All That Is Bitter and Sweet (50 page)

Berger’s press conference coup had been elaborately planned—right down to the nameplates and water glasses and a conference room that was filled with government officials and invited guests. We all took our seats and had to roll with the circus as it unfolded, the price we apparently had to pay to bend the ear of the head of state. I was called on to make a speech, which I did; thank God I was already warmed up and had a little experience at being ambushed. The president then produced a guitar, which he presented to Juanes on the dais in an attempt to force him to perform. Juanes was a good sport and sang a bit of his colossal hit song “La Camisa Negra,” and then Berger clowned around with him, joining in a Guatemalan folk song. In his own remarks, Berger made a patronizing aside to his minister of health about the country needing to double the funding of its efforts to fight AIDS. We took that as a serious statement of intent and were glad that the media were there to record it.

During the photo ops after the news conference, the president kept up his antics. He squeezed me and Salma close to him and made some extremely inappropriate, gendered comments about our bodies. Salma told me she thought she smelled alcohol on him as he talked about “the honey of power.” Did he mean that we were the bees? Or maybe he was calling us “the honeys of power”—I never quite figured out his intention beyond the obviously sexist nature of the remark.

When it was all over, we climbed back in the car and finally let loose with howls of outraged laughter. Again, I was so glad Salma was there. I might have spent the rest of the day fuming over the president’s publicity stunt, but she could find the humor in anything. In addition to being a world-class actor, she’s a natural comedian; my mom calls her the Latina Lucille Ball. All the way back to the hotel she kept up a commentary on the afternoon’s events that had us in stitches. She was wearing a beautiful low-cut dress with a tight bodice that barely contained her voluptuous bosom, to which the president had apparently directed many of his remarks.

“It’s just physics—
fee-seeks
,” said Salma. “I can’t help it! There’s too much mass to fit in most clothes.”

Salma is so beautiful, she just kills people. You mention her name to men and they emit a little noise. Part sigh or part squeak. I call it the Salma sound. But she manages to deflect attention with self-deprecating humor—a classic thing that women do, but very few can pull it off. “Ashley came to my room this morning,” she said, “and she’s complaining, oh, she has a pimple, she doesn’t feel pretty. I say, ‘Look at you, you’re like this gazelle, with your long neck, so elegant in your carriage, so poised and regal. So simple and classic.’ And then there’s me. I’ve got a big ass, and big tits, on a short frame, and Ashley, I’m vulgar! You know, even when I’m just talking, I’m just vulgar! Look at me!”

Salma is a serious person who simply doesn’t take herself too seriously.

That night, I hosted a cocktail reception with business leaders and diplomats and yet another press opportunity at the hotel. But the part I was looking forward to most was meeting Rigoberta Menchú, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work advocating with the oppressed peasants of Guatemala during the civil war and championing the rights of indigenous people. Menchú is a member of the Quiché Maya ethnic group and was draped, as always, in colorful handwoven cloth. She was a quiet and dignified person with nut brown skin and a face as round as a harvest moon. We spoke in Spanish; I can understand a great deal but still need some help with translation, which Salma provided. I was blown away when Rigoberta invited me to return to Guatemala to take part in a Mayan ceremony. It was one of those moments when I fully realized the phenomenal options with which I’ve been blessed. I could stay at home in a beautiful, nurturing environment in Tennessee, or I could just climb on a plane and join Rigoberta Menchú for a traditional ceremony. My life could be as big as I wanted to make it.

I have learned that the tragedy of AIDS cuts across the lines of wealth and class and wreaks devastation on the rich and powerful as well as the poor and oppressed. Although poverty and ignorance are the petri dish of the pandemic, no one is immune, not a basketball star or businesswoman, a top model or the son of a president. The disease affects us all. We wanted to illustrate this fact by bringing a film crew from the Discovery Channel, which was making a documentary about our Central America trip, to tape an interview with members of a prominent Guatemalan family who had lost a son to AIDS.

Even though Blanca and Luis Garcia had become outspoken advocates for AIDS awareness since the death of their son, Luis Angel, they were reluctant to appear in the film. It was still such a sensitive subject. Fortunately, there was a new member of our PSI team who possessed a gentle power of persuasion and had a surprising personal connection to the Garcias’ story.

Marshall Stowell, who is now PSI’s director of communications, had joined the organization in 2005 to work with Kate on the YouthAIDS campaign. I instantly fell in love with Marshall for his elegant, soft-spoken manner and his calm hazel eyes, which radiate kindness and mirth. Like most gay men in America during the 1990s, Marshall was well aware of the AIDS epidemic. Many of his friends in Atlanta, Georgia, where he had been working in marketing, were HIV-positive. But the full impact of the disease hadn’t truly hit home for him until Tim, a very close friend, came down with full-blown AIDS. He didn’t know how to respond to his terrible decline and felt he had somehow let his friend down. After he died, Marshall decided to devote himself to advocacy work as a way to honor Tim. When our representative in Guatemala called to tell Marshall about the Garcia family and how they were hesitant to tell their son’s story on camera, he felt a quiver of recognition.

“Where did their son live?” he asked.

When he was told it was Atlanta, a chill ran down his spine, followed by a huge wave of emotion. He had been friends with a striking, witty Guatemalan designer named Luis Garcia who had died of AIDS during that time. Marshall was able to assure the family that he had known their son well and that we would be very respectful in the filming. They agreed to appear on camera.

The Garcias’ house was in one of Guatemala City’s wealthiest neighborhoods, where stately homes are hidden behind high stone walls covered with fragrant, blooming vines and metal security gates. Luis’s grown brothers and sisters were there to greet us, along with his parents, a handsome middle-aged couple with traces of pain still etched in their faces. Blanca Garcia sat snuggled with Salma and me on the couch in the cool, spacious living room as she paged through a thick album of photographs commemorating her son’s short life. We all teared up when Blanca told us she had brought the album to Atlanta to reminisce with Luis as he lay dying and to reassure him that he would always be remembered.

Because the stigma against homosexuality and AIDS is so great in Guatemala, stories like Luis’s are usually covered up. But the Garcias chose to honor their son by acknowledging the reality of his life at his funeral, wearing the red ribbon symbol of AIDS. This shocked their social circle, some of whom shunned them for a time. They then boldly went further, opening two clinics to care for AIDS patients and offer counseling services for the families.

As Marshall watched the taping from a quiet corner of the room, he felt a moment of completion, of healing. By helping tell the Garcias’ story, he was offering hope to those who suffer in silence and was spreading the message of prevention that could save more young people from early death. For Marshall, it was something close to grace.

Salma had listened to me talking about my visits to brothels for years; now she would see one for herself. The barrio was called La Linea, a sad neighborhood of garishly painted one-story concrete buildings lining a defunct rail bed strewn with debris. As we walked down the tracks, women peered at us from doorways that led to small cinder-block rooms with narrow beds and sometimes turned to wag their rear ends at us, a form of hello they use to solicit customers. Although prostitution is carried out openly in Guatemala City, many were still afraid to be seen with us. One of the few who would speak to us was Brenda, a teen with long shiny black hair and bright red lips, dressed for business in a tight pink chiffon bodysuit and platform heels. Again, Salma was a natural in this setting. She plunked herself right down next to Brenda on the bed, a thin mattress on creaky springs with one sheet where she had cheap, paid sex, putting her at ease with her warmth and directness.

“Are you afraid of catching HIV?” she asked in Spanish. Yes, said Brenda, but she knew to use condoms, she could insist on it. She also knew how to inspect a customer’s genitals for external indications of STIs. Salma picked up a handful of unopened condom strips that were scattered on the bedspread and asked, “How much do you pay for these?” They were given out free at the health clinic, said Brenda. I was more interested in why Brenda had become a prostitute. The answer was all too familiar: She needed the money to feed her son. There was no other work. She had no education or vocational skills. To provide for him, she sold herself ten or a dozen times a day for the equivalent of $2 a client. (This seemed to be a worldwide price point for exploitive sex.) We made our way down the street, knocking on doors and talking to the women. It was a depressing scene, as always, but with my friend by my side it was not so heavy. In fact, Salma was glowing as we drove out of the barrio, leaning through the open window, waving to the women, and shouting, “
Adios, hermanas!
Goodbye, my sisters!”

Marshall was intrigued and asked her how it went.

“Oh, it was fantastic,” she said. “These women are incredible, so strong.”

“And what did you talk about?”

“Well, I asked one of them, ‘Do your children know what you do?’ ” said Salma. “And she says to me, ‘No, I tell them that I sell underwear.’ I say, ‘Why would you tell them that?’ She says ‘You know, it’s kind of close to the truth … because the panties are close to the cootchie.’ ” Peals of laughter. I could see Papa Jack’s ears turning red as he sat in the front seat, trying to keep his eyes on the crowd and the police escort leading us back to La Terminal.