Mexico Journal: getting our Guatemalan visas

At the Guatemalan Consulate Library, Abelardo Rodas Barrios, a compatriot of Otto-Raúl González, greets us. Otto-Raúl, a gran-poeta de Guatemala, is the cultural attaché in Mexico. Otto-Raúl wrote Diez Colores Nuevos, of which Anadrio is my favorite, because it brings good luck. Perhaps we too will find trees the color of anadrio in the jungle or under a stone. Abelardo says that they both worked on agrarian reform in Guatemala. They were thrown in jail without charges for three months during the coup, and were later released without a pardon. So, they couldn't get work and fled Guatemala, and have been living in exile in Mexico City ever since. Their adopted country has been good to them. They are both gran Guatemaltecos still searching for a new world order. Abelardo was born in Sololá, in the the highlands of Guatemala, and was a founding member of the leftist grupo Saker-Ti (from the Cakchiquel for dawn). I wish we had a copy of his Atitlán en mis ojos. The word Sololá takes on mythic proportions and becomes an internal chant whenever I walk. Abelardo says, Take a drink with Otto-Raúl in my name, though it won't take much convincing. We laugh, and drink to that.

 August 2, 1987