The Legend of Quetzal

It is very early here, and I am a little homesick. But tonight Raul is taking me to a conference on rebuilding and restructuring the old city and I am very excited. The old buildings are very beautiful -.they haven't been around as long as some others in the country, because this is the third capitol, but they are still colonial spanish style - but they have been ravaged by earthquakes and rainstorms and many years of neglect. They are also planning to make the city more people-friendly: walkways, cleaning up the main streets, moving out some of the vendors and giving them their own market. I hope they manage to do it all because it could be a wonderful place. And then this weekend I am going horseback riding out in the countryside - so many things to do!

Here is the story that I promised for you.....

La Leyenda del Quetzal

They have to be and they will be.... - I said that placid and indescribable afternoon, an afternoon of Guatemala, bathed in light and languishing sun. Many years ago, who knows how many, there was a city that in our tongue was called Kumarkaaj - which means " the place where our canes will wither" - and that was the same that now we call Guatemala.

In that city there was a flower that was very good and very beautiful - as all children should be good and beautiful - that loved her father, who was a very handsome tree, a Pine. He was a tree a thousand times sacred, because in our mayan tongue he was named chaaj, which means "tree under which you can hear the whisper of the voice of God", and her mother, saintly and good, as are all mothers, was the light of a star, the light of the star of the afternoon...

The flower had many sisters, who were always at her side, circling her and lavishing her with attention. These, like she, were what we here in Guatemala call orchids.

One afternoon, very much like this one, the good flower, thinking of her parents and her sisters, very soundly slept. She had a dream so sweet and so beautiful, as sweet and beautiful as are the dreams of all children: she was seen and drew the attention and maternal love of Ixmucane, the grandmother, and was touched by the hands of Junapuh and Ixbalamque, who encircled her sweetly, and the flower was converted into an admirable symbol, into something that was the incarnation of all the art and glory of the Maya.

The next day the flower awoke and was no longer a flower. She had transformed into a beautiful bird that flew ever so high. And this bird, into which she was changed, through goodness, through spirit, through delicacy and beauty, is, my friends, the Quetzal. The Quetzal! Fire and beauty, that knows that death and liberty are the same, as the chest of the Chief Tecun-Uman, when he battled against the conquistador don Pedro Alvarado, as sweet and good as sunny days of hope and grandeur for your country, that is now called Guatemala and that then was called Kumarkaaj, that in our beautiful mayan language means "the place where our canes wither".