Yep.  You read right.  Mayans with blackberry smartphones.  Fancy watches, cars, jewelry and other mod cons, too.

We went out of town yesterday to explore the nearby non-touristy villages a few miles out of Antigua.  The drive out was easy.  Diesel spewing buses loaded to the rafters and a swarm of bikes, scooters and motorcycles everywhere on a road system bereft of signage but, all in all, it was mostly just one road and thus easy.

Sunday Market

We got to San Antonio after about 40 minutes and parked at the square.  The nearby artisans market beckoned but we tried to resist.  We really don’t need any more blankets and saying “No, gracias.” with a fake smile gets tiresome and sometimes a bit guilt inducing.

Anyway – been there, done that.

But, of course, Sal peeked in and we were sucked into the Mayan market like it was a vortex for wallets.  First ‘personality’ was Maxima.  She has six kids and she is putting them all through school as a single mother.  Mind you, she had a blackberry, more jewelry than Lindsay Lohan and her beautiful smile was gold encrusted.  Her almost perfect English indicated that this lovely lady was not poor and no longer part of the old Mayan peasant culture.  My guess?  Her new Toyota was parked out back.

And there is nothing wrong with that!

We stopped for afternoon tea at a nice hillside restaurant and Alida greeted us with perfect English.  Her blackberry stashed in her colourful Mayan sash. She had the bearing of a Washington hostess.  Shorter by far but still very gracious and welcoming.

We talked about Guatemala and the apparent ‘rise’ in status and influence of the Mayans as opposed to 35 years ago when they were visibly oppressed. She reported that it was all different now.  No longer as oppressed, they are free to get into business, develop lines of credit and import and export.  And they do.  Quite a few of them do, it seems.

Apparently they are also pretty good at it.  Alida’s mother (Alida senior) has an e-mail for the purpose of exporting. Alida’s.textiles@conexión.com

Her family has many ventures underway including the ubiquitos weaving and other tourist paraphernalia.  And she regretted that not just a few of the locals were in the drug trade.

Her family imports used cars from the US and a lot of the men are away from home a lot.  We learned that a goodly portion of the local families were separated with the men and some of the women working in Mexico and the US and, of course, doing so to send money home to families. The price: divided families.

They may still be lacking the benefits of a gringo life but, by hard work, family cooperation, a few tools (such as credit lines) and a willingness to break the occasional law, they were getting ahead.  Financially, anyway.  Prize at the end just for showing up?  A Blackberry.  Prize for going the distance?  Enough saved to buy a house or, at least.a ‘lot’ in town.

“How much do you have to pay for a lot in town?  Say, a nice lot in a good neighbourhood but not the best part?” 

” $40 to $60,000 US dollars not counting building the house.” 

Assuming the house costs at least the same to build, these Mayans are paying a minimum of $100,000 to buy a cement block, tin roof ‘bunker’ in an off-the-beaten track village 25 miles from Antigua, Guatemala.

And they can get a mortgage if they own the land.

Admittedly, it is a better ‘lifestyle’ than that of the villages we saw decades before.  The kids are healthy.  The people are clean and busy.  Even the dogs look a bit better.  But, it would seem that the price of admission is  pretty high.  Throw in a blackberry account, a Toyota and some trinkets and I am not so sure that there is a helluva lot of difference in income between them and your average Canadian.  Certainly not if you use Alida or Maxima as your comparison.

Better put: it would seem the international playing field is leveling.  Some of that seems good.  Some of it seems bad.  But all of it is happening and, to be frank, the rural Canadian, by comparison, is not keeping up.  Not in ‘entrepreneurship’, that is for sure.

And, I guess, there is nothing wrong with that……………………