Tuesday, April 3rd We are suddenly into the rainy season. Clouds roll in about midafternoon, and it rains from about 4 to 7 or so every day. It appears that I am about a month late to get my mapping project underway, since it will involve extensive backpacking to reach – hopefully – most of the 106 registered communities in the region.
This morning Don Victor and I hit the trail together, with our backpacks, at 6:45am and were well along by the time the morning fog lifted. But the scenery seems even more spectacular, washed with the night's dew.
It took almost two hours to reach the first community. Xecaquixcan looks like a paradise, nestled in the valley of impressive mountains, but is at risk of landslides from those mountains.
Xepiacul is a new mountaintop community, still using some of the USAID temporary shelters but with many new block houses, and more underway. A sister of Don Victor’s took a break from her backstrap loom to give us coffee and bread in old Tzamjuyup. Nuevo Tzamchaj again has the raw look typical of the relocated mountaintop communities.
Panimaquim (at left) is an old impoverished community, with houses of adobe and thatch roofs and no electricity, while Paquisik has many attractive houses, along with its white church and a school complete with a concrete basketball court.
Just outside Xecaquixcan we happened upon an elaborate Mayan ceremony, with a bonfire, candles and incense, yellow and white robed priests, Aztec dancers, and three men pounding away on a marimba, all in a large grassy circle surrounded by about 100 people. It happened to be the start of the New Year, by the Mayan calendar. The group of celebrants was friendly, but concerned that I not disturb their ancestors by taking any photos. I would have liked to, but didn’t.
16 communities mapped. 90 to go.
We reached the old center of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán about 2:30 and caught a ride back home in an old pickup truck whose windshield proclaimed Regalo de Dios (Gift from God), arriving back just before the rain.
I’d hoped to go to the Municipal Office to download the morning’s GPS data, since there is a large note on the front door announcing that the offices would be open until Thursday even though it is Holy Week. But the offices were all closed, except for the Citizen’s Registration Office where a group of inebriated workers were engaged in the final stages of finishing off a case of beer. Gotta admit, it tasted pretty damn good after hiking in the mountains all morning. But I guess I won’t have a chance to work up my data until next week. Oh well, I’ll suffer.
# posted by Leroy Forney @ 1:16 PM
