Cuates Lives on in Guatemala

I started receiving the LGB RPCV newsletter recently, along with some newspaper clippings from last summer's Pride Parade in San Francisco. They both made me feel connected again. The newsletter was great to get, and very interesting, not only because it put me in touch with LGB RPCVs, but especially because of Aida's Sahud's article Cuates: Good Friends, May 1996.

I'm a volunteer in Guatemala's Agricultural Diversification Program and active in Cuates (the LGB PCV support group in Guatemala). We normally have 8-10 folks who come to the monthly meetings. As Aida said, it's a long haul to Guatemala City for most of us (7 to 8 hours for me). We think there are another 6 or 7 LGB PCVs who don't come to the meetings for one reason or another. It was neat to read Aida's article because I've heard so much about her and her efforts to keep Cuates going here in Guatemala.

I've spoken at the last two Diversity Panels for new trainees as a lesbian volunteer, and I generally feel support from and within Peace Corps. I am not at home (Northern California - Humboldt County), so it's strange to be back in the closet in a small rural town in Eastern Guatemala. I knew what I was getting into though, before joining Peace Corps. My "cuates" support me as well as my straight, but not narrow, volunteer friends.

I am not out to anyone in my pueblo which is OK, except for the constant dodging the "why aren't you married, why don't you have a boyfriend" questions. It is a macho culture, mostly Latino here in the east, although the local Mayan people, the Chorti, supposedly are more open. I recently spoke with an anthropologist who did his doctorate here in Olopa, and he told me that homosexuality among the Chorti was sort of common and acceptable, or at least accepted. He also told me of a book on Nicaragua, Life is Hard, by Roger Lawrence that deals with homosexuality among Nicaraguans. I haven't read it, but it sounds interesting.

Other than life as a closeted gringa, life goes well here, complete with mangoes, afternoon tormentos, beautiful men and women, tortillas, mud, wind in the banana leaves, long walks on dirt roads to small villages, crowded buses, barking frogs and skinny dogs. The occasional air mail envelop or red tail hawk arrives, but not as often as vultures or black beans. I love this land and its people, but of course I was longing to be at the San Francisco Pride Parade watching the radical faeries, dykes on bikes, and PFLAG march, ride and dance by in the freedom that San Francisco offers. Maybe next year my close PCV friend Chela and I will make it. Thanks a lot for staying in touch.