61 Steps

It’s not so much the steps that get you as the long inclines without steps. They can seem so exponentially steep. Sometimes it helps to alternate between accenting the use of your thighs and your calves, and if you’re carrying something heavy – like a book shelf or a hundred pound bag of cement – then the trick is to walk diagonally from side to side. Althea sings or counts incessantly to forget about her legs. That’s how we know there are 61 of those winding stone steps. And really, we have it pretty easy, since those 61 steps are only about one-third of the way for the rest of the people living in the barrio.

It’s been nearly a month since we decided to rent a house up in the oldest and largest neighborhood in San Marcos. Its official name is the unimaginative Barrio Uno (“Neighborhood 1”) a bureaucratic scheme probably influenced by the progeny of conquering Spaniards. The Mayan name for this predominantly Catholic barrio is Xenimab´aj, but very few people now know this. Across from Barrio Uno, on the western hill of San Marcos, lies Barrio Dos (“Neighborhood 2”), a smaller and largely Evangelical neighborhood. In the valley between is Barrio Tres (“Neighborhood 3”), where we have been living and where the school is located.

We decided to move out of the valley of Barrio Tres (or Pa Cheb´en) for a number of reasons, chief of which was the desire to separate our work and home lives. This is an important rule to live by, especially when your whole family is involved in the same work (in this case, starting a school), and even more so when that work happens to take place in and around the one-room stone-cottage-with-an-outdoor-kitchen you call home. Don’t get me wrong – I love our little cottage and outdoor kitchen. It was just a bit much with the work and the rain and the three of us (plus all the dogs and cats). [Schoolhouse construction at right.]

It was a step of both principle and faith to make the move. To be sure, the timing, the absence of furniture and a proper kitchen in the new house, and the uselessness of moving vans in this terrain have definitely posed their share of challenges, not to mention the additional expenses that come along (yes, we’re still eating on the floor). Nonetheless, it seems to have been the right decision. The distinction between work and home now allows us to effectively “turn off” when we come home. Courtney is particularly relieved. Our enchanted garden in Barrio Tres is now commonly understood to be the school, Escuela Caracol, which has gone a long way to establishing the school’s burgeoning identity within the community.

There are also some very bright perks about living up in the barrio. For one, we now have a lovely view of the lake and the valley, which previously was only to be had by climbing a jocote tree in the garden. Watching the rain roll across the lake while listening to the light din of town noises below has become a favorite pastime of ours. The social aspect has been refreshing as well. Barrio Tres is the municipal and commercial heart of San Marcos, but residentially speaking, it is more or less known as the “gringo” barrio (though the distinction is not without exception). Given our desire to bring together the children of both Maya and international families, we felt it important to live closer to indigenous families. Our new house is right on the path and also at a convenient resting point, so we get to “stoop-sit” and chat with passers-by a lot more than we did before. People in Barrio Uno are rather surprised by our desire to live up there, joking that now we’ll get our exercise on those 61 steps, but at the same time they have been remarkably welcoming to us.

We did have one startling night this past week, though. Sunday was an election day in Guatemala, and the mayoral race in our little village was hotly contested. At about 2:30 am on Monday morning, I was awakened by a rather frantic call from a friend, asking what all the racket was about. At that same moment, we became aware of the curious ruckus in the town below. It was then we realized that a portion of the noise was getting closer and closer, until the sound of a mob was right outside our door, banging on our roof and shaking our gate. Within a couple minutes, they were gone.

Over the next hour we learned that small-scale riots had broken out following the announcement that our mayor had been reelected for his third term of four years. A large group of people went and broke into the municipal building and burned all the ballots, and this group was returning when they passed our house. Perhaps there was some confusion with one of the mayor’s seven large houses that are above us, or perhaps some association with a former treasurer who owns the house we’re renting, but in any case they backed off shortly. We were fortunate not to be near the more serious chaos that surrounded the mayor’s actual residence, where a small squad of riot police were called in and broken glass still litters the streets. Quite a strange turn of events for our normally tranquil little pueblo. Now there will be a second election in November at the same time as the presidential run-off, so all the commotion of campaign songs, marches and bombas (bomb-like fireworks without the pleasure of light and color) will commence again until November.

But up in our little house on the hill in Barrio Uno, our family feels safe and secure from the threats posed in the valley by too much heat from elections, too much stress from work, and too much water from hurricanes. 61 steps seem to be just what we need.