By LOUISE WISECHILD
For The Beachcomber

Eighty-five thousand years ago the spectacular twin Los Chocoyos volcanos in Guatemala erupted in a seismic event that spread ash as far south as Panama and formed the volcanic crater that today holds Lago Atitlán.

Known as one of the world’s most beautiful lakes, Lago Atitlán is 12 miles long and more than 1,000 feet deep, held by mountainous folds of trees, coffee and corn.  Rising above this setting are the volcanos San Pedro, Santiago and Toliman. Beneath them, Tz’utzujil Maya pueblos with concrete houses in yellow, pink and blue are interspersed with hives of traditional adobe and tin-roofed homes, tumbling bougainvillea and bananas drooping with crowded hands of fruit. On the lake fishermen stand paddling shallow wooden boats, unfolding hand lines as they roll their wrists one over the other.

In 1995, I visited Santiago Atitlán as a member of Vashon’s sister city committee. Sixteen years later I returned to Lago Atitlán and revisited Santiago and neighboring San Pedro La Laguna. I was afraid the traditional Maya way of life had been ruined by modern commercialism and inclusion on the gringo trail.  San Pedro has indeed changed hugely since the day I required a guide to lead me down the narrow paths through coffee and corn to find a hidden hotel. But Tzu’tujil pueblos, Maya identity and tradition continues to live, even as the town has grown to meet the needs of visitors from around the world.

As a writer with a PhD in creativity and communication, I am passionate about “live” experiences of communication and art.  As an American weary of mass consumption and technology, Guatemala offered me the richness of a deeply rooted, handmade life.

In San Pedro as throughout Guatemala, most Maya women wear traje, traditional handwoven clothing: a huipil, which is distinctive to each pueblo, and a faja, a wide intricately decorated belt that secures the corte, a multi-hued woven skirt. The traje of the women maintains and affirms Maya cultural identity. The patterns, colors and figures on the cloth tell a story of Maya cosmology and history. Their cloth is made to be washed on rocks. It survives to be passed down through generations while also supporting local craftswomen.

Their clothes are functional as well as beautiful, worn for the tasks of daily life, sweeping floors, cooking tortillas on wood fires and weaving. The women weavers sit with their legs tucked beneath them on concrete or dirt floors,  backstrap looms tied around their waists, hundreds of threads managed without pause as intricate designs are born beneath their hands. When the weavers rise to stand, they unfold without using their hands to push themselves up.

In the morning, women carry heavy plastic baskets of laundry atop their heads and possibly a baby in a rebozo firm against their backs, following narrow paths to wash on the ancient flat rocks in the lake. In the space between homes and restaurants, corn sways with the wind, and squash plants offer up goldenrod blossoms, while pink frijole pods and red coffee cherries dry on roofs and cement pads.

Men in sombreros with machetes at their sides carry loads steadied by trumplines worn across their foreheads, their bags heavy with wood, corn and coffee from the campo.

And yet, there is always time for us to exchange greetings, “Buenos dias,” my neighbors and I call to each other as I wander down the street for my fresh orange juice.

“Que te vaya bien,” (have a good journey) they may add. The words are sung, not rushed, and given with eye contact and a smile.

There seems always time to play with children and to wish other diners in a comedor, “Buen Provecho” — have a good meal.

Babies carried in woven rebozos are easily repositioned for feeding. There is time to sing in church, nap in a hammock, play soccer with neighbors and join with other women in making 100 chuchitos for a wedding. There are fiestas, fireworks and bustling markets. And there is color, all of the colors ever created are somewhere in San Pedro.

Since the Peace Accords, the traditional crafts of the Maya have seen increasing innovation.  Handwoven huipils are cut to form cloth shoes and sandals, with soles from used tires — sturdier and more beautiful than the footwear churned out by the maquiladoras. Woven cloth is increasingly combined with leather work to make backpacks and bags.

Santiago, the capital of the pre-conquest Tz’utujil world, remains the largest and most traditional pueblo on the lake. In addition to hosting the Maya saint Maximón, Santiago produces exquisite embroidery of birds. Indeed in Tz’tujil, Santiago is known as the house of birds.  San Pedro has a reputation for folk art painters who depict scenes of Maya life, sometimes from the perspective of a bird or an ant. In neighboring San Juan, women grow and spin their own cotton, coloring it with natural dyes. Every month I find something new being made in this region

Recently two murals were painted near the central market. One opposes the push to plant genetically modified corn here, among the “people of the corn;” the other challenges the mining companies that increasingly degrade Maya land. These are beautiful and courageous works in a land where opposition has been fatal.

I have traveled through Central America, but after over two years of life abroad, it is Guatemala that continues to call me home.

— Louise Wisechild leads community-based tours to Guatemala and blogs about Central America at www.brightfutureglobaltours.com