Shel Encounters the President of Guatemala

July 16, 2008, Guatemala City

I am sitting three rows behind the President of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom,
watching an interpretive performance of Mayan dance and music in a
courtyard in the national palace.

A few hours ago, I was in this same spot, getting a tour of the palace’s
public areas. I saw the chairs and instruments and wondered when the concert was going to take place, and what it would be–never dreaming that
I’d be sitting in one of those chairs, watching this wonderful spectacle
that night.

The president impresses me. He greets a few people, then sits in a reserved
seat in the front row, but not on the dais. Following the performance, he speaks humbly and from the heart, without either a script or a TelePromTer–and he speaks as one human
being to another, not as a polished speaker. He speaks of his personal
experience in the woods 30 years ago, and how this gave him a strong
appreciation of the need to conserve both nature and the Mayan culture, and
he keeps his remarks brief.

The event is a celebration (in Spanish) of land conservation and cultural tradition, and
I´m there because we happen to be staying with the Superintendent of
Guatemala’s 18 national parks. He and his family are new to Servas (the
international homestay network we’ve participated delightedly in for 25 years), and this was arranged with the local
coordinator without us knowing anything about him. We are this family’s
very first Servas travelers.

I like Luís immediately when he picks us up. He greets us warmly, cracks
jokes the whole time we stay with him, and gets into discussions of deep
political and environmental issues. And he’s totally patient with our
less-than-perfect Spanish (he doesn’t speak English).

The next day, we’ve come to have tea with him, his wife and daughter (both
named Edith) in his office, and he says, “I’m going to a meeting tonight at
the National Palace, and
the President will be there. Would you like to attend?”

“Yes, thank you. May I borrow a jacket from you?”

“You won’t need one. It will be informal.”

Of course, of the 400 or so people in attendance, the vast majority,
including Luís, wear suits. But there are 30 or 40 others in more casual
clothes, fortunately. By happenstance, I went out the door in the morning
wearing a button-down shirt and long pants, while Dina wore a longish
black skirt and a solid-color blouse–but it could just as easily been a
t-shirt and shorts. Luís actually tried to take us back to his house in the
afternoon to have dinner and change, but traffic was so bad he turned
around and went directly to the palace.