Tectitán

About Tectitán:

Tectitán is one of the smaller municipalities in Huehuetenango, bordered by Cuilco to the north and east and by Tacaná, in San Marcos, to the south and west. Huehuetenango city is a little over 100 kilometres away and Guatemala City 428. The main way in is national route RN-7W from Cuilco, which climbs the stretch of switchbacks drivers call Las 18 Vueltas and then runs straight through the town as its main street. Two dirt roads also come in from San Marcos, one through Tacaná and one through San José Ojetenam, and the Tacaná route is hard going in the rainy season. The road link with Cuilco is recent by local standards: it only became possible in 1994, when the 12-kilometre road from the town to Agua Caliente was built.

This is farming country, and most of what is grown stays in the household. Maize and black beans are the main crops, often planted together, and coffee is grown under shade trees on the lower ground. Farming offers almost no paid work, so for years many working-age people have crossed into Mexico each autumn to work as day labourers from September into January, and others have left for longer, mostly for the eastern United States. By 2008 a quarter of households received money from relatives abroad, and after daily needs, building a house was the main thing it was spent on. Saturday is market day in the town, which also has the health centre; Agua Caliente and Chisté have health posts of their own.

The ground is steep and the soils are thin. Most of the municipality sits on shallow volcanic mountain soils that are really forest land, but only a fifth of it still had forest cover by 2010, the rest cleared for farming and firewood. Mountains such as Chisté, Toninquín and La Avanzada rise around the town, and La Avanzada is a municipal reserve because several springs that feed nearby communities rise there. The highest ground suits fruit trees such as apple, peach, plum and avocado. Landslides and forest fires are the two hazards locals rank highest. In September 2014 municipal pipes under the main street gave way and undermined the slope, opening a slide some 300 metres wide that brought down nine houses in the town and destroyed 17 across the municipality.

The name is Náhuatl and means place of flints. In colonial times the town was Santa María Magdalena Tectitlán, run first by Mercedarian friars and later as part of the parish of Cuilco, and Santa María Magdalena is still the patron, with the town fair on 22 July. Older residents remember the town in the late 1930s and early 1940s as just eight houses of rough timber with straw roofs. Around 12,000 people live in the municipality today, and fewer than one in ten of them live in the town itself. The rest are spread across the aldeas of Chisté, Toninquín, Agua Caliente and Totanám and some thirty caseríos, among them Toajlaj, Ixconolí, Tichumel, Ixmujil, Buena Vista and El Progreso.

Houses in Tectitán:

Out in the aldeas, most houses are adobe under zinc-sheet roofs, often with one or two rooms. The newer, larger houses are the ones families have built with remittances. Most buyers are local families, including people from Tectitán working abroad who want a house to come back to. If you are looking at houses for sale in Tectitán in the town, ask exactly where the property stands in relation to the 2014 slide, look for cracks in walls and floors, and find out where the house drains. In the aldeas, check whether the house has electricity, because some caseríos were connected late.

Land and Lots in Tectitán:

Farm parcels here are small, sloping and mostly planted with maize and beans, with coffee lower down and room for fruit trees on the high ground. Because the territory is communal, a parcel is a usufruct right rather than a registered finca, and the municipalidad charges a small fee to record its sale, transfer or inheritance. Before you buy land in Tectitán, walk the boundaries with the neighbours and the alcalde auxiliar of the community, and ask whether the plot has its own access or depends on crossing someone else’s field. Water matters as much as the soil. Find out which spring or piped system the parcel draws on and whether it runs dry in the dry season, as many local sources do.

FAQ:

• How do I get to Tectitán?

  From Huehuetenango city, drive to Cuilco by way of Colotenango and San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán, then take RN-7W up Las 18 Vueltas to Tectitán, a little over 100 kilometres in all. From San Marcos there are dirt roads through Tacaná and San José Ojetenam, but they are slow, and in the rainy season the Tacaná road can be very difficult.

• Can I get registered title to a plot in Tectitán?

  Do not assume so. The municipal territory is registered as communal land, and families hold their plots as usufruct rights recorded by the municipalidad, so most parcels have no individual entry at the property registry. Ask the municipalidad for its record of the right, the chain of past transfers and inheritances, and confirmation of who the current holder is. Then have a notary check whether this particular parcel was ever registered on its own, and explain what the usufruct right does and does not let you do.

• Is the town centre safe to build in after the 2014 landslide?

  That depends on the exact spot. The 2014 slide followed the main street, where broken municipal pipes undermined the ground, and the houses along it took the damage. Ask the municipalidad and CONRED whether the lot has been assessed, look at drainage on the street and on neighbouring plots, and be wary of any site with cracked ground or water seeping out after rain.

• What languages are spoken in Tectitán?

  Spanish is the everyday language of business and the municipality. Tektiteko, also called B’a’aj, is the town’s own Maya language and is spoken here, in part of Cuilco and in a few Chiapas communities over the Mexican border. Mam is spoken as well.

• What can I grow on land in Tectitán?

  Maize and black beans are the staples on most parcels, and coffee does well under shade on the lower slopes. The high ground suits deciduous fruit such as apple, peach and plum, and avocado. The soils are thin and the slopes steep, so erosion control and a reliable water source count for more than the size of the plot.