Dry Season

The rainy season has ended now. The mornings dawn bright, clear, crisp, and cold. Some days the clouds and fog never come, and glorious high altitude sunsets give way to a carpet of twilight stars. The cornfields are browning, the leaves burned by frost, the ears drying in the endless breeze. Children fly colorful paper kites, often entangling them in trees and power lines. The kites bounce in the wind, snarled in place and flyerless. The political propaganda of the election season has been painted over; Álvaro Colóm, a self-declared social democrat with reported links to organized crime and narcotrafficking, beat an ex-general in the second round. Feria, or town fair, will begin this week. Small mechanical rides have been rolling in on trailers, and are being set up in a dusty lot in front of the central plaza. The men that arrived with them suggest to me that carnies are a seedy breed regardless of nationality. Feria promises to offer more than just the rides…Marimba orchestras, bull fighting, dances, bicycle racing, a rock concert, arcade games, and an impressive show of public drunkenness are all on the docket.

What have I been up to recently? First of all, after the end of the school year last month I went to the island of Oahu in Hawaii to be a part of my brother Peter’s wedding. A man from Maine married a woman from Alaska on a beautiful tropical beach. I am grateful that I could be there among friends and family new and old, and returned to Guatemala excited for new work opportunities. Unfortunately a series of workshops on disaster preparedness that I had planned with communities affected by landslides never materialized, and I have spent the bulk of this month trying in vain to make it happen. Apparently, what with feria, the corn harvest and the approach of the Christmas holiday, it is not the ideal season for community organizing around here. After a couple of frustrating weeks I have accepted this and am now devoting myself to preparations for 2008, my seemingly futile studies of the K’iche language, tickling young children until they nearly soil themselves, teaching friends how to cook and bake new dishes, and all the other vital functions of the de facto cultural ambassador of the United States in Nueva Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán.