Patzún

Patzún, March 2003

I am back in Patzún, Guatemala, a place that will soon become a part of my past. I’ve been coming here three or four times a year for the last decade. The Kaqchikel language project is winding down and before long will become the third whole Bible translation project that I began with and finished, the other two being Chuj de San Sebastian and Garífuna.

I will miss Patzún, and as I walked across the town late this afternoon for some exercise, I had to ask myself, why? A pretty town it is not. Narrow streets lined on both sides by bare adobe walls with a door here and there leading into an often windowless little smoke-filled house. A few of the streets are cobbled, and Third Street is actually paved. Most of the rest are just two-inch deep dust. Lying in front of nearly every doorway are a couple of dogs. They are just your basic dog, undefinable critters, not big, not small, and with a very clear set of ribs sticking through their short fur. They are not aggressive in the least. Most of them cower if you look at them. These are not the pampered purebreds of the North.

Like many other rural Guatemalan towns, Patzún is characterized by the acrid smell of smoke. At times, the entire valley lies under a canopy of smoke. It is a fairly good-sized town, about 15,000 souls, I would guess. There used to be a fair number of Ladinos here (Spanish-speaking Guatemalans), but they have virtually all gone. The Indians decided to reclaim their town for themselves. There wasn’t much fuss. Every week or so, another Ladino would appear floating face down in the town laundry tanks where the women gather to wash in the morning. They got the message. Now when I walk around, I see only Indian faces and hear virtually no Spanish.

There is a very high percentage of young people here. That is probably because many families are rather large and people don’t tend to live long lives. The monotonous diet, the prevalence of palm oil for cooking, the hard work, the lack of hygiene, and the smoke all take their toll. There are no HMOs around here. What’s cholesterol? No doctors to remind you to come in for your annual physical. I saw an old man standing in the middle of a dusty street with his zipper down trying in vain to urinate. He probably hadn’t a clue as to why he couldn't. When I come here I feel obscenely well off. I can stroll in here for a couple of weeks and then fly back to Costa Rica, to my creature comforts, my medical insurance, my air conditioned car, clean water, super markets and forget about this. But I don’t forget. Maybe that is what I appreciate about Patzún. It reminds me. Even as it makes me feel guilty, it reminds me that I have much more than I need, more than what 98% of the world’s population could dream of and that it behooves me to be grateful for it.

Last week I spoke to a group of prosperous North American students taking part in an semester abroad program in Costa Rica sponsored by the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities. The topic was "globalization". What do I know about globalization? The young man who invited me to speak told me that they had already read dozens of articles about the economic aspects of globalization, how companies that used to be national become transnational with branches anywhere and everywhere and how US fast food chains have altered --for the worse-- the nutritional habits of millions around the world. The miracle of telecommunications and information technology, the Internet and access to limitless knowledge. He asked me to put a human face on globalization as I saw it –-or didn’t-- in the places where I go.

I told them, among other things, that where I went and worked, globalization didn’t seem all that "global". The infamous "information gap" is far wider there than ever before simply because the difference between very limited information and virtually limitless information is incommensurable. The people in Patzún don’t have computers or any likelihood of acquiring one any time soon. Very few of them even have phones. (Guatemala is a country of 12 million people, but it has just one --not particularly thick-- phone book that includes both white and yellow pages.) The Internet will never publish news from CNN in Kaqchikel. So, globalization is great if you can afford it, if you have dependable electricity, if you have a phone, if you have a computer, if you speak one the right languages, if . . . if . . . if . . .

I guess what I really owe to Patzún is the invaluable gift of perspective. Thank you, Patzún.