Click thumbnail for full-size. I can’t remember whether or not I’ve already posted this portrait I shot a few months ago. My memory’s failing, and so are my Google skillz, so if this is a repeat, sorry. Something reminded me of it this morning.
Don Manuel is a Mayan priest and K’iche language instructor who lives in a small Guatemalan village called Nahuala. He saw and experienced a lot of suffering during the country’s civil war. The “hot war” is over, but life is still extremely hard for many indigenous people like him. Not much justice, not much economic opportunity. There is a longer story behind this image, for another time. But for now, I’ll just post this. I shot it with a micro-mini Canon elph in front of the Versace boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This was the first time he’d ever been outside of Guatemala — a trip to the US to work on a translation project involving historic Mayan texts. A few minutes before, I walked down Rodeo with Don Manuel, escorted him inside a few of the couture shops. We stepped inside the Gucci boutique, where a mink-lined doggie carrier was for sale. He asked me how much it cost, and when I calculated the five-figure price into Guatemalan quetzales for him, his jaw dropped. A few moments later he said in Spanish, “In my country, dogs live on the street. So do many people. This house for a dog costs many times more than the building that houses my entire extended family in Nahuala.”