Deer dancer provide a cultural experience. (photo: Harris & Goller - viaventure.com)

Panajachel to host patron saint festivities in October

St. Francis of Assisi was, among other things, the patron of animals and the environment. So it is fitting that fair week in the city named for him, San Francisco Panajachel, will include a ceremony to bless the animals. The environment will also be a theme, with many organizations involved in the reclamation of Lake Atitlan maintaining booths to disseminate literature about their activities and to recruit volunteers.

Although chingolingo (carnival games) and confectionary booths have been going up since Sept. 17 (the date St. Francis attained the stigmata), the fair is only fully under way beginning Oct. 1. The saint’s own day, Oct. 4, is the height of the festivities; the final full day is Oct. 7. Plenty of lodging choices are available; the same is true for shopping and dining, a special plus given that Panajachel has at least one of every kind of restaurant.

There will also be an abundance of feria traditions, including the art and beauty contests sponsored by Dr. Gerardo Barrero. Ferris wheels and other rides, games of chance and skill, tipico sweets and cuisine, and open-air entertainment (including deer dancers) are all on the program.

As if the ingress of bully bass to Lake Atitlán were not bad enough (see Revue August 2011, Lake Views, page 88), another alien may be even more harmful. At least since 2002, carp of the genus Cyprinus have been appearing in fishermen’s trawling nets. No one knows when they got there, nor what to do about them.

“They have absolutely no natural enemies,” says diver Roberto Samayoa, curator of Panajachel’s Lacustre Museum. “The bass at least limit themselves through cannibalism. But they don’t eat carp.”

Bass and carp occupy different zones, with the carp being strictly bottom feeders. And when a bass does encounter a carp small enough to eat, the bass shuns it because of the carp’s long dorsal and pectoral spines. These make swallowing a painful, if at all possible, proposition.

As a food fish, the carp is a bust. Unlike the bass, whose skeleton is easily separated from the filet, the carp’s skeleton is complex and enmeshed like a network of weed roots in the flesh. That flesh is edible but only marginally palatable.

Trawlers have found some uses for them. They can be boiled to make a poor man’s caldo (soup broth), used for fertilizer, or dried and milled, then added to chicken mash. An unconfirmed report has them being used at Mayan altars.

The carp infesting the lake are not descendants of ornamental koi. They are the wrong shape and tend to be army-greenish.

The carp are prolific breeders that outlive most other fish. And unlike the large-mouthed bass, the carp have small tapering mouths for concentrated, vacuum-like suction on the bottom, where they ingest the shoots of litoral plants, tiny invertebrates and the eggs of crabs and snails. All these factors make them a pest of the first order.

According to Atitlán fishermen, specimens of up to about 90 centimeters have been taken. It is possible that all of them came from one pair of introduced carp or even a single gravid female.

Samayoa is seeking novel ideas for the reduction of the carp population and for their commercial use.

“Whoever did this caused untold harm to the lake and to the economy of the Atitlán Basin,” Samayoa says. “It amounts to sabotage.”

Karla S. is among the many anglers who frequent the Panajachel piers for bass. (photo: Brennan Harmuth)

53 years ago, an airplane wrought sudden, significant alterations in Lake Atitlán’s food chain

Flying fish inhabit oceans, not lakes. Well, except for one sunny day in 1958. If you were looking at Lake Atitlán then, you would have seen big fish on the fly.

They arrived in tubs welded into what was, judging from eyewitness accounts, a Sikorsky seaplane, which early airlines used to scout routes for the budding commercial aviation industry. The fishy missiles rained down as the pilot swooped close to the surface.

The plane bore the insignia of Pan American World Airways. Pan Am had made common cause with Panajachel’s nascent hotel association to boost tourism to Atitlán by making it into a sportfishing destination. This would be done by literally dropping black bass into the lake.

Unfortunately, the fish already living there, who surely would have objected to this idea, were never consulted. And the phrase “environmental impact study” was not yet in anyone’s lexicon.

This bass in question, Micropterus salmoides, is the state fish of Alabama and Florida. It is a thrilling quarry for sport fishers, but a ferocious killer—even of its own species.

“These fish,” says American John Riddle, a longtime Panajachel resident, “will try to gobble members of their own kind who’ve had the misfortune of being hooked.” Being a largemouth species, the bass do not hesitate to attack prey as large as themselves. They can ingest anything up to a third of their size, which includes even  baby alligators. The male does have one virtue: He guards and fans the eggs while the female plays doxy with several nest-hugging males.

The indigenous species in the lake quickly became scarce following the bass paratrooping. Ironically, the bass introduction made Atitlán a poorer source of food fish—rather than a richer one—by stunting its biodiversity. For millennia Maya fishermen had captured local fish in nets lowered from cayuco boats; now they had to retool. The bulk of their take declined, and so did the variety.

“I was a boy when they dropped the fish,” says Guatemalan Charlie Vickers. “I watched it from the lakeshore. I’d never seen anything like it, nor do I expect to, ever again.” Vickers himself grew up to become a hotelier, as proprietor of what is today Panajachel’s Jardín del Lago.

In the lakes and rivers of the southeastern U.S., the bass’ numbers are checked by herons, bitterns, eagles and alligators; kingfishers prey on the young. But in Lake Atitlán, Micropterus became the apex predator when, previously, no single organism held this distinction. When the native fish declined, the bully bass prowled the muddy bottoms and chomped every freshwater crab and snail large enough to trouble with. The crabs survived, but large individuals are rare near the shore, having retreated to depths to which the bass do not descend. The other hunted survivors include bluegill, crappie and a type of tilapia. Another threat to Atitlán´s ecology is the presence of introduced carp.

Some organisms, peculiar to the lake, may have met extinction before biologists had an opportunity to catalog them. The bass’ most resplendent casualty was the great grebe, a large bird which, like the bass, eats crabs. As the crabs waned, so did the grebe; the last was seen in 1982. The Atitlán subspecies was the only population outside of South America.

In 2004, Riddle and others chartered a club to make the hunters into the hunted. This was the year the Atitlán Bass Club held its first tournament, an annual event suspended in 2009 due to the cyanobacterial bloom, which has no direct relation to the bass introduction decades earlier.

Over this period, attitudes about sport fishing in Atitlán have so changed that even the Bass Club is conservation-oriented. Most bass caught during the tournament are thrown back after being weighed, measured and photographed. Trophies have been awarded to anglers who released their catch to hunt and be hooked another day.

“But this is optional,” says Allen Stern, another North American living in the basin. “Bass caught during the tournament can be keepers.”

The Bass Club today belongs to an alliance of organizations dedicated to preserving the health of the lake, not only for fish and fauna generally, but for anglers, too—both sport and subsistence fishermen.

The earlier alliance—of the hotels and Pan Am—is today a bizarre footnote in Guatemalan history, a “fishy” scheme that might have inspired an episode of The Simpsons set in Central America. The hotel industry developed apace without Atitlán acquiring the enviable reputation as a fishing Mecca. And 33 years after the bass seeding, Pan Am, the “world’s most experienced airline,” went belly-up in 1991. Myriad competitors were by then overwhelming Pan Am with their own Guatemalan routes, and mention of Atitlán sport fishing had disappeared from the company’s brochures.

Yet the legacy of the bass invasion remains in force. Decades of ecological adjustments have brought the lake’s dislocated food web into a new equilibrium, and fighting fish may be had with surprising ease. Even the piers at Panajachel are frequented by anglers equipped with as little as a line and a single lure. These are twirled overhead like a sling, then cast, then reeled in—without a reel.

“You really don’t need a pole,” claims North American expatriate Frank Hoyas, who casts on weekends from the stern of a moored commuter ferry. “Better if you do, naturally. But either way, on a good day you’ll collect a stringer of fish.”

Pan Am, like the great grebe whose fate it sealed, is gone. But sportfishing in Atitlán is cleared for takeoff.

I left my favorite shirt on a hammock in Monterrico

text/photos by Tanya Hughes

Guatemala is a magical place. I came here the first time on a brief holiday that started on the Caribbean coast of Mexico and took me through Belize and finally into Guatemala. I was impressed with Tikal and Petén, but I immediately fell in love with La Antigua Guatemala.

The unique energy that has captured so many hearts called to me once I had returned to Canada, and in less than two years I left my career and my Vancouver home to return here.

Now with more time to explore, I based myself in Antigua and then headed out. First stop, Monterrico. If you haven’t been to the Pacific coast of Guatemala, pack your bags. Armed with my favorite book, I planned a two-night stay that turned into seven days.

The volcanic black-sand beach stretches out for miles of beauty and tranquility. If you want real peace and quiet, this is the place—during the week, that is. Weekends light up with tourists and Guatemalans alike, sun seekers looking for their own brand of stress relief, and there is nothing quiet about it.

Combined with what may be the most beautiful sunsets I have seen anywhere, there really is something for everyone in Monterrico. Just don’t use your favorite shirt as a hammock pillow and then leave it there when your shuttle arrives!

Next stop, Lake Atitlán. I did not have time to visit the lake during my first trip to Guatemala, and based on recommendations from friends, I headed for San Marcos.

Arriving at night and without a hotel reservation, I wandered to several places only to find everything booked. Some children happily walked me to a few places in hopes of receiving a tip, and I finally found a beautiful lakefront room. It was well out of my backpacker budget range, but I had to shake my head when I realized that I had paid more for a parking space at the last U.S. hotel where I stayed.

Off to explore after a tranquil morning coffee on my patio, I discovered that this tiny town houses unique holistic and spiritual centers, offering crystal aura cleanings, massages, yoga and spiritual classes ranging from a day to three months. San Marcos also has what ended up as my favorite restaurant in Guatemala so far.

Not to forget the lake itself, where for under Q20 you can hit the water to visit neighboring towns for more exploration and totally different vibes. Horseback riding, kayaking and some of the best markets in Guatemala are easily within reach.

If you’re just into relaxing, ask in San Marcos where to get one of Brad’s famous tequila concoctions that are guaranteed to bring you to another level of consciousness in no time.

Quetzaltenango was a different experience altogether. This fast-paced city is also centered around a central park but has a very different feel than its sister city, Antigua. First off, bring a jacket. Bask in the hot sun by day and settle into one of the happening nightspots to keep warm at night. If you’re the adventurous and athletic type, I suggest trying the overnight full moon volcano hike. Just be sure to bundle up.

With a sigh of comfort and relief, I returned to my Antigua apartment. I loved my expedition but Antigua truly is my favorite place in Guatemala. 

Every day is a new adventure, finding yet another ancient ruin, or a great restaurant set in beautiful gardens hidden behind a tiny wooden doorway. There is no shortage of unexpected treasures and beauty. People from all over the world and all walks of life are drawn here. If this is your first visit, I’m sure it won’t be your last.

Horseback riding, kayaking and some of the best markets in Guatemala are easily withing reach at the lake.

The intimate setting, limited to just 50 guests, was the perfect venue for James’ flawless fingerpicking on the guitar and mandolin. Singing old standards and newer favorites from his latest CD, ‘Short Blue Stories,’ James captivated the patrons on Thursday night, March 3.

Opening the festive night was Carlos Funk of Blind Lemon’s Restaurant and Café in San Marcos La Laguna. James was heading to Lake Atitlán after the Antigua show.

Wait a minute—Panajachel?

The commonality is that all of them, whether world-class metropolis or funky tourist burgs, have hosted, or will host, the prestigious Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC). This month, the event comes to Central America for the first time, with Panajachel as its terminus and center of festivities.

The idea of a lap-around-the-lake bicycle race is not new. But back then it was too easy to win the first, second, and third place honors for the very first “Tour de Atitlán” in 1992, since only three contestants registered.

More successful and better attended races followed in ensuing years, but only now has Lake Atitlán appeared on the map of international cycling competition. But this is about much more than a race.
The event is named for the “Messengers,” a global fraternity of cycling competitors and aficionados. According to the CMWC website, Messengers are “friends coming together to embrace in a courier family reunion, and building new friendships for those brave competitors participating for the first time … there is nothing that compares, as far as pinnacle achievements for a professional bicycle Messenger, than to earn the title of World Champion.”

Who pays for all this? Mostly, suppliers of bicycle accessories, one typical sponsor is Trash Bags, a maker of all-weather bicycle totes.

Who benefits? Worthy projects in the community or country hosting the event. Among this year’s beneficiaries is Panajachel’s municipal stadium, which was severely damaged from flooding caused by Hurricane Stan in 2005. Given that the stadium took another hit in May with Tropical Storm Agatha, the CMWC event could not come at a better time.

Panajachel Mayor Gerardo Higueros is understandably jubilant. “We will provide our full support, collaboration and assistance!” he says.

The main race, to be held on September 12, has a special theme: a simulation of a real workday with deliveries and pick-ups organized in a mock city core, where routing and decision making becomes as important as speed and performance.

Vermonters Andy Hauty and Joby Dan’Sy, who brought A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Producers and West Side Story to Panajachel, are bringing this month their rendition of Moulin Rouge.

The couple have pleased audiences of locals and weekenders for more than four years with their troupe, Atitlán Youth Theatre. Their productions blend modern dance and music with classical drama. This year’s production will, they believe, supersede the pageantry of all previous ones; it will include, among other things, such firsts for Panajachel as acrobats performing on-stage.

Another first is that this will be an inaugural performance for Panajachel’s new River House Activity Center. The new playhouse is located on the north end of town, above the Ubico Bridge.

Tickets are Q50 for adults, Q25 for children. Performances are at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 28 and Saturday, May 29. There will also be a discounted matinée at 4 p.m. on the previous day (tel: (502) 4090-1912).

In downtown Guatemala, during siesta hour (still observed in the city back then), I spotted this sign on a persiana: HOY SE ABRE PACA a las 3:00 (persianas are those roll-up aluminum walls that seal storefronts).

Being new to both the country and the language, I resolved to finish my errand and drift back at 3 to learn what pacas were, and also what happened whenever one se abrió. Two plumpish middle-aged women were already waiting, and it was only 2:40. I was not expecting anything on the order of the Second Coming, an earthquake or a coup d’état, but I was curious.

At a quarter after three (right on time, in other words), someone came and raised the persiana. The half-dozen women now present rushed in with such startling urgency that something in me said, “Follow them!” But I was there to observe.

What I saw resembled a flock of hens, freshly uncooped, getting their Wheaties —or should I say “meaties”—by darting at anything moving in the grass. You can buy “chicken feed” for domestic foul, but cluckers with free-range privileges prefer beetles and worms.
The women, like the chickens, were competing. But instead of beetles, their prey were woolen caps, T-shirts, socks, skirts and other attire, all used. I thought, “OK, this is how they do thrift shops in Guatemala.”

Thrift shops in the old country were still, for me, something novel. As a black sheep raised in a manicured suburb, I discovered them as an adult. My grandparents, who had been poor, knew them well enough. But my parents, who had escaped poverty, made a point of buying only new clothes for us kids.

In college, while homeless (but dating one of my professors), I discovered the Goodwill, the Salvation Army and numerous wildcatter thrift shops. I habitually haberdashed at such places, along with other down-and-outers, but also with folks who were destined (or so I imagined) to become wealthy because they practiced frugality without shame. So my observations that day in downtown Guatemala were almost sociological.

Well, some were. The first mystery to be solved was etymological. What, exactly, was a paca? Compared to the man in charge of the place, I was white and towering. But when I asked him ¿Qué es una paca? he eyed me as if I were diminutive and green, and begging, “Take me to your leader.” It was one of those moments—we all have them —when culture shock is sparked by the painfully mundane.

The paca turned out to be a king-size bedsheet stuffed with used clothing. Maybe what Santa bundled his toys in before Mrs. Claus knit him a proper sack. It could as easily have been a stuffed cargo net.

I soon discovered that thrift shops existed in Central America, but they were called bazares. It was a relief to find one while I set up house in the city. But what a disappointment to find that bazares were none too cheap. In the old country, you could pick up, say, an oldie-but-goodie toaster for a tenth the cost of a new one. But a used appliance at the Bazar de Kiwanis cost nearly what a new one did.

This has all changed, since used clothing, appliances, toys and knickknacks have, in the years since, become a buyer’s market. Now those six women do not have to run in and pick over the goods. And the label “paca” is today symbolic. These days, the thing que se abre is ingress, not a sheet.

The aging populations of the United States and Canada are the wellsprings. As baby boomers prosper (or fatten) and their parents expire, tidal waves of fine clothes are discarded and shipped down here. Now pacas sit on every corner in some neighborhoods—almost literally. There is even a chain of Megapacas set up to corral and channel the deluge.

The downside is that Spuds Mackenzie T-shirts threaten to displace embroidered finery, simply because they are affordable. This cultural erosion is being exacerbated as I write, and is a topic worthy of its own Lake Views column. So I will stick with the upside of pacas, or, at least, what they do for me.

The wife despises them perhaps for the same reasons my parents did. But since I find like-new stuff there, I pretend that it is new. Good thing she does not read this column!

My son Isaac (who does read it) and I are members of the Panajachel Theatre Company. We recently enacted supporting roles to Billy Mumford, a versatile performing genius who played Arnold Dumpit, a skinflint vaudevillian. Arnold describes himself as “not cheap but frugal, and knowing the value of a quetzal.” In The Red Suitcase, his troupe goes on the road in chicken buses. Over the manic objections of Flossy (Mrs. Dumpit), he secures “free lodging” in the form of his father’s nursing home room in La Antigua. Not surprisingly, the Dumpits build their costume wardrobe with “nice paca finds.”

Yet these days, nice paca finds are not dramatic fiction, nor are they pricey. Isaac and I were told to find spotless white shirts in pacas, since real tuxedo shirts could not, presumably, be found in such places. But found they were; Isaac got one for Q10. My own mint tux shirt was in the reject pile for—are you ready?—Q3. (I also found a pair of cherry tap-dance shoes for a paltry Q17.50).

Billy Mumford told me a shirt like that could cost $60, new. He could not believe I got it so cheap—less than a penny on the dollar.

I told him that, like Arnold, I knew the value of a quetzal.

Pana, unlike La Antigua, is no predictable grid. There are countless blind corners and weird angles, all inviting, particularly in Uptown, or Old Pana, the town’s oldest quarter (downtown, or “El Centro” is considered the spot where Calle Santander starts). Uptown is the most walkable part of Pana, and its corners beckon to be rounded and savored with the slowness that only pedestrians can succor.

Uptown is eclectic, given its compactness. I could argue that visitors to Pana have not really visited unless they traipse through Uptown. Everyone strolls Santander and the waterfront, but Uptown is Panajachel at its most authentic. You meet few or no peddlers in Old Pana, and it is an arresting counterpoint to the “touristy” face of that other Pana.

Start at the intersection of Calle Principal and Palopó Road. There sits (1) El Ancla, Pana’s original general store, where they still sell a little of everything that is not perishable, from stationery to fishing line. It is Pana’s oldest retailer in continuous operation, a success owed to the Mazarriegos family’s policy of standing behind everything they sell since 1956.

The next place meriting a stop once occasioned a bizarre exchange for me with a Polish couple. They looked lost, so I offered directions. It seemed that they were asking me if I knew the “Maya Canuck.” Well, I did know Rick McArthur, a Canadian who speaks Maya Kakchikel in his work with Wycliffe translators, and who had been called this. But when I offered to lead them to Rick, they were confounded.

Eventually it dawn-ed that their destination was (2) the Maya Kanek, Panajachel’s oldest hotel, which predates the 1961 electrification of the city by decades. Its lobby, featuring intriguing codex-like murals, is unchanged from the days when it was Uptown’s only comfortable lodging. The “coffee table” is a shellacked slice of a tree trunk. Don Antonio, the affable proprietor, can answer questions about Panajachel history.

A little farther up the street, you find Panajachel’s newest and strangest landmark (3).
“Torchito,” as the statue atop the pedestal is known, was erected in 2007 to commem-orate 50 years of the annual footrace that originally linked Pana with nearby San Andrés Semetabaj; today, the torch is borne all the way to Guatemala City. One of Torchito’s feet is bare, honoring those of the original runners who ran the course on their unshod feet.

Just behind Torchito is (4) Panajachel’s city park. Behind the small, shaded promenades and the sculptures of T-rex and President Barrios, the municipal “palace” perches on a stony platform. There is nothing palatial about the building, but the platform boasts (5) a relief mural carved in 1980 by Jordán Alegría, showing an allegorization of the conquest. On the right, a resplendent, feathered Tecún Umán resists a charge from a mounted Pedro de Alvarado. The latter’s forces, on the left, are a mix of Spaniards and Alvarado’s Tlaxcaltecan (Mexican) allies. It may be my imagination, but the figures on the right seem, by design, of nobler countenance.

Continue up the street to (6) Pana’s new mercado.

The old mercado, a smelly warren of ramshackle stalls, would never have been a stop on any walking tour. Trash and vermin were never far from the wares on sale. But today’s mercado enjoys a planned layout that is a paragon of space utility, airiness, aesthetics and sanitation. The expansive rain shield protects from the elements while allowing full ventilation, as well as full exploitation of natural light. Despite this manicured presentation of a highlands marketplace, no authenticity was sacrificed. You never forget that you are in Guatemala, since all the usual ingredients are present: produce stalls, dry-goods sellers, alcoves of meatcutters, humble diners, clothiers and a local for reed baskets and mats. Your tour should include some roaming here.

A side street leads to (7) the new municipal library, the finest in Sololá Department, and Uptown’s true palace. The library, with its arched windows and wrought-iron grating, replaces an older one that burned down in 2000. It owes its existence to indefatigable American author Ann Cameron and her husband Bill, and doubles as the town museum. Labeled exhibits of historical pictures and textiles adorn the walls and pylons. The most poignant exhibit is a page from one of the 8,000 books destroyed in the fire.

After you exit the library, cross the street toward the Catholic church. Within the elegant gate you can see finely sculpted floral mounds and collared trees. Go right, following the sidewalk to the (8) church plaza, Uptown’s only open space. Pana’s City Hall departs from the norm by sitting behind the church, rather than facing it over a plaza. Open-air and official ceremonies nonetheless take place on this spot: Deer Dances, Catholic processions, and the annual feria all culminate here.

Across the street stands the medieval-looking (9) belfry, believed to be Pana’s oldest edifice. The bell inside, massively cracked, is seldom rung.

From the plaza, enter the (10) church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, Pana’s patron. The thick granite walls of the current church, dating from the 1800s, soften the bustle of Panajachel, making the church a favorite interfaith meditation spot.

From the plaza, go south again into Pana’s oldest commercial area, which before the tourist boom of the 80s was home to coffee and grain brokers. Even today the aroma of fresh coffee is piped into this quarter of barbers and tailors by the Roberts family of South Africa, to allure walkers to their (11) Crossroads Café, where premium coffees can be sampled and bought in bulk.

Turn left at the next corner to reach the clinic and (12) gallery of pediatrician Gerardo Barreno, a self-described “Mayaphile.” Dr. Barreno, who charges as little as Q10 for consultations, provides scultptors, painters and artisans with a free showcase that has launched careers. It may be the perfect spot to buy a memento of your walk through Old Panajachel, or, if nothing else, to see Mona Lisa with Maya features.

photos by Shaila Reddy

This year 100 percent of the proceeds will go to a local ecological educational and informational project that will concentrate on getting the word out to the nearby population about the cyanobacteria breakout that is threatening the health of Lake Atitlán. On the drawing board are educational cartoon-illustration books for adults who can’t read, ecologically-minded coloring books for kids, ecological material for the schools and an eco-programming schedule for local radio and television broadcasts in Tz’utuil, Kaqchikel and Spanish.

Once again, the roster of performers is quite impressive: festival participants include Iguanamanga (reggae), La Trova del Lago (trova nueva), Grupo Maya Tz’utujil (cofradía music), AjBatz (Kaqchikel rock), Marco Trio Electric (get down boogey), The LeRoy Mack Band (bluegrass), Naik Madera (New Age feminist), Kyla (Latin folklore), Zanates en Stereo (rock chapín), Pablo Robledo (soloist), Steve James (finger-picking guitar), MaF Saenz (soloist) Percush (percussion), Star Maya circus, Grupo Sotzil (Maya dancers), Cósmica de Guatemala … and even more groups soon to be announced. There will be an art gallery offering local paintings for sale that will also benefit this year’s good works recipient, as well as demonstrations: for instance, bring a T-shirt and have the festival logo silkscreened on it while you watch. Kids are definitely not left out … there are some great activities planned for them like flag painting, face painting, a small playground, storytelling and a mini-circus!.

The Festival Atitlán will be held in a beautiful pine forest outside of Santiago Atitlán. Organizers suggest that you plan to come and camp overnight. There will be plenty of security, and the night time jams around the campfire are legendary. If you need a hotel room, make a reservation early because the hotels will fill up. There will be plenty of good food and drink, and if you decide to bring your own, please remember that this is an ecological festival: there are no bottles allowed, and you are asked to avoid plastic. Food will be served on banana leaf and biodegradable plates, beer sold in cans will be recycled by local kids, planners are doing their best to keep the festival’s “footprint” as unobtrusive as possible.

This is undoubtedly the most interesting and eclectic alternative arts festival in Guatemala! Come and join in!

For more information and updates about the festival please visit
www.festivalatitlan.com

text and photo by Maya Moore

Thirteen Threads (TT), a Maya women’s education and empowerment project based in Panajachel, Lake Atitlán, proudly completed its first five years of operations this year. What began as an 18-month pilot project designed to provide resources to 16 groups of artisans working with two fair-trade organizations, Mayan Hands and Maya Traditions, has turned into a valued organization in its own right. Today, TT serves over 400 Maya women from 21 rural Guatemalan communities. 

The mission of Thirteen Threads is to empower organized groups of indigenous women to bring about changes, through their own efforts, that will alleviate the adverse effects of poverty and improve their quality of life. To this end, TT offers trainings and workshops in four focus areas: new and improved artisan skills; democracy and group organization; health and well-being; and small business skills, including micro-credit loans.

Participants consistently express sincere appreciation for the skills and knowledge that TT has given them. Over the past year, TT has offered sewing classes, a soap-making workshop and rug-hooking training using recycled cortes and huipiles. TT’s three community facilitators continue to make monthly visits to each group. This year, the focus has been on group administration for self-sufficiency, including themes on division of responsibilities, management of funds and resolution of conflicts.

TT, as an organization, is growing, as well. An ambitious proposal for the next three years has been developed, presenting a variety of innovative ideas for transitioning into a more democratic and sustainable operation. TT hopes to continue to inspire others and is thankful for all of the dedicated support that it has received for this ever-evolving project.

Wish List
Used laptops, projector, funds to make a film about the project.

For more information on how to volunteer or donate, please visit the Thirteen Threads website, www.oxlajujbatz.org. You can also find the latest project updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Lake Atitlán by (photo by Harris & Goller)

Panajachel unites and digs with defiance

In The Green Felt Jungle, the story is told of a dapper man in pinstripes who rides a Cadillac into Las Vegas one night, seeking the neonized excitement of that gilded city. But he finds little more than a dreary gas station.

“Where is Las Vegas?” he asks the Navajo attendant.

“Right here,” is the answer.

The traveler, it seemed, had pulled into Las Vegas, New Mexico. It would take another nine hours to reach Las Vegas, Nevada.

Two Guatemala lakes, Amatitlán and Atitlán, are similarly confused. Occasionally, a tourist, like the Vegas-bound traveler, goes to the wrong place.

Despite pollution, Lake Amatitlán remained pretty throughout its gradual decline. (see sidebar on page 110)*
Lake Atitlán, a bigger and even prettier lake, would also fall under the threat of pollution. In 2005, Hurricane Stan struck the lakeside town of Panajachel, widening the river channel that cut through town and wreaking significant, but not irreparable, damage to its sewage treatment plant. Entire houses were swept away, carrying a caustic, eclectic debris of everything from tin-laden motherboards to household lye into the lake. But Atitlán was big enough to take a hit. It is 10 times as deep as Amatitlán and has 90 times the volume.
Even today, Atitlán is considered to be largely clean; the annual bass tournament still takes place, and people still swim in the lake, usually without consequence.

Nevertheless, pollution manifested itself at the end of 2008 when an algal carpet suddenly bloomed over vast stretches of the lake. Fed by residues of human coliform, detergent phosphates and other chemicals, the carpet remained for four months. It could return at the end of this year, within weeks after the cessation of the seasonal rains.

For 2009, Atitlán was fatefully named Threatened Lake of the Year by the Global Nature Fund. Though no studies bear it out, there is consensus that Panajachel is the chief polluter. One reason is that, after four years, the treatment plant remains broken. Another is that Pana’s population, already larger than most lakeside towns, is swollen with visitors.

These visitors are Panajachel’s economic mainstay; almost everyone in Pana is dependent, directly or otherwise, on tourism. Indeed, Panajachel is to Las Vegas, Nevada, what the sleepy tourist village at Lake Amatitlán is to Las Vegas, New Mexico. In scale, the potential economic disaster would affect all of Sololá Department and, indeed, all of Guatemala.

“Those visitors may stop coming,” says Californian Sidney Eschenbach, a Pana resident, “unless we rescue the lake, and soon.”

Guatemalan Juan Skinner, who years ago headed one of three governmental agencies responsible for protecting the lake, has asserted that the treatment plant does not need replacing.

“If someone slashes all four tires on your car,” he says, “you can’t drive. But you don’t have to replace the whole car.” Skinner belongs to a grassroots faction that wants to replace the tires, rather than holding out for the estimated Q2.6 million that replacing the plant would cost.

Some of Skinner’s allies, tired of waiting and alarmed by the threat to the lake in terms both economic and aesthetic, took action in September. One morning, a huge earthmover was in the channel, digging a massive, rectangular pit near one of the five effluent pipes emptying into the San Francisco River, which feeds the lake and bisects Panajachel.

Eschenbach, an architect who knew what hiring heavy equipment would cost, began soliciting funds to excavate a shallow trench for phase one of a “constructed wetland” to arrest the eutrophication of the lake. When fully realized, the excavation might become the first of a chain of banana groves in the channel.
Former soldier Félix Churunel, born and raised in Panajachel, joined the effort and urged, with surprising success, many Guatemalans to pony up. When Eschenbach and Churunel linked up with Swiss recycling maven Ursula Bishoff and Guatemalan activist Daniel Salguero, they found themselves leading a movement fed by a latent, widespread impatience over the slow search for a pollution solution.

Coloradan Duncan Aitken, a 26-year resident, was recruited to the movement as a translator for some of the uncounted conferences that took place, post-Stan, to find a remedy. He recalls that advice and material support from Pana’s large expat community were regularly sought.

“There were times when I had to stand up and remind everyone that we [expats] can’t vote.”

Some authorities had balked at constructing an artificial wetland. On the day the digging began, Eschenbach says, one of the officials responsible for protecting the lake showed up and “bizarrely demanded that we stop, and pay for an environmental impact study.”

But it was too late. Support for the project was at critical mass, and the mayor stepped in.
“To his credit,” Eschenbach says, “he saw the wisdom of the project. And he summarily donated Q3,200 of his own money for its continuance.” This was the cost of hiring the equipment for one day. The digging took five days.

Aitken calls this price a bargain. “Proposals have a way of getting expensive over time. And studies, so-called, delay things while the proposals fatten up. Meanwhile, our lake is being trashed.”

Neither Aitken and Eschenbach, nor their Guatemalan allies, apologize for doing something that is technically illegal.

“Better to beg forgiveness after the fact, than beg permission beforehand,” Eschenbach says.

“This is not an expat thing, nor a Guatemalan thing,” Aitken says. “It unites Pana like nothing ever has. Even the poorest of the poor, like the areneros, are solidly behind us, to say nothing of informed tourists.” Areneros make a living removing rocks and sand from the channel. Much of this same sand is now in the constructed wetland, doing filtering duty.

Aitken and Eschenbach insist, however, that the project is a stopgap rather than the ultimate solution. There are five effluent tubes emptying into the river from the west bank alone.

“But one is no longer polluting,” Eschenbach says. “The excavation is cleaning some 70 liters of water a minute through nutrient retention, evaporation and absorption.”

“It’s cleaning every drop it’s getting,” says Felix Churunel, “and putting the phosphates and whatnot to good use.” Two of the other four pipes are upstream. Churunel wants their discharge diverted to the new wetland, since it is “operating under capacity.”

“As a boy,” he adds, “I remember the crystaline streams that crisscrossed the delta where Pana sits. Every house had septic tanks, and there was no contamination to speak of. But then years ago the city talked people into installing drainage. Then they taxed the drainage and never thought of the lake. It’s time to dismantle this useless system, by taking things into our own hands, if we must. And we are, to good effect.”

“We threw in a reverse monkey wrench,” Eschenbach adds. “Atitlán is already cleaner. So there—something’s been done. We’ll keep it clean … .”

* Editor note: Lake Amatitlán, located some 16 km. south of Guatemala City, is the fourth largest lake in the country. A railway track was constructed on the embankment at the narrowest point thus connecting both lakeshores and dividing the lake into two basins with different physical, chemical and biological characteristics. The western basin receives pollution loads from the capital as well as from the whole watershed area via the Villalobos River, which consists of some 75,000 tons of dissolved wastes, including fertilizers. The river also dumps approximately 500,000 tons of sediment into the lake yearly. In 1800 the average depth of the lake measured 33 m, in 1996 the depth was 18 m. The water from this basin is drained by the Michatoya River, which is used for hydroelectric power generation. The most important threats to Lake Amatitlán include nearby high population growth, deforestation for firewood, intensive farming at the shoreline, industrial growth in the catchment area and the wastewater contamination and over fishing.

Still, Lake Amatitlán, with its surrounding valleys, mountains and volcanoes, has a unique landscape that continues to draw visitors as evidenced by its popular recreational areas. There are archaeological remains dating to 2,000 B.C. The town of Amatitlán was founded in 1536 and developed quickly. Since colonial times the lake has been the center for fishing. Its catchment area was the most important site of cochineal production which was the main product for export when industrial chemicals had not yet replaced this natural dye. The lake water was also used for domestic use, irrigation and industrial activities.

For more information about Lake Amatitlán, please contact the Comité del Lago de Amatitlán, hurtado@intelnet.net.gt; jamironm@intelnet.net.gt
This information was based on information obtained from Global Nature Fund (GFD), save the lakes of the world: www.globalnature.org

text and photos by Miranda Munro

The swirling mist dusts Volcán San Pedro in a muted dove gray, catching dawn’s sunrays and washing it in an ethereal glow. The steely-mirrored waters of Lake Atitlán are quiet, rippled only by the wake of a distant boat that slides across its surface. The air is still, cool and refreshing. This awe-inspiring view is the reason that Lake Atitlán is undisputedly one of the world’s most beautiful lakes. It is here, in the moment and in the quiet that one can touch the magnificence of God’s creation.

The ringside seat for this spectacle is the lofty mountain that holds Tzantizotz Nature Reserve. Rising 2,100 meters, Tzantizotz is a private, 100-acre reserve lovingly cared for by the owners of Laguna Lodge Eco-Boutique Resort. In the local Kaqchikel language tzantizotz means place of bats.

Stands of high-altitude, tropical dry forest clothe the mountain. Covering the apex of the reserve, enshrouded by clouds, is a pocket of virgin primary forest, some of the last stands in the Santa Cruz area. A series of trails winds through the reserve; some are ancient Mayan paths that lead to sacred ceremonial rocks. High in the rock cliffs, for the adventurous, are facilities for rappelling and cliff-jumping. On the lake, for those who enjoy more sedate activities, there is kayaking, swimming or snorkeling.

The reserve holds a diversity of flora, and many medicinal and useful plants grow within it. A guide is available to explain the use and preparation of the local plants. Of particular interest to bird lovers is the rich variety of birds that flock to the sanctuary and safety of Tzantizotz. There are a recorded 236 bird species, including the elusive belted fly-catcher, that visit the area. Tzantizotz Nature Reserve is reached only by boat; there is no road access, leaving it virtually wild and undisturbed.

Proceeds from the minimal entrance fee into Tzantizotz Nature Reserve are funneled back into the preservation, protection, maintenance and reforestation of the reserve.

Tzantizotz Nature Reserve is a safe haven to hike and appreciate not only the wildlife and plants but also the spectacular views that the climb rewards you with. You are truly on cloud nine.

Tzantizotz Nature Reserve rolls down the mountain and in the sections where re-planting is being carried out organic coffee and fruit trees are grown for use in the internationally acclaimed Zotz restaurant. Zotz is part of Laguna Lodge and offers fine dining as spectacular as the views from its balcony restaurant. Organic local ingredients are blended into a symphony of tastes and textures to satisfy the palette of the most discerning connoisseur. Luxury accommodation is offered at Laguna Lodge, allowing you the time to explore the reserve and capture that special moment where your senses are embraced by the magnificence of nature’s beauty.
The Laguna Lodge Eco-Boutique Resort is a member of the Association of Private Nature Reserves of Guatemala and is located in Santa Cruz La Laguna, Lake Atitlán. For more information visit www.fiveleafresort.com

by Ana Flinder photos: Vicoria Stone

Panajachel’s patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, is honored in October with a combination of town fair, cultural dances, religous ceremonies, pyrotechnics and parades

Next month brings another great opportunity to experience Guatemalan culture and festivity in a way that is very easy on the visitor, especially with the spectacular backdrop of Lake Atitlán. Panajachel’s feria titular—the Guatemalan version of a town fair—runs Oct. 1 through 7. The main day is Oct. 4.

With its abundance of accommodations, good restaurants and the beauty of Lake Atitlán, Panajachel is a great place to visit for the feria. If the hub-bub of feria activity becomes too much, there’s always somewhere else to go and something else to do—including just relaxing.

Actually, ferias are more of a combination of town fairs—with rides and vendors —and Catholic and/or Mayan ceremonies: dances, pyrotechnics, parades and processions.

As part of the colonial system of converting the Maya to Catholicism was the re-naming of towns in honor of the patron saint that was chosen for them. Thus, Atitlán became Santiago de Atitlán, Chajul became San Gaspar de Chajul, etc. There were so many saint names to give away that now there are well over 300 sizable feria titulares throughout the country every year. The official (or colonial) name for Panajachel is San Francisco de Panajachel—St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of Pana.

Every feria in every town has its own distinct character, depending on such factors as size, geography, accessibility, prosperity, the extent of cultural preservation, and, of course, how Catholic the town is. Panajachel is a largely evangelical town, but the Catholic contingent participates devotedly in the feria with a lot of hard work. The Cofradía de San Francisco de Asís, the Fraternidad Franciscana and the Asociación Maya Kaqchikel participate with the Catholic church and the very active municipalidad to bring about the many events and activities of Panajachel’s feria.

Activities include parades of floats, allegorical parades and at least four processions of the statues (imágenes) of St. Francis and some of his helper saints to the church and to their cofradía houses. Sports competitions such as soccer matches are usually on the schedule as well. And for the very Catholic among us there are innumerable Masses and sermons. Panajachel is also very big on its beauty queens, who are extolled not only for their beauty, but also for their knowledge of Guatemalan culture, including traditional indigenous culture. The Panajachel feria includes several dances, concerts and parties in honor of the five representatives of La Belleza Panajachelense. The plaza in front of the Catholic church is usually the site of many concerts and folkloric performances throughout the week. And without a doubt, any and all of these activities are punctuated by fireworks.

On any given day Panajachel is quite a cultural crossroads. Because of its natural beauty and culture, Guatemalans and visitors alike routinely come to Pana to enjoy Lake Atitlán, and many indigenous Guatemalans come to sell their goods. And during the feria, this is multiplied considerably. Since a feria is naturally the time to dress your best, people of many regions wear their finest, making the pa-trons as interesting as the performances.

While the fun aspects of the feria can seem like what it’s all about, it’s important to remember that many of the local people attend for solemn religious activities. Visitors should be aware of whether ceremonies are taking place nearby and should always be respectful, including wearing clothes that cover you from neck to knees.

Although the actual number of events is not confirmed until a week or so before Oct. 1, schedules are indeed printed and should be available at the Panajachel municipalidad and other locations by fair time.

At our house in Panajachel, July 4 is Independence Day for two reasons. As citizens of the United States, my sons and I observe it in some fashion. But July 4 is also the day that my youngest, Aaron Donald Coop, marks his birthday. This was not wholly by accident; for his cesarean delivery, we had a window of 10 days to choose from. One was July 4, so we went with that. If he’s ever Stateside on that day, I’ll tell him that the fireworks are in his honor.

His birth was, in its way, a manifestation of independence. With the cutting of the umbilical, he became independent of the placenta. To be sure, babies remain dependent in other ways, and true independency comes in stages. I see three independence rites marking the passage to childhood autonomy. The first is birth; the second is the day of weaning; and the third is that first day he or she can be left for a play date at a friend’s house, confident that Mom, Dad, siblings and home all continue to exist, even if they are not in sight.

Where we live, the holiday marking national independence is Sept. 15. This day is celebrated not only in Guatemala but everywhere between Shammu’s house in San Diego to the doorstep of South America (the Costa Rica-Panama border); only Belize is excepted. It is the day we associate with national independence, but in fact it recalls only the first of three separations that wrought the nation states we see today. Guatemala did not experience independence overnight; she had to be born, weaned and separated from her siblings. Independence was not gained once, but thrice: in succession from Spain, Mexico, and El Salvador.

The hubbub of September commemorates the first separation, which, for Guatemala and her neighbors to the east, was painless. The wars of liberation against Spain were waged elsewhere; Chile, Argentina, Mexico and the Andean republics all fought hard to sever the umbilical. What is now Central America was not even a theater of conflict. And so, there is irony in the martial flavor of the independence processions that traipse, tromp and even goosestep through Tegucigalpa, Managua and other capitals on Sept. 15.

The year of birth was 1821. Guatemala (then called Ciudad Real) was free of Spain, but not of Imperial Mexico, which had, at the moment of her own independence, inherited most of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which also encompassed California, the Great Basin, Texas, Cuba, modern Central America and oodles of islands.

The weaning came in 1823, when the six “sisters” of the former Kingdom of Coathemala—Ciudad Real, San Salvador, Comayagua (Honduras), León (Nicaragua), Costa Rica and Chiapas—declared independence from Mexico as the United Provinces. Emperor Augustín sought to keep them but succeeded only in retaining Chiapas. Agustín not only failed to retain his empire, but his life; in three years he faced a firing squad of Mexican republicans. Four decades later, another emperor, Maximilian, met the same fate. (Moral: If you are ever offered the Mexican throne, the prudent thing is to decline.)

Though not wholly bloodless, as had been the separation from Spain, this second separation was hardly a struggle by the standards of warfare. But the third and final separation was so sanguinary that Guatemalans rightly claim that their independence was purchased with blood.

Since my sons and I are also Guatemalans, we also observe Guatemalan independence. My boys are told that they must be equally proud of both patrias, and study the history of both. Living in Panajachel is helpful for this, since from our house we can look up at a mountain where an engagement in Guatemala’s independence struggle played out. The battlefield in San Andrés Semetabaj is today a semi-developed gated community overlooking Lake Atitlán. I have friends there, so I can always visit. There are no historical markers, much less a bronze monument. In fairness, though Guatemalan and Salvadoran forces slugged it out here, it was not the decisive battle. That occurred where Guatemala City’s San Juan de Dios Hospital now stands. But I’ve never found a marker there, either (although there might be one somewhere.)

By this time, 1837, Comayagua, León and Costa Rica had all broken away from the Federation, as the United Provinces had also been called. The rivalry between the two linchpin provinces, Ciudad Real and San Salvador, provided their opportunity. These three successions did not happen anywhere near Sept. 15 of any year; nonetheless, the date remains the national holiday for those three countries.

The president of the crumbling Federation was Francisco Morazán, an enlightened politician who has departments in Honduras and El Salvador named for him. His opponent, Gen. Rafael Carrera, is portrayed by artists with a bushy mustache and other ladino features. In fact, he was a skinny, illiterate 24-year-old Maya. Most of the money was on Morazán to win, but Carrera vanquished the Federals. His military genius is unrivaled in Central American annals.

Independence was costly for both men. Carrera became the first ruler of the Guatemalan nation state but was assassinated at 42. Morazán survived but died in ignominy; he renounced his Honduran nativity and considered himself Salvadoran, as only San Salvador remained loyal to the Federation until its reduction. Even today, El Salvador, a de facto nation state, is officially the “Republic of El Salvador in Central America.” This name is the surviving vestige of the Federation, the last entity Guatemalans fought to achieve independence.

The original Independence Day, in 1821, was like any other day back then. Sheep grazed, shamans chanted, looms were threaded, maize was shucked, and the eternal Xocomil rippled the glassy face of Atitlán. No convention was held, no parchment signed, no speeches given. It took weeks for the news just to arrive from Mexico. And when it did, it inspired shrugs, not parades.

(l-r) Nutritionist, María Esmeralda Arriaga; Atitlán Rotary President, Fredy Lara; medical chief, Dr. Irene Quiejú; administrator, Victor García

Until recently, guarding the purity of this water at Sololá’s thirsty public hospital was a bureaucratic proposition for the people who worked there and an expensive proposition for those who visited. Hospital personnel, and patients and their families, all longed for relief. The old system had broken down a year earlier.

One thing had not changed. The water drunk by patients still arrived through a sink in the cramped lunchroom used by the pharmacy, stockroom and kitchen employees. From there it was fed to an old purification unit. This forlorn machine gave up the ghost in 2008 from overuse but still sat in a lunchroom corner.

To replace it, Patricia Armas, the clerk in charge of that part of the hospital, acquired a ramshackle old heating pad and borrowed a 22-liter pot from the kitchen. This was certainly better than nothing; microbios could be eliminated. But there was still no filtration for dirt, organic debris, toxic metals and other contaminants.

But even before the machine broke down, there had been other problems. Drinking water had to be ordered from Armas’ section. Whenever a ward needed more, a requisition had to be written, then signed both by a physician and the shift nurse. Then a nursing assistant had to fetch the water, which was not always ready.

Hospital nutritionist María Esmeralda Arriaga was at wit’s end over the matter.

“Sick people need more water than healthy people,” she says, “and purer water. Without it, they take longer to heal. We’re supposed to make people well here. But we can’t even give them proper hydration.”

In desperation, patients had come to depend on visitors to buy them water. This demand created a land-office business for several small tiendas on the edge of, or within, the hospital premises. But each 1.5-liter bottle cost Q7, which was burdensome for patients and their visitors, almost all of whom are people of limited means. In June, an officer of the Lake Atitlán Rotary Club (CLRA) noticed all this while visiting a friend. Within a week, CLRA had acquired through Maya Familias (a Panajachel charity) 10 donated filters that require no electricity and are gravity-driven. The filters, donated by the Florence Rotary Club of Oregon, have no moving parts. Their elements must be renewed every 18 months.

Hospital administrator Victor García and medical chief Dr. Irene Quiejú were thrilled to learn that relief was on the way. Three Rotarians and a Maya Families representative came to the hospital conference room to assemble the filters and give an orientation in an atmosphere described as “spontaneously ceremonial.”

The CRLA officer returned a week later to monitor the application of the gift. He found that the hospital’s water worries had ended in a single fell swoop. The emergency room, the surgery chamber, the out-clinic and all of the wards—men, women, pediatrics, maternity, quarantine and IGSS— each had its own filter. Not only did they now have clean water on tap, but they no longer had to requisition or, in the words of one nurse, “beg and wait.”

If anyone is as happy with the change as nutritionist Arriaga, it is Patricia Armas. The 10th filter sits in her lunchroom. Now employees, too, can drink their fill of pure water.

“I’m free of this ridiculous paperwork,” she says, “and running back and forth, refilling and heating that old pot. And the patients don’t have to wait any more for water that wasn’t that good, anyway.”

The Atitlán Rotarians have taken on the Sololá hospital as a project. For additional facts and pictures associated with this story, see their website at www.atitlanrotary.org

Given his age, 75, you’d think anthropologist Robert Hinshaw would want to settle back with one of those Scandanavian vodkas he occasionally enjoys and retire to his Colorado mountain retreat. Instead, he wants to make a difference in this world, as “payback” for all he’s received.

He explains: “Gilbert White, the late geographer and a great mentor, laid this challenge on virtually everyone he knew, telling us academicians we didn’t pay for our education; we all had fellowships—paid with taxpayer money. He’d say, ‘You’re more productive at the end of your careers. What right do you have to step aside, with the world in its condition?’ We knew we just couldn’t say, ‘We’re retired. We’re not doing anything now.’”

And so, Robert has decided to spend considerably less time in the United States and to live out his retirement primarily on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, where he spent nearly half his academic career as an anthropologist. Recently he sold the family’s Rocky Mountain home, the place to which he retreated intermittently over the past 40 years.

He says he is “energized” by living in Tzununá, a village of approximately 3,000 Maya descendants who, “as recently as 15 years ago had no running water or electricity.” With no telephone lines, he and his neighbors use cell phones. No one he knows owns a computer or even a typewriter. Cable television is available but beyond the means of most families. There are no more than a half-dozen motor vehicles in the village. “We rely on public boats passing every half hour to get us to doctors, a pharmacy, the market and, in my case, internet access and a bank.”

It was in similar lake communities that Robert did most of his anthropological research and that inspired him two decades ago to begin a fiction writing project, resulting in his two novels: My Lake at the Center of the World (2007) and a sequel, The Rape of Hope (2008).

“The principal reason for undertaking the first,” he says, “was to make creative use of the oral histories of Mayas collected in the early 1940s by another mentor, Sol Tax, a University of Chicago anthropologist. To my knowledge, these stories represent the only extant record of Maya experience dating back to the government’s anti-vagrancy laws of the 1880s.”

Robert has been better known for his nonfiction writing as an academician. In 1975, his Panajachel: A Guatemalan Town in Thirty-Year Perspective was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. In 1979 he was editor of Currents In Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Sol Tax (Mouton Publishers). And in 2006 Johnson Books released Living with Nature’s Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White, a publication Robert calls “the highlight of my career.”

He returned to fiction writing after a seven-year hiatus, deciding then to make it a two-novel project by adding the oral Maya histories he had collected between the 1960s and 1980s.“I delayed publishing the first novel until the second was virtually ready for publication,” he says. He believes his attempt at fiction is unique among Guatemalan novels for his use of what he believes to be “the only recorded memories of Mayas experiencing the worst of the racist and exploitative legislation of the so-called ‘Liberal Era’ of Guatemalan politics.”

Robert Hinshaw was born in 1933 in Wichita, Kansas to parents of Quaker descents who migrated from England in the early 1700s to what now is Pennsylvania. “My father was a Quaker minister in the Midwest before becoming president of William Penn College in Iowa. Mother was a homemaker.” A step-grandmother, Ruth Smith, was a Quaker missionary in eastern Guatemala a century ago, this ancestry contributing in part to the plot of the sequel novel. A member of the Society of Friends himself, Robert’s high school and college education was all in Quaker institutions. He graduated from Haverford College in 1955, before entering graduate study in anthropology at the University of Chicago, where he worked under Tax and earned a Ph.D. in 1968. Tax introduced him to Guatemala. “We worked together in the lake region for 30 years until his death in the early 1990s.”

Early in his academic career, Robert taught at the University of Kansas and the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City. He later served as president of Wilmington College in Ohio, chaired the Anthropology Department at Beloit College in Wisconsin, was academic dean at Bethel College in Kansas, taught at the University of Colorado in Denver and directed a six-college consortium in Kansas. He also was a Washington lobbyist under the auspices of the Quakers before returning to independent academic research and consulting in Guatemala.

His wife Linda is a Kansas City attorney. They met in 1990 as official U.S. observers of the Nicaraguan national election. The family consists of five adult children, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

“Linda and I are turning over some of our land to Amigos de Santa Cruz [a non-government organization] to provide a place for the women of Tzununá to have classes in nutrition, infant care, family planning, gender equality and empowerment and a more diversified income,” he says. Traditionally, “an entrenched conservatism” has impeded the town from taking advantage of social services available from within or outside Guatemala.

“They define their needs differently than do North Americans,” Robert says. “They subsist on food, clothing and lodging, almost all of which they grow, make or build. They are proud of their culture and aren’t easily convinced that they should be changing their lives in any significant way. After all, they have lived essentially this way for more than 1,000 years.”

The last thing Robert wants to do is to spoil that. “Linda and I are focusing on what we can gain from living with the Mayas. Any assistance we, as outsiders, can provide is not handouts, far less the building of schools and churches.” Too often, he laments, outsiders come in and decide what a community needs, then do it and leave consequences with which they don’t have to live. “An outsider’s role is to listen to peoples’ needs, show what options they have, step back and listen to what they decide then offer whatever possible assistance.

“I’m not down here to save the world,” Robert says. “I’ve just found a convenient rationale for arguing that this is the place to retire.”

Art Exhibit: July 22-28, The Galería, Panajachel, Lake Atitlán

6 Sky Art Exhibit

“In many pieces,” Schaefer notes, “I try to invoke the Classic tradition, where hieroglyphs and ‘distance numbers’ connect past and present in ways that demonstrate that this ancient practice is still functional and quite beautiful to behold.” His exhibit, 6 Sky, will open July 22 at The Galería in Panajachel and run to July 28. A slideshow presentation and discussion will take place on Saturday, July 25. The opening, exhibit and presentation all begin at 5 p.m.

In his seven years in Panajachel, Schaefer has worked as a teacher and guide. He recently chose an academic path, which may challenge certain pre-conceptions in Mesoamerican studies. 

“One thing holding back our advancements in understanding,” he suggests, “is the idea that key dates recorded in ancient times using the Long Count calendar—several thousands of years into the past and including the 3113 B.C.E. ‘Creation’ event—are mere products of the Maya imagination. However, geological data and corroborative patterns in other ancient traditions suggest that these dates and the unexplained events they record are in fact not only accurate but invaluable.

“By exploring these topics through art, we have a chance to reconstruct vital knowledge that was forgotten long ago.”

The hospital board has been hard at work to build a new, permanent hospital, which is slowly taking shape thanks to support from donors around the world and the U.S. non-profit Pueblo a Pueblo.

Hospitalito Atitlán is no longer receiving grant support from Pueblo a Pueblo, Inc., but has been awarded grants from newly formed U.S. non-profit, Amigos Hospitalito Atitlán (www.amigosha.org).

Meanwhile, an anonymous donor has pledged to match, dollar-for-dollar, any gifts up to $750,000.

One of the first contributors was Posada de Santiago, with a donation of $100, which will generate another $100 from the matching gift.

Many visitors to Guatemala have volunteered as medical personnel, worked on construction or served in another vital way. Numerous locals and visitors alike have been treated at the hospital—the only one in a community of 43,000 people.

For information or to make a tax-exempt donation, visit www.HospitalitoAtitlan.org.  To see a slideshow of the construction go to www.tinyurl.com/ha-constructionpics. 

Marrying into a large family brings unannounced house guests and some new vocabulary.

Since my Guatemalan wife had 10 siblings, I have enough in-laws to populate a middle-sized Dallas suburb. I am forever meeting “new” members of the González-Boch clan for the first time. And I was not that good at recalling names even before ADD and premature senility made this task even more difficult.

My Dad, who had some troublesome in-laws, often declared that we cannot choose our relatives. This is certainly true with blood relatives, since we have no control over whom our ancestors were and whom else they procreated. Most of my ancestors were Saxons, who were hunting heads at the time the Mayas were erecting high civilization in Mesoamerica. But thanks to the mixed pedigree of both my grandmothers, I am 9.375 percent Apache. Say what you will about them, they didn’t hunt heads.

With in-laws, however, a theoretical choice exists, and in Central America these carry greater implications than they might in the home country. Family ties here tend to be non-nuclear in nature, unpredictable in intensity and stellar in number. So if you marry a local, you get a heftier package, for better or worse, than you would get by being endogamous. This term does not mean “marrying oneself into the doghouse” (which happens enough to merit its own term) but, rather, marrying within one’s own herd, however defined.

You can wind up in the doghouse if you have too many troublesome (or troubled) in-laws, whether you are endogamous or, like me, exogamous. Given all this, it may be a good idea to check out your prospective mate’s family.

In my case, though, I would have needed a battery of screeners (perhaps personnel managers resting from their Stateside jobs) to do this. My wife once did the addition and found that she has 57 first cousins on her mother’s side alone (yes, really). She was unsure about her paternal first cousins, but they number well over 40. In other words, she has 100 or more first cousins. The only way she can recognize some of them, even if they grew up in the same village, is to compare recent genealogies.

On the other hand, I have only nine first cousins. I know all their names and where they live, and I know a lot about each one. In my case familiarity seems inverse to proximity. In my wife’s case, even close proximity does not guarantee familiarity. She would need a database just to log them, and just knowing them all would be a full-time career. Perhaps because families are larger, and blood ties stronger, a nomenclature exists that is alien to outsiders.

My wife once did the addition and found that she has 57 first cousins on her mother’s side alone. She was unsure about her paternal first cousins, but they number well over 40.

I thought, for instance, that I was acquiring a plethora of nieces (sobrinas) and nephews (sobrinos) by marrying into the González-Boch clan. What I actually got was a wealth of sobrinos políticos. I discovered this one day when I introduced one of my visiting “nieces” to another Panajachel gringo, who since that time has had a jones for the girl that has gone unreciprocated. Later, she tactfully explained that she was only my “political niece.” My first reaction was to wonder if she attended rallies, ran voter registration drives or painted acronyms on rocks. But the prosaic truth was soon obvious: only by blood are you a real or “nonpolitical” uncle.

There is also a special name for that person who in the United States becomes your partner when two couples play Monopoly. I refer here to what we must call the “husband of my sister-in-law” or the “wife of my brother-in-law.” Hispanophones say concuño and concuña, respectively. I really like these words; with as many relatives as I have in this category, it’s nice to have a single word for what are inelegant circumlocutions in English. If I took a friend to a González-Boch family reunion, I would grow hoarse from all the introductions without these words.

I also like the way that great-grandparents are bisabuelos and great-grandchildren, bisnietos. These, too, are single words replacing phrases. The English phrases are not that long, but they are ambiguous. What if your great-grandparents were not, well, so great after all? On the other hand, if you say you have great-grandparents, does this mean that your grandparents’ parents live under the same roof with you, or that your grandparents were great (i.e., they cheered you at Little League and bought you Lego sets for Christmas instead of clothes)? In all, there are many reasons why we should be bully for bisabuelo and bisnieto.

The same problem exists in English-speaking countries with great-uncles and great-aunts. Are they truly great folks, or do they just happen to be your parents’ uncles and aunts? Down here, these are called tíos abuelos and tías abuelas. Not elegant terms, maybe, but never ambiguous. If you think about it, they can only mean one thing.

So, in the end, am I better off having a gazillion in-laws or worse off? After 16 years, I’m still not sure. Most of them are pretty good houseguests and do not, like fish, stink by day three. Yet very many of them come to Pana (especially during Semana Santa) where they get free lodging from me. Conversely, whenever I go to Guatemala City, where many of them live, I can pop in unannounced, as can the blood relations. On the downside, I never know who, among the in-laws, will pop up unannounced at our place. One was a young salesman who had never met my wife but who found in her someone who could be even lower than he on the Amway pyramid.

The muchacho in question was one of my 101 or so “first-cousins in-law.” With so many of these, I hope someone will coin a one-word term for them. Reader, can you think of one?

Art Exhibit and Auction, Thurs., May 14, 7 pm. Theatre El Chapiteau, Panajachel, Lake Atitlán

A host of Guatemalans, including four-footed ones, are glad that Ursula Baumann changed continents and careers in 1998.

She had been an able but often bored hotel manager in her native Switzerland. For decades she dreamt of making her avocation, painting, into a career. After retiring and moving to Guatemala, she indeed realized the vision, but the path took some surprising turns.

After settling into the artistic culture of San Pedro la Laguna, she was stricken with breast cancer and went to Guatemala’s National Cancer Institute for treatment. During her recovery there, she saw many who were in great need. She began painting, both cuadros and postcards and donating them to the hospital to sell in order to help impecunious patients offset their expenses.

Later, she would donate cards to AWARE, Guatemala’s no-kill animal shelter near Sumpango, to help that institution with its own costs.

“I have seven adopted dogs myself,” she says, “and I know something of their needs, at such a place.” All of the cards are originals, not replicas.

Baumann’s work is often exhibited at Panajachel’s La Galería, but this month a rare auction of her work takes place in downtown Pana. Nonbuyers are welcome, since the auction will double as an exhibit.

Offerings of fruit adorn the gateways through which the processions pass. (photo: Victoria Stone)

written by Ana Flinder

Semana Santa is undoubtedly the most festive week of the year in Guatemala, celebrated with the most pomp and grandeur in La Antigua, and with deeply traditional ceremonies and indigenous style in Santiago Atitlán. Both of these destinations require advanced bookings for lodging but are not the only places to experience a Guatemalan Semana Santa.

San Pedro la Laguna, at the base of Volcán San Pedro, has a surprisingly authentic and reverent Semana Santa celebration, as well as a plethora of hotels. In recent years, San Pedro has attracted only a smattering of tourists who attend the celebrations, while many, both Guatemalan and foreign, stay downhill from town in the tourist zone, vacationing among the many bars and restaurants, and perhaps kayaking and horseback riding.

There are processions all through the week in San Pedro, featuring a children’s procession and a Judas procession on Ash Wednesday, processions of Christ on the cross and María on Good Friday, the women’s daytime processions with María on Saturday, and a procession of the resurrected Christ on Easter morning.

Although San Pedro is a relatively modernized town—for example, almost none of the women still wear handwoven huipiles, prefering polyester “blusas”—the Semana Santa celebrations are bien tradicional. It is immediately evident that days and weeks of work have gone into the elaborate preparations of the processions and alfombras. Here, the alfombras—carpets laid out on the streets for the processions to walk over as they carry statues of Jesus and Mary— are nearly all made of organic materials: flowers, leaves, seedpods and seeds, which have been gathered from the woods and volcano slopes surrounding the town in the previous days. And over their finest sequin-spangled lacy blusas, the Catholic women of San Pedro wear traditional handwoven muticolored checkerboard shawls. These backstrap loom-woven trajes of San Pedro are still used for daily wear as well as for ceremonies. Traditions which seemed to have been lost are revived and alive in San Pedro in this week of the year.

While not as mind-boggling or dramatic as the processions in La Antigua or Santiago, Semana Santa in San Pedro is a feast for the eyes, as well as an authentically reverent celebration that carries its own unique sweetness and devotion. And, naturally, there are plenty of firecrackers.

Semana Santa Processions San Pedro la Laguna, Lake Atitlán
(main streets, time schedule is approximate)

April 5 – Palm Sunday
5:30am—A blessing, distribution of palms & procession; 6am, Mass

April 9 – Holy Thursday
8am—Procession, Via Crucis; evening brings preparation of alfombras for Good Friday

1pm—Procession, the Holy Cross of Jesus of Nazareth
1:30pm—Veneration of the Holy Cross until 1pm on Holy Friday
8pm—Procession, Jesus of Nazareth and La Virgen Dolorosa.

April 10 – Holy Friday 
8am—Procession, Via Crucis, with the
statues of Jesus of Nazareth and La Virgen Dolorosa
Noon—Procession, the Holy Cross
8pm—Procession del Santo Entierro
con el Señor Sepultado.

April 11 – Holy Saturday 
6pm—Solemn procession of la Virgen de Soledad carried by the mothers of the community, along the main streets of San Pedro

April 12 – Easter Sunday
8am—Procession, the Risen Christ, el Señor Resucitado

The men’s traje of Santiago features rows and rows of hand-embroidered birds. (photo: Victoria Stone)

written by Ana Flinder

Those of you who have your place to stay in La Antigua Guatemala for Semana Santa are sure to enjoy what is known as the second-biggest and most spectacular Semana Santa celebration in the world. (Second only to Sevilla, Spain, so they say.) And you know who you are. Because they also say that if you didn’t book a hotel in La Antigua a few months in advance, there will be no rooms available — or you’d better find one now.

But for those of you who are considering other destinations for witnessing some of the best and most authentic of Guatemalan culture, consider a trip to Lake Atitlán. Oddly, Panajachel, one of the largest and most tourism-oriented towns on the lake, only had a tiny community procession when last we checked. Rather, it is one of the favorite vacation spots of Guatemalan families, as well as of young people from Guatemala City who want to party the week away.

Santiago Atitlán, across the lake, has a truly spectacular and authentic Semana Santa celebration, which is at times a breathtaking show of faith and sacrifice. Here you will see cultural traditions that have their roots in pre-conquest times and which have been evolving, blended with Catholicism, for centuries, while remaining deeply indigenous. 

Here in Santiago, one of the lake towns that has most thoroughly preserved its indigenous traditions, both Holy Wednesday and Good Friday offer spectacular processions. On Wednesday, Maximón’s procession goes from his house to his chapel in the churchyard. On Good Friday the venerated statue of Christ is taken down from his cross, put in a flower-decked coffin and, around mid-day, leaves the church, first to meet up with Maximón, then to begin the long procession all through the night. Easter Sunday is celebrated with a Mass in the church.

Scene from last year’s production, “Hippies, Housewives and Cactus” with actors Kathy Martin, Anna Omps and David Raney (photo: Bryan King)

The Panajachel Players bring mirth, music, farce and Vaudeville to Lake Atitlán.

If you are Dr. Willard Dillard, the sobriety-challenged President of the Herbaceous Succulent Society, it may be hard to cast someone to play you in a skit. After Dillard emerged from the recesses of Barbara Ramey’s gauche imagination, the man tapped to play him decided he was no actor on the eve of the play.

“By some miracle,” says Barbara, “we got word that Bill Mumford was flying back to Guatemala that very night. I exclaimed. ‘There IS a God!’”
Barbara dispatched someone to the airport to snag Mumford as he deplaned. He was lassoed into the part and told that he could not give no for an answer. His fortuitous return to Guatemala saved the show.

Mumford was not only a godsend that night, but one of the original seven Panajachel Players, a troupe wrought into existence through the labors of David and Barbara Ramey.

The Rameys’ passion for the stage is an avocation that consumes their retirement, despite its singular lack of lucre. They do not expect to make any money for themselves, but they hope not to lose any during the 2009 theater season. The Panajachel troupe is, in fact, the fourth, and the most ambitious, theater group that Barbara has formed.

Without an imperative to profit, her artistic freedom is unencumbered and self-actualized. It means that she is free even to write bad plays.

“Last year,” Barbara recounts, “I wrote a bunch of skits that, well, didn’t work so well. And the Players didn’t want to do them. So I came up with some other scripts. And this year, we’re doing a mix of skits and Vaudeville, using local talent.”

If there is any money in the till after the bills are paid, she says, it will go to charity.

Barbara and David are perfect complements. She is a prolific creator whose thread of ideation runs continually, day and night. He is a versatile manager, handyman, set director, stand-by thespian, and anything else that is needed. Barbara is largely a director, and David, a producer.

The couple has become a veritable public utility in Panajachel, the capital of what until recently was a flyover zone for theater arts. Like the three volcanos that dominate Panajachel’s vista across Lake Atitlán, there were Guatemala City and La Antigua to the east and Quetzaltenango to the west—all theatrical pillars—and a great gulf in between. But the Rameys and the Panajachel Players are set to change the artistic landscape.

It was, in fact, this very vista—the lake —that lured the Rameys to Panajachel in the first place. After years of dividing their time between operating an inn in a remote part of Belize and stalking lobsters in Maine, they came, as do so many expats in Central America, to see what the Atitlán Basin was all about.
“We were stricken by the lake,” David recalls. “So much so,” Barbara adds, “that we rushed back to Belize to grab our toothbrushes and a change of underwear and cross back into Guatemala to move here as fast as we could.”

Life in Belize had been interesting enough. They had met and married there and took their guests on exotic excursions. David will never forget his first encounter with a manatee.

“It was huge, like a whale or something,” he says. “I was scared to death.”
The manatees, of course, were not only harmless but docile enough to be hand-fed. The Rameys regret that there are no manatees to be found in the waters near Panajachel. But a huge well of talent, they say, is to be found in the town.
“Pana and the lake area have long been ripe for a proper troupe,” Barbara explains. “There’s huge enthusiasm here for plays, and there are gobs of local talent, just waiting to be tapped.”

A Panajachel rendition of Mel Brooks’ The Producers provoked a soccer-fan stampede of interest in 2008. It was sold out even before the publicity aired, with expats, Guatemalans, and even tourists all adding their names to audience waiting lists. Among the local talent is Barbara’s star understudy, gringa masseuse Jennifer Martin, whom she calls “brilliantly comic” in roles such as wacky dental assistant “Nurse Pain.”

Nurse Pain will be one of many draws at the troupe’s March 20-22 production, which has become an annual extravaganza. There will be Friday and Saturday night showings, plus a Sunday matinee for, says Barbara, “kids and older people, and anyone else who doesn’t like to be up late.” The skits and the musical portions will be punctuated by kooky banter between a “master of ceremonies” and “Hilda,” a cleaning woman.

David calls the production a great entertainment value. “Except for German musician Chris Jarnoch, everyone, including us, is working for free. So the admissions will be affordable to anyone. At the same time, we want this to be a classy event, perhaps the one thing that happens in Panajachel that you put on a tie for. And something people will look forward to.”

The Rameys, now settled in Panajachel, will be visiting the United States on the following weekend. But they are encouraging the troupe to hold a weekend of encores if the demand is at expected levels.

They hope that the Panajachel Players will operate not only when the couple is physically present to direct and produce, but also during those months that the Rameys are absent from the community.

“The show can go on without us,” Barbara says. “That it happens at all is what really matters.”

For more information about the March production, see DateBook (dates: 20-22).

Presenting new solutions for a better world

What does it mean to be conscious? How conscious are we in our lives? How can we become more conscious as individuals, as a community, as a planet?

To answer these questions and more, the inaugural Festival of Consciousness will be held in San Marcos La Laguna on March 21 and 22. This two-day event will highlight a variety of activities and workshops designed to encourage new, more conscious ways of acting, thinking and being. From yoga to holistic nutrition, meditation to water filtration systems, alternative construction methods to natural medicine, the Festival of Consciousness offers something for everyone.

The special two-day price of Q200 (Q100 for children) allows unlimited access to all the workshops. Otherwise, each workshop costs Q50 (Q30 for children). There will also be many free events and cultural performances throughout the weekend.

The Festival of Consciousness welcomes and encourages all forms of participation. Please contact us as soon as possible if you have a product, service or expertise to showcase.

In keeping with the consciousness of the event, all donations and a percentage of the proceeds will go to a variety of San Marcos charities and organizations.

For questions or to participate, visit www.sanmholisticcentre.com or contact:
Katherine Bird 4399-4329 kjbird@yahoo.com Alexis Goede 5473-9489 alexisgoede@gmail.com Rosana Lagos 5206-9756 lagos.rosana@gmail.com

Gabriela (Gabi to her students) leading a dance exercise

Restoring creative expression through direct action, Gabriela Cordón aims to transform Guatemala’s educational system via her youth arts initiative.

You’d be forgiven for thinking La Cambalacha is just another summer camp for kids. The place spills forth with color and laughter. On stage, a group of children practice a clown routine; another group makes crafts with empty cans and paint outside; another, the really little ones, are scampering around three instructors, learning a song, raising arms and turning circles together as best they can.

But La Cambalacha, which roughly translates as “the interchange,” is more than what it seems. Nestled inland from the lake in the village of San Marcos la Laguna, on the serene Lake Atitlán, the youth arts initiative is actually doing something quite radical. Something that its founder, Gabriela Cordón, hopes will transform Guatemala from the inside out.

Cordón is trying to restore creative expression to the local Mayan villages—indeed, to the entire country. “Children in Guatemala learn two songs in school,” she tells me, then sings one of them, “Vuela mariposa…” with more than a dose of derision. Even though the government passed educational reforms that require all schools to offer a course in expresión artística—and more children than ever are attending school —Cordón isn’t convinced: The teacher’s get a week of training to teach art, all forms. This reflects a general sentiment toward the arts in Guatemala, says Cordón. The Mayan arts traditions have been all but lost (one dance troupe, based in Sololá, performs the only known pre-Colonial dance theater piece). “The arts were lost during the colonial conquest but also during the religious conquest,” says Cordón. And conquest and conflict have left the country, still, she says, under a blanket of silence and fear, the enemy of free expression. Cordón is trying to lift that blanket.

“We have the right to recreation, to expression, to learn new things. You get to know yourself through art.” —Juanita Puzul

Not that it’s been easy. She struggles for funding and it’s taken her years to gain respect in the community. She’s faced resistance from parents and from the church, and after six years still only about 5 percent of children in San Marcos walk through La Cambalacha’s open doors. Which begs the question, how does Cordón get the children who do come? How does she win over their parents? “We don’t negotiate with the parents,” she tells me. Instead, La Cambalacha organizes a street parade through the barrios, inviting the children to join. The parade wraps up at the basketball court. “Then we announce to the children that every Wednesday at 3:15, we’ll be here,” says Cordón. “And they come back.” The workshops are free to young children, and about 30 kids and teens get scholarships to attend part time and full time. The children’s scholarships, Q150 a month, are for their families: “It’s the equivalent of the firewood they could collect in the time that they’re here,” says Cordón.

Lorena Roffé, a volunteer from Argentina who came for two weeks and has been there two years, tells me with complete sincerity that she’s seen La Cambalacha change lives. “They start not talking and they finish singing,” she says of the children. Cordón, who left her native Guatemala City for dance training at the University of Illinois and had her own company at age 19, says it can take months to get the children comfortable using their voices, moving their bodies. This is especially true for the girls, who grow up wearing the tight corte skirts and huipiles, unable to run easily or move their arms above their heads. At La Cambalacha, everyone wears sweats and T-shirts. For the girls, it’s the first time they’ve worn pants.

Juanita Puzul began with La Cambalacha in 2004 when she was 16 years old; now she’s an instructor and a natural performer. But kicking her legs up during a performance has meant defending her virginity afterward. “My family is like, don’t you have respect for your culture? I have friends who tell me I can’t enter the church.” She’s learned to shrug off the comments. “We have the right to recreation, to expression, to learn new things. You get to know yourself through art.”

“We’re trying to change behavior, to help these kids communicate, be more self confident, more expressive, stronger, more free,” says Roffé; Puzul nods, a radiant example. We’re sitting in the fire circle under an avocado tree, and a large one crashes onto the roof like a cosmic exclamation point.

Lorena tries to put this in perspective for me. “You and I had the opportunity to play, to be creative, to express our feelings when we were children,” she says. “That’s a need of all of us, to share that and give that opportunity.” As I’m taking this in, children from every direction line up nearby, and one of the volunteers calls out numbers, handing out piles of clothing: It’s 5 o’clock, time for the girls to change out of their sweats and back into cortes.

They take turns using their skirts as dressing curtains for each other, giggling. About 70 children attend La Cambalacha; 15 of them are teenagers and young adults, who, like Puzul, go out into the local communities to teach in schools. This is key for Cordón: She’s training a future generation of creative ambassadors. So far they’ve taught workshops to thousands of schoolchildren. And in partnership with Caja Lúdica, an organization with direct ties to the Ministry of Education, La Cambalacha can now offer teaching certificates to its graduates, so they can get jobs and further arts education in Guatemala. Fifteen will hold the certificate by the end of this year. She also hopes her alumna will strike out on their own and, like her, start new community arts initiatives. Says Cordón: “I want places like La Cambalacha all over the country.”

For more information: www.lacambalacha.org

Humanitarian, entrepreneur, and one of the founders of Modern Panajachel

Bruce Barclay, founder of a worker’s paradise in Panajachel, has died. The New Yorker of Jewish heritage was 60.

After arriving in Panajachel in 1978, Barclay had a vision for the east bank of the San Francisco River, which bisects Panajachel. He purchased the upper riverside and created a magnet for impoverished Mayas seeking a better deal from life. Bruce Barclay offered them one.

These people possessed what stoneware maven Ken Edwards calls a “corporate artistic gift,” a talent shared by whole communities. The local Mayas can take an introduced artistic medium and, without training, instinctively render it in new and beautiful permutations.

Anthropologists had long been fascinated by the phenomenon. But while interest was high, capital and connections were scarce. Barclay changed all this, first by launching a ceramic cooperative to produce authentic items for export.

He profited by selling what he bought from his beneficiaries to his own small chain of storefront clothiers in the U.S. and to other retailers. He did as much as anyone to bring Guatemalan típico into the vogue it enjoyed in the United States by the 1980s. In doing so, he helped scores of families avert the bleak privation suffered by transient seasonal laborers and sharecroppers.

“He treated indigenous folks with deep respect,” says Rosa Queché Can, who as a teen began working for Barclay in 1980. “He looked out for our families in every way. He was always bettering our lives.” Barclay even paid for the construction and staffing of a free clinic, which opened not just to his workers but to their needy neighbors—some of whom would became loyal employees.

Barclay named a parcel of his land Las Manos (The Hands) to honor the artisans’ handiwork, then built houses for them on property outside of the Las Manos compound. (Eventually, the surrounding neighborhood also came to be called Las Manos.) Barclay deducted the costs for this from his workers’ wages; but, at the same time, he compensated by paying them far above the required minimum, enabling them to afford their “mortgages.” In effect, Barclay gave them homes even as he preserved their dignity.

Barclay built other cottages at Las Manos and rented them at below-market rates to starving artists, peddlers, volunteer humanitarians and anyone else needing a break. For all of these, and for his workers’ families, he added a swimming pool. He electrified the district at his own expense, buying transformers so that not only his people but others outside of Pana’s core (electrified in 1961), could enjoy modern comforts.

Over time, woodcraft, jewelry, tie-dye, stained-glass and other workshops joined the ceramic taller. Barclay also initiated Panajachel’s first-ever recycling program, and established a school, now public (see Escuela Tzalá sidebar).
In 1996, Barclay chartered the Las Manos Foundation to preserve and continue his legacy. Two years later, he moved to California, but made frequent trips to Panajachel to shepherd Las Manos’ industries. One trip followed Hurricane Stan in October 2005.

“The first thing Bruce wanted to know,” says his longtime assistant, Rufino Caníz, “was if everyone was OK [since people were killed during Stan]. He was relieved to hear that they were.” Only then did he inquire about the property. Flooding had carried off about 30% of the compound, including the pool, workshops and five houses.

“Bruce was irascible, a champion cusser, and seemingly cynical,” says one Panajachel neighbor. “But his greatest joy was in seeing others make good with the hand he extended them. That restored his faith. But he was embarrassed by people’s reactions to his generosity, so a lot of it was anonymous.”
“He had his faults,” says Californian Steve Cleaver, another friend. “But he had a big heart.”

“He was way more than just a boss,” adds Caníz, who will manage Las Manos. “He was my friend and father for years. A truly great guy.”

“If anyone deserves to be in God’s presence,” says artisan Margarita Can, “it’s Don Bruce. He did so much for my family. We are what we are because of him. We’ll see him in Eternity someday. God bless him.”

Barclay is survived by four grown children: Terra, Bella, Kenneth, Gwendolyn, and JoJo.

The Short, Happy History of Escuela Tzalá

Many do-gooders come to Guatemala, but few leave an entire school in their footprint. Bruce Barclay was one who did.

Barclay’s workers’ paradise would have been incomplete without a school, so he built one on his own property. He paid all the construction costs from his own pocket, then furnished the rooms, bought teaching materials and hired teachers.

Though Barclay built the school for his artisans’ children, he found that he could not turn away other kids whose families wanted them to attend a school that was not only in their neighborhood, but a cut above any other in town. In fact, Escuela Tzalá is today recognized as one of Guatemala’s finest public schools, thanks to a sponsor whose generosity reached legendary magnitudes.

At first, the school offered only two grades. The plan was to add one grade per year but, by 2003, it was a full K-through-six school. After Barclay had paid teachers’ salaries for five years, his assistant, Rufino Caníz, petitioned the education ministry to assume responsibility. This they did in 2003, at which time a ministry official arbitrarily renamed the school Escuela Tzalá.

The institution was moved down the street and rebuilt, but it still bears Barclay’s mark and owes its genesis to him. A movement is afoot to change its name from Escuela Tzalá to Escuela Bruce Barclay.

“I’m talking to the people from the education ministry about this,” Caníz says. 
“I think it will happen. It should!”

Francisco Quiej calls himself “Indio” by DWC

This renaming took place in 1994 on a mountaintop. Francisco saw no burning bush on the slope, but “in my heart there was a burning conviction that I should wear this name.” Indio has since climbed summits throughout Central America, seeking prime meditation venues.

“That name carries 500 years of baggage,” he says. “Being pejorative, it’s also purifying, because as a bad name it obligates me to better myself, by doing right by others. Then I can wear it as a badge of shame and pride, at the same time.” It may be working; Indio is well spoken of by those who actually know him.
He is native to Zunil, a K’iché town near Quetzaltenango, where his parents were members of the “agricultural caste.” Even so, his father completed school and became a teacher; Indio and his five siblings therefore grew up in a literate household.

Indio is today one of Panajachel’s most colorful and asked-about personages. Tourists and expats know him as a master craftsman who sells his own handiwork: spherical lampshades by the cluster that waft, cloudlike, up and down the Santander Strip, turning heads.

His long hair sets him apart as well, since modern Mayan men rarely let their locks grow. Indio counts no connection with the hippies of nearby San Pedro la Laguna, as some observers think. His hirsuteness instead recalls the Nazarite vow of his first-century heroes such as John the Baptist and Simon the Zealot. Since most scholars believe that Jesus of Nazareth was also a Nazarite, medieval artists and Hollywood alike portray him with a haircut eerily like Indio’s.

Since Indio seeks to imitate his messiah in all things, he sees evangelism as his primary calling. This makes him one of among thousands of itinerant preachers in Central America; unlike most, however, he employs handiwork as a vehicle. He does not judge those who preach on buses and then request money, but he says that they need to “discover their trade and enter it as a step of faith.” Paul of Tarsus, he recalls, was a tentmaker. Indio sees his own craft as a divine gift along this line, and therefore nothing to boast about, even as he plies it and wins admiration.
He discovered the gift in the same way he discovered the name: on a mountaintop, this time in Costa Rica in 1997 while a member of an artisan commune. “While meditating, I was suddenly aware of the plants growing around where I sat. I began examining them and imagining uses for them.” Since he was at a high altitude, many of them were alpine ferns; today, fern fronds are a staple in his designs.

“That night, after coming down from the mountain and turning in, I dreamed of two blonde women. I don’t remember any details, but when I awoke, I knew I had a direction to launch a craft.”
The dream’s significance, he says, was that “foreigners were the door. Guatemalans had no interest in my lampshades, at first.” Most still do not, he thinks, because they see them as something non-ladino and, he adds with an ironic smile, “non-indio.”

Lamp by Francisco Quiej

Local hardware stores sell tacky porcelain lamps from China, but panajachecos increasingly see Indio’s work as authentic and even voguish. Restaurants all over town have become his showroom. Most tourists choose the standard “small” lamp, a 16-centimeter orb that travels well in suitcases. For everyone else, sizes go all the way up to room-gobbling “gigantic” at 63cm. Other shapes can be special-ordered.

One wall of Indio’s living room is filled with newsprint stacks, where leaves and petals undergo desiccation. His charming French wife, Luz—called Catherine before her own conversion and rechristening—churns out hospitality an arm’s-length away in her tiny kitchen, tottering with herb jars. The couple, who met in Costa Rica, have two polygot daughters with creamy, mixed-blood complexions. Abril, 11, and Michelle, 9, show no inclination to adopt their father’s trade. But even they call him Indio.

Indio spends part of every selling day pounding the streets. But he is no in-your-face peddler; his product provides the draw. He often starts his selling day in uptown Panajachel’s mercado, where there are people, he says, who need to hear his message, or who need comfort and encouragement. Most itinerant evangelists speak and gesticulate like preachers at all times. But Indio, always the exception, switches at will between “preaching mode” and “normal conversation.” Nonreligious people are surprised to find, when they get to know him, that he is capable of both.

“I guess I’m all about light,” he says. “I sell lampshapes that soften electricity’s glare, so I can share the light of el Señor.