Dispatch Number 23 -Hippies

I bumped into the first hippies I had seen in a long time, the hand-to-mouth kind cobbling it together to keep on traveling one city at a time. It was a tall juggler and a very good looking couple who were making and selling those stereotypical bracelets that I have seen peddled everywhere by foreigners in Mexico and Guatemala. It is a dull repetitive affair of multicolor thread bracelets that many wear today -an art form with little distinction that the artisans create with pride. Copy art produced by many. For those hippies who love traveling on a shoe-string they manage to eke out a living in this sidewalk trade.

Their art does little for me, where they do garner my respect is that they do actually travel hand-in-mouth earning money on a daily basis so they can continue to travel. Whereas, I travel with a checkbook. It is different and I recognize it. What they do is gutsy for tomorrow is unknown.

In the more bohemian of towns in Latin America these kind of hippies gather in small groups often in stereotypical fashion with the juggler, the artisans, the drunks and dopers, fire dancers and hacky sack players. In the main park in Coban the juggler sits idle (this looks very painful to him) and the artisans keep making bracelets.

Often they blend into the sidewalk life wherever they habituate, except in Coban they hold court with 20-30 Guatemalans surrounding them to watch another bracelet being made one string at a time. The juggler has not started his show yet and sits on a park bench fidgeting nervously with a plastic ball that looks designed to keep him in top juggler shape. Feeling ignored and envious of the crowd that had gathered around the artisans he wants to rush into action -like a well trained dog waiting for a command. His pensive darting eyes scan the park waiting...picking his moment. The juggling sticks look like they may leap from his knapsack on their own.

Usually, these kind of traveling hippies blend into the cityscape along the sidewalks and under park trees, however, here they remain a curiosity to the Guatemalans who gather around to watch a thread being strung. As the crowd grew it took me back to my Japan days where some foreigners made a big deal out of being white and different in homogenized Japan and the intellectuals of the same group called them big fish in a small pond. The artisans played it good with 60 eyeballs watching every thread, they looked cool, but one could see they basked and glowed in the silent attention.

David
La Ceiba, Honduras