June 19, 2004

It’s all work and no playing around. Saturday morning I catch the bus about 10. I should tell you a little more about San Miguel Duenas. The town is five miles southwest of Antigua—that’s about an hour’s walk over very busy dusty roads at the foot of Acatenango volcano. Its mainstays were coffee, sugarcane and miscellaneous agricultural stuffs, but now I’m not so sure. You can still see the fincas, but I don’t know how much coffee they actually produce. During the civil war, there was some trouble.

Duenas isn’t a very big: roughly 12,000 people and another 2,000 displaced or homeless. Despite its apparent poverty (many of the homes have no running water and there is a communal washing spot just beyond the library), the mountains are lush and green with many vistas of the mountains, all beneath impressive, sculptured clouds and baking sun. About a mile outside of town there’s an organic macadamia nut farm run by a nutty American. I wondered why travelers were getting off the bus before Duenas in what appeared to be forest. Then I went home and read the guidebook. Apparently, you can go for a tour and learn all the secrets There is a main cobbled-stoned drag right up to the volcano, and even with the cobbles and ruts the trucks and cars manage roar up it. The library is a short walk from the bus station and even inside you can feel the road trembling under the weight of traffic.
 
Before you even get to Duenas, there is a fine expanse of newly paved road, some glorious scenery and several impossible intersections. That road is a mixed blessing--speed bumps grace the Duenas city limits. In any case, it was apparently awhile in coming. In 1996 when the government and guerrillas signed a peace accord, the government chased in its bounty – millions of dollars from its wealthy trading partners and bought asphalt –tons of it. But some government official or group of them decided to spare Chapin workers the wearisome task of laying steaming tar in the hot sun and pocketed the money instead.

Money and aid in the form of blankets, books and food goes missing all the time here. Someone at Jean and Tere’s house recounted the story of a baker they knew who wanted to donate excess honey buns to hungry children. He contacted the secretary of the Ministry of Culture in charge of these things. She told him, yes, of course she would take care of it, if only he would have the 1,000 or so buns delivered to her offices. Needless to say, the donation was never made. But this sort of story is common in Guatemala. With a parade of corrupt leaders, the country could be a study in mismanagement and oppression. Recently, Guatemala had an hour of glory when it refused Rios Montt, the man whose military regime ordered the slaughter of thousands during the country’s most violent years, the chance to re-install himself as president. In fact, they ran him out of the country. The man they got, Oscar Berger, is perhaps better. But Guatemalans, if you can get them to even speak of politics will look over their shoulders, lean over conspiratorially and whisper that all their politicians are crooked.

Anyway, you need to pass through town to get to Acatenango and since many tourists do just that, residents are used to seeing them. Not that they come in big bunches, but they do come. Also, Open Windows draws its share of volunteers from around the world and I found some of the kids in the library to be what, almost jaded in their outlook on people from elsewhere. So Saturday isn’t too bad. I drag the fan from the computer room into the main library and begin the process of dusting the shelves and books, sorting and cataloging.
 
By 4.30 I’m beat and though I’ve washed my hands a dozen times, they are sticky and faintly grey from the ashy dust that settles over everything. I head home on a very crowded bus and miss the stop by a few hundred feet. In all the time I am there, I will never, ever get the hang of the bus. Do I tell them Panorama is the stop or Calle de Alianza or San Pedro?