SololáMan

Sololá bat

I asked the guy on my ride in the tuktuk about certain issues, but specially one. Not long ago, Guatemala seemed like a dangerous place to live. I mentioned that to him and he told me about the actual situation of Sololá: totally safe.

How did you do it? After civil wars, genocides and people displacements, what happened? Well, the  man told me, we were fed up, so people got organized. We have mayan rules applied to this date: If someone is caught stealing for the first time, his head gets (severed heheh, just kidding) shaven. This is a public humiliation for everyone to see and for the person to endure. If he gets caught stealing again, (this time no kidding) one of his fingers gets cut. Caught again, another finger, and again, another finger. If, after this, he keeps at it, he is expelled from the community he or she are living in. Finally, if he or she gets back, they face death by lynching or get burnt.

It seems brutal. Yet, definite. These people take care of their own businesses, their land issues, their political life. They appreciate tourism, so they try their best to keep them safe. They learned to also, care for each other and an early morning whistle might prevent and alarm people that are stealing from others. In minutes, everyone goes out on the street and traps this person. If, he or she is lucky, they are taken by the police, but sometimes, even the police know better than messing with them.

Basically, he said, we care for each other. Big families live on the same house, they know about their neighbours so a rape is not about someone they have never seen. It's Rosa's daughter, one you went to school with, and for her, we all dare to come out and fight for her with our own life if necessary.

They have bat men and women. "On the Memorial de Sololá (Sacred mayan document) is written that the Bat is a kaqchikel people´s totem. Besides ‘Ajposotz’il Jay’ or 'Bat´s home' is the lineage that led the kaqchikel people at the city-fortress of Iximché (Tecpán) until the invasion of the Spaniards back in 1524. Nowadays, the vernacular jacket of Sololá carries an stylized Bat figure on the back and sleeves, a legacy of our ancestors..." [source]

Mexican solidarity is becoming this way through the self-defense groups. People like Semeí Verdía, now in jail, spoke about it so clearly. And contradictorily, these Mexican states still have a future through their cohesive organization and satiety. But in Mexico City, where everyone really knows anyone, are we doomed to keep our windows shut like is none of our business, running away from preventing another killing, another abuse, another disappearance?