Todos los Santos is a Mam region, where Mayan villagers speak their own language. Men and women wear traditional clothing, but it is the men’s way of dressing what called my attention the most. The reddish pants with white stripes, a black cover for the pants that look more like shorts, the bluish shirts with white stripes and thick multicolor reddish and purpleish collars, and the small hut with a blue belt around is the fashion here.
One of the best times to come visit is November 1, day of Todos los Santos. The night before, there is a large party, and men get very very drunk. They dance and imitate the Conquistadores with customes and music. Next day, with a really bad hangover, these men participate in a horse "race". Many of them get injured, and some have died from freak accidents. Most of them work for an entire year to have some savings, and end up spending most of it if not all in one single night. The feeling I got from this event is that many get drunk and participate in the race to forget for a while the hardships of their lives. Check the Motorways and Tramlines blog for a video and description of this event.
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| Picture by motorwaysandtramlines.blogspot.com |
I stayed with a family for two nights. Unfortunately I was trying to file my taxes with H&R Block online, and after I had already paid for the service, I still couldn’t e-file for reasons I still don’t understand. So, the program sucks for not letting me know before paying that there was a problem. Aside from that, I had a good and relaxing time here. The mountains are cold and beautiful, covered with pine trees and clouds. In the afternoons, I spent time at Dominga's terrace, my host mom. She and her daughter, Nancy (below) weave outside, and sell their work at home or in one of the Spanish schools. Dominga started to weave at the age of 10.
I took showers in a shuj, a centuries old Mam sauna. The shuj is a small shack made of mud where a large pot of water is placed over a bed of small round rocks and heated with wood. It takes about two hours to prepare, which includes heating the water and waiting time for the smoke to come out. There are two other buckets of warm and cold water to mix. To create steam, I only had to pour some water on the hot stones. At first I thought I would not fit in, but once I was seating, the inside is more spacious than it looks. It feels very good to take a shower here, particularly in a cold day. I did come out smelling like burning wood, and even that felt so good.
The cemetery here is very interesting. Like in Zunil, the tombs are colorful and decorated with paper flowers. In addition to this, the tombs are arranged without any logical planning. Walking around, the entire field looks like a maze, complex enought to require some good orientation and memory to find the way out. Also, many of the tombs are painted with the Guatemalan flag. Others have the US flag for those of whom had died in the US, or who had worked there at some point.
The main plaza in front of the Municipal building is the hang out place for men. Every afternoon, men gather along the fence looking down to the street and the plaza in front of the church. They only stand there, looking, and sometimes have conversations.
Once, I watched a procession from the plaza. When they arrived to the church for mass, they all were trying to go inside, but were too many to fit, so many stayed outside trying to hear the priest. It was the only procession I saw in Todos los Santos, and a very special one.
Academia Hispanomaya is a Spanish and Mam school. They have a home-stay program for students and non-students with local families at very affordable prices. On the last night I watch a series of three documentaries about the town. Each documentary was produced in the 80’s and 90’s, and showed changes in the town, how the Mam were affected by the civil war, and some aspects of the culture and local life.
A little history
I spoke to some of the locals and asked them about the history of the town. Going back 500 years, Mayans were first conquered and brutally repressed by the Spaniards at their arrival, as most of us know. The lives of the indigenous have been influenced ever since by national, international and "multinational" policies in favor of business and cultural preferences. Over time, indigenous groups like the Mams have been displaced and forced to live in the mountains where the soil for agriculture is not as productive as in the valleys. The most productive land is owned and operated by a tiny fraction of the population, while indigenous groups all over Guatemala try their best to farm in the mountains, resulting in deforastated areas and landslides. There they also lack medical and affordable secondary school services.
In contemporary history, people from Todos los Santos looked for jobs cutting cotton in the west coast, for ridiculous low wages and mediocre working conditions. In groups of 30 to 40, men traveled in the back of trucks with no seats and exposed to the rain and cold air for an entire day to the coast, and would live there for months eating just beans and tortillas in all three meals. If they wanted to eat something else, they would have to buy it at their own expense, which was expensive relative to the dirt-low wages they received.
The civil war affected every indigenous village in Guatemala. The guerrilla groups begun to go the mountains in the early 80’s seeking support from the locals, and in turn, the army came to burn villages to the ground and massacre the indigenous. Once, the army jailed villagers inside the local church and asked them not to come out until they were gone. Next day, families found their cousins, brothers, parents, and children tortured, burned, shot, and some disappeared.
As a result of the civil war and the poor working conditions, villagers migrated to Mexico and Guatemala City. In Mexico, they lived as refugees, and were then moved from one town to the next by the local government or asked to go back to Guatemala. In the capital, some found jobs selling ice cream, baking pizza, selling telas, as maids and other small jobs, and lived in marginal towns. Over the years many wished to go back to Todos los Santos, but were afraid for their lives, plus many of them had lost all their lands and properties, and had nothing to work with back home.
In the last few years the town has been doing much better. The war ended fifteen years ago, and some businesses have been flourishing, particularly tourism. Also, almost every home counts with electricity service and running water, and some even have cable TV! The town still has much more to be improved, particularly in their living and working conditions, affordable and reasonable access to secondary education services, and respect for their culture and traditions.
Photo album
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