New and Old; a lovely encounter

A good old friend from California is in town and he and I went around looking at things at the artesania place near the mercado. And in a tiny little cubicle we went in to look at some beautiful heavily-embroidered textiles. A young man of about 20 was tending the space and he spoke so knowledgeably about the different types of textiles and what parts of Guatemala they came from that I said, "You know a lot about this!" and he said, "It is my culture." And thus began a long and rather emotional conversation about his desire to know more about it, and his last name (Mayan.) He was interested that I knew the difference between ladinos and Mayans and that the ladinos don’t by-and-large do this textile work as the Mayans do, except in the way that individual Europeans or Americans like me do. He told me that all the languages like Tsutu'jil and Katchikel (I don't know how to spell them correctly) SHOULD be referred to as Maya Tsutu'jil and Maya Katchikel, etc. He showed me in detail how this BEAUTIFUL embroidery about 4 feet wide and tall was first woven and then designs drawn on in pencil, not pen, and then embroidered in silk, which breaks more easily than cotton, he told me, and that it takes about 4 mos. to do it, and his respect for it was so lovely, and he just so lovely. So I said, intending to be flattering, “You should be teaching this in a museum or university.” And he said he was starting to study so that he could go into archaeology or anthropology. He was just so earnest and sweet and had such integrity that I wanted to fund his college education or at least buy his stuff, but the one we were looking at was 4000 Q (or about $320) and even the little ones were very expensive. I guess he must be selling some or he wouldn't be there, but how many people are going to recognize the value of these beautiful things? Even I try to get the prices down. And so many things are being produced now, more mechanically, and more cheaply. And if they are bought, these lovely things will go out of existence.