Santiago, Lake Atitlan

When our second cousin, Joetta Handrich Schlabach, saw on Facebook that I was going to be at Lake Atitlan, she invited me to come for a visit to her casita in Santiago, which is situated on an inlet on the lake. As my sister and her husband (Mary Ann and Keith) were going to be in Panajachel for a few days at this time, the invitation was extended to them. We had never met Joetta before, although our mothers were friends and our grandmothers sisters. Amazing how quickly families disperse and lose touch, but when we met her, she felt like a sister! Blood is thick!

It was a Sunday when we took the boat across the lake to meet her. About $4 CAD gets one a seat in a launch with a covered top.

They wait until the boat is pretty full before they leave. We wanted to make sure that we arrived by 9, so we were at the ferry dock before 8 and arrived in Santiago 18 minutes later. It was a smooth trip across, but one really couldn't see anything except for the volcanoes looming over the lake. Santiago is flanked by Volcan San Pedro and Volcan Toliman.

We agreed to meet in the park near the church. The street leading up to the park was lined with market stalls - I wish I had a picture of Keith leading the way through the narrow space between the stalls, finding his way through the throng of people - locals that barely came up to his chest level. We were pretty much ignored, but we must have looked unusual; three tall foreigners pushing their way through.

Santiago has a large population of indigenous Tz'utujil Mayans. Each town or village has a unique color for the woven fabric that the women wear wrapped as a skirt with a wide waist band and embroidered top and in Santiago you can see many of the men with their traditional pants. The capri-length pants are colorful, with a slight flare below the knee. Sitting in the plaza near the church on a Sunday as the people came out from mass gave us a great view of the colourful outfits.

Joetta and her husband Gerald gave us a tour of the church in between the two morning masses. Off to the side of the church is the room where Catholic priest Stanley Rother was assasinated by a right-wing death squad in 1981. In 2016, Pope Francis confirmed that Rother had been a martyr, murdered for his faith, and was beatified.

After touring the church, we walked about a kilometer on the road to San Pedro to the Peace Park, passing a colourful cemetery along the way. The Peace Park was contructed on the site where 14 civilians were gunned down by the Guatemalan military in 1990 when the army fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians. Santiago was the site of considerable state-sponsored violence during the civil war, but this incident was a turning point and within two weeks the army was forced to vacate it's base and the town became the first place where peaceful civilians managed to force out the military. The Peace Park is next to Anadesa - a community organization promoting education and development and a project of MCC.

After a lunch in a lovely restaurant, Joetta took us to her casita, where we enjoyed coffee and cake. Thanks Joetta and Gerald for the informative tour and lovely time together.