In the mountains of Sololá

Friday night I drove through misty mountains and torrential rains, literally over “Paso Misterioso”, into a quaint little quiche town in Sololá with Katie Miller, our new director of development.  My clothes reeked of mildew, my body reeked of sweat, my mind reeked of a week’s hard work.  I stripped down and wrapped myself in a towel before scurrying quickly but carefully through the rain across the muddy hillside into the family’s very own tamascal.  On hands and knees I made my way inside the miniature sauna, my naked bum cozying comfortably on an old wooden bench.  The coals sizzled as the rain drops slipped off of my neck and onto the fire as I leaned over.  The buckets of well water – one cold, one hot – patiently awaited my arrival.  I will build one of these for my house one day. I will bathe in it every week, I told myself.  The raindrops played their common concerto, moving forcefully in and out of the chorus of pouring. At 8,500 feet I sat in this little cave, feeling nothing but warmth and hearing nothing but calm.

Every Guatemalan I meet is in someway my superior (thank you Emerson), and each offers me something to learn.  All these different cultures, languages, names, sounds.  That the ingredients you put in your recado may define where you were born.  Perhaps it’s the lack of culture I’ve always felt in my own history that draws me to places like this.  Ella was born in Uspantan, Quiche (and thus makes her atol with honey and chocolate). Studying social work in Xela, she cozied up with a nice Quiche fellow from Sololá and thus transformed her life her. From a family of nine, Ella is 33 and only has two children with little plans to have any more.  She woks with peace corps projects, teaches literacy classes to local women, and seems to have a healthy banter with her husband, something resembling an equality I don’t see with many couples here.  I wonder how she started her education, how she blossomed to be this diamond in the ruff of sorts, a courageous independent female among a sea of oppressed.  Still donning her traditional huipil  and corte, where does her tradition and modernism meet and who brought her to that intersection?