Bouncy Buses through the Cucumatanes

Martes, 6 de enero 2004

Where oh where do I start for today? It wouldn’t just be today but yesterday as well. A lot has happened since then. As Buddha says, one is constantly changing and you never are the same you were 5 minutes ago as you are now. Life is about movement. People shouldn’t be so afraid of change. I always knew that people are afraid of the unknown but it didn’t even occur to me until today that a camera might be considered to be potential threat to a child until today. A 12-year-old girl was afraid of having her picture taken. I basically had to show her the picture of her brothers and sisters and how beautiful they looked in order for her mother to convince her in Mam, the language they speak here in Todos Santos, that she should have her picture taken. It’s a good way to get to take pictures of children, saying you’ll send it to them later on.


this little boy was oh so shy and then he loved seeing himself on film. 

Family in Zunel who were at first afraid of the camera and then I documented almost every last one of them. The women are wearing huipiles. They have a relative in San Francisco, but they didn't know her address so I could give her pictures of her family... 

So I guess I should recount to people before I continue where I am.. yup I´m in Huehue. We finally just arrived in Huehuetenango up in the north in the Cucumatanes Mountains where the Mam people are indigenously from. We have just managed to have the windshield cleaned twice within 2 minutes at 2 different intersections. Amazing. They tried to do it a third time but our local friend stopped them. Everything here is beautiful mélange of colors and faces all fading into the slow hum of the Mam languages. All the men are wearing their assigned uniforms of red trousers with black shirt with a colorful purple scarf, straw hat with a blue felt belt like ribbon around it. The men wear these black blue shorts over red trousers. Women show off brightly colored huipils or shirts with babies on their backs. I hear constant giggles and the squeal of children, catcalls, holas from children from 2 to 14 years.

We tried to go to Zunel with James´ friend Sam but he left without us as everything goes slow here in Todos Santos and breakfast took longer than expected as usual. Everything goes so slow here. We took a chuj last night, which was this amazing Mayan sauna in this small claustrophobic space. Very warm inside and very cold outside. All three of us ducked in there with the soft warmness heating up my glasses and the necklace that I forgot to remove.

So, we tried to chase down Sam but couldn’t find him so we went back to sat down by an intersection to ride in the back of a pickup with a suicide mission. They go fast over the bumps on the dirt road here. We get to Zunel and immediately become the highlight of the day. all the children smile at us and are following. I TOOK lots of pictures of children and then showed them their pictures. I´m sure some of them had never seen themselves before. One girl weaving a cloth got so embarrassed of seeing herself. There was this big happily chewing along and then peeing at the same time. Dogs barking. The constant mix of Mam and Spanish. I talk with this immigrant to the USA named Juan who is from Todos Santos telling me about his journey to the US. He tried to cross twice illegally through the desert and then finally had a Central American pay off the Miga, slang for the Immigration authorities to get let in. All of them pursuing this dream. What is this dream?

This boy was a delight to speak to. He told us about the weaving process and showed us how the fabric was made. When I send him this photo, I'll ask him about his dreams..

Self-imposed Child Labor, but he goes to school as well.