Abstract
Forty eight years later — prompted by José Ferrater Mora to reflect over my philosophical work — it would dawn upon me that San Vicente was not the right place to learn French, take music lessons, acquire good manners, even to develop a sense of religion. San Vicente was then an isolated little rural village, in the distant Country of Cabanas in the province of Zacapa, in Guatemala — then so far away from Europe and the United States. Zacapa is for the most part arid and very hot and harsh. People have to work that land very hard to eke out a poor living. Then, as it had been during the preceding century, Zacapa was a land of quick tempers and some violence; mostly personal violence, but often political violence in rebellious protest against the many cruel dictatorships of Guatemala.
