| General Non-Fiction posted January 14, 2017 | Chapters: |
...8 9 -10- 11... 
|
  |
Ernesto, the shoeshine boy of Atitlan
A chapter in the book A Tale of Yucatan
A Tale of Yucatan - Part 10
by tfawcus
| Background This section is a minor digression from my turn-of-the-century travelogue describing 19 days on the Yucatan Peninsula. |
I wish that I could write of Atitlán's
volcanic peaks, and depths unplumbed as yet,
whose mirror caught at dusk a silhouette --
a sacred breath of life - the lone toucan
that flies between the spirit world and man,
defending all from evils that beset
the simple souls who daily cast their net,
poor fishermen, subsisting as they can.
But one small boy, Ernesto, fills my eye -
a tin box slung behind - his carapace -
whose cheerful cry of "Shoeshine!" hides his sweat
for patrons with a quetzal spare, to buy
a shoeshine mirror of his earnest face,
and ease the burden of his family's debt.
When my daughter met Ernesto, she asked him what his dream was. He thought for several minutes as if he had never considered the possibility of dreams. Eventually he said that one day he hoped to become a driver, a chauffeur. That was the biggest dream he could think of.
This story is, for me also, a dream, some twelve years into the future, not in my time but in my daughter's. When I was in San Pedro, Ernesto was yet to be born, for he was eleven years old when Anna spoke with him, and he was already the man of his house. Six months earlier he would have risen at dawn, done his chores, taken up a satchel of books and gone to school - but then his father fell sick.
Now he rises at dawn, slings a tin box over his shoulder, gathers in his arms a small wooden stool and heads down to the jetty, and he waits for a boat to carry him the three miles from San Marcos on the northern shore to San Pedro in the south, where he will work until dusk as a shoe-shine boy.
The decorations on his tin box are ghosts, except that they wear shoes and each carries a tin box - or is it a satchel? It is hard to tell. They are also decorated with ghosts, too small to see with the naked eye, the ghosts of what he might have become.
He walks the streets of San Pedro alone, asking people if he can shine their shoes.
"Only 2 quetzals, señor."
On a good day he earns 20 quetzals, a little under US$3. However, there are not many good days.
Atitlán has majestic, towering basalt peaks. There is mystery in its watery, unplumbed depths. There is pragmatism rather than mystery in its people, who live on the edge of the lake. They are numbered among the world's silent majority, who live also on the edge of starvation.
If they are lucky, they are shielded at night by the sacred toucan who holds shut the gates of the spirit world and keeps them safe from the living dead, so that they may sleep in peace and gather strength for the toil that is their lot on each new day.
I have inserted this slight detour from my travels, because it is so closely aligned with the story of Elizabeth Bell and the two women at the town hall in Antigua, waiting patiently to register the births of their new-born babes, to save them from the fate of becoming non-persons with no official existence.
In 2011, Anna was living in Guatemala for a time, undertaking a photographic project with the Global Fairness Initiative (GFI), an American non-profit organization, based in Washington DC. She was documenting the informal sector living in Guatemala in a project called 'The Voiceless Majority'.
In explaining the project, she mentions that more than seven out of ten jobs are created in the informal economy in Guatemala and that informal workers do not have access to government benefits such as social security or health care, are highly exposed to market fluctuations, and broadly lack physical and financial security.
She says that informality creates an alternative or shadow economy, which is not recorded in macro-economic terms, and that it is one of the major development issues of our time. When you ask people what poverty is, an image jumps into their head. It is the destitute farmer on a drought-ridden plain, standing outside a dilapidated home, or it is the tattered rag picker squatted on a busy street in Dharavi. Ask the same about food insecurity or gender inequity and an image comes to mind. But ask about informality and there is no image, thus no story, no context, and no response to drive action.
The Voiceless Majority photography project was aimed at providing an image and story on informality by exhibiting the experience and "face" of the informal sector. It consisted of a collection of photographs of the lives and livelihoods of six informal sector workers from Guatemala. For each series, audio recordings of the actual subjects were broadcast to provide a combination of "face" and "voice" that tells the story of an informal worker and thus personalizes "informality."
Whilst I was merely a tourist, a voyeur if you like, my daughter is an activist and I am proud of her.
volcanic peaks, and depths unplumbed as yet,
whose mirror caught at dusk a silhouette --
a sacred breath of life - the lone toucan
that flies between the spirit world and man,
defending all from evils that beset
the simple souls who daily cast their net,
poor fishermen, subsisting as they can.
But one small boy, Ernesto, fills my eye -
a tin box slung behind - his carapace -
whose cheerful cry of "Shoeshine!" hides his sweat
for patrons with a quetzal spare, to buy
a shoeshine mirror of his earnest face,
and ease the burden of his family's debt.
When my daughter met Ernesto, she asked him what his dream was. He thought for several minutes as if he had never considered the possibility of dreams. Eventually he said that one day he hoped to become a driver, a chauffeur. That was the biggest dream he could think of.
This story is, for me also, a dream, some twelve years into the future, not in my time but in my daughter's. When I was in San Pedro, Ernesto was yet to be born, for he was eleven years old when Anna spoke with him, and he was already the man of his house. Six months earlier he would have risen at dawn, done his chores, taken up a satchel of books and gone to school - but then his father fell sick.
Now he rises at dawn, slings a tin box over his shoulder, gathers in his arms a small wooden stool and heads down to the jetty, and he waits for a boat to carry him the three miles from San Marcos on the northern shore to San Pedro in the south, where he will work until dusk as a shoe-shine boy.
The decorations on his tin box are ghosts, except that they wear shoes and each carries a tin box - or is it a satchel? It is hard to tell. They are also decorated with ghosts, too small to see with the naked eye, the ghosts of what he might have become.
He walks the streets of San Pedro alone, asking people if he can shine their shoes.
"Only 2 quetzals, señor."
On a good day he earns 20 quetzals, a little under US$3. However, there are not many good days.
Atitlán has majestic, towering basalt peaks. There is mystery in its watery, unplumbed depths. There is pragmatism rather than mystery in its people, who live on the edge of the lake. They are numbered among the world's silent majority, who live also on the edge of starvation.
If they are lucky, they are shielded at night by the sacred toucan who holds shut the gates of the spirit world and keeps them safe from the living dead, so that they may sleep in peace and gather strength for the toil that is their lot on each new day.
I have inserted this slight detour from my travels, because it is so closely aligned with the story of Elizabeth Bell and the two women at the town hall in Antigua, waiting patiently to register the births of their new-born babes, to save them from the fate of becoming non-persons with no official existence.
In 2011, Anna was living in Guatemala for a time, undertaking a photographic project with the Global Fairness Initiative (GFI), an American non-profit organization, based in Washington DC. She was documenting the informal sector living in Guatemala in a project called 'The Voiceless Majority'.
In explaining the project, she mentions that more than seven out of ten jobs are created in the informal economy in Guatemala and that informal workers do not have access to government benefits such as social security or health care, are highly exposed to market fluctuations, and broadly lack physical and financial security.
She says that informality creates an alternative or shadow economy, which is not recorded in macro-economic terms, and that it is one of the major development issues of our time. When you ask people what poverty is, an image jumps into their head. It is the destitute farmer on a drought-ridden plain, standing outside a dilapidated home, or it is the tattered rag picker squatted on a busy street in Dharavi. Ask the same about food insecurity or gender inequity and an image comes to mind. But ask about informality and there is no image, thus no story, no context, and no response to drive action.
The Voiceless Majority photography project was aimed at providing an image and story on informality by exhibiting the experience and "face" of the informal sector. It consisted of a collection of photographs of the lives and livelihoods of six informal sector workers from Guatemala. For each series, audio recordings of the actual subjects were broadcast to provide a combination of "face" and "voice" that tells the story of an informal worker and thus personalizes "informality."
Whilst I was merely a tourist, a voyeur if you like, my daughter is an activist and I am proud of her.
 Recognized |
Image copyright Anna Fawcus 2011, one of a series taken for The Voiceless Majority project. Further information and photographs can be found on her blog. The page concerning Ernesto Alfredo is at http://www.annafawcus.com/blog/the-voiceless-majority-ernesto-alfredo
I wrote the poem that starts this part for my daughter in 2011. This version has been heavily revised as the rhythm of the original was diabolical in places. It is, for those of you who are interested in such things, an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.
The next section of this travelogue will continue with my visit to the shores of Lake Atitlan in 1999, which was, by comparison, incredibly banal.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. I wrote the poem that starts this part for my daughter in 2011. This version has been heavily revised as the rhythm of the original was diabolical in places. It is, for those of you who are interested in such things, an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.
The next section of this travelogue will continue with my visit to the shores of Lake Atitlan in 1999, which was, by comparison, incredibly banal.
You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.
© Copyright 2024. tfawcus All rights reserved. Registered copyright with FanStory.
tfawcus has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
