Cross Country Journey Day 1

Nothing in Guatemala is ever really certain so if there´s something that absolutely must be done, such as catching your 4AM bus, you have to have several back up plans. After several failed plans and over an hour of work on Thursday night, Friday morning at 3:20 found Katie and me sitting in the front room praying that our taxi driver showed up as scheduled, as our only remaining options involved us walking by ourselves at night, which just isn´t a good idea in Guatemala. The bus station is only a 5 minute drive (or a 15 minute walk without luggage, which Katie has with her since she´s not returning to Xela) so it was rough paying 45Q or $7, but given the alternatives I would´ve paid more if I needed to. Our taxi driver actually showed up on time, and even waited with us until the bus showed up. It's just ironic to me that we paid 45Q to drive 5 minutes to the bus station, and then 45Q for the 5 hour bus drive from xela to guatemala city. We then walked a couple blocks to a different bus station, and got there just in time to catch the bus to Coban, another 5 hour drive. But I´m super excited to get away from Xela for awhile. We visited a coffee farm this afternoon which was pretty neat... This isn´t an exciting entry, but there´s just not much to say about spending 10 hours on a bus...

Screwed up government
So the other day there were hundreds of Mayan peasants lined up around the block of this bank. Guatemala´s been facing a banking crisis, and has had quite a few bankruptcies, but this seemed different so I started asking around about what was going on. I was told that it was the people who had helped out the corrupt government during the Civil War by killing their own people, mostly civilians, including women and children. Now the government is paying them for their service. This is one example of why many people here hate their government. The people I talked to were pretty disgusted about the whole situation, but I did hear one person stand up for them. He claimed that with the extent of the propaganda of the government, and the lack of education, many people (mostly peasants) still aren´t aware of the genocide that took place under Rios Montt, so they thought, and possibly still think, that they were fighting for a worthy cause (ie against Communism). It´s so sad to see that there are still people who naively support someone who was so evil, and that he´s still part of the political scene.