Coffee, clothing, class & culture

Every morning at breakfast, our host mother Mayra serves us instant coffee. Perplexed, we asked our friend Peter (who has been doing work in Guatemala for six years) for an explanation. Though his response was partly in jest, according to Peter, Nescafé has such a successful advertising campaign that they have managed to convince an entire Guatemalan middle class that Nescafé instant coffee crystals are better than the world renowned, locally grown coffee that Guatemala is famous for.

Maybe it’s advertising, maybe it’s globalization. Whatever the answer, this is an interesting phenomenon that I don’t really understand, but there you have it.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, this city is literally crawling with tourists. The other day, while reading our guidebook, I discovered the reason why: there are 75 Spanish language schools for foreigners in Antigua. My school is Ixchel Spanish School, and each afternoon I meet with my teacher, Sabina, for three hours of one-on-one instruction. Studying with Sabina is doing wonders for my Spanish. It has also been an interesting cultural experience. Sabina is a Kaqchikel Maya woman. She does not, however, wear the traditional Mayan “traje” (clothing) of a “huipil” (woven shirt covering the shoulders) and “corte” (long, ankle-length wrap-around skirt) that you can see in the illustration to the right. Sabina is an indigenous woman full of contradictions. She comes from the village of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, famous for its high quality Mayan woven textiles, and she even does her own weaving at home and sells her handicrafts for supplementary income. Simultaneously, however, she wears western clothing with plunging necklines and form-fitting pants. Sabina speaks the Kaqchikel language – in fact it is her native language, but earns her living as a Spanish teacher. I asked her about indigenous Mayan religious traditions and she described the shamans as “brujas” (witches).

In Guatemala, being indigenous is associated with being poor. It is interesting, then, that a Mayan woman with seven siblings, whose parents undoubtedly supported their family on their wages as underpaid agricultural workers, has educated herself and found a relatively well-paying job as a teacher, while at the same time casting off her indigenous clothing –worn proudly by her ancestors for thousands of years – for a wardrobe that suits her socioeconomic aspirations—however futile they may be given the glass ceiling that hinders the social mobility of all those who share her dark complexion.