i don't even know where to begin. it's only been two days, but i have already seen a lot. it's all heavy, maybe a bit too heavy. i wish i could post pictures, but i haven't taken any. i can't get myself to. i visited communities of affluence today. $1,800 USD apartment complexes with extravagant patios. security guards. spas. fine dining. jaguars. twenty minutes later, i was in abject poverty. i visited a school that is situated next to a city dump. literally, right next to the city dump. i could hear the trucks. smell the fumes. saw children sorting garbage. the school is next to the city dump with the goal of educating children who work in the dump. the logic being, if children are going to work in the city dump, at least they can get an education on their down time. so far, the program has been working, but with limited success. guatemala city is big, and one program can only do so much. a few people can only do so much. the social worker of the program is a short guatemalan woman, about 50 years of age, with strong brown eyes. she possessed a motherly tenderness, one that is needed, given the circumstances. but she also spoke with conviction, with the air of someone who has witnessed their fair share of life. but i don't mean to focus on the negative stories. i don't want to victimize guatemala. cause pity. it's just that this is all very heavy right now and i've never been face to face with this before. in the same day, i listened to a story of hope. a story told by a man who lost his dad, his brothers and a sister to torture. to war. the story is of a 13 year old boy named enrique. enrique is a member of the ms-13. the central american gang with a vicious reputation. enrique was in his colonia, he was looking out of his window, when he noticed that the police had arrived. the police headed to the home of two individuals, dona mari and don jose. the couple was arrested and taken away. the police locked the door so no one could get in. i don't know if the police knew this or not, but a two month old was now locked in the building. alone. the son of dona mari and don jose. but enrique knew this and he came up with a plan. he'd break into the building through the roof. and so he did. during the day, enrique would go out and extort money from local businesses. threatening with death those who would resist to pay. enrique would set aside some of the money and would buy milk for the baby. enrique fed the baby, comforted the baby, slept next to the baby. for six months, enrique was a father. dona mari was eventually released. she hurried home, expecting to find her dead baby. instead, she found enrique holding the baby. he was burping him.

part two: guatemala

i made it. i'm in guatemala city and i've met up with my group. traveling through mexico was great, but i'm definitely ready to start the program. i made it across the border yesterday. barely, kind of. i ended up meeting five young gents from england in oaxaca, who were planning on heading to guatemala through tapachula, chiapas. we spoke of heading in this direction, but never set a plan to head out together. fortunately for them, they had enough foresight to buy their tickets ahead of time in mazunte. as for me, i decided to wait til the last minute. when i arrived to buy my ticket in huatulco, the tickets were sold out. i was out of luck. there was nothing left for me to do but to keep heading south. maybe my luck would turn. i decided to ride a second-class bus to juchitan, oaxaca, about 3 hours from huatulco. once there, i tried my luck again. directo a tapachula, por favor. i was in luck, two tickets were available. it was 4 pm and the bus headed for tapachula at midnight. all i needed to do was kill some time. midnight arrives, i board the bus with the ten hour overnight trip to tapachula being a breeze. nothing to do but sleep. i get off the bus in tapachula and i realize that the brits are on the same bus as i, but there are only 3 of them. one of them fell ill in oaxaca, and another stayed behind. fortunately for me, that's how two seats became available. more fortune, the brits spoke no spanish and i now had people with which to cross the border. symbiotic relationship. crossing the border was intense and i'm glad i didn't do it alone. first, we needed to sell our pesos and buy quetzales. we were promptly ripped off. second, we needed to cross the border. once again, a sleight of hand. there's not supposed to be an entrance fee. third, get to Malacatan, the closest place with buses heading to a major town. this third part was the most overwhelming. i clearly remember crossing a bridge in guatemala, looking over my shoulder and realizing that the brits and i had an entourage of ten guatemalans hovering around us. everyone was yelling at us. had something for us. wanted something from us.Taxi! Combi! Amigo! Cuanto?! Aqui! Vamos! We managed to complete our third objective unscathed. we opted for a combi, a minivan fitted for inter-town travel. it was the brits, 17 more souls and i. bienvenidos a guatemala.

part one: mexico

the mexico part of my trips feels a lot more like a vacation. not to say that i haven´t seen interesting things or haven´t encountered great people with great stories, but i think maybe i´m just taking it all a bit more with stride. i mean, it's hard not to on the beach, or in a bar putting back a few victorias. i did have a moment with my grandmother in guanajuato though. i showed her a picture of my father and for a second she had trouble recognizing him, and when she did, she wept a bit. she cried at the fact that my father is now an older man, who at one time left for the US as a teenager. my grandmother softly said "the united states took my son and there he became a man." it was sad to witness my grandmother at that moment, recognizing the few times she had seen my father since he parted for his new life, lamenting that she wasn´t by him when he was a young man. unfortunately, he wasn´t the only one. most of my aunts and uncles followed, with only one aunt remaining in mexico to make a life for herself, in a city a couple of hours away from home. it´s extremely sobering to listen to these stories from my family. it helps reveal how extremely fortunate i am. i have just recently arrived in guatemala, about to embark on another part of this trip and i don´t know if i can feel any luckier to be here. to travel because i want to and not because i have to.

Untitled from Miguel Gutierrez Jr on Vimeo.

no siempre se puede ir en linea recta hasta conseguir los fines, hay que dar rodeos. es verdad.

untitled

untitled from Miguel Gutierrez Jr on Vimeo.

ord>sfo>mex..

ord>sfo>mex from Miguel Gutierrez Jr on Vimeo.

guanajuato, guanajuato

chicago, il
san francisco, ca
mex df
san miguel de allende, gto
guanajuato, gto
la canada de caracheo, gto
morelia, mich
patzcuaro, mich
playa azul, mnich
zihuatanejo, gro
barra de potosi, gro
papanoa, gro
acapulco, gro
puerto escondido, oax
zipolite, oax
huatulco, oax
san cristobal de las casas, chi
abasolo, chi
guatemala, guatemala...

put the pink card in the mailbox...

leave the key in the old front door lock,
they will find it likely as not,
i'm sure there's somethin' we have forgot.

ode to franklin park.

ode to franklin park, illinois from Miguel Gutierrez Jr on Vimeo.

this is my first video and i shot it with my d90. i'm having trouble uploading the HD version, so this will have to do. growing up i hated franklin park. i was one of a handful of mexican-american kids at the junior high and spic at wetback were the words dujour. since then, i've grown to love franklin park. i spent most of my formidable years here. this is an ode to its gritty, working class, railroad town ways.