There is always a long, long, line of people in front of the federal bank on the Xela Parque Centro every day. The line is composed mostly of men wearing straw cowboy hats. Only one at a time is allowed to enter the building and each one is patted down for weapons  before entering. None of the other banks have a line like this.
 Everytime I walk past I wonder “what are they doing?” I decided to ask someone and this is the story I got. During the long civil war in Guatemala, the government forced it’s citizens to roam the countryside and engage the guerrillas. They received no pay, just go do it or else. In the 2000 presidential election one of the candidates promised retroactive pay for these former paramilitaries. He was elected and then decided it was not possible to pay them (politicians are the same all around the world). But the paramilitaries were still well armed and began to make noise and break things. The government acquiesced, and  began cutting and distributing checks. The line at the bank is former paramilitaries picking up their checks.

With this knowledge, I walk past the crowd with a new cognizance. When I look at their eyes, some are friendly, some are hardened, some of them look at me like they are evaluating me. I wonder what their eyes have seen, what their hands have done.  Perhaps when I get a better command of the language I will iniciate a conversation with one of them. To hear of their experiences might make me appreciate sheltered life in the “land of plenty” more. Guatemala is place of far different culture and history.

The dirt road was very rough and steep, but it was dry. It wound around the side of the mountain and provided a beautiful vista of the city of Quezaltenango below. In a sloping field four indigenous women are harvesting, their brightly colored huipiles in sharp contrast to the green field. It is very quiet, only the sound of the wind blowing the afternoon mist through the valleys. A man herding several cows down the road swats them on the side with a branch to make room for me. I am fairly sure I have lost my way; but no harm in exploring this road a little further. I pass a sign that declares “Solo Jesus”,   then I pass an ancient, abandoned, three axle truck… Wait a minute, I pull the hand drawn map from my back pocket, there is an “old truck” on it. I am not lost. With renewed confidence, I stash the map and continue down the broken road. Ahead I can see an hombre approaching with a heavy load. When we near each other, I am astounded at the size of the load. I am sure it weighs as much as he does. He is small guy, like all the indigenous are, with very long hair, on his back is the Y shaped log created when a tree trunk splits into two equal branches. It has not been cut but rather looks like it was created when an old dead tree fell. The only thing it could be good for is to burn. The load is suspended from a strap across his forehead; his arms are upraised, hands grasping the strap to help ease the load. I can hear him straining, but he still manages a “‘tardes” in response to my greeting as we pass. I don’t know where he is going with it, but I am sure it is not close. There is nothing out here. As I ride away, many thoughts occur to me. The disparity in these two lives, on the dirt road that winds though the mountains, is glaring. Here is my portly (portly, from overeating) self, pedaling my multi-speed bicycle up the road for some adventure and exercise. The cash I have on me would probably feed my amigo with the timber on his back for six months. I am in the middle of a well funded, multi-month, multi-country bike tour, that doesn’t have a lot of purpose. On the other hand, my amigo is skinny from undereating, and is getting his exercise from toting that lumber out of necessity (I am sure nothing less than necessity would cause one to lift something that heavy) to who knows where. Perhaps he made some bad choices in his life that led to him having to tote lumber in the mountains? I think not. Perhaps I would be toting lumber in mountains with him except I made some  good choices that led to prosperity? Ha, that’s a joke, perhaps someday I will chronicle the bad choices I have made in my life and where they SHOULD have took me. Having money doesn’t necessarily mean contentment.  Perhaps the disparity evens outs when he arrives home and his wife meets him and loves and cherishes him for who he is, not just because he brought the timber home. Now there is something I don’t have and desire in a bad way. However, I think this train of thought is a subconscience attempt to rationalize not doing anything to address the glaring disparity. For all I know, the guy might have it double bad. Maybe he arrives home with the timber, and the wife yells at him for being late. The truth of the matter is I was born in the United States of America and my amigo was born in Guatemala and because of that a disparity in opportunity and quality of life exists. I see this disparity wherever I look down here. Things are tough all over. Should I do anything about the poverty I see? I think yes. With privilege, (which I caulk up to divine providence) comes responsibility. If I subscribed to the “survival of the fittest” school of thought, (and a lot of people do, it’s being taught in our schools) perhaps I would feel differently; but to join that crowd would require being willfully ignorant of my conscience and of all that I see. In the end, I didn’t do a thing to help my  amigo, I just kept riding and the road got steeper and rougher…..there will be more…..there is entirely too many of them….