Today, we went to Chichicastenango on a tour bus which was really just a minivan and for the first time I really wished to know another language. There was a small group of Germans on the bus behind me and a woman tapped on my shoulder and asked if I was cold and then tapped again to tell me it was windy in the back of the bus and could I please close the window. I was struck by her fluency. I mean, ventana might mean window in Spanish but I certainly wouldn't know how to say that it was windy in the back of the bus. It just wasn't a part of the telephone conversation script between Paco and Marta in my high school Spanish textbook. I think maybe they were going to the disco and wind wasn't going to foil their plans.
In any case, the trip was long, made longer by another traffic jam, this one the result of road construction. We were on a two-lane mountain pass that was being re-tarred and the crew needed to alternately suspend the flow of traffic in one direction and then the other, but the two ends were not within sight of one another and no one in the crew had a walkie talkie. On the way there, it wasn't such a delay but on the way back we were stopped for almost an hour.
People are primarily drawn to Chichicastenango for its huge market on Thursdays and Sundays and the market is fantastic: fabrics hand woven in every color, bead work jewelry dazzling in the sunlight, artisan masks, trial-sized toothpaste, anything you might wish for. We were reminded again of Chris being twice the size of the locals; I wasn't concerned about getting separated--he towered over the vendors. Wandering the market was fun, but it was not what I loved most.
In the church there--San Tomas--I saw something that made something in my angry Catholic heart melt. Guatemala is the least Catholic country in Central America. The majority of the people here still practice indigenous religions. In Chichi, when the Catholic priest came, in addition to reading Christian scripture in mass, he also read from the Popol Vuh, a sacred Mayan text. As a result, the Mayans felt welcome in the church and began to worship there. They did not become Catholic, they simply moved their Mayan practice into the building and the church made room for them. The center aisle is used for Mayan worship and the sides are for Catholics. In the center aisle there are very low platforms on which the shaman perform their rituals, lighting candles and sprinkling rose petals and pouring liquor sacrifices in homage to their gods, of which there are six for corn. It is a beautiful introduction to the Catholic altar. In the cases along the walls of the church (I'm sure they have a name and I'm sure my word friend Becca Manery would know the name), the space was also divided evenly between the Catholic and Mayan iconography and statues. Chris and I have sixty gazillion pictures of churches from all over Mexico and Puerto Rico and Europe and this was the neatest one I have been in and there were no photos allowed out of respect for the worship.
After seeing the church, we left town to visit Pascual Abaj, a place up in a pine forest where the more traditional Maya worship outside. This was another climb that was harder for me than for Chris, although we determined that my short stature was probably a benefit on the way down; however, the more important part of the story (in this case) is the destination, not the journey. We were fortunate because when we arrived at the top a ceremony was being conducted. There was a large fire pit with a blackened altar at one end and shaman burning incense in cans they swung around the area. It was an incredible natural setting in which to worship and it was so sacred I was uncomfortable in my role as an observer because the practice of religion is an extremely bizarre tourist attraction.
We finished our stay by eating in the Chichi equivalent of the mall food court. It was an open air cafeteria with long wooden tables and benches, dark under fabric ceilings and hot from the grills every 10 feet. We had delicious vegetable soup, homemade tortillas and Orange Crush and lunch for the both of us was under four dollars.
It was a great day, and we were home in time to sit at the shore watching a spectacular sunset until the mosquitoes drove me inside (for some reason, they don't eat Chris) to wonder what tomorrow will bring.
P.S. Congratulations to the Prosser AP team for great scores this year!
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