Alleys - a narrow path to search out people

Here they are called callejones, or, alleys.

As we go in our ministry here, we look to make home visits on everyone possible.  The most remote, the most humble home, we want to find.  So as we go through Panajachel, we find honeycombs of callejones filled with people. These aren't the tourist spots, the places where Europeans or Americans look for homes. These are where the real Guatemalans live, the folks that work in the hotels or make the goods that are later sold on Santander, the main tourist-street.

I love that we visit back in these hidden homes, that we seek people out. It's like we're seeing the authentic Panajachel, meeting the real people.

We canvas the area always on the left side.  That is, we start on the left side of the callejon, and then when we find another (smaller) callejon, we follow that one, then to another.  Eventually, we come to the end of a callejon, and resume tracing out the left side... eventually leading us back to the main road.

This house is literally built into the side of a mountain!
See the bedrock it sits on. Barely visible, at the back,
is a spot where a boulder fell from the mountain
and damaged the house. 

Many of these alleyways are barely wider than our shoulders, with walls up perhaps one or two stories high. Cramped!  Then we hear the sound of a motorcycle coming, and we need to find a doorway to step into to allow him (or her) to pass.

See how close they are to the mountainside?
In times of  derrumbos (landslides), these people are in
 grave danger. Do you see the top of the mountain,
and the bare rock?  That is where the boulder fell from. 

In rainy season (approx May - October), there are times when the water rises because it has so little area to escape.  People go running out of the callejones to escape for their lives.