Mi vida en Todos Santos

Hola, soy Mario de Noruega... Of course, one needs an artist's name when travelling, and Mario slid in there with ease, probably the second day here in Todos. Now, this entry has been somewhat delayed, as predicted when things (including myself) began settling down here in the New World. As to physical or psychological extremities to report, I guess not, but there are certainly a lot of interesting quirks around here, many of which I am yet to comprehend fully.

First, a word on my whereabouts; Todos Santos is a town of about 30,000 people, a figure which must be including the rural regions in the municipality. Situated at 2,500m above sea level in a valley in the Cuchúmatanes mountain range, this is the highlands and traditional home of the Maya. Even though the Maya were reduced between 70 and 90 percent by the Spanish colonial conquest, they make up about 70% of the Guatemalan population today, having been able to preserve a lot of their identity (robes, religion, etc.) even through centuries of war and oppression. That being said, they haven't been able to unite themselves politically and seize power, perhaps due to ignorance as well as the diversity (in pre-colonial times, animosity) between them; they speak 23 non-overlapping languages, it seems. Rigoberta Menchú will be running for office this fall, but according to locals she doesn´t stand much of a chance. In Todos Santos, 95% of the population are indigenous, not all of them pure-blood, there's been a lot of watering down through the years. They speak Mam, which sounds sort of clicky, as well as half-decent Spanish; some of the more industrious types speak Spanish very well, including my teacher. I'll be swapping to the school's only (?) ladino teacher once I reach a level where I wanna get into higher-level shit.

About: shit going down around here, random selection: there is the recent road block on the main road out of here, which means people have to ride seven hrs in stead of two and a half to get to Huehuetenango, the regional capital. This road block started a few days ago when citizens of the municipality (or something similar) neighboring on Todos Santos were fed up with not getting the water they'd been promised, initiating the road block with clubs, machetes and god knows what more as a general protest towards the authorities' lack of ability to redeem the situation. Now, the reason why they don't have any water is interesting; some sort of water board, led by a former alcalde (mayor) of Todos, apparently control the distribution of water in part of the region. A few years back they sold off parts of the source to the neighboring municipality for a one-time fee of 700,000Q ($100,000); not accounted for officially, it seems. These times obviously being sort of dry, there is now not enough water for all and the home municipality seems to have priority. For the time being, the ex-mayor - wisely not wanting to face the angry mob - has fled, no doubt along with the money (of course they could be spent, this dodgy transaction apparently took place a few years back). The current mayor of Todos seems to be washing his hands, not knowing how to deal with the situation. Let's hope it doesn't turn violent.

As a footnote on corruption: corruption seems to be so widespread as to be near-accepted by the general population when it comes to most sorts of officials. This fine tradition stems from colonial times, where the crown's local representatives, either Spaniards or Quislings, would suck the marrow of the village dry the short period they were in office. It it still more or less accepted practice; an alcalde never gets re-elected after his four years, "it's just how it is".

Now... this is just the beginning of this entry, but I'll have to stop here as I hate sitting to long in front of the screen; now it's lunch at home, then class from two to seven as usual. Get back to y'all soon.

By the way, an interesting piece of info I came across; according to one scientist, Latin America in 1490 made up 20% of the world's population, concentrated in Central America and the Andes. 1590, the figure was 3%.