Category: <span>Encounters</span>

Erica wears the bright white uniform of the hotel staff, but her smile is even brighter. She does a lot of things that others would consider chores: cooking and serving breakfast, cleaning the rooms, mopping the floors, doing the laundry… When we gave our dog’s beds for washing, the manager […]

Ernesto was not always a taxi driver. A long time ago he worked in an import/export business. In his own words, his boss was “a fat Jew, a really good man”. So Ernesto drove back and forth between the capital and different parts of the country, including the famous Darien […]

Wilbert’s friends are here to fix the broken clothes dryer, but he just came for moral support. I join the conversation as he makes a joke: whoever parked this car must have had a lot to drink last night. I look at the car – my car – and realize […]

Inés took the taxi-boat from nearby San Pedro to do the weekly cleaning of our rental house in San Marcos, on the shores of Lake Atitlán. She wears the traditional Tz’utujil costume like her Mayan ancestors who ruled this world before the Conquista. She labors the entire day to make […]