our week in Guatemala City was definitely one of luxury. In addition to our king-sized bed with six pillows at the Marriott, Zone 10 (where our hotel was located) gave us access to the best restaurants in town. One of our most memorable happenings occurred by chance: Embassy personnel had clued us in to a great Pan-Asian/Latin American fusion food restaurant called Tamarindos (see photo right). However, as we were still on West Coast time, we showed up about an hour earlier than the restaurant opened. As Tyler and I were standing on the sidewalk, disappointed, trying to decide what to do next, a woman came up from behind asking in English if we needed help. Before turning around, Tyler jokingly said, “Well, you could make the restaurant open an hour earlier for us.” As we both turned around, we saw the woman who had addressed us standing in her chef’s jacket and Dansko clogs. Just the shoes alone told us she was a woman to be reckoned with. As it turned out, Titi, our chef, invited us in and sat us down at the bar of the restaurant. As the restaurant had not opened for the day yet, we were the only patrons there. But that didn’t stop Titi. Three different times she left her kitchen to personally deliver to us three incredible appetizers: Vietnamese spring rolls, crab wontons with a ginger and plum reduction sauce, and avocado and mole egg rolls (see photo left). We were definitely staying for lunch. Tyler and I both ordered tuna, mine peppered, his with Titi’s own barbecue sauce. Based on the food, we of course had to order dessert – a chocolate and raspberry mousse (see photo right). The food we had at Tamarindos was some of the best food we’ve ever had, anywhere. Best yet, Titi has family in Xela, where we will be living, and promised to come over to our place for dinner when in town. Also, she said if we wanted, she could arrange to have fresh fish delivered to us in Xela. Therefore, as you can gather, Titi is the most important person we have met in Guatemala thus far. (No offense, Mr. Ambassador.)

When we weren’t sampling the food, Tyler was museum trekking while I was meeting the administration and teachers of IGA (Instituto Guatemalteco-Americano) Guatemala. IGA-Guate is the main binational center that, in addition to the US State Department, is sponsoring my Fellowship. As IGA-Guate is better staffed and more established (they’ve just celebrated their 60^th anniversary), it was decided that I would provide support to their satellite campus at IGA-Xela (http://www.igaxela.org) . However, before leaving Guate, I spent about five days familiarizing myself with the chain of command and the infrastructure of IGA. I also had the opportunity to observe two classes. IGA’s greatest challenge is one I suspect any school in the US wished they had. They are having a hard time meeting the demand from students for English classes. The main reason is that there are not enough well-trained or educated English teachers in all of Guatemala to teach them. Anyone in Guatemala who speaks English well is most likely from an affluent family. Therefore, anyone who speaks English probably expects to make more money than what an English teaching position can pay. However, there are some English-speaking university students who wish to make a little extra money on the side, so they look for teaching jobs at IGA. While this does help IGA solve their teaching shortage, it is usually only for a short time – until these students finish university. My job in Xela, then, where they hire a similar pool of teachers, is to observe these students in their English-teaching roles, provide feedback, and arrange for bi-monthly teacher development courses. While I applaud IGA’s creative and efficient way of supplying themselves with better-trained teachers, I’m interested to see how receptive these student-teachers will be to teacher development, especially if teaching may not be their chosen profession. We’ll see!

IGA is definitely on the forefront of English teaching in Guatemala. In addition to the one-on-one training and smaller workshops they provide for their own teachers, they also hold an annual, national English teaching conference. I was really impressed with the line-up of plenary speakers they have coming who were seminal authors in our studies at MIIS: D.H. Brown, Kathleen Graves, and the Monterey Institute’s own Kathi Bailey! Tyler and I will be in Guatemala City for the conference in November as I, too, will be presenting, so we hope to show Kathi our favorite food spots. From what I have seen at IGA-Guate, I expect to have a satisfying and challenging professional experience here in Guatemala.

Quetzaltenango (Xela), September 7-September 14, 2006

We made it! Tyler and I are now settled in Quetzaltenango, the largest city of one of Guatemala’s 22 ‘departments’ (or states). Quetzaltenango is Guatemala’s second largest city, with a population of about 300,000, and is the capital city of the department with the same name. Luckily for us, locals call the city Xela (Shay-luh). However, as we have been instructed, Xela only refers to the city, not the department.

Xela looks like many Latin American cities in that its downtown is a grid of single-wide, one-way streets with “Avenidas” running north and south and “Calles” running east and west. Some of the streets are still paved with cobblestones, which, in addition to their narrow width, is a reminder that the streets were not originally made for cars. On many streets, cyclists and pedestrians alike must press themselves up against the wall to avoid having their toes run over. Or, if crossing the street, you are sure to be honked at if you are not moving out of the way quick enough. But that’s life downtown. In this photo I took of Tyler (right), the steps leading to the Teatro Municipal (Municipal Theater) are on the left. The street the Mitsubishi van is heading down on Tyler’s right is Avenida 14-A, the avenue where IGA-Xela is located. The conical-shaped volcano in the distance is Santa Maria. Regan, Shelley and clan (The Candelarios) may be interested to know that the mountain all the way to the left is Cerro Candelaria.

Beginning with our stay in the “Baby Adoption Hotel”, our lives continue to be filled with ironies. My mom got a big kick out of hearing that Tyler and I are now living in the suburbs of Xela, in a gated community. We have now lost any footing to tease her about her lifestyle choice. And, the closest restaurants to our house include Burger King and McDonald’s. This photo is a shot of the street that runs in front of our gated community. The following photo (below, right) shows a picture of Tyler standing at the gate leading into our residential area, “Las Fuentes”. As you enter the ‘compound’(see photo below, left), the first looped driveway on the right is where you’ll find our house sandwiched between, Don Jaime’s house, the architect who built all the houses in the complex, on the left, and his office to the right. Further down the main road is all the other houses in the complex. Therefore, even within the compound, we are somewhat segregated from our neighbors – affluent Guatemalans. Below is a photo tour of our new home away from home and the surrounding grounds.

One of the 'fuentes' for which the neighborhood is named:

Tyler in front of our house:







The patio off the guest bedroom:

Tyler in the living room/dining room.


Our home office:


















Our bedroom:













The Master Bath:


The guest bedroom (hint, hint):















The not-Tyler's-dream-kitchen and breakfast nook:
















The view out our front door (from the living/dining room:














Independence Day weekend in Xela, September 15-17, 2006
This weekend is a long, three-day weekend here in Xela (and longer still for students). The country celebrated Independence Day on Friday, September 15^th, but Xela makes a week’s holiday of it. Beginning on Monday, the 11^th, starting with the primary students, school marching bands parade through the streets of Xela. (It’s the only time you can safely walk through the streets and not get honked at.) Each following day, an older group of students from different schools march through the streets, some accompanied by their school’s "reina de belleza" (beauty queen). The week culminates in the crowning of Queen Guatemala and hordes of people make their way to the ‘Feria’ for food and rollercoaster rides. The streets downtown and around our neighborhood are eerily quiet at this time (as noticable in the street photos above).

Tyler and I decided to take advantage of most people being at the fairgrounds to do a little grocery shopping at the “Mercado La Democracia”, the largest open air market downtown. Try to spot the meat department, the fish market, the spice aisle and the produce section in the photos below.

Pick up trucks make for impromptu market stalls. You can find everything from plants, to underwear, to stuffed animals...

There are soooo many wonderful photo opportunities at the market, but we are always cautious when taking photos. Either we take photos of people not looking at us, or we take photos of people after having asked their permission (and a number don’t grant us permission). We are particularly cautious about taking photos of children as many Mayans believe white people are there to steal their children. This may have some truth to it in that, as we mentioned before, there is some question as to the origin of some of the adopted babies coming out of Guatemala. The issue goes back to the time of the Civil War in Guatemala (only ten years past) when army personnel and others found it lucrative to sell kidnapped Guatemalan babies to foreign adoptive parents. Of course, the adoptive parents most likely had no idea the children had been taken from their families. They only knew (or believed) they were ‘rescuing’ children from the horrors of war. I heard one woman say, as Tyler and I were walking by, to a small child accompanying her who was getting a little out of hand, “Be careful. They’ve come for you.” She smiled at me, making me believe it was a disciplinary tool. So as we can ascertain, we are perhaps the Mayan equivalent of the boogie man. However, most people we have had interactions with, once they realize we speak Spanish, have been friendly and accommodating. But who wouldn’t want to photograph Guatemalan kids? They’re just so darn cute with those big brown eyes, long eyelashes, and wide smiles.

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