Guatemalan labyrinth

Guatemalan market is a labyrinth of never stopping human motion.

Today is a market day, so in addition to a usual ‘tourist trap’ there’re people selling cheap vegetables in a parking area, right on the dirt by a garbage house.

I can smell the word 'Raw' through my skin.

Girls in indigenous clothes don’t want their picture taken by me.

I am not Daniel Chauche, whose indigenous subjects are happy to pay him for their portraits. I have to be sneaky and push away thoughts of soul stealing and immorality of making people into a content. In immortal words of Scarlett O'Hara, I'll think about that tomorrow.

Walking through market cements my feeling of mighty progress not spreading its greedy hand toward this land for quite a while. I always get the same feeling driving through Guatemala City.

That is a good feeling. 

Sparkly open toe shoes on indigenous girl in the middle of a dark market passage under rusty lamina roof look so out of place. Or maybe perfectly chosen for the scene by Mayan Gods. 

It becomes my favorite mental image of the day.

Mostly women with sleeping babies in their rebozos aka carriers, are walking these dark twisted paths, just a few foreigners, including myself, it is low season.

I feel as invader. That is not a good feeling,

Today I took the best photo I’ve ever taken in my life. A man without legs slowly moving forward through twisted dark paths of Guatemalan market.

I called is Resilience.