Motorways and Tramlines: March 2007

Culture of Corruption, Impunity in Guatemala

Below is a Washington Post article reporting on the activities of the oh-so-honorable Guatemalan police forces.

Thanks to Nicole for passing it on.

The original article can be found here.

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Linked Killings Undercut Trust In Guatemala
Culture of Corruption, Impunity Exposed

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 23, 2007; A10

GUATEMALA CITY -- It began with four charred bodies on a dirt road.

The victims had been kidnapped, investigators concluded, and two of them burned alive. The men who were found that day in February on a ranch outside Guatemala City turned out to be three Salvadoran politicians and their chauffeur. Among them was Eduardo D'Aubuisson, son of Roberto D'Aubuisson, the late founder of El Salvador's ruling party and the alleged architect of death squads in the Salvadoran civil war.

Three days later, four Guatemalan policemen were accused of the killings and arrested. Three days after that, with international attention trained on this country, the officers' throats were slashed and they were shot in their cells. The prison murders have not been solved.

The back-to-back sets of killings -- each chillingly professional and brazen -- are exposing the depth of corruption and impunity in a nation still struggling to right itself 11 years after the end of more than three decades of civil war. "A Pandora's box" is opening, said Salvadoran police chief Rodrigo Avila.

Over the past several weeks, some of Guatemala's most powerful political figures have been forced to acknowledge that their government and criminal justice system are deeply infiltrated by organized crime. Human rights activists have responded by blaming the corrupting influence of drug traffickers, who make fortunes funneling up to 300 metric tons of cocaine to the United States each year.

"It's a paradise for organized crime," Anders Kompass, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights representative in Guatemala, said in an interview. "The state apparatus is weak. The impunity rate is very high. This has shown that organized crime has penetrated at a much higher level than we ever thought."

Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, with 30 killings for every 100,000 residents in 2005, according to the Observatory of Violence and Crime, which the United Nations set up in Honduras. Few of the 5,000 killings in the country each year are solved, and there is scant hope here that the full truth about last month's assassinations will be known any time soon. The question now is, whom can the public trust?

On Tuesday, the Guatemalan Congress overwhelmingly approved a no-confidence motion against Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann, whose domain includes prisons. Now President Oscar Berger must decide whether to remove Vielmann from office or launch a battle with Congress by vetoing the decision.

Meanwhile, Congress has stonewalled a U.N. proposal to create an independent commission to investigate corruption in Guatemala. Vielmann, a wealthy businessman who is fighting to keep a job and a paycheck he says he does not need, said in an interview that he supports the U.N. proposal.

Speculation about the killings last month has stoked a public clamor for answers here and in neighboring El Salvador, as well as a number of conspiracy theories.

"People don't want to believe that the reality is simpler, more ironic and more stupid," Guatemala's national police chief, Erwin Sperisen, a Vielmann ally, said in an interview. "It wasn't a great conspiracy. It was a series of coincidental events. But the people don't want to believe. They want a soap opera, a spy drama, a James Bond movie."

In the weeks since the killings, government officials have outlined their version of events: The politicians were kidnapped Feb. 19 on their way to a meeting in Guatemala City of the Central American Parliament, a regional planning body of which all three were elected members. Guatemalan policemen killed them but were soon caught, in part because a global satellite positioning system in their car placed them at the scene of the crime, 20 miles outside Guatemala City, according to this version.

The police officers might have been hit men tricked into believing that the Salvadoran politicians were Colombian drug dealers posing as representatives to the parliament, Sperisen said. A political motive in El Salvador could not be discounted, nor could a link between the Salvadorans and drug dealers, he said. Four new suspects with alleged links to drug trafficking were arrested Tuesday and accused of ordering the killings.

Sperisen and Avila, the Salvadoran police chief, said the slain Guatemalan officers had confessed, although Sperisen noted the obvious: "They can't repeat their declarations." The alleged admissions have been widely reported in the news media, but attorneys for the four officers painted a different picture.

"They said they were innocent," Carlos Pocon said of his clients, the slain officers Jose Korki Lopez Arreaga, Jose Adolfo Gutierrez and Marvin Langen Escobar Mendez.

Alfredo Vasquez, the attorney for Luis Arturo Herrera Lopez, called the officers "scapegoats," who had been killed to cover up the identity of the real assassins.

"The atmosphere here makes it seem like my clients were responsible, as if they were devils," Vasquez said. "But there was no confession, and that alarms me."

The other murders -- those of the officers themselves -- are still muddied by conflicting reports. They were transferred from a lockup in Guatemala City to the maximum-security El Boqueron prison, about 40 miles east of the city, without their lawyers being notified, Vasquez said. Witnesses have said that gunmen sneaked into El Boqueron with visitors and killed the officers. But Sperisen said he believes the killers came from inside the prison. It's unlikely, he said, that the killers could have gotten past, or even co-opted, three rings of security -- the army, the police and the prison guards.

A riot broke out after the killings, and the prison warden and several guards were taken hostage, Sperisen said. The warden, as well as more than 20 other men -- mostly guards -- have been arrested, but no one has been charged with the murders, Sperisen said.

This month, one of Sperisen's top aides, Javier Figueroa, resigned and left Guatemala with his family for Costa Rica. Figueroa, who was a gynecologist before taking a high-ranking police job, played a key role in arresting the four officers and now fears for his life, Sperisen said. But with so many questions swirling about the case, Figueroa's abrupt departure generated speculation that he had something to hide.

"It's a question of perceptions," said Kompass, the U.N. official.

The case has also become entangled in presidential politics ahead of an election due in September. Otto Perez Molina, a candidate who served as a general during a devastating civil war, filed a complaint against Vielmann for allegedly allowing two officially sanctioned death squads to operate within the nation's security forces.

"He knew what was happening and he did nothing," Perez Molina said in an interview.

Perez Molina -- who Vielmann says is "playing politics" -- accuses the elite Criminal Investigation Division of operating as a death squad in a campaign of "social cleansing," killing small-time drug dealers to eliminate competition for major drug traffickers. Guatemala's independent human rights attorney general, the Catholic Church and the University of San Carlos of Guatemala this month demanded that the division be disbanded.

Sperisen, a 6-foot-2-inch, 280-pound former Guatemala City official with a shock of bright orange hair, does not deny that there is corruption in his forces. He estimated that he could easily fire 10 percent of his 19,500 officers if Guatemalan law did not require a lengthy appeals process. Vielmann estimated that 40 percent of the police should be fired. As calls grow for both men to resign, they are portraying themselves as reformers.

Vielmann, who acknowledges police have been hired for mafia-style hits, talked of "a titanic battle" against corruption. More than 1,000 police officers have been fired in the past 2 1/2 years, he said, and 250 are in jail. Still, Sperisen said, "it's almost impossible to clean up the force."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Guatemalan policeman described a highly structured shakedown and payoff system. Police officers bully business owners into paying bribes, he said, and the bribes are split with supervisors, who withhold promotions if rank-and-file officers don't deliver.

Narco-traffickers sometimes pay $4,000 to $5,000 or more each month to ensure their shipments get through, the officer said.

"They break people," he added. "There are officers who are 10 percent corrupt who become 100 percent corrupt."

Helen Mack, a Salvadoran rights activist, said there is "total impunity" in Guatemala.

Mack's sister, an anthropologist, was murdered on Sept. 11, 1990, shortly after publishing a study accusing government forces of massacring Mayan Indians during the civil war. A member of Guatemala's presidential guard was convicted of stabbing Myrna Mack 27 times outside her office in the middle of the day.

It took more than 13 years for Helen Mack to persuade Guatemala's supreme court to convict Army Col. Juan Valencia Osorio of ordering the killing. But in January 2004, days after his 30-year sentence was reinstated, Valencia fled. Mack says he was aided by a special military unit. He remains a fugitive.

Still, she said, the truth came out, and in Guatemala that means something.

Vasquez, the attorney, is not expecting answers about the killings of the Salvadoran politicians and the Guatemalan policemen, the case now roiling his country, any faster than Mack got hers.

"We might know the truth," Vasquez said, "in 20 years."

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The Popul Vuh - Part 1, Chapter 2

Then they made the small wild animals, the guardians of the woods, the spirits of the mountains, the deer, the birds, pumas, jaguars, serpents, snakes, vipers, guardians of the thickets.

And the Forefathers asked: "Shall there be only silence and calm under the trees, under the vines? It is well that hereafter there be someone to guard them."

So they said when they meditated and talked. Promptly the deer and the birds were created. Immediately they gave homes to the deer and the birds. "You, deer, shall sleep in the fields by the river bank and in the ravines. Here you shall be amongst the thicket, amongst the pasture; in the woods you shall multiply, you shall walk on four feet and they will support you. Thus be it done!" So it was they spoke.

Xpiyacoc and Xmucané

Then they also assigned homes to the birds big and small. "You shall live in the trees and in the vines. There you shall make your nests; there you shall multiply; there you shall increase in the branches of the trees and in the vines." Thus the deer and the birds were told; they did their duty at once, and all sought their homes and their nests.

And the creation of all the four-footed animals and the birds being finished, they were told by the Creator and the Maker and the Forefathers: "Speak, cry, warble, call, speak each one according to your variety, each, according to your kind." So was it said to the deer, the birds, pumas, jaguars, and serpents.

"Speak, then, our names, praise us, your mother, your father. Invoke then, Huracán, Chipi-Caculhá, Raxa-Caculhá, the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of Earth, the Creator, the Maker, the Forefathers; speak, invoke us, adore us," they were told.

But they could not make them speak like men; they only hissed and screamed and cackled; they were unable to make words, and each screamed in a different way.

When the Creator and the Maker saw that it was impossible for them to talk to each other, they said: "It is impossible for them to say our names, the names of us, their Creators and Makers. This is not well," said the Forefathers to each other.

Then they said to them: "Because it has not been possible for you to talk, you shall be changed. We have changed our minds: Your food, your pasture, your homes, and your nests you shall have; they shall be the ravines and the woods, because it has not been possible for you to adore us or invoke us. There shall be those who adore us, we shall make other [beings] who shall be obedient. Accept your destiny: your flesh shall be torn to pieces. So shall it be. This shall be your lot." So they said, when they made known their will to the large and small animals which are on the face of the earth.

They wished to give them another trial; they wished to make another attempt; they wished to make [all living things] adore them.

But they could not understand each other's speech; they could succeed in nothing, and could do nothing. For this reason they were sacrificed, and the animals which were on earth were condemned to be killed and eaten.

For this reason another attempt had to be made to create and make men by the Creator, the Maker, and the Forefathers.

"Let us try again! Already dawn draws near: Let us make him who shall nourish and sustain us! What shall we do to be invoked, in order to be remembered on earth? We have already tried with our first creations, our first creatures; but we could not make them praise and venerate us. So, then, let us try to make obedient, respectful beings who will nourish and sustain us." Thus they spoke.

Then was the creation and the formation. Of earth, of mud, they made [man's] flesh. But they saw that it was not good. It melted away, it was soft, did not move, had no strength, it fell down, it was limp, it could not move its head, its face fell to one side, its sight was blurred, it could not look behind. At first it spoke, but had no mind. Quickly it soaked in the water and could not stand.

And the Creator and the Maker said: "Let us try again because our creatures will not be able to walk nor multiply. Let us consider this," they said.

Then they broke up and destroyed their work and their creation. And they said: "What shall we do to perfect it, in order that our worshipers, our invokers, will be successful?"

Thus they spoke when they conferred again: "Let us say again to Xpiyacoc, Xmucané, Hunahpú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiú: 'Cast your lot again. Try to create again.' " In this manner the Creator and the Maker spoke to Xpiyacoc and Xmucané.

Then they spoke to those soothsayers, the Grandmother of the day, the Grandmother of the Dawn, as they were called by the Creator and the Maker, and whose names were Xpiyacoc and Xmucané.

And said Huracán, Tepeu, and Gucumatz when they spoke to the soothsayer, to the Maker, who are the diviners: "You must work together and find the means so that man, whom we shall make, man, whom we are going to make, will nourish and sustain us, invoke and remember us."

"Enter, then, into council, grandmother, grandfather, our grandmother, our grandfather, Xpiyacoc, Xmucané, make light, make dawn, have us invoked, have us adored, have us remembered by created man, by made man, by mortal man. Thus be it done.

"Let your nature be known, Hunahpú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiú, twice mother, twice father, Nim-Ac, Nima-Tziís, the master of emeralds, the worker in jewels, the sculptor, the carver, the maker of beautiful plates, the maker of green gourds, the master of resin, the master Toltecat,* grandmother of the sun, grandmother of dawn, as you will be called by our works and our creatures.

"Cast the lot with your grains of corn and the tzité.** Do it thus, and we shall know if we are to make, or carve his mouth and eyes out of wood." Thus the diviners were told.

They went down at once to make their divination, and cast their lots with the corn and the tzité. "Fate! Creature!'' said an old woman and an old man. And this old man was the one who cast the lots with Tzité, the one called Xpiyacoc. And the old woman was the diviner, the maker, called Chiracán Xmucané.

Beginning the divination, they said: "Get together, grasp each other! Speak, that we may hear." They said, "Say if it is well that the wood be got together and that it be carved by the Creator and the Maker, and if this [man of wood] is he who must nourish and sustain us when there is light when it is day!

"Thou, corn; thou, tzité; thou, fate; thou, creature; get together, take each other," they said to the corn, to the tzité, to fate, to the creature. "Come to sacrifice here, Heart of Heaven; do not punish Tepeu and Gucumatz!''

Then they talked and spoke the truth: "Your figures of wood shall come out well; they shall speak and talk on earth."

"So may it be," they answered when they spoke.

And instantly the figures were made of wood. They looked like men, talked like men, and populated the surface of the earth.

They existed and multiplied; they had daughters, they had sons, these wooden figures; but they did not have souls, nor minds, they did not remember their Creator, their Maker; they walked on all fours, aimlessly.

They no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven and therefore they fell out of favor. It was merely a trial, an attempt at man. At first they spoke, but their face was without expression; their feet and hands had no strength; they had no blood, nor substance, nor moisture, nor flesh; their cheeks were dry, their feet and hands were dry, and their flesh was yellow.

Therefore, they no longer thought of their Creator nor their Maker, nor of those who made them and cared for them.

These were the first men who existed in great numbers on the face of the earth.

NOTES:
*Here the text seems to enumerate the usual occupations of the men of that time. The author calls upon ahqual, who is evidently the one who carves emeralds or green stones; ahyamanic, the jeweler or silversmith; ahchut, engraver or sculptor; ahtzalam, carver or cabinetmaker; ahraxalac, he who fashions green or beautiful plates; ahraxazel, he who makes the beautiful green vases or gourds (called Xicalli in Náhuatl,)--the word raxá has both meanings; ahgol, he who makes the resin or copal; and, finally, ahtoltecat, he who, without doubt, was the silversmith. The Tolteca were in fact, skilled silversmiths who, according to the legend, were taught the art by Quetzalcoatl himself.

**Erythrina corallodendron. Tzité, arbol de pito in Guatemala; Tzompanquahuitl in the Mexican language. It is used in both countries to make fences. Its fruit is a pod which contains red grains resembling a bean which the Indians used, as they still do, together with grains of corn, in their fortunetelling and witchcraft. In his Informe contra Idolorum Cultores, Sánchez de Aguilar says that the Maya Indians "cast lots with a large handful of corn." As is seen, the practice which is still observed by the Maya-Quiché is of respectable antiquity.

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Don Lopez

He sits at the intersection every afternoon, and does what old men worldwide do: He watches.

The kids, in particular, are interesting. They’re almost always carrying something. The girls usually have a young sibling tied tight to their backs in slings of bright, woven fabric. Sometimes they have a basket of food or laundry balanced on their heads. The boys bend low under bundles of firewood or burlap sacks filled with grain.

He sits on his rock every afternoon, near the little waterfall that spills into the gutter, and watches the parade of ant-children as they carry their loads. From his rock he can
feel the pulse of the community. The ebb and surge of traffic on these streets indicates the approach and passing of mealtimes, the beginning and end of the workday, and the arrival and departure of students at the language school.

He sits in silence in the warm sun on the rock by the gutter, looking uphill to where the street meets the highway. That’s where the women and children appear when they descend from the forests with their bundles of firewood, and where the trucks drop off anyone coming back from the market in the city.

When he sits on his rock, everything about him is steady accept his shuddering hand that is perched on the tip of his cane. It causes the cane to wobble like a metronome.

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Around the bend appears a group of machete-toting teenage boys. They strut down the street toward Don Lopez, laughing and jostling one another. Don Lopez waits until they draw near, then rises. He shuffles toward them, smiling, leaning lightly on his cane. They stop shoving each other as he nears them.

They chat for a moment. Then he makes a joke, and smiles as they break into laughter. But the boys' laughter twists subtly as it leaves their mouths. It develops a fine, sharp edge of pity and ridicule.

If Don Lopez is bothered by the boys’ reaction, he doesn’t give it away. He smiles cheerfully as he wishes the boys a good evening. He is smiling still as he shuffles back to his rock, where he waits for more passersby.

The boys swagger down the hill towards town, still laughing, and looking back occasionally.

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Like most of the other villagers, they boys have abandoned their traditional clothes in favor of cheap blue jeans and t-shirts made in sweat shops. Don Lopez has also given up on the traditional woven fabric, but not – it would seem – on the idea of dressing like a gentleman. He’s wearing dark green trousers, and a rich brown sweater over a white, collared shirt. His clothes accent his caramel skin, white goatee, and broken, hawkish nose.

Only two pieces of clothing interrupt his elegance: the green woolen hat that he has tied snugly with a shoelace, and his Sun Surfer sandals which reveal his weathered feet - the nails of which are blackened and fibrous, like banana peels left to rot in the sun.

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Sweet San Fran

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Bush Visits Latin America

Bush is touring in Latin America, attempting to make friends, but the locals aren't throwing rose petals at his feet.

Bush seems to be claiming that his administration has doubled the aid that was given to Latin America during the Clinton presidency. But when it comes to the numbers, this article in the Washington Post has one eyebrow sharply raised..

Analysts note that Bush is using a misleading base line, comparing this year's figure with 2001, a year when Latin American aid was essentially cut in half temporarily to make up for a large military aid package for Colombia and five neighbors. Moreover, Bush never mentions in his comments that he just proposed cutting the figure he cites in next year's budget.

'The total aid for 2000 was actually higher than the 2008 budget request because of the Plan Colombia supplemental, and in 2002 the amount of aid was about the same as it is now," said Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy in Washington. "So unfortunately, this change in rhetoric isn't reflected in the budget."

Click the "Read More" link for a New York Times article about his visit to Brazil. Their original post is here. I'll also try to get some personal reactions from folks down in Guatemala regarding why Bush is not well loved in that country. (I mean, besides the whole CIA coup, civil-war, war crimes, genocide thing...)

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The New York Times
Article by JIM RUTENBERG and LARRY ROHTER
Published: March 9, 2007SÃO PAULO, Brazil

President Bush has portrayed his trip to Latin America this week as a “We Care” tour aimed at dispelling perceptions that he has neglected his southern neighbors.

But fresh graffiti on streets here in São Paulo, where he landed Thursday night for his first stop, calls him a murderer. The smattering of protests and the placement of military vehicles around the city, South America’s largest, also present an alternate interpretation of his visit: as a clash between the open capitalism that Mr. Bush espouses and the socialist approach pushed by leftist leaders who have grown in power and popularity.

And as the administration prepares to use the president’s five-nation tour to highlight a new ethanol development deal with Brazil, the most efficient producer of the fuel, and American health care and education programs elsewhere, much of the tour attention is focusing on what may best be called “the Rumble on the River.”

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Mr. Bush’s chief nemesis in the region, will be leading a protest against him in Buenos Aires, as Mr. Bush arrives Friday in Montevideo, Uruguay, across Rio de la Plata from Argentina. “Our planes will almost cross paths,” Mr. Chávez said this week, though he denied any intention to sabotage Mr. Bush’s visit.

In interviews with Latin American reporters this week, Mr. Bush played down Mr. Chávez’s planned rally, telling one group on Tuesday: “I go a lot of places and there are street rallies. And my attitude is, I love freedom and the right for people to express themselves.”

Whether inadvertently or not, though, Mr. Bush irritated Mr. Chávez with a speech on Monday in Washington, in which he said Simón Bolivar, the hero of South America’s independence struggle and Mr. Chávez’s idol, “belongs to all of us who love liberty.” This brought a sharp and sarcastic rejoinder from Mr. Chávez the next day.

But in spite of administration attempts to minimize the shadow cast on the visit by Mr. Chávez — who has pushed an aggressively anti-American agenda throughout the region — the tour itself seems at least in part geared to counter his influence. Mr. Chávez has built that influence in part by showering poor communities with money for housing and health care and by freely dispensing oil at cut-rate prices.

Mr. Bush’s new agreement with Brazil to increase ethanol production in the region represents a way to cut back on the influence that Mr. Chávez’s oil supply gives him, while encouraging employment and economic development. And before arriving here, Mr. Bush announced a number of programs to help the poor in the region, whom he referred to, in Spanish, as “workers and peasants.”

He promised hundreds of millions of dollars to help families buy homes and said he would dispatch a Navy hospital ship to the region to provide free health services.

In his interviews this week, Mr. Bush has repeated that the United States’ aid to the region has doubled during his tenure, to about $1.6 billion annually. “When you total all up the money that is spent, because of the generosity of our taxpayers, that’s $8.5 billion to programs that promote social justice,” including education and health, he told reporters on Tuesday.

But the view from here could scarcely be more different.

In an editorial headlined “Uncle Scrooge’s Paltry Package,” the conservative daily newspaper O Estado de São Paulo noted Wednesday that Mr. Bush’s offering amounted to “the equivalent of five days’ cost of the war in Iraq, and a drop of water compared with the ocean of petrodollars in which Chávezism is navigating at full speed, from Argentina to Nicaragua.”

Some of Mr. Bush’s aides said they were worried that perceptions that the United States had neglected its southern neighbors, and frustration in lower classes that had not reaped the benefits of free trade, were helping to fuel leftist movements.

Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, said, “Something we have not done well enough is getting out the full scope of the president’s message.”

Mr. Bush told reporters that he hoped to counter Mr. Chávez’s message by espousing the benefits of free trade.

Asked by a reporter about Mr. Chávez’s “so-called alternative development model” calling for nationalization of industry, Mr. Bush said: “I strongly believe that government-run industry is inefficient and will lead to more poverty. I believe if the state tries to run the economy, it will enhance poverty and reduce opportunity.”

He added, “So the United States brings a message of open markets and open government to the region.”

But even Mr. Bush’s Brazilian hosts seemed divided in their reaction to that message. Although President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be meeting with Mr. Bush on Friday to sign the ethanol accord and is scheduled to visit him at Camp David on March 31, the leftist Workers’ Party he leads has chosen to support and take part in the anti-Bush demonstrations.

The party warned on its Web site that Mr. Bush “shouldn’t count on Brazil for imperialist actions in the region.” One essay called him “the big boss of international terrorism,” while another declared that Mr. Bush was “persona non grata” in Brazil.

“The United States in general and the Bush government in particular are brutally violent,” wrote Valter Pomar, the party’s secretary for international relations. “We will only be free of this threat when the North American people constitute a government on the left.”

At an evening rush-hour protest in the central business district here, several thousand activists wore stickers showing Mr. Bush with a Hitler-style mustache and a swastika next to his head and the words “Fora Bush,” or “Bush Out.”

With the police standing by in riot gear, antiwar protesters mixed with unionists and environmentalists, who are concerned that harvesting ethanol from sugar could hurt the Amazon. A sea of signs read “Adolf Bush” or “Quit Playing With the Environment.”

Later, the Brazilian news media reported that police officers used tear gas and batons on protesters who were throwing rocks and struggling with the officers, sending hundreds of demonstrators running through the streets of São Paulo. There were no major injuries reported.

Jim Rutenberg reported from São Paulo, and Larry Rohter from Buenos Aires.

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The Comadrona

While I was studying at the Mountain School, the local midwife (comadrona) came to speak to the students. I frantically scribbled notes while she spoke. As best as I can tell, this is what she told us...

“The first time it was because the real midwife was away. The man came running to my house and pounded on my door, begging for help. So I ran to his house and saw that his wife was in very bad shape. She was begging me to help and the husband was losing his mind. Of course the right answer was 'I can't, for heaven’s sake! I’ve never delivered a baby before!' But by that time the head of the baby was already coming and I couldn’t refuse to help.

“So, I just tried not to be afraid and did my best and then when the boy was out, I cut the cord with a knife.

“I suppose I’ve been a midwife now for almost 20 years. How many babies during that time? Oh, I would say between three and four hundred. I’ve lost count, honestly.

“Sometime I receive money for my work, and sometimes I don’t. Technically, I charge 150 quetzales [~ $18] for the whole process, including all the vitamins and nutrition and vaccine help I give and all the visits I make during the pregnancy. But a lot of times the family doesn’t have that kind of money so they don’t pay the full amount, if they pay at all.

“It drives me crazy when other family members are in the room during the birth. Especially the husbands who keep yelling at their wives to push every second. They always want to hurry the process. They can never figure out that the time for pushing will come and you just have to have patience.

“In the hospitals I think that they use other medicines, but out here we use herbs to speed the birth and ease the pain.

“Most of the women prefer to have their babies at home because it is more private, but when the birth is going to be very hard I make their husbands find a pickup to carry them to the hospital.

“Of course, sometimes you don’t know it’s going to be an emergency until it’s too late. One time I was helping a woman and the cord came out before the baby and I just knew it was wrapped around the baby's neck. So I held the cord in one hand with a towel soaked in warm water, while I reached inside with my other hand and finally moved the cord free. The boy was almost dead when he was born, but I massaged and exercised him for almost two hours until I knew he would survive.

“I knew some of those tricks just from experience and some were taught to me by medical officials. I have received a little bit of training from them, but not much because it costs too much for me to travel to the city for classes. And once they gave me some equipment, but that was nine years ago. Now I still have their scissors and forceps, but I have to buy the towels and gloves and sheets on my own.

“Other medical services? For this area, with about 20,000 people, we have 2 doctors (one is part time) and about 6 nurses.

“Before I was a midwife, I was often sick and in pain, but not anymore. We believe that when we are born, each person has a specific role to play. So my role is as a midwife and now that I’m doing that I feel very satisfied.

“My Grandma was the midwife at my birth and she always told me that I would be a midwife too, because I was born with tied hands - hands that were folded in front of my chest.

“And now I’m trying to find a girl to be my apprentice, but none of the girls want to do it. I think it’s because they’re afraid of the responsibility.”

[+/-]

The Popol Vuh - Part 1, Chapter 1

This is the account of how all was in suspense, all calm, in silence; all motionless, still, and the expanse of the sky was empty.

This is the first account, the first narrative. There was neither man, nor animal, birds, fishes, crabs, trees, stones, caves, ravines, grasses, nor forests; there was only the sky.

The surface of the earth had not appeared. There was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.

There was nothing brought together, nothing which could make a noise, nor anything which might move, or tremble, or could make noise in the sky.

There was nothing standing; only the calm water, the placid sea, alone and tranquil. Nothing existed.

There was only immobility and silence in the darkness, in the night. Only the Creator, the Maker, Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Forefathers,* were in the water surrounded with light.** They were hidden under green and blue feathers, and were therefore called Gucumatz. By nature they were great sages and great thinkers. In this manner the sky existed and also the heart of

Heaven, which is the name of God and thus He is called.

Then came the word. Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness, in the night, and Tepeu and Gucumatz talked together. They talked then, discussing and deliberating; they agreed, they united their words and their thoughts.

Then while they meditated, it became clear to them that when dawn would break, man must appear. Then they planned the creation, and the growth of the trees and the thickets and the birth of life and the creation of man. Thus it was arranged in the darkness and in the night by the Heart of Heaven who is called Huracán.

The first is called Caculhá Huracán. The second is ChipiCaculhá. The third is Raxa-Caculhá. And these three are the Heart of Heaven.

Then Tepeu and Gucumatz came together; then they conferred about life and light, what they would do so that there would be light and dawn, who it would be who would provide food and sustenance.

“Thus let it be done! Let the emptiness be filled! Let the water recede and make a void, let the earth appear and become solid; let it be done.” Thus they spoke. “Let there be light, let there be dawn in the sky and on the earth! There shall be neither glory nor grandeur in our creation and formation until the human being is made, man is formed.” So they spoke.

Then the earth was created by them. So it was, in truth, that they created the earth. “Earth!” they said, and instantly it was made.

Like the mist, like a cloud, and like a cloud of dust was the creation, when the mountains appeared from the water; and instantly the mountains grew.

Only by a miracle, only by magic art were the mountains and valleys formed; and instantly the groves of cypresses and pines put forth shoots together on the surface of the earth.

And thus Gucumatz was filled with joy, and exclaimed: "Your coming has been fruitful, Heart of Heaven; and you, Huracán, and you, Chipi-Caculhá, Raxa-Caculhá!"

"Our work, our creation shall be finished," they answered.

First the earth was formed, the mountains and the valleys; the currents of water were divided, the rivulets were running freely between the hills, and the water was separated when the high mountains appeared.

Thus was the earth created, when it was formed by the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of Earth, as they are called who first made it fruitful, when the sky was in suspense, and the earth was submerged in the water.

So it was that they made perfect the work, when they did it after thinking and meditating upon it.

Notes:

*E Alom, literally, those who conceive and give birth, e Qaholom, those who beget the children. In order to follow the conciseness of the text here the two terms are translated as the "Forefathers."

**They were in the water because the Quiché associated the name Gucumatz with the liquid element. Bishop Núñiez de la Vega says that Gucumatz is a serpent with feathers, which moves in the water. The Cakchiquel Manuscript says that one of the primitive peoples which migrated to Guatemala was called Gucumatz because their salvation was in the water.

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The Popol Vuh - An Introduction

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be posting text from the Popol Vuh, which is, roughly speaking, the Mayan Bible. Or, at least, it's the Quiche version of the Mayan Bible. It contains several Mayan myths, including the granddaddy of them all: from whence we came.

Wikipedia offers this concise history of the text:

After the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, the usage of Maya script was forbidden and Latin alphabet was taught instead. However, some Maya priests and clerks clandestinely made copies of older hieroglyphic books, but using Latin letters, painting them on deerskin or fig bark and hiding them in the mountains. One of these was discovered about 1702 by a priest named Francisco Ximénez in the Guatemalan town of Chichicastenango, and rather than burning it Father Ximénez made a copy of it, and added a translation into Spanish. This copy found its way into a neglected corner of the Universidad de San Carlos library in Guatemala City, where it was discovered by Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg and Carl Scherzer in 1854. They published French and Spanish translations a few years later, the first of many translations that have kept the Popul Vuh in print ever since.

While there are lots of translations online, the one I'll be using comes courtesy of www.meta-religion.com. The site is thoroughly overwhelming, and a great find for anyone searching for a copy of, oh, say, the great Abenaki myth of Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle or perhaps the legend of How the Kangaroo Got a Long Tail, and the Wombat a Flat Forehead. And let's face it: we were all wondering how that came about.

The site also offers this summary of the Popol Vuh:

The Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh are Hunahpu and Xpalanque, the sons and nephew of two other ill-fated twins.

The story begins long before their illustrious appearance. It tells of the three other creations before this one. Each previous world was destroyed because of grave faults in their characters. The older twins, Hun-Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu, were ballplayers called down to Xibalba by the Lords of Death because they were making too much noise with their ball playing. The lords challenge the twins to a game which they have no intention of losing. They defeat the twins by cheating and then sacrifice them. One head was buried under the ball court and the other was hung from the calabash tree as a warning not to offend the Lords of Xibalba. The daughter of one of the lords is fascinated by this head on the tree and goes for a closer look. The head tells her to stretch out her hand and he spits into her palm, magically impregnating her. Learning of her condition, the lords order her sacrifice but she convinces the executioner to release her and she escapes to the Middle world where she seeks out her mother-in-law. After initial skepticism, the mother-in-law takes her in and she gives birth to the Hero Twins.

The twins do not know of their identity; instead they believe that they are farmers and after many adventures, they find out that they are ballplayers. They retrieve their father's gear which the grandmother had hidden and take up ball playing. Surely enough, they disturb the lords and are called to answer for their indiscretion, but unlike their ancestors, they outwit the lords. The first trial was to keep a torch and two cigars lit all night in the Dark House. They trick the lords by putting fire flies on the tips of the cigars and passing off a macaw tail as the flame of the torch. The following day the twins play ball against the lords and allow themselves to lose. That night, they have a second challenge and the following days and nights proceed similarly. Each task placed by the lords is won by trickery.

The final night, they are placed in the Bat House, filled with shrieking bats. They crawl into their blowguns to escape them and as morning comes, the bats quiet down. As Hunahpu peeks out the muzzle of his blowgun, a bat swoops down and beheads him. His head is the ball in the next ball game. Xpalanque recovers his brother's head by switching a squash carved to look like a head when it rolls into high grass. When the squash smashes on the ball court the Lords of Death are enraged to find out that they have been fooled once again. The lords decide to burn the Twins to death this time. Learning of this plan, the twins instruct two wise men to advise the lord on how to dispose their remains. The lords lure them to the stone pit and the twins are challenged to jump over the pit. Instead, the twins willingly jump in. The lords follow the seers' advice and grind the twins' bones and throw the powder into the river. After five days, they are resurrect with faces of catfish. On the sixth day, they take on their human head and begin to travel Xibalba as magical performers. The Lords of Death learn of their amazing skills and order a performance in their court.

The twins comply and enthrall the lords with decapitations and dismemberments of animals and themselves from which they recover whole. The anxious lords insist on becoming a part of the act and the twins willingly sacrifice them but do not bring them back to life. In this way the lords are defeated and hope is given to humankind. Any soul which is called to Xibalba has the hope of defeating death and becoming an ancestor.