Yesterday we spent the day at the large Sunday market in Chichicastenango, about 2 hours outside of Antigua. Hordes of people, Mayan and tourists alike, flooded the narrow aisles of the maze-like market. Everything from chicken feet to toothpaste to hand-woven bags to cashews is available for a price. In the middle of it all is a church, towering over all the madness. On the steps, women burn incense and sell rose petals to leave as offerings on alters in the church. Tired tourists sit next to wrinkly old Mayan men selling eggs.
We climbed the grand stairs to the church and entered it´s grandeur. If felt like an oasis in a desert of people pleading for you to buy their merchandise. Inside, although tourists milled about, devoted Mayan men and women bent on their knees in prayer, burning candles and incense. Josh and I spent some time sitting near the front of the church. One woman, who appeared to be at least 70 years old, prayed earnestly at the front alter. Then she would walk back about 15 feet and then walk on her knees back to the alter. She continued to repeat this over and over for as long as we sat there. I wondered if this was an act of penitence or something else I did not quite understand. Another man knelt at the front and stretched his arms up high, praying out loud for quite awhile, as if pleading for something he desperately needed. A banner overhead read, “Lord, teach us to love.” For me, there was a sense of unity inside the church, as if to say, “Outside, you are the tourists with money to spend, and we are the people trying to get by on selling to you. But inside this place, we are all just trying to learn to love God and each other.”
On the way back to Antigua, we drove through the mountains. I´ve never seen such steep, curvy roads. Our van huffed and puffed all the way. At points, I seriously thought the poor thing was going to die of exhaustion. Right alongside us, however, old Mayan men carrying large bundles trekked up the seemingly endless incline. Children walked alongside their parents, not even appearing out of breath. As tourist vans, chicken buses, and crusty old trucks filled with too many people speed along the highways, farmers cut wood and walk pigs tied up by a rope. We pass through towns selling Coca Cola and Cheetos, and then we pass through mountains where people cultivate corn with machetes. Guatemala is a place where the traditional and the modern, the agrarian and the industrial, rub against each other all day long.
-Jessie, Monday, February 12th, 2007
