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From our Foreign Correspondent: Modern Times, Ancient Cultures
by MZ Hammmer 
View from Abroad
This is one of a series of dispatches from our foreign correspondent:
Ma sa sa’ laa ch’ool?
You hear this often traveling through the highlands of Guatemala. Literally this translates to “is there happiness in your heart?”
What language is this you may ask?
It doesn’t look like Spanish or any other European language.
It is Q’eqchi’ a Mayan language used in the highlands of Guatemala.
The people who speak this language are decedents of the native pre-Columbian (before Columbus) inhabitants of the region. The pre-Columbian Mayans built temples such as the ones at Tikal (shown in the picture above).
In 1523 the Spanish arrived in Guatemala and over a number of years gained control of the region.
The Europeans brought with them Christianity, a faith that was adopted by most of the inhabitants of Central America. However, don’t think for a minute that traditional beliefs completely disappeared.
It is common on feast days for a procession to begin at the Church of San Lorenzo with a mass for Christ the Sun God and his mother the Moon Goddess, and then proceed to a nearby hill for the veneration of ancestors and Maya gods,
writes Angela M.H. Schuster for Archeology.
I witnessed the Mayan woman above practicing one of these traditional rituals.
During my travels through the countryside of Guatemala I was surprised to find an ancient native pre-Columbian culture very much alive.
As I discovered, Guatemala is a land of incredible beauties both natural (check out the volcanoes here) and cultural. It is a country which definitely left me with “happiness in my heart”.
Stay tuned to our next dispatch from our foreign correspondent from Austria.
