by Dwight Wayne Coop
If you are even just an amateur archeologist, there is nothing
in Viaje Inolvidable a Tecpán (“A Memorable Trip to Tecpán”)
that you do not already know. But this comic-strip book presents facts that
belong on a test that anyone living in Central America should have to pass.
Viaje and the other “Papalote” books are only
available in Spanish. However, it is kid Spanish, so intermediate students of
this language can sail through without encountering any words whose meanings
cannot be guessed at from context or the lucid water-color illustrations. Indeed,
the series can aid in Spanish acquisition by adding to your vocabulary, exhibiting
the hyper-familiar vos form in action, and being a window on the local children’s
vernacular. It is, in other words, cinchy; only a fraidy cat would chicken out.
The adventure begins when Flor María (an impoverished
child from San Salvador) and her dog Pepín board a bus to sing for coins,
only to learn that the bus is full of field-tripping kids. Flor wins permission
to join them in exchange for a promise not to sing. The bus is magic, at least
for Flor and Pepín, as it transports them through time and space (from
modern El Salvador to ancient Guatemala). At the other end are their Toltec
mirror-image alter-egos: another little girl, Xochitl, and her dog. Xochitl
somehow speaks not only Nahuatl but Spanish (Columbus is another millenium in
coming, but why quibble when you’re having fun?).
While leading a tour of her time and place (Tecpán,
the site at kilometer 87 on the road to Panajachel), Xochitl shows us —
among other things — that cocoa beans were money. The plot (of sorts)
climaxes when priests eye Flor María as a human sacrifice; her first
response is to imagine that they want to make sausage of Pepín. Don’t
worry, though; our heroes escape back to the future and even encounter mementos
of their trip. At the end of the book are games and some Nahuatl words to wet
your linguistic feet with. There are also comprehension questions that —
if you read the book to children — should be gone over before the actual
reading.
Though Viaje touches on both Guatemala and El Salvador, its
“bias” reflects its Salvadoran authorship. Although we normally
associate Guatemala with Mayas, the ancients in this tale are Toltecs, who (with
the Aztecs and Pipiles) belong to the pedigree of most Salvadorans (if not most
Guatemalans). But all in all, Viaje is a quintessentially centroamericano storybook
for all ages. •
El viaje inolvidable a Tecpán, 32 pages,
by Néstor Torres and Miguel Cevada. Asociación Equipo Maíz,
1998. About $3 in bookstores, Guatemala: Antigua, Guatemala City, Quetzatenango,
Panajachel and El Salvador: San Salvador.
