RETURN TO

GUATEMALA

Danilo López
Stylus Publications 

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 Second Edition 2006
Dallas, Texas

Copyright ® 1992, 2006 by Danilo López

www.lulu.com/danilo_lopez2

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 Dedicated To

All

The Indigenous Peoples

Of The Americas

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Introduction

I visited Guatemala for the first time in 1979. It was a

short stop in the month of July, to meet with my fiancée,
Kristabel, my wife for now twelve years.

During the preceding years I had the opportunity to visit

Mexico, United States and all of the Central American
countries. Guatemala had stricken me as the most
advanced country in the region, with a high standard of
living by Central American parameters. Nevertheless,
the indigenous population -sixty percent of the country's
total- is kept at the margin of progress.

I went back for another short visit in 1982. My

impression of the country was still the same. My last trip
was in December of 1991. Maybe it was my long
absence or my six years in Miami, which I was told spoils
people, but Guatemala City didn't look the same anymore.
I saw poverty everywhere, and a country worn out by
war, economic stress, and political maneuvers. I saw the
country with a different eye.

They say that truth is in the eye of the beholder. I would

like you, the reader, to look at this book that way. My
intentions are not to offend anybody, but to convey what I

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saw, what I felt: a country, like many others, that is
suffering, with people full of hope, and warm human
qualities, and working with faith for a brighter future.

Danilo López
Miami, January 1992

---

For the second edition, 2006:

This books, I can sadly say, remains true to its original

impression. Maybe the only difference is that people are
losing hope.

D.L.
Dallas, Texas

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Table of Contents

The Return 1
The City 3
Townboys 5
Mass 7
A Tale 9
Guard at the Bank 13
Road to Antigua 15
Public Laundry 19
House of the Spaniard 21
Antigua 23
Ixem Onam Sotoj 25
Pink Necks 27
Eyes of the Beholder 29
Market 31
Chichicastenango 33
Tikal 35
Atitlan 37
Dolls 39
Reunification 41

Acknowledgements 43

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The Return

I came back after twenty years,

nothing has changed. Time stopped.
The overcrowded smokey buses
still carry the sad faces of
old women and rational peasants.

A man sitting on a park bench

enamors a fourteen year old
girl.

In the streets, the junky cars

blast their noisy horns at a fat
driver whose pick up truck
won't start.

The avenues seem narrower,

the houses look smaller.
It is as if time shrunk
everything, except the
omnipresent poverty.

It is I who changed.

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Even the trees struggle to survive
the last drought, and the dusty
sidewalks, broken, are adorned
with beggars, drunks, and raggedy
boys playing with spin tops.

A policeman approaches my
brother-in-law.
"You made a bad turn at that
corner", he accuses. My in-law
has been parked here for half an
hour. Ten minutes of quiet
discussions, give and take, and
twenty Quetzales (*) in his pocket,
the policeman happily let him go.

"It is December 24" he tells me,

"He doesn't have a toy for his kids"

(*) Quetzal, national currency; US$ 1.00 = $10.00 Q

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The City

The houses have engulfed the mountains.

Most of the green is gone. Many mansions
occupy its place.
The radio talks about insurgents.
A baby is carried on his mother's back.

Rush, rush said the woman,

fast, steady, short steps, the baby
jumping... she missed the bus.

The breeze is cool. Children innocent.

Streets are ancient, like a lunar

landscape, full of holes, and I scribble
words writing in my pad, coming from the
airport.

The políticos are others, the promises

the same. All swear and vow year after year,
but nothing changes.

It is hopeless.

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Townboys

The night is chilly.

These children spend the whole night

selling fire crackers. No license is needed.
No time to go to school. No sweater to
brave the cold winds. No shoes.

Only a zinc roof, some old planks to screen out

the people buying, bargaining, and the
dogs urinating against the improvised store.

Some ornaments on the walls. It's Christmas time.

Work all night long, so the tourists and the
richer, and the poorer can celebrate theirs
firing crackers and little toy tanks.

"Eight quetzales, señor, I will sell it

to you for seven".

My daughters understand the message I'm

trying to convey. There is poverty.
There is joy. There is happiness.
There is sadness. There is love and
understanding, and this culture shock

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that illuminates for them
-minute by minute-
the dark side of the bright moon.

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Mass

Here, hard wooden benches,

no air conditioning or fancy fans.
No special room for crying babies
or lavish sound systems.

Common people fill the nave.

The priest still getting ready.

A lot of children, old women,

young women.
A few ashamed men seem to have
been dragged here by a jealous
spouse or a commanding mother.

There, in a corner, lies a creche.

I bet its resemblance with the
real thing is amazing.
Baby Jesus is not there yet.

Some nuns whisper their prayers.

Up in the chorus, a rotten
speaker rattles "The Drummer Boy"
with tunes of electric guitar and
organ. Three young boys sing

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the lyrics in Spanish.
It is almost midnight.

Children dressed up like the

Three Wise Men
-nobody remembers the fourth, Taor-
and the Holy Family.

Incense covers the air.

The scent of flowers everywhere,
candles and wreaths.
A big crucifix welcomes the
parishioners.

Outside, in the reduced parking

lot designed for twelve cars,
a boy watches over forty of them, all
packed in, for a few cents
a night.

Most of the people have walked

here from several kilometers
around. It is a short journey
for them, accustomed to walk, and
work, and walk.

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Here, girls are allowed to serve
as "altar boys".

A girl with a tambourine had joined

the band, and seventeen little kids
fuse their voices.

When the music begins again

everybody raises and sings.
It is one call. Rejoice.
One joy. Holding hands.

There is hope in their eyes.

There is love. I feel their force.
I feel the presence of God.

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A Tale

Father Randolfo, from El Salvador,

has a mission in Guatemala City,
at the church of Santa Catalina.

This tale the priest told me:

Time visited Amurabi and asked him:

"Who are you?"

-"I am Amurabi, the King, and

nobody can defeat me"-

Time said to Amurabi:

"I challenge you!"

Many years passed, Amurabi died,

and his kingdom was reduced to dust
and ashes. And Time told the ghost
of Amurabi: "I have defeated you".

Time visited Ramses and asked him:

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"Who are you?"

-"I am Ramses, the Pharaoh, and

nobody can defeat me"-

Time said to Ramses:

"I challenge you!"

Many years passed, Ramses died,

and his nation was reduced to dust
and ashes. And Time told the ghost
of Ramses: "I have defeated you".

Time visited Caesar and asked him:

"Who are you?"

-"I am Caesar, the Emperor, and

nobody can defeat me"-

Time said Caesar:

"I challenge you!"

Many years passed, Caesar died,

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and his empire was reduced to dust
and ashes. And Time told the ghost
of Caesar: "I have defeated you".

Time visited Jesus and asked him:

"Who are you?"

I am Jesus, Son of God, and

I made you.

Many years passed, Time ended,

eternity continued, and Jesus said
to the ghost of Time:

-"I have defeated you"-

I am still on time, eternity is

not here yet.

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Guard at the Bank

Nobody talks to him.

The guard stands at the entrance,
a galil rifle in his hands.
Beware of the guerrilleros that
can come into the bank anytime
and take some money for their
mighty cause.

No carpet, no sophisticated
security systems.
He is the sentinel, the center.
He is the system. He is feared.

Nobody looks into his eyes.

People come in, perform their
transactions. Leave.
I change my one hundred dollars
at a rate of 5 to 1 with the
local currency. Now I have five
hundred. A Mastercard sign hangs
on the wall. Diners Club is
accepted, too.

Before leaving, I turn to the guard:

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"Have a nice day", then he answers,
his face, illuminated with an
unimaginable smile,
"Have a nice day, señor!"

19
Road to Antigua

Down, down and up the hill,

we have three lanes where two only
should exist,

Texaco, Marlboro, Wendy's and

Ray-O-Vac signs waving good bye
to the traveler

the neighbor to the North has sold

everything, except anti-pollution
devices, handicap codes and health
insurance

Goodyear, American Airlines and

Visa card,
let's send cocaine in exchange,
and immigrants, and sugar, and labor

prices are low, prices are cheap,

they have sold us everything, including
Madonna, Michael Jackson, and The New KOB

everything

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let's send them good leather, some arts
and crafts, and tax evasion and interest debts,
even some children to adopt or to take
body organs from

they have sold us everything,

except wealth

The road to Antigua is a very modest

version of the expressway, a strong smell
of burning oil in the air, dizzying,
buses expell black fumes
from the rear, into other cars

Poverty everywhere, and they tell me

this is Heaven compared to Nicaragua

A boy crosses the street, meandering

through the taxi cabs with his
wooden cart, almost clipped by
a motorcycle, the driver cursing him,
the boy is going to McDonald's to buy
a hamburger

A bunch of oranges lay on the pavement,

a little girl quickly picking up some

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to eat and resell

A bald mountain to my right, a deep

abyss to my left, the tortuous path
climbing the hill

Traffic is getting thin, the air cleaner

It cost one thousand dollars per square

meter to build this road, they finished
construction a year ago, today it is full of
bumps and holes

The new social christian government is

applying for a loan to repair the
streets, it will cost five thousand
dollars per square meter to repair the
road

They have learned to accept poverty,

no government has paid them right,
no president has kept his electoral
promises

Liberal and conservatives alike have

lied to them,

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democrats and Christians took away their
money, their jobs, their education,
their health, their lives and their
generation's

The housing projects are abandoned,

more office buildings are being built

The traffic ahead is slow, a cow is

giving birth on the swale

The new office buildings will house the

Mazda headquarters, they will launder
money and crowd the city, the owners
won't pay property taxes or building permits

Latinamerica
-not Atlantis, not Lemuria-
is the lost continent, destroyed by the
Conquistadores, exploited by the
Crown, abused by the USA,
ruled by local dictadores, demolished by
socialist governments
-the predators for excellence-
and back to square one

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Public Laundry

The Mayan women have been coming

to this well for generations,
with their colorful dresses they
carry the child on their back
and wash tons of clothes

Water is cold, hands red and hard,

like the mayan vases at the
Popol Vuh Museum, like this stone wheel
displaying the perfect Calendar

Now the well is gone, a park and a series of

public lavanderos in its place instead,
the water still cold, the women still
multicolored, and bearing the children
that will bear the children, that will bear
the children...

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House of the Spaniard

He came to this land full of dreams,

his mission was a mixture of Religious Crusade
and Capitalistic Enterprise

In the beginning, the Indians admired them

and gave gold in exchange for mirrors, those
were the Creators, they the creatures

Later came baptism, and force, and disease,

death

The Americans fought back, the mysterious

blonde centaurs had short spears that spit
noise and fire, they could kill at will
from the distance

Christian temples were built on top of the

pyramids, opposing mirror cities were
erected, a new single God replaced the Creators,
the natives continued their subversive customs
and rites, covered by a veil, masked

The Spaniard is satisfied. It is not easy

to be a conqueror. The spices, the gold,

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the new varieties of plants had a price

He has a grand house, made out of thick

blocks, precious woods, and spanish tile,
a patio in the middle, galleries around, arcades
and a fresh fountain where a vision of his
wife, waiting in Sevilla, appears at dawn

Up on the second floor, in the Arms Room:

muskets, blades, swords, pistols, cannons
used in the quest, and also trophies:
obsidian spears, bows and arrows, a rattan
throne that belonged to the Quiche King

He is alone now, admiring his possessions,

while she, the most beautiful native, sleeps
in their bedroom after taking a bath downstairs

In the interior patio, the water in the fountain

runs smoothly

Through a circular, narrow, high window, a

streak of light falls in, it hits a polished
family crest with an embossed matte drawing,
the reflection forms a dark cross on his face,
it is an omen:

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within two hundred years
a new race of mestizos, born from centaur
and indian, will end the Spanish Empire and
build a New Republic there

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Antigua

On each block a temple,

on each block ruins,
soldiers at every corner,
and crafty windows

A dog scratches its ribs

against the palisade,
two boys fire crackers in the
plaza, in front of one of
the many ancient churches

In the park across, two

Quiche women weave in a loom
a black and red
patterned carpet nobody will buy,
a bottle of Pepsi always by
their side, and a child begging
for milk

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Ixem Onam Sotoj

When he was five, he needed a liver

transplant, the candidate saw an excellent
opportunity for his presidential campaign,
the business men saw an excellent opportunity
for their financial campaign

When he was ten, he had a good liver

and a lot of newspaper clips about the
miracle boy who survived the first liver
transplant in the country, gone were the days
of the Mayan vindication represented by this
boy, gone were the offerings of financial
aid to teach the Quiches how to fish, instead
of giving them the fish, or the meat, or
the milk for that matter

Ixem Onam Sotoj sold a kidney yesterday,

his sister is ill and his parents don't have
enough money to cover the expenses, plus
each of them sold one already

Where are the candidates? Where are the

businessmen? Father Randolfo has a prayer
group that meets every Friday night, Ixem

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was invited along with his sister and parents,
they preach and pray, miracles happen there,
skin cancer that disappear in front of my eyes,
brain tumors reduced to nothing in seconds

Ixem's sister has leukemia, but not anymore,

the doctors are amazed, they don't understand
what is going on, Did they make a misdiagnosis?

Back at his home town, Ixem Onam Sotoj sacrifices

a lamb to the Creators, for they have listened
to him, no more kidneys will be sold, he only
regrets he did not invoke the Creators before.

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Pink Necks

They are the kind of breed

that thinks they're tops

They wish they were in an

English country

I think with rave:

"If you don't like it here,
go somewhere else"

Do they think the same of us when

we visit their country?

A local woman, who also speaks

english, tries a different approach,
and talks politely to them,
offering her help and hospitality

Is she trying to be nice or just

sarcastic?
The Canadians stop complaining,
they don't say "Guatemalans
are stupid" anymore,
a sardonic smile emerges on the

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man's face

I still want to send them to hell

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Eyes of the Beholder

At night the city is beautiful,

you see the sides of the mountain
illuminated by a million lights,
you don't know where the mountain
ends and where the sky begins,
and although the streets are as
narrow as alleys, with buses
blocking other cars, and teenagers
coming out of a party, and men from
a bar fighting on the sidewalks,

you can feel the warmth of poor

people that have learned who to
distrust and who to confide in

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Market

We park, descend the stairs, rustic booths

everywhere, all in the open, more stairs
to descend. Inside: large, narrow corridors,
no natural light, six-feet wide by twelve-feet
long booths full of merchandise:

carpets, belts, jackets, ashtrays, paintings,

candles, you name it, they have it here, all made
of local raw materials

many tourists from Mexico and Germany, from Italy

and the USA passing by

a merchant who sells a little bit of everything

warns us: "Grab your purse tight, don't walk
alone, don't loose sight of your children,
it is my country, but I have to tell you
this, there are some people out there who
make me feel ashamed"

a dumb woman talks to me in a sign language of

her invention, but effective: she's saying
she was born that way, she's hungry, she wants
some money to eat, we give her some

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Today, there is a tiangue in almost each
Latin American city, in the open or under
a roof, or a combination of the two, like
the one in Guatemala City

The marketplace is a human institution,

Etruscans and Greeks, Fisiocrats and Lemurians,
all had some sort of site within the city
to exchange goods and trade with different
currencies

Mayans had the Tiangue, an atavistic

place to find commerce and supplies:
lambs for cacao, ocote for crafts, gold
for corn, tools for clothes

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Chichicastenango

Forty five degree slopes and one hundred

eighty degree curves make the road to
this colonial town

There is one entrance and one exit,

a small van is blocking it, twenty
buses behind me and twenty cars in front
of me are honking horns, execrating the
son of a gun who parked in the wrong place

Finally, everything starts to move,

Juanito is asking me for four quetzales to
watch over my car, he follows me for ten
blocks until I finally accept his offer

A woman in her eighties is wobbling out

of a cantina, a bottle of rum in her hand

In front of the main church, hundreds of

indians have a market in which they sell
hats, blouses, wallets, collars, earrings,
all colorful, a blind beggar is asking
for money, a crippled girl, with no eyes
pulls my daughter's skirt, she wants ten

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cents to have breakfast, it is 1:00 p.m.

The market has grown, it has overflowed

its original boundaries

Somebody puts a hat on my head,

"It looks good on you, señor, only seven
quetzales", "no, thank you"

At the main stairs the pagan priests

or brujos give counsel to a pair of
women, they burn incense, dance and smoke
tobacco

Their bible is the Popol Vuh,

which neither Father Francisco with his
teachings nor Don Pedro with his guns
could take away from them

Inside the Catholic temple, which

has a monastery attached, three women
sell candle sticks of different colors:
white, if you are looking for marriage,
pink, if you want to cure an ailment,
yellow, if you want a good harvest
Several monoliths lie on the floor,

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one for each type of petition, the altar
has a strange Christ, some odd saints all
blackened from the fumes of the candles
burning all day long

These Indians are not speaking in tongues,

they speak their tongue: Mayan, quiche,
Cakchiquel, and they communicate
with their own gods, for buried below
the church, is the Mayan temple

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Tikal

The Spaniards came to America, they

had an enormous empire;
the Aztecs ruled Mexico, the largest city
in the world; the Incas were masters in
Machu Pichu, the greatest empire of this
hemisphere; and the Mayans commanded
Guatemala, a dense pyramidal city-state,
mirror of a class society of artists,
priests and slaves

Tikal is the tip of the iceberg of this

complex of cities, Uaxactum and Yaxha,
Nacum and Zotz, urban planners and poets,
sculptors and astronomers, mathematicians
and architects

Today, the road is protected by the Kaibiles,

an elite force within the Guatemalan Army

The Mayans did not know the wheel, how

did they cut and move those heavy blocks
that crown the pyramids? But they invented
the zero and counted in twenties their
5,200-year empire with the accuracy of

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an atomic clock

We travel in the tourists bus, the guide

explains their concern about the ozone
layer depletion, about the rainforest
extinction, and the many endangered species
populating the region, who is responsible?
we all are, he says

The Argentinean woman to my left, an art

history teacher in Mendoza, talks more
than the guide, the Spanish architect to
my right, talks about the construction
systems, they say they know, my eldest
daughter tells me: "when somebody really
knows, he or she doesn't say"

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Atitlan

A thousand years ago, this was a lake

of lava with a drop of water

After the eruptions, this became a lake of

water with a drop of lava

The two huge volcanos still observe their

work, proud, majestic, solitary

A snake bird flies by, a local artisan

works for the cooperative creating wooden
sculptures and setting the prices, they
accept dollars or Quetzales, they don't
want consultants telling them what or how
to harvest, "we have been cropping our fields
for generations, and we have done it well,
this is the Place of the Voices, don't
you hear Tlaloc talking to us? Don't
you see the hill-alligator crawling into the
river? Hunapú protects us, Ixbalanqué
is our guard"

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Dolls

Ixchel and Itzamná, the Creators,

saw that the children in the world
below were suffering anxieties:
the Lords of Totonicapán had become
vicious and envied the children's
ability to be happy

The Creators remembered the three

Ixtans who, posing as mermaids,
had defeated the Lords before

The beautiful Quibatzunah was called to

the presence of the Creators, they made
minute reproductions of her, gave them
life and placed them inside small boxes of
copal, the sacred wood

The small dolls were hid by Quibatzunah

under the children's beds, thousands
of them, during the night, the dolls took
away all the worries, and in the morning
the children awoke happy, the Lords of
Totonicapán had been defeated once more

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Reunification

While the rest of the world is uniting,

the crumbling Soviet Union is exploding
in pieces, like another balkanization
taking place

Europe, North, Central, and South America

all trying to build new economies,
redefine their role in a new world

and Spain says:

forgive the slavery, forgive the genocide,

forget the Conquest in the name of God,
forget the unilateral vision of what
should be done

Forget the past, Latin Americans, take

the best of it, the best of our ancestors,
look towards the future, the possibilities
and the potential in this coming world,
it is time to take our destiny in
our hands, it is time to return to our
roots, the best of them, it is time to
project our Indian grandeur, our Spaniard perseverance,

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our cosmopolitan mixture

Let the universe be our homeland, eternity

our time, humanity our family

44
Acknowledgments

I want to express my gratitude to my wife, Kristabel, for

encouraging me with this project. My daughters Reima
Aleksandra, Danibel Marie and Kristel De Fatima, and my
nephew, Adriano Martin Patiño, were very supportive too.

To all of them, thank you very much.

Figures in color were taken from the Dresden Codex.

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"...a timely book for the rethinking on the meeting of
European culture with the indigenous peoples of the
Americas... strong, authentic voice... good story telling,
rhythm... terrific rhyme, image, music... excellent
picture-poems... good blending of English and Spanish
languages... dialogue as poetry... the variety in this book
makes for good pacing..."

John Fremont, Editor

Danilo López was born in Nicaragua in 1954. He moved

to the USA in 1985, residing in Florida first and now in
Texas. An architect, poet, and translator, his work has
appeared in La Prensa Literaria, El Pez y la Serpiente,
Midwest Poetry Review, Hayden’ s Ferry Review, Othlo,
Mindfire, Loch Raven Review, and many others. He has
published seven poetry collections (English and Spanish)
and four poetry anthologies. He has been invited to read
at the Miami Book Fair International, The Houston
Poetry Fest, the Austin Poetry Festival, etc.

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