Return to Guatemala

The return trip from Belize was dramatic, a flight in a four-seater over the coast of Belize to Belize City and then an hour flight in the same plane over the jungles of Peten to Flores, the gateway to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. I´ll have my pictures up on photobucket as soon as I get back to my own computer in a few days. It was an expensive trip, but one of the highlights of this vacation.

I must confess that it was hard to go back to Guatemala. I have been wrestling all week with sadness at being back. Everything in Guatemala seems to be either broken or incomplete. I miss the sun and the humid breezes, Guatemala has been rainy and grey, even the night at the lake in Flores was overcast and dull. Somehow the incompleteness in Belize seemed charming in the middle of the laid-back, friendly Caribbean culture, the result of too much sun and too much heat. Here in Guatemala it seems grubby - as if no one really knows how to do a good job of things, or how to gather the resources necessary to do something well. I am rediscovering my own racism, too. Somehow the natives in Belize - all shades of black and tan - don´t seem so foreign because they speak English, thought it is flavored with Creole and sometimes hard to understand. It feels as if there is a cultural pride there that is more confidant, less of a strruggle to own.

I must confess that Guatemala wears me out, makes me feel guilty, makes me want to run from the complicated problems which are constantly thrown up to me. Life is hard in Guatemala, and Guatemaltecos are hard-working people, but there seems to be no solution to their troubles. The government just talks and enacts policies that have no effect on most of the people who live in the countryside, and hardly touch the core of the problems of those who have the least. In spite of how hard people work, it will take generations, if all goes well, for any appreciable change. Guatemala makes me sad. This is my last week here. I can hardly wait to go home.