The men also carry amazing loads. They don't balance it on their heads like the women, but carry it on their backs. You'll notice from these photos that they use a leather strap on their forehead to secure it. We especially see the men and boys (but sometimes women or girls) carrying wood, as especially in the rural areas they cook over open fires. We've seen men carry tree trunks; they might have two or three, six inches in diameter, ten or twelve feet long! More commonly we see bundles of wood, usually pieces that are two or three inches in diameter and uniformly two feet long or so that they've cut with their machetes. They begin to train the young boys to haul the wood at about age 10, starting them with one stick, and increasing as they build strength. Guatemalans are not afraid of hard work, and to us it seems they do
a lot of heavy, physical labor!
