lucky you

today we continued our move of the community radio organization from la esperanza up to san matteo - just five minutes up the hill and around the bend from xela, a lovely spot up in the hills from which you look down and say "holy shit this is lovely" while smoke curls up from houses throughout the valley below. it`s a four or five-truckload job, transporting all the studio gear, computers, countless bunkbeds donated by the european union, dishes, chairs...but the reigning mentality is "despacio" - "slow," there is time. i got in a good amount of soccerball juggling during breaks. luis, a younger friend of the organization who was helping out, tried to talk pro soccer with me and was incredulous when i said i didn`t know any of the teams. but he found it funny as hell that my full name is the same as that of a famous american goalkeeper. he repeated my name so many times during the day that i started avoiding him, so as not to punch him.

kevin, a former compañero of tino from their time in "the mountain" - around 13 years - drove us in the fully-loaded pickup truck. walter standing on the outside, hanging on. as we pulled out, kevin rolled down his window and says, "walter, you need anything, just scream."

kevin`s wife, adela, is a small indigenous women who carries her baby boy on her back, wrapped in a brightly-colored traditional textile. she helped us move mattresses and furniture all day, hoisting it up on her head, her son leaning as far out of the way as possible, never complaining.

a week ago i headed to xela`s parque central, waiting for a friend to go watch the coen bros`"burn after reading." marching slowly down the main street was an army of catholics - priests and students priests in black and funny felt hats flanking an enormous float carried by younger boys in purple, putting one foot in front of the other as if heading to the electric chair. which, actually, is appropriate, since the float had an enormous jesus bearing a cross made of two full trees. a marching band followed, playing funereal songs that made up with creepiness what they lacked in beauty.

i`m going to go make guacamole and beans with tortillas. you can get four hand-made tortillas for a quetzal here and you`d be a fool not to. they`re sold from the homes with the sign on the door that says "tortillas sold at all three times." these three times are different for each tortilleria, which means you can set out looking for tortillas whenever you like and you`ll find them.