Girls playing basketball in long skirts.
I always use my computer's background image as a source of inspiration or escape. Just last week I changed it to a picture my sister took in Guatemala. Four girls are standing on a basketball court; they're facing the basket. The ball is close to the basket and going in - we think, we hope. One of them is barefoot, the others in sandals. They all have long dark hair tied in a ponytail.
They wear the traditional corte: a long skirt that wraps around the body, whose pattern is dictated by the village the girls come from; and a huipil, same story but it's a top. theirs is an embroidered mauve huipil on a gorgeous dark red corte. They're mayans, their language is cakchiquel and their backyard is the gorgeous Lake Atitlan and its surrounding volcanoes. In fact in the picture you can see lush incredible greenery - coffee fields? (note last year a very deadly mudslide crippled the area. the politicians didn't bother showing up - same old contempt for 'indios').
It really speaks to me at the moment. Girls doing sports. girls doing things they're not expected or supposed to do. title 9. decalage. empowerment of women.
I have few regrets in life (what's the point of them?), but one is linked to Guatemala. I went with an Mayan activist, an older friend of my sister's, to Livingston on the atlantic side where we stayed at a long-time friend of hers. I should have taught this woman how to ride a bicycle, it would've made such a difference in her life. The reasons not to were numerous: no time, no money, no bicycle, and who was i to intrude? But I sincerely believe that sometimes it's the most mundane things that can turn a life around. Will I dare next time?
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