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Encounter with a Kindred Spirit,

Antigua, Guatemala, December 28, 1975

                 by GEORGE BRADFORD PATTERSON II

http://www.bilingualmca.bravehost.com/patterson.html

George Patterson borgeslover@hotmail.com

As I was taking the colectivo, the mini-bus, back from the Mayan weaving village, San Antonio Aguas Calientes, to Antigua City, I noticed a young very attractive Caucasian woman who must have been in her late twenties, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old.  She was an elegant, contemplative statuesque brunette of medium build and height, about two three inches shorter than me, with hair streaming down her shoulders on her multi-colored poncho.  Besides being very well-proportioned with protruding papaya-shaped breasts, there was an unmistakable, soulful serene aura about her countenance, so brilliantly beautiful in its simplicity, that reminded me of the Mayan women.  She was unusually quiet, but I just could not resist the tremendous temptation to talk to her to determine her nationality and know more about her, particularly as the highlands’ breeze swept her flowing hair, glowing mystically like Lake Atitlan, over her radiant golden brown tan face.  She obviously had been treking a lot around Antigua Province and probably elsewhere not only because of her tan but because of her excellent physical shape and the way that she blended with this milieu with her quietude that was so typically Mayan.  I felt that she was finally the kindred spirit that I had been searching for.  She was that person, like a green lagoon, whom I had been yearning to be in communion with during my sojourn in this ancient land of volcanoes, highlands, and jungles.
    I finally mustered the courage to ask her what her nationality was,  “Please excuse me.  May I ask you what country do you come from?”  She turned her head slowly towards me very peacefully with quiet dignity and replied calmly to my question like the rustling pine trees of the Guatemalan highlands,  “I am American and I have been living here for more than six months.”
  “Really!  Is that so?  I’m also from the States!  I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” I said enthusiastically, fascinated by her overwhelming beauty and sensuality, reminding me of a quetzal bird and even a crimson rose.
  “It’s obvious that you are from the States by your accent,” she replied with aplomb.  She had so much poise and dignity like a Mayan princess.  Somehow she had imbibed the Mayan spirit.
“What are you doing in this part of the world?” I asked her with uncontrollable child-like curiosity.
    “Besides touring this divinely exquisite country, my main purpose is to learn the indigenous art of weaving.  So I have been living with a Mayan family outside of Antigua City just off the road on the way from San Antonio Aguas Calientes, the very famous Mayan village of Mayan women weavers.”
  “Really, I just came from there, taking this colectivo.”
      “I pay the mother of this Mayan family two hundred dollars a month for room and board and another hundred dollars for weaving lessons from the mother who is an excellent teacher and a very excellent weaver.  Besides, she’s very patient and kind to me.”
  “Where are your living quarters?”
       “I share a room with her two teenage daughters.  They treat me as if I am a member of their own family.”
     “That’s wonderful!”  I said, smiling enthusiastically.
       “Are you learning a lot from the weaving lessons?”  I asked becoming much more curious about the life and experiences of this exceptional attractive North American woman,
so broad-minded in her cross-cultural perspective.
  “Yes, quite a lot,” she said, smiling at me, with a soulful sweetness like the murmuring of a stream in the highlands.  She was obviously pleased that I had asked her that question.  She appeared to be so much at peace with herself and in communion with the Mayans and newly found milieu.
  “What’s your name?”
   “My name’s Janet,” she replied softly, smiling at me in a reserved manner as if she didn’t want me to know too much about her unique new way of life that had evidently become so important to her.  I could sense that she viewed her new experience and milieu as something very precious; a novel way of life that she was determined to keep private and protect its integrity at all cost.
   “Janet, I feel so indignant about the injustices that the Mayan people experience in this country from the Guatemalan civil and military oligarchy!  They really have a raw deal since their situation is much worse than the poor ladinos.  They face so much discrimination, exploitation, and segregation.”  She looked at me with surprise and replied defensively in an apolitical manner, “I don’t think it’s really that bad.  It’s fairly stable here.”
   “But please just look at the misery of the indigenous people in this country.  This land was stolen from them and plundered by the Spanish conquistadores, starting in the early sixteenth century when the Spanish conquistador, Pedro Alvarado, thundered into this ancient land from Mexico!”  I protested with a vehement passion, so typical of my lyrical romanticism that poured like a waterfall.  She looked at me briefly stunned, almost overwhelmed,  by the intensity of my logical argument with her eyes glistening sadness, even despair; but she replied empathetically to me,  ‘A lot of these people here are arrogant just like certain people in the States.  They are really no different from each other,” she said with a melancholy resignation, so bitter with a tinge of fatalism.
   ‘But you shouldn’t give up.  Things will change fundamentally some day,’ I replied reassuringly.
      ‘That’s a pipe dream.  I wouldn’t hold my breath.  How do you really change such a deeply
entrenched semi-feudal society like this one to a really more just and equitable society like the one in Costa Rica?  Be realistic!  Do you really expect them to change their society to a liberal
democratic society or even a social democratic one?  You are expecting just too much!  Look at the reality here, and it’s not getting any better.  It’s getting worse!  And it will continue to get worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.  Look!  I just want to learn how to weave and larn their language and culture.  You just have to understand that it’s a very difficult situation here.’
   ‘I do understand,’ nodding my head.  ‘I notice this especially when I observe these fierce arrogant Guatemalan soldiers, displaying their submachine guns so ostentatiously, as they guard the branch of the Bank of Guatemala here and even one in Guatemala City.’
  ‘You see what I mean,’ she said insistently, her sad blue eyes glistening with despair and anguish.  ‘Nothing ever really changes in this society.  It just goes on and one.  And do you really think those people up north care about these people?  They are too immersed in their culture of complacency, affluence, materialism, and consumerism.  As far as they are concerned, this is just another planet like Mars.  These people don’t count with them.  They are just a distant reality to them that they glance at now and then in tourist magazines or in TIME and NEWSWEEK.  She was on the verge of tears, sinking deeper and deeper into depression in this land of eternal tyranny.  I could not help but pity her.  Yet I admired her for what she was doing in Guatemala.  When we reached Antigua City, I shook her hands after we got off  the colectivo; and said goodbye to her, ‘Janet, I really enjoyed meeting you this afternoon on this colectivo.  I learned a lot from you.’
   ‘Just remember what I told you,’ gazing at me with intense forlornness.  She resonated an exquisite sweetness, so pristine, with her tender blue eyes like a blue lagoon.  Then we embraced each other, and I felt the tremendous warmth from her breasts, face, and hair like the warmth from a hot spring.  After we embraced, we said farewell to each other and walked away, waving to each other, going on our spiral path for truth and love wherever it might be.  Even to this day, twenty-six years later, I still wonder what happened to this very quiet, young idealistic North American woman.