Excerpt from Opening Doors in Latin America

If variety is the spice of life, Mission work in the County (departamento) of Quezaltenango may safely be described as spicy. This county to Which we seek to minister, varies in altitude from two hun dred to twelve thousand feet above sea level. It includes the tropics with their intense heat and luxuriant growth of precious woods, sugar cane, bananas, etc., extends up into a temperate zone where coffee plantations abound, then comes a cooler zone where there are occasional frosts and where corn is the chief crop, then some high plateaus where only wheat can be successfully cultivated, then again some steep mountain sides covered with pine, while in the very center of the county, visible from nearly all parts of it, towers the mighty volcano, Santa Maria, whose eruption some ten years ago nearly de stroyed the town of Quezaltenango.

But if there is variety in the climate and the flora of the county there is even greater variety in those in whom we are more directly interested, i. E., the people. We have here in the county of Quezalte nangoa foreign colony of perhaps one thou sand, the largest groups being of Germans, Spaniards, and Chinese. Then there are the educated Guatemalans of Spanish descent, more or less pure. They are plantation owner's, lawyers, physicians, merchants. Next in order come the hand-workers. For be it known that we have little or no machinery work here. Our shoes and clothes are all made to order. Our fabrics are woven on hand-looms, etc., etc. The people who do this work, the weavers, dyers, carpenters, shoemakers and hatters along with the small store and saloon keepers, are Ladinos, that is, of European descent but with a large proportion of Indian blood. But lower still in the social scale comes the Indian himself, who com prises the bulk of the population. He is day laborer, pack animal, domestic servant and what not. In this county he is better off than in some other parts of the republic. He usually owns a small patch of land in the highlands where his wife and family cultivate corn or wheat and keep a few pigs or sheep. But he, poor fellow, finds little time to help them. First he must serve in the army, from three to five years, sometimes being stationed near home, some times far away. Home from his service in the army he is soon called out to aid on some public work, building a new rail road line, a bridge or similar improvement, receiving four or five cents a day and boarding himself. A few weeks or months of this and he goes home again. Before long the smooth-tongued habilitador of some large coffee or banana plantation appears in his town with money to lend, easy money, and the Indian takes the bait. In a few days it is gone, liquor and a few gaudy trappings have; made away with it. Then come the long hard days of payment. The strong arm of the law hands Mr. Indian over to the tender mercies of the plantation owner whose money he has borrowed and he must work off his debt at ten cents a day and board himself. If he wants more money he can get it up to a certain limit, it being to the plantation owner's interest to keep him in debt. The Indian thus becomes a virtual slave, for one plantation owner can sell the debt to another and the Indian must follow his debt. The Indian carriesus all on his back and receives small thanks for his trouble.

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