Jutiapa 1973-1974 — The 1970s was an era of film cameras and precious rolls of slide film that I mostly sent back to the U.S. for my mother to have developed. At this point I still have boxes of slides but few digitized images from that important point in my life.
In Jutiapa I worked with 4-S clubs, which were like 4-H clubs (with Saber, Sentir, Servir, y Salud instead of Head, Heart, Hands, & Health). My Guatemalan counterpart and I worked with girls and young women, our goal being to teach nutrition and recipes that featured protein complementation. This latter idea was popular in the U.S. at that time, inspired in part by the popularity of the book "Diet for a Small Planet." However, several things didn't work out: some of the projects were too costly for the participants, the club members wanted me to show them how to make "American food" (try baking an apple pie in an adobe oven), and the emphasis dictated by the government changed when the politics changed.
While volunteering I lived with two different families. The first was a wealthy family in the center of town. I had been in the hospital with amebic dysentery and the doctor wanted me in a household with purified water. After three or so months there I happily moved to an aldea (satellite village) of Jutiapa where I lived in the compound of an extended family. There were three different households, lots of children, and a parrot who could imitate the voice of one of the mothers calling her children. I learned to make tortillas by hand, carry water in a jug over long distances when the water pump for the community blew out, and wash dishes, clothes, and myself in an outdoor sink.
Depository for plantains and bananas adjacent to Jutiapa market. — When I lived in Jutiapa, it was the major city in this region of southeast Guatemala. A commercial center in an agricultural area (corn, beans, beef), the municipality had a predominantly Ladino (non-Maya) population and was home to a large military base.
Drying chilies in a field in Jutiapa; fiber from maguey plants such as the one at the left were used to make rope, saddle girths, net baags, and very itchy hammocks.
Weavers in Comalapa with backstrap looms – I spent the vacation weeks from my volunteer job visiting Comalapa and weaving with this group of sisters. The experience was crucial in my decision to study anthropology in graduate school.
While women wove huipiles (Maya blouses) on backstrap looms, it was largely men who were the weavers of corte (Maya skirt) material on floor looms.
In Comalapa I stayed with a Peace Corps friend. As was true in Jutiapa, where I lived with a family in an aldea (rural village within the larger municipality), the water source was outside where we washed dishes and scrubbed clothes in a pila (cement sink).
Visiting the highlands allowed me to get to know a number of communities with majority Maya populations. This is a photo taken in Patzún a couple years before a major earthquake destroyed almost all of the town. Here women in the central market held in the plaza in front of the Catholic church buy produce. Most wear the red huipil (Maya blouse) that is the traditional in that town.
These last two photographs were taken in 1977 when I returned to Guatemala to look for a dissertation fieldsite. I visited Santa Cruz del Quiché because of the possibility of studying costumed dances. I knew that a family in town made and rented costumes for the Dance of the Conquest and other performances. The Santa Cruz town fair was in full swing during my stay and I came upon a dance/competition in the streets much different from what I was anticipating. Men were dressed in animal skins and capes of fur or hair of some sort. A few had stuffed squirrels with aluminum foil eyes tied to their wrists. The men challenged each other to some sort of jumping/pushing match, accompanied by marimba music.
Men in their "wild" costumes watching a competition (August 1977)