guatemala

Examines the daily lives of a contemporary Indian family in a Guatemalan village.

Isabel, a newly married fifteen-year-old who lives in a traditional Mayan village, is invited to join a government-run teacher training program, and is thrown into the turbulent political reality of contemporary Guatemala.

When, protected by the branches of one of the trees she loves to climb, Gabriela witnesses the destruction of her Mayan village and the murder of nearly all its inhabitants, she vows never to climb again until, after she and her traumatized sister find safety in a Mexican refugee camp, she realizes that only by climbing and facing their fears can she and her sister hope to have a future.

Kidnapped when she was very young by an unscrupulous man who has forced her to lie and beg to get money, a twelve-year-old Mayan girl endures an abusive life, always wishing she could return to the parents she can hardly remember.