cuilco de guatemala

muchas lineas

recuerdame siempre!!

Today, we visited a town called Cuilco in Huehuetenango, where my friend Arnoldo and his partner Edward will be doing a project with their NGO. Very small town. I shot the second picture in front of a photo store. Later in the street market, the owner of the store found me and asked me if I wanted to sell my camera with the lenses and everything. Of course, my response was "no". And the guys in front of the backdrop in the second photo asked for my drink that I was holding while I was taking this picture. Not knowing that this was a way for them to show their interest in me, I said "OK". Very embarrassing... It is lucky that I probably

won't see them ever again.

jennifer

She is 9. She is the only daughter of a Guatemalan family, that I met during a short walk in the neighborhood. Her father is a coffee producer. He said their ¨finca¨ is very close to the Mexican border.

She doesn´t talk much. Gama, her father, said that she is timid as her mother was when they first met. Last week we went to the Zaculeu ruins in Huehue. Among all, Jennifer picked a small one as her favorite ruina.

nebaj de guatemala

Nebaj, May 23-2010, Catholic church Sunday service. Nebaj is an indigenous town(a municipality in the of El Quiché) in Guatemala. This weekend we went to Nebaj to visit a relative of the family, I live with in Huehuetenango. I stayed at a small hotel in Nebaj. On Sunday morning I had some free time, which I used to visit Catholic church. The ceremony was a composition of Catholic church and Mayan traditions. It was visually very strong.

When I entered the church early in the morning, it was almost full. I took a seat at a rear row. Uncomfortable with the consciousness of being a stranger(maybe having a camera on me, I sat there and just watched the service for a while.

I was really nervous for several reasons, when I started to walk towards the front rows. Eventually I started to take some photos of the church attendees. I could barely eye-contact with the girl in the first photograph. Her name is Cristina. She was there with her mother. I could see her smile among the crowd one last time, while she was leaving the church.

walnut st. of columbia, mo

shot on 3/24/2010. I was wandering the streets of downtown. In that heavy rain, I looked in the sky, hoping to see some stars. Instead, what I saw told me that I was in Columbia, MO.