Zacatecas from above - on the hill "La Bufa" (View on flickr)

We spent a week or 10 days in Zacatecas - arriving from multiple weeks of rural Mexico it was quite a wakeup call. This is a classy city - beautiful, like you'd just arrived in an old European city - Nancy likens it to Florence, Italy, and I think that's probably reasonable. We talk about the cultural events we got to see, including concerts, folk music, folk dance, and about the beautiful city of Zacatecas itself, including its history and appearance.

maria brito bernal near Nebaj (View on flickr)

We remember so very many women and have so many stories to tell from our time in Guatemala - we thought we'd just tell a few stories. Read on for lots of pictures and a slideshow of the women.

Maria Brito

To get to Maria Brito's house, we rode our bikes just up into the skirts of the valley where Nebaj is. As you leave the city (or town, really) you end up right away in green cornfields with people's houses scattered among them. Before long, you get to the end of the electricity lines, and well beyond the paved road, and end up on a muddy track headed up the hill. That's where Maria's house is. When we first met her, we thought "Oh, she's pretty poor" because she lived in a shack that she herself would not consider a house, with no electricity and with the water spigot across the road (at least she had one). But like many of the women we met, her dignity and friendliness transformed her right before our eyes from someone to be pitied into a woman to be honored, repected, and treasured.