First, a speech from the capital's former cardinal, who called his birthday "day of the poor."

" You, the humble ones of this colony, you are the ones most cherished by me. I was poor like you; you live in shacks like that of Bethlehem that housed the Infant God, but you are happy, because where there is poverty, there is happiness. "

( El Imparcial, Feb. 24, 1967)

I asked a man who sold coal out of his little, shack what the neighborhood was called. He said "The 15th of August." I said that I thought this was La Limonada. "Oh, some folks call it that, because so many here have to sell lemonade. Others call it the Crown of Thorns, because it rings the city. Are you in the Peace Corps?" No, I wasn't, why did they call it the 15th of August?

By this time there were about a dozen kids hopping around, all eager to give the answer. "Because on that date, about ten years ago," they could not remember exactly (probably the urban riots of 1962), "Ydigoras Fuentes decided to throw out all the squatters." Out of this dirty ravine jammed with wire, cardboards, kids, and dogs as skinny as chickens. "They smashed and burned many houses," they were acting it out impassionedly, most were too young to have remembered it, some were not even alive. "But the people wouldn't leave, they grabbed rocks and boards from the wrecked houses and fought the soldiers all day. And they finally drove them out."

The coal selling man was smiling. He asked me, "Are there places as bad as this in North America?" I said that most people lived better but there were some places as bad in the rural south and in city slums, and that I had seen worse in Alaska. He nodded his head knowingly, not surprised at all.

Aug. 17: Rural Indians, near San Maria volcano, in Quetzaltenango

These people are much less aware of the rest of the world, but seem generally happier. Not much laughing on the buses in the capital, everyone is inhibited. Here they seem to laugh more, especially at me. But when I talk to them, I am embarrassed by what, seems to be deference to my whiteness. It may just be that I look so strange, some are awed, while others are entertained.

"Are there lots of guns in North America?"

"The United States is better than this because everyone is rich, right?"

"Do you eat your babies there?"

"Do you eat shit?"

"Is it true that nobody in North America has to work because there's this machine-you turn it on and it does everything for you?"

"You look just like Jesus!" (my blonde beard).

They are very kind people; I'm never afraid that they will hurt me, though they all have huge machetes (which they used on a policeman in town a couple of days ago). As I walk along people ask me do I have money, or do I have bread. I carry bread, cheese, fruit and water in my backpack, so we sit down for something to eat. They are a very physically beautiful people. The women are still beautiful when they're 60. They all want to know about America. None of them seem to know that America is making war on their country. (Perhaps it is different in Zacapa, where there's been bombing.) When I tell them about this, they are very puzzled about how to take me. I'm the first American many of them have ever seen.