Guatemala - Land and People

Surprisingly, Guatemala is not that elderly, at least in geological time. The Central American isthmus itself is only about 3million years old. About then, when the earth was still rather new and fractious, violent clashing of tectonic plates (about four of them) forced mountains to rise and land masses of unknown origin (how something as large as an island could come from nowhere is the sort of mystery that makes me very uneasy at night, but never mind) to slide off into the ocean. A lot of thrusting and heaving later, the earth’s crust melded in a colossal, Vulcan way in what scientists deem one of the most important events of geological history and thus the land bridge between North and South America was formed.

That bridge spanned about 1,500 miles of prime oceanfront, commingling diverse flora and fauna that had for many years evolved separately. The changes were profound. A cultural exchange of sorts, bringing all sorts of unlikely creatures closer to North America’s front door: turkeys that look like peacocks, monkeys that howl like babies and trees that grow as high as 130 feet with dreadlocks for leaves. It is home to a nondescript brown snake (the fer-de lac) who would be happy to have you for lunch and mailing address for the Quetzal, a brilliantly colored bird related somewhere along the line to an ostrich, perhaps because of its long, plume of iridescent red and green feathers.

Frequent volcanic and earthquake activity throughout Central American are testimony to its relative seismic instability. The northeastern edge of the Cocos Plate runs parallel to the Pacific coast some 125 miles offshore. That plate, in turn, abuts the southwestern edge of the Caribbean Plate, whose northern edge is pockmarked with three fault zones, all of which extend into southern Guatemala. Then there’s the North American plate, relatively stolid and stable, but like all things of the earth, vaguely unpredictable; it could shoot its wad anytime. And then there’s the eastern edge of the Cocos, bumping up against the Panama block. It’s the interaction of the Caribbean and Cocos plates that is most significant, since the Cocos is heading northeastward relative to the Caribbean Plate (remember that the bumping and grinding of plates causes earthquakes and other assorted terrestrial nuisances such as volcanoes) by geological standards a speedy 33 feet per century. Although a quarter of the volcanoes are extinct and many more dormant, the remainder provide for pretty explosive times. Fuego at 12,346 feet is 20 miles from Guatemala City. It’s erupted four times since 1880. In Cakchiquel, the native language spoken there, it’s known as “Chigag,” or “where the fire is.” And it’s stirred signficantly in 2002. You take my point: this is a volatile place; a place where things change, sometimes dramatically.

Guatemala itself looks a bit like Texas turned upside and backwards. It is a country of coastlines, one whole side of it (about 80 kilometers or so) with frontage on the Caribbean. For such a small space, its human inhabitants are extremely varied: the Maya, the Garifuna, Ladinos and a few old Germans.

Ladino, if you look in the OED is defined as “a mestizo or a white person.” But as Daniel Wilkinson notes[1], the term is more than a racial category. Originally, it applied to Indians who’d learned enough Latin to participate in a Catholic mass. Over time, “it had come to refer to Indians who learned enough Spanish to interact the Spaniards on the Spanish terms.” Wilkinson continues. Look in a Spanish dictionary today and you’ll see the word has nuisances: “smart,” “astute,” “cunning,” “wily,” and on down a more derogatory road, until we arrive at the alleged derivation of the word ladron, which means “thief.” Interesting, I thought. And accordingly, Wilkinson notes that in Guatemala’s racially stratified society, Ladinos have generally occupied positions of power, mediating between the European elite and Indian working class. Yet, they have never been fully accepted in either world. Rather like middle-class Blacks or Latinos in this country, they remain somewhere in between.

Literacy rates. By most accounts, many Guatemalans are unable to read. According to the CIA World Fact Book,[2] roughly 30 percent of men and 40 percent of women cannot read. That’s three people in ten! [3] Most Guatemalan children are schooled until the sixth grade and often don’t make it that far since their families need them to work. If a child continues beyond sixth grade, school fees average around $350 USD; most families simply don’t have this kind of money.

[1] Daniel Wilkinson, Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal and Forgetting in Guatemala (Boston: Houghton Mifflin) 2002.

[2] CIA World Factbook “People – Guatemala” http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gt.html#People. Accessed 06/09/2004.

[3] According to one of my sources in Guatemala, that figure is closer to 60 percent.

Preamble

Guatemala no existe. I know because I have been there." Francisco Goldman -- The Long Night of the White Chickens

As I started this project, I checked major US newspapers to see how many times Guatemala got at least honorable mention in North American newspapers. For example, in one year the New York Times had 133 articles that in some way mentioned the country. Of those, only a handful described Guatemala’s political, economic or social situation (By contrast, The Times ran over 1,000 articles on Israel).

I found that puzzling on several counts. First, one of our most widely consumed and beloved commodities comes from Guatemala. That commodity, did you guess, is coffee. According to some stats, Guatemala was (until the recent glut on the world market by Vietnam and Brazil) the main importer to the US.

But then there’s also the fact of Guatemala’s proximity. Sure, it’s down there some thousand odd miles away, but to a country the size of the US, what’s a few thousand miles? To put it bluntly, Guatemala was on the North American consciousness less often than basketball or chocolate. And that just doesn’t seem like a nice way to treat a neighbor.
As it turns out, 2003 was interesting for Guatemala. It was an election year. This is a country where a national election compels those who are able to vote to pray that the losers will take their losses peacefully, where after 36 years of civil war, three-hour polling lines are common. A nation of 11.3 million where 5 million are registered voters. It’s a place where people mysteriously disappear. A place of violent contrasts and violent natural beauty (there are 7 active volancoes). In short, a place worth getting to know (even if the prospect seems a bit scary).