Guatemala city has Taco Bells that look like 23rd century discotecas. I’m on a two story bus headed for Flores. We met a lovely woman on the shuttle who seems like a force of nature. I believe she’s from Argentina but is currently living in Sebastople and stated whole heatedly that Kate must be deeply in love to agree to live in Sacramento. The bus has suddenly stopped two hours out of Flores in the middle of no where for reasons not immediately apparent.
I was dreaming of funerals just before. This trip, although the product of an existential crisis, may be the best thing for me. That is if I don’t disappear on this dark road in northern Guatemala at 5am on Easter Sunday. The Argentinian woman says the villages around Lake Atiklan are where it’s at. She wants to move there and teach the children who mainly speak various Mayan languages. I wonder if the pregnancy rates for girls ages 10-14 are better or worse against the national average of 25%. I still have to fact check that and I don’t know if an accurate figure is even possible.
Every town I have been in has quite a few Mayan women selling bags, scarves, and other colorful handmade items. There is a womens knitting/weaving cooperative in Xela which attempts to get members better wages for the textile goods they produce. I don’t know how much better they fair than the women sitting on the curb with their bundle of handy crafts.
El Turtle 