Esperanza

Here´s something I was thinking today as I walked back from work at the project:

Everybody in Guatemala seems to be waiting for something.

The abuelita in full traje at the street corner, baby slung across her back with an expertise that only comes from decades of practice, stares through the smog of the passing chicken buses…and waits. The boy who wakes every morning to stand on the speed bump a few blocks from my house and sell The Prensa Libre (the national newspaper) to unfortunate passersby who find themselves reading another headline of violence and corruption…he waits. The ragged dog who wanders the streets in a camouflage of dust, grime and weariness, unclaimed and unnamed, searching for the rare scrap of bread and avoiding confrontation…also waits. The school girls in full uniform, plaid skirts dancing above bruised knees; the shoe shiner whose chemicals are paying a toll on his mind; the ice-cream vendor with twinkling bell that belie the soft, strained beat of his heart; the university student who teaches Spanish in the afternoons and cleans houses on the weekends; the madre of sixteen years who can roll a perfect tortilla in seven seconds; even the long-haired gringo in the central park who reads Aristotle and bargains for hand-weaved bracelets, all seem to be waiting…for something.

Perhaps in a language where “esperar” means “to wait” and “to hope,” the are easily confused.