In the summer of 1995, I was asked to travel to Guatemala on behalf of Pueblo Partisans to photo-document some of the work they were doing there with regard to on-the-ground facilitating with embroidery, tree-planting, and weaving initiatives. The road from Guate City to Xela (“Shay-la”) or Quetzaltenango is a modern, tarmac’d road taken in an aircon bus. However, the road from Xela up into the mountains of San Marcos in the north was gravel and mud, rutted and veined by runoff. This leg was taken by modified School Bus, and I seemed to always end up on the La Union line run by two brothers. I was comfortable with the rocky, tippy journey – having taken rural buses of various sizes many times in Central America. But the final approach into the small valley where Comitancillo is situated would take anyone’s breath away. Once, on that road out for example, I was passenger in a 4×4 and was clutching the outside of the door through the open window for purchase as the vehicle rocked and banged up the slope out of the valley. The vehicle lurched and my arm flew up and banged off the top of the open window, and I have still a clear memory of my watchband pinging off and sailed out through the air to be swallowed instantly by the tangle of brush down-slope. Of course, there was no option of stopping. Perhaps that watch is still there, now buried in 16 years’ worth of accumulated vegetation and topsoil.
While photographing in and around Comitancillo (tree planting in Taltemiche, schooling and weaving in Canoa de Sal, embroidery in Comitancillo), I was asked by a local pastor to photograph the foundation-laying for a new church being built in the town. While Pueblo Partisans had no connection to this church organization (based in Miami, as I recall), and no objection to loaning me out for a morning, I wandered around the construction site and photographed carefully the goings-on. Here are a few photos from that morning:
