Then I began to catch the outlines of people, as though they had materialized out of the pale fog. All pure Maya, short and brown, shiny black hair, they appeared to be just going about their daily lives. I was approaching a workshop area where, under a wide thatch shade, men with chipped-flint adzes were carving bowls, plows, various implements from mahogany and other rain forest woods. Next to them, potters were fashioning brown clay jugs. They all were wearing white loincloths and a large square cotton cloth knotted around their shoulders, their hair tied back in dense ponytails. It must have been how the Maya looked a thousand years ago.
Their earnestness reminded me of the villagers I once filmed in the Yucatan for the Discovery Channel—with one big difference: There I was the big-shot gringo; here I felt like a powerless time traveler. The sense of being lost in another age was as compelling as the "colonial" mock-up at Williamsburg, but this was real and it was decidedly spooky.
Finally one of the men looked up and noticed me. Our eyes locked for an instant—it seemed like forever—and then he reached over and, in a way that seemed breathless, shook the man next to him, gesturing toward me. Together they gazed back as though viewing a phantom, their brown faces intent, and then they turned and called out to the others, alerting them.
What are they going to do with me? I wondered with a sudden chill. A stranger here in their hideaway midst. Would they just turn on me?
Find some women. Get off the street.
I turned and headed as fast as I could down the cobblestone central path, till I saw a cluster of females on a whitewashed stone porch, long hair falling over their shoulders as they bent to their tasks beneath the thatch overhangs. Some were stirring rugged clay pots of corn soaking in lime; others were grinding the softened maize to tortilla thinness on wide granite platters. Behind them was another group that appeared to be part of a sewing commune, young wives busy at their back-strap looms, layering thread after thread of dyed cotton. None of them was wearing a huipil—the traditional multicolored blouse I'd remembered from the waitresses in the restaurant. Instead, they all had on a kind of handloom-woven white shift I'd never seen before.
Talk to them. Let them know you're no threat to anybody.
As I moved down the hard clay pathway toward them, two looked up and took notice. Their first reaction seemed to be alarm, as they tensed and stared. But then I tried a smile and it seemed to work. Their looks turned to puzzlement, then embarrassed grins, as though they wanted to be friendly but weren't sure how to acknowledge my presence.
When I reached the porch, several reached out to touch me. One older woman, short and wizened and extremely brown, even tried to stroke my hair.
What was going on? I was taken aback, but I also was determined to get through to them. Why not just ask them point-blank if Sarah's here? Is there any chance they understand Spanish?