Sometimes things just work out. Saturday I was able to meet Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchú after a chance encounter with a cleaning lady provided us this unique and unexpected opportunity.
We had been reading Rigoberta’s book, Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia, for our ethics class. Ellory and I happened to both be reading that very book in the garden behind our school one Friday afternoon, when Adrianna, the guesthouse cleaning lady, saw the book in Ellory’s hand and mentioned that Rigoberta was coming to visit her town and we were reminded that this mythical character from the pages of our book was a real living and breathing woman in Guatemala. Ellory told her that she wished she could meet her.
We just kept reading in the garden, but later Ellory and I talked about trying to capitalize on this opportunity to see a world-renowned human rights activist while she was in our backyard.
Eventually I got around to asking Adrianna about the details of Rigoberta’s visit to her town and she told us she would talk to her parents to see if there’s was any chance we could meet her while she was in our area.
Friday, Adrianna told me that Rigoberta was coming to Olintepeque at 10 Saturday morning to talk at the political headquarters and we were welcome to attend the event. I asked Loloya, my Spanish teacher, for directions to get to Olinteque, which was only half an hour from Xela, and scrambled to spread the word to my classmates to meet outside Celas Maya at 8:45 the next morning to trek to Olinteque for the talk.
Friday night we had our traditional end of the week party at Celas Maya and afterward went to La Rumba. Many of us exceeded the necessary and sufficient conditions of drunkness, although I decided to take the night off because I was only one day removed from a brief but strength-sapping spat of diarrhea probably related to a smoothie containing blackberries of questionable quality.
Anyhow, Saturday morning rolled around and I was surprised to find that 15 of us had assembled for the trip to see Rigoberta, despites the excesses of the previous night. We all crammed onto a microbus that took us to a mall called País. From there we walked to a corner where chicken buses going to Olinteque pick up passengers. There was some confusion whether we were on the correct corner, and later on which bus to take, but we soon found a bus that was headed toward Olinteque and hopped on it. The ride wasn’t long and only cost us two quetzales.
The problem was that it just dropped us off on the side of the highway and we had no idea where we were. The ayudante pointed us in the direction of the central park and we wandered in that direction until we started doubting ourselves and asked for directions again. The church came into view and we knew we were nearing the city center.
As we reached the bustling central park we could see there was a wedding going on, but we couldn’t decipher where the political headquarters was. We were the only foreigners in the town.
The building was supposed to be behind the municipal building so we went around the block but couldn’t spot it. Directionless, we stood around in the central plaza and seriously feared that the event wasn’t going to happen or that we would never find it. We asked a few people in the park about Rigoberta and some didn’t even know that she was going to be in their town.
We headed to the street behind the municipal building again, asked for directions one more time from a shop keep and finally were pointed in the direction of the political headquarters. I asked the host if Rigoberta was going to be there, he assured me she would be, I asked him if we could enter the building and watch the event and he warmly welcomed us.
An ancient marimba player who had obviously past his prime, cajoled semblances of rhythms and chord progressions out of his rickety machine while we waited for the event to start. When Rigoberta arrived, the crowd applauded as she shook hands with everyone on her way to the front. Her vibrant Mayan dress gave her the air of a powerful matriarch.
She made some brief remarks before the MC proceeded to present awards to numerous local party leaders. We had never heard of Winaq, Rigoberta’s political party, before the event but we soon got to know the group, as all of the party leadership was gathered in the courtyard.
After all the awards had been given out, Rigoberta addressed the crowd and laid out the goals of Winaq. Ultimately, she wanted Winaq to become the dominant political party in Guatemala with a Winaq president in office. She stressed the party is not an indigenous-only club, but one that hopes build a coalition among the various minorities and oppressed people to make Guatemala a country for all cultures and peoples.
Alas, it would seem Rigoberta has a long way to go to achieving her goals, because the last time she ran for president, she gained only three percent of the vote. Still she stressed building the movement from the ground up and developing young leadership in the party. She even urged indigenous families have big families with lots of good children to carry on the movement.
After the talk, we waited for our chance to talk to Rigoberta and pose for a photo with her. There was quite a line, but we got our chance and even got her to sign our books and pose for a photo with our whole group. She was very gracious and the camera crew even asked some of us to go on camera to talk about what interested us about their party.
And if my day couldn’t get any more amazing, that afternoon we had a little party at my friend’s Travis apartment and relaxed on the roof with some snacks and beverages.
Next, we headed to the big soccer game: The Superchivos versus archrival Cremas (one of the two teams from Guatemala City). I was in the group that had success smuggling alcohol into the game, but some had their contraband booze confiscated.
We seated ourselves in the rowdiest section and spent most of the game standing, dancing around, chanting and screaming. It was an exciting back and forth game. Xela scored first, but fell behind 1-2 before coming back to win 3-2.
Smoke from fireworks obscured the screaming crowd after a Superchivos' goal.
After the game we scampered though the streets still cheering and headed to our standby discoteca, La Rumba, to dance. Our Superchivos garb was popular with the club-goers, and some Latina shorties seemed very taken with the Gringo men. As Jordan later said of a Latina that was dancing with him: “Her hips were definitely not lying to me,” of course referring to one our of favorite club songs Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.”
Perhaps I tainted my pure cultural experience watching Rigobarta speak with a night of rowdy hooligan antics and dance-whoring, but I like to think the two halves balance themselves out.
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