International Women´s Day

Happy International Women´s Day to all the ladies reading this site. Today was a fabulous day. I was supposed to spend the morning ¨helping¨(in other words observing) at a conference at an all guys school, something I´ve only had to do once, and really didn´t enjoy because the guys tend to be rude. Instead I got to go to a women´s conference at the Roma Theater in honor of today. Then teaching today made up for all the rough days in the past. And trust me, there´ve been rough days. Such as yesterday when the other 2 teachers didn´t show up, and I had the whole school for 3 hours. Okay, that´s alittle dramatic, the ´whole school´consisted of about 15 students because most ditched. Still with kids from 8-17 it was impossible to get anything accomplished and was incredibly frustrating, especially since noone had the notebooks they were supposed to. Anyways, today was great, because for the first time ever, all 6 of my students present had their homework (my previous hw record was 3 out of 6). We also made a breakthrough on our study of fractions, and learned to convert from improper to proper and vice versa. This was huge as Monday I had to teach my 17 year olds what a fraction is and how to add them and it was quite a struggle. Then for social studies I took advantage of the fact that it´s Women´s Day, we´re studying the family, and all 6 present were girls. I gave them a typical but abbreviated Harding marriage talk on how to find a decent man. I didn´t intend to, but domestic violence is really bad here, and they´d never heard it before. I asked them what they could do to make sure future husbands treat them well, and they came up with hope and pray. They told me the role of a woman is to clean and raise kids (Paul, you´re not allowed to make any comments) and when I asked them their rights, they said death. They were half kidding, but also half serious, so I went on my little rant on deserving respect and refusing to settle for less, and practical things to look for in a guy. Then we talked about the influence of women. I told them that they always hear that the youth are the future, but it´s the mother who is the 'alma de la casa' and she raises the kids. She teaches her sons how to respect women and her daughters that they deserve to be respected. Her relationship is the model that her children will follow whether good or bad. It was amazing watching them, they have never been so attentive. I don´t think these girls have ever heard that they matter, they deserve respect, and they have a huge influence in the world. Nothing else I´ve done in the past 3 weeks may have mattered, but I hope they got something out of today.

Guatemalan KKK?

Okay so not really, but that´s what the Encapachados (or something like that) remind me of. This week the university students have been dressing in gowns alot like the KKK, only purple or sometimes green, complete with face masks and pointy caps. Then they go out into the streets blocking traffic and demanding ¨donations¨. I don´t think they´re actually dangerous (I refused them money, and they didn´t do anything) but they do look pretty intimidating. And I guess if you´re in a car, it´s alittle harder to get past them. Even though this is very much illegal the police do absolutely nothing because they´re essentially afraid and powerless. The few times they have intervened in the past, I´m told it got pretty violent and resulted in the deaths of several police officers. It´s kind of like the donations the university students require of local businesses. Those who don´t pay up the required amount get their business painted over. On a predetermined night, they all parade down the street singing and carrying on and make a big party of it. Again, the police leave them alone because they can´t really stop them.

On a side note, I saw a headline reporting that the KKK is alive and well in the US and is now targeting the Hispanic population. I didn´t get to read the actual article, can someone tell me if it has any legitimacy and what the deal is with that?

Farm and Lake

So I don´t think I ever got around to writing about it, but a couple weekends ago I went to a coffee and macademia nut farm that is a cooperative run by the workers (very rare in Guatemala). For anyone interested, here´s the website: http://www.comunidadnuevaalianza.org/history.htm
Of course, it leaves out all the interesting parts like the workers showing up in the middle of the night to kidnap the corrupt brother of the previous owner who was trying to take back the land, only to find he had been tipped off and had escaped, or the part where he threatened to send thugs to kill them and they stood their ground saying they were willing to go to war over their land. Or what it actually meant to have to live off the land for so many years, and how even though the previous owner declared bankruptcy they´re being forced to pay his debt, etc.

This past weekend I went back to Lake Atitlan. I spent the first night in Panajachel, where I´d already been. Then Saturday we took a boat to San Pedro for about an hour. I´d heard it was known for drugs, but wow! There´s seriously nothing there economically speaking. The entire town only exists for the drug trade. It´s entirely made up of the Arastafarian crowd (forgive my spelling), and it´s like stepping into a different universe that has lost all contact with reality. Then we went to San Marcos and stayed there for the night. San Marcos was great because coming in from the lake there aren´t any streets, just little footpaths through the jungle, and then one road that passed through the ¨center¨which consisted of 2 tiendas and a church. Leaving was pretty scary. The lake was in really rough shape. The people getting off from San Pedro (only 1/3 the distance from San Marcos to Pana where we needed to go) just kinda shook their heads as they walked by and wished us luck. They looked pretty rough and all their stuff was soaked. They could hardly get off the boat onto the dock which was collapsing. A couple told us not to get on the boat, even if we had to stay another night, that it just wasn´t worth the risk, and that it took them over twice as long as it should to get there. So we ended up hiring a pickup truck which wasn´t really all that much safer. The tires were completely bald and on the uphill sections the engine got so hot we had to move, and it smelled like it was about to die at any moment. On the downhill sections the brakes were squeaking, and all the girls were pretty scared while Jeff was going on about what a rush it was. But we made it back to Pana, and then to Xela without further complications, other than having to change buses about 3 times.

Current Events

So around 2 weeks ago 3 El Salvadorean ex-officials and their driver were murdered. As it turned out, they were killed by the Guatemalan police. It was a huge deal, and all over the new and they had to come up with the culprits pretty quick (a sorry attempt to burn the car wasn´t sufficient to hide the bodies). So within a day or 2 they arrested 3 Guatemalan police officers. Then within another day or two, the police officers were murdered in their ¨high security¨jail cells. The police are promoting the story that the drug cartel did it. Right... with no inside help, they broke in, murdered them, then snuck back out? Anyways, there are pretty much 2 possibilities. The officers were completely innocent, but they needed a scapegoat (and were protecting the real culprits) and had them murdered to close the case... Or option 2... they were in fact guilty, had been promised money, but instead got murdered to prevent the possibility of them ratting out who gave them their commands.
Other news... within another day or so a police officer was murdered here in Xela, one of the guys we saw on a couple of our trips to the office the other week. It was completely unrelated to above situation, and rumor has it, it´s because he didn´t get along too well with his boss.... I really hope it´s not the guy PDH is working with.
Meanwhile, I´d like to point out the irony that with police and government officials dropping like flies, the US media is focusing on some sinkhole which I saw about a 10 sec. media clip on, and don´t even know where it´s at.
And finally to wrap up, Bush is making a trip to Guatemala this month, but hasn´t yet announced the day for security reasons. I´m not sure if he´s really brave or really stupid. Everyone I´ve met down here (Guatemalan and US) pretty much agree with Chavez that Bush is in fact Satan. There are plenty of people who´d love to kill him, and those that don´t are worried that someone else will, and this will cause more problems for their country. Meanwhile many of the Americans are eagerly awaiting his arrival as they want to join the Guatemalans in the anti-Bush protests.

Going to Church

At Harding the topic of being a Christian and believing in God, but not going to church seemed to come up alot. There were alot of reasons: I go to chapel and Bible class everyday anyway, they´re too big and I don´t feel involved, I don´t get anything out of it, it´s too hypocritical etc. It kind of surprised me to hear some of the same (and to me very American) arguments come up here. Francisco and I were debating church and essentially organized religion. He said that it´s believing in God and being a good Christian and living your life accordingly that matter. The church is hypocritical, doesn´t really promote change, and is essentially the opium of the people. I agree with most of what he said. The churches here and in the States have alot of problems. I agree that it´s not about having an expensive building and an established hierarchy, and telling people things are bad, but not doing anything to change them. The difference is in what you do with that. To me, that´s all the more reason we need to be proactive in the church and work to improve it. If it´s not lining up with God´s desire for his church, we need to change it, not abandon it.
It´s like human rights here in Guatemala, it´s a pretty messed up situation which we could decide to have nothing to do with. But instead of giving up on it because of it´s problems, there are people working to try to make things better, even if it´s a slow messy problem. The point is, you can´t do it alone, you´ve got to have support and other people helping you. That´s one thing that´s so important about church, people meeting and working together. Just as believing in the importance of human rights (and even trying to improve them, but doing it alone) isn´t going to change anything, so believing in God and even doing what´s right (but doing it alone) isn´t the way to change the world. We need help and support and the church provides that.
I feel obligated to mention at this point that for all my talk about the importance of going to church, I´ve only actually gone twice since I got to Guatemala. Just wanted to put that out there in the open...

More on Apathy

Si no tienes nada que vale la muerte tampoco tienes nada que vale la vida.

If you don´t have anything worth dying for, you don´t have anything worth living for.

People have occasionally accused me of being a perfectionist, and this isn´t true. My problem is, I expect people to want to be perfect. I expect people to never settle for ¨good enough¨but to always want to do better and find ways to improve things, not just themselves but with everything in life. It´s naive I know, and yet I can´t shake this conviction. For this reason, I cannot handle apathy of any kind. I cannot understand it and I cannot forgive it or look past it. So I realized yesterday that I really dislike Guatemala. It´s the most apathetic place I´ve ever been and I can´t get past it. There are other problems here, but we´ll just stick with one for today.

Anyways, as to the title, yesterday I was not up for the fight. I am ashamed to say that I stood back and watched. At the same time, I would make the same decision if I had to do it again. And I hate it. The other teacher and I were walking to the bus stop yesterday and came up on a really bad fight between 4 guys. And I stood at the bridge and let Pablo (who is 20 years old and about my size) take on the situation alone. He managed to difuse the situation, possibly saving one guy´s life. It kills me that I did nothing. And that I tried to talk Pablo out of walking me to the bus stop in which case, no one would have helped the guy. I understand the other two women who were watching from a distance, I did the same. But I cannot understand the (adult male) shop owners who stood around watching. Especially in a community that´s tiny, and where everyone knows each other. I didn´t find out until later that even though they were significantly bigger than me, they were actually teenagers. But the shop owners would have known these boys, why wouldn´t they step in? I hate that as a female, I cannot step into this situation. And as a result, I become the very thing I most despise (and cannot forgive) in other people.

Carnaval and Teaching

Yesterday was Carnaval, otherwise known as Mardi Gras. I'd heard alot about Carnaval, the parades, costumes, fairs, and how in Guatemala they have Cascarones which are eggs filled with Confetti, that the kids go around breaking on everyone's heads. So I was excited about seeing my first Carnaval and was talking about it at work. Until my supervisor looked at me with shock and started talking about how erotic it is, that it's really vulgar and there's alot of drinking. Oops. To be honest, I thought it was unfair, because while that may be true of countries like Brazil, it's completely different and very mild in Guatemala, which is obviously what I would have been referring to. Anyways, I went to Calvario in the afternoon to check out all the activities, and even had a cascaron cracked on my head. It's most lively at night but I didn't go back. They say it gets kinda crazy and that the older kids fill the eggs with random things like flour, or just use real eggs. Which would've been fine except they are also known to use grosser things like urine, and tend to target foreigners. No thanks.


So I survived my first day of teaching today (not including random improv lessons in English). I know bigger words in Spanish than 12 year old Guatemalans, wahoo... It went pretty well. Except for the part where I had to improv the second class. We (or apparently just I) had an understanding that I would teach Science on Wednesdays and Social Studies on Thursdays. As if I wasn't stressed out enough about teaching in Spanish, I had to wing a 30 minute class on Social Investigation. I had a great stall strategy... make them participate and get a discussion going. But they wouldn't speak, I had to drag every word out of them. Also, I somehow managed to go from teaching 3 lectures a week (1 in English), to being responsible for 4 entire classes including coming up with homework, tests, and giving them grades. And they gave away my English class, so it will all be in Spanish. And it went from being a 3 week commitment to 4 weeks (they had to cancel the week they were going to be studying agriculture). Wow, I guess it really didn't go all that well. I mean, it seemed like it did at the time. They like me, and I covered the material I was supposed to cover...

Fuentes Georginas and Fellow Travellers

So I met a couple Canadian girls on the bus to Xela yesterday. Actually what happened was they stored their luggage underneath the bus, then somewhere managed to miss the bus when it left the station. So I felt bad for them, and talked to the driver and attendant. They seemed mostly unconcerned, but then another passenger asked me what the problem was, and he had more success in convincing the driver to wait about a block or so away until the girls caught up. Anyways, we got to talking on the 5 hour bus drive back to Xela, and ended up hanging out today. We went to the Fuentes Georginas and soaked in the hot springs for awhile. It was a nice relaxing day after a long week.
Travelling is such a different world, it´s crazy how open people are and how people hook up and become friends. It´s out of necessity, but it´s nice being able to start a conversation with random people and feel like you actually get to know them. You meet people, and you´d think they new each other before the trip and came together, when they´ve actually just met the day before. People tend to be way more open and accepting, and I absolutely love hearing everyone´s view on random things, you learn so much and you meet people from all over the world. Some people are just way out there, but that too just makes for great stories.

Other Highlights

Tikal
We went on the sunrise tour to Tikal, which was amazing! In order to go, we had to get up at 3 in the morning for the sketchiest trip ever... some stories just can´t be written, they have to be told. We just barely made it in time for the sunrise, we were sprinting up the stairs at Temple 4, but it was an incredible experience watching the sun rise over 2 other Mayan temples and hearing the jungle come alive with birds and howler monkeys that sound like lions. The architecture is incredible, and they´ve only excavated 20% of the site. We got to climb 4 of the temples.

Rio Dulce
The town itself is not that special, but it´s on Lake Izabal, which is beautiful and much warmer than Xela! Our hotel consisted of little cabana/bungalows, and everything was up on boardwalks. It was way back in a cove off the lake, so you felt like you were completely isolated out in the jungle, but still had relatively easy access to the town. We had little miniature canoes that you could take out to the dock in the main part of the lake. We saw our first tarantula, which they caught and kept under a margarita glass at the bar.

Finca Paraiso (Paradise Farm)
Definitely a highlight of Guatemala, Finca Paraiso is about an hour from Rio Dulce and has a hot waterfall! The pool itself was pretty cool, but there was steam coming from the waterfall, and you could swim up to some rocks and sit under it. Yup, my second truly hot shower in Guatemala was a waterfall. I´m not sure why it´s so salt, someone said it had something to do with the sulfur content?

Livingston
It´s a small town on the ocean, with nothing truly special, but ít´s the trip there and back that rocks. We took a 2 hour boat tour down the river, stopping to see a Spanish castle from the 1500´s, one of the bird islands, the Grafiti Wall (supposedly from the 1700´s but which can only be proved to go back to the 1950´s) and a couple caves, one of which was a natural sauna.

Guatemala City
Normally nothing special in Guate, but as we were driving back from the bus station, we noticed that Volcano Pacaya was erupting. Usually that just means it´s smoking, but this time we actually saw lava!! I´d been thinking about meeting Sabrina in Antigua to hike Pacaya on Saturday, but the lava put an end to those plans.

Semuc Champey

Staying in Coban and visiting Semuc Champey has definitely been the highlight of Guatemala so far. The Lonely Planet doesn't give promising reviews, but it's way better than the highlands! It's cleaner, warmer, and absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful tourqoise pools of water, water falls, underwater caves, it's fantastic! On the way back we stopped at Lanquin to explore the caves there, which were pretty impressive. I wish the pictures could reflect what it was actually like. And our hotel room (which we paid just under $7 each for) actually did have hot water as promised! Most claim they do, but it's really ice cold. It was my first hot shower in a month!!! With the exception of Panajachel, which alternated about every 2 minutes between really hot and really cold. And it had great water pressure too. It's the little things... like my chocolate cheesecake at dinner...
Today we spent 5 1/2 more hours travelling, and we're currently in Flores, a tiny tourist island in the middle of a river with not much going on. I was ready to leave within the first hour of arriving. But from here we'll make a day trip to the Mayan ruins in Tikal tomorrow, before heading towards the coast. The highlight of today was crossing the river by ferry about an hour outside of Flores. It's the only way to get here, and it's a pretty small ferry that carries some pretty large trucks and buses. There was a chicken bus that crossed over with us, and he had to gas it and then slam on the breaks to shove off from shore, then back up so the front end would be light enough to beach on the opposite shore.

Cross Country Journey Day 1

Nothing in Guatemala is ever really certain so if there´s something that absolutely must be done, such as catching your 4AM bus, you have to have several back up plans. After several failed plans and over an hour of work on Thursday night, Friday morning at 3:20 found Katie and me sitting in the front room praying that our taxi driver showed up as scheduled, as our only remaining options involved us walking by ourselves at night, which just isn´t a good idea in Guatemala. The bus station is only a 5 minute drive (or a 15 minute walk without luggage, which Katie has with her since she´s not returning to Xela) so it was rough paying 45Q or $7, but given the alternatives I would´ve paid more if I needed to. Our taxi driver actually showed up on time, and even waited with us until the bus showed up. It's just ironic to me that we paid 45Q to drive 5 minutes to the bus station, and then 45Q for the 5 hour bus drive from xela to guatemala city. We then walked a couple blocks to a different bus station, and got there just in time to catch the bus to Coban, another 5 hour drive. But I´m super excited to get away from Xela for awhile. We visited a coffee farm this afternoon which was pretty neat... This isn´t an exciting entry, but there´s just not much to say about spending 10 hours on a bus...

Screwed up government
So the other day there were hundreds of Mayan peasants lined up around the block of this bank. Guatemala´s been facing a banking crisis, and has had quite a few bankruptcies, but this seemed different so I started asking around about what was going on. I was told that it was the people who had helped out the corrupt government during the Civil War by killing their own people, mostly civilians, including women and children. Now the government is paying them for their service. This is one example of why many people here hate their government. The people I talked to were pretty disgusted about the whole situation, but I did hear one person stand up for them. He claimed that with the extent of the propaganda of the government, and the lack of education, many people (mostly peasants) still aren´t aware of the genocide that took place under Rios Montt, so they thought, and possibly still think, that they were fighting for a worthy cause (ie against Communism). It´s so sad to see that there are still people who naively support someone who was so evil, and that he´s still part of the political scene.

Apathy

In my opinion the worst problem in this country is apathy. Because of apathy, people will stand around watching someone being beaten and do nothing. So violence is accepted, as is corruption, which is unbelievable in this country. The people hide behind ignorance. They don´t want to know the truth beause it's easier not to. Ignorance does not require action or risk. They build walls and don´t want to be involved in anything not directly related to them because it´s safer.
After discussing this issue with local people, I guess I should give a disclaimer. In all fairness, the people have good reason to be apathetic. Most of the leaders and intellectuals were killed during the Civil War. People did speak out and fight for change, and they paid with their lives. Now they´re waiting for a new generation of intellectuals and future leaders to arise. If you ask Guatemalans who they want to win the presidential election, most of them will tell you there isn´t a good candidate. The current president is considered good not because he really changed anything at all, but because he didn't do anything terrible, which is improvement from past presidents.

Worse Super Bowl Party Ever

Yesterday Katie and I went to Tecun, a local sports bar so we could watch the Super Bowl. It was a sad experience. It was dark and smoky with a very small tv that kept freezing, causing us to miss important plays like the Colts first touchdown. Katie and I took a seat at the bar as there were no tables left, and ordered nachos and a chocolate shake. The shake was just chocolate milk, and the nachos consisted of 12 tortilla chips with spaghetti sauce, basil, and parmesan cheese. Didn't Latino people invent nachos?? Then some guy behind the bar tried to feed me a chip, so I took it from him and ate it, and then he just started eating our chips! Not that they were any good, but that's pretty rude! Anyways, we left shortly after and went to Coco Loco's which at least had a larger tv and didn't freeze. It was still pretty sad though. We didn't even get to see any good commercials. And then the Bears lost. What a sad night!
On the way home, we crossed this tiny intersection of 2 one-way streets that had one cop directing traffic, and a bunch supervising the situation. So we were laughing that it took 6 Guatemalan cops to replace a broken traffic light... and then we realized the traffic light wasn't broken. So next time you complain about how your tax dollars are spent, it could be worse.

A spy among us??
This guy I was working with the other day told me that he and my supervisor think this 3rd guy we work with is a military spy. At first I thought he was just messing with me, but he's actually serious. I'm kind of torn between thinking he's completely paranoid, and realizing that with the civil war still so recent, it's somewhat understandable. Anyways, everday at work is an aventure, there's no predicting what's going to happen. We do investigative work as well as educational activities. I feel like I'm just now getting to the point where I have something to contribute, so that makes things much less frustating.

Scattered Thoughts

Yesterday I indirectly witnessed my second hit and run. Immediately after arriving at Katie´s school (to learn to make chocolate from scratch) we heard screeching tires. Then the Quiche woman selling cloth outside of the school ran in talking about a car (her Spanish wasn´t too good). A child had been hit and was screaming and a bunch of people had gathered around. The car, in the meantime, took off.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the PDH (Procuraduría de Derechos Humanos) thinks I know what I´m doing. My second day of work, they sent me on my own to interview someone from the Ministry of Education. Only he didn´t explain the purpose of the interview very well, and none of the questions applied in any way whatsover, so the woman just kind of looked at me like I was dumb. And she talked extremely quickly and was very hard to understand. I felt incredibly incompetent.

This morning we were stuck in a traffic jam on the way back from a court case in Palmar. Someone said a truck had fallen off the cliff, but I´m not really sure. Anyways, while we were waiting I noticed these guys playing PTC on the side of the road (with about 5 feet from the edge of the highway to the cliff). It made me think that no matter where you go, people really aren´t all that different. Boys will always be boys. And then they picked up their machetes and went back to work, and the thought passed.

Today was my first trip to Cafe Luna, and it was pretty much amazing. Ice cream in hot chocolate, it´s brilliant.

Every full moon they have a midnight hike up the volcano Santa Maria. Unfortunately the hikes this week have all been cancelled since Santaguito (a smaller, connected volcano... the erupting one from previous post) is apparently erupting poisonous gases.

Hit and Run

Panajachel, also known as Gringo-tenango because of all the foreigners, was a wonderful weekend trip! It was much warmer and cleaner than Xela, and it was nice to get away. You definitely don´t need much more than a day in Pana. There´s one major street with lots of vendors, and then Lake Atitlan, which was incredibly beautiful! Our hotel was way nicer than I expected for what we paid, and even had a hot shower!!! It´s been almost 3 weeks since I´d had a hot shower. Anyways, Sunday we went to a wildlife reserve. It had the works: swinging bridges, waterfalls, all kinds of vegetation, and monkeys. Then for under $15 you could hike to the top and take a series of ziplines all the way back down, overlooking the waterfall, the volcanoes, and the lake. Definitely the highlight of the trip!

If you use good judgement (and try to keep a guy or two in the group as much as possible) there are only about 3 things you really have to worry about in Guatemala: traffic, pickpockets, and highway robbery. So upon leaving Pana we jumped a ridiculously crowded chicken bus out to the highway at Los Encuentros. From there we jumped another ridiculously crowded (i guess that should just be a given with a chicken bus) bus headed towards Xela. So the bus drivers are insane and try to pass vehicles on windy mountainous roads, so you´ve regularly got 3 vehicles wide on a 2 lane windy road. Anyways, we were passing this guy in an SUV and I don´t know what went wrong, but he started swerving. He swerved directly at us, then overcorrected in the other direction, swerved again, overcorrected again. On the 3rd time, he drilled the side of the bus, directly where I was sitting (I was sitting beside Sharon who was sitting by the window, and he hit directly below her). Fortunately, chicken buses are apparently tanks, and no one was injured. The guy who hit us totalled his SUV, the engine was a wreck, and his glass was all busted out, I´m shocked he got out without a scratch. It was weird how calm and completed detached we were as we watched him swerve at us a couple times and then hit us. Anyways, the driver got out to talk to the driver. Literally within 3 minutes he was back on the bus and we kept driving! It was insane! So we continue down the road and 20 minutes later we get pulled over. At this point I start worrying about problem 3 in Guatemala, highway robbery, but I guess I´m slightly paranoid at times because as it turned out it was only the police. They told the bus driver he had to go back to the scene, so we all had to get out and he had to give us half our money back. At this the passengers started cussing out the police saying it wasn´t the drivers fault, etc. but he wasn´t too impressed. So we all got out and stood on the side of the highway waiting for another bus. The next one that stopped, all the Guatemalans jumped on, and it was too full for us. So then we just had all the Gringos standing on the side of the highway, which was alittle intimidating again due to the problems with highway robbery. But we weren´t there for too long when another bus came along, and even if we had to stand 30 minutes of the remaining hour, it beat standing in the cold on the side of the road. And here I am, back in Xela safe and sound. And that´s the story of how I became a participant in a hit and run.

Chicken Buses and Human Rights

Our trip to the Friday Market at San Francisco El Alto was my first encounter with the infamous chicken bus. A chicken bus is a regular school bus that was retired/condemned in the US decades ago. They all emit clouds of black smog, which is the primary reason Xela is so poluted and they're nearly all painted in wild colors. Their racks on the top are usually loaded down with goods being transported to various markets. True to its name, today's bus did in fact have a basket of chickens accompanying us on our way home, although these lucky chickens were on racks above our heads, and not strapped to the outside. Chicken buses are dirt cheap, it was only $0.50 for an hour trip, but they're quite uncomfortable as they are never never full. They will easily fit 115 people (we counted) on a bus that says it maxes out at 55. They also very rarely come to a complete stop. The guy who collects money jumps out as the bus slows down, rushes everyone on the bus, pushing the slow moving/elderly onto the bus, and then hops on himself at the last second as the bus is pulling away. I'm really not looking forward to spending 3 hours on a chicken bus tomorrow morning on the way to Pana, but for under $3, I'll take it.

Thursday I started working with the Human Rights organization down here. It's really interesting... we had a conference with a couple men from a nearby community who are having problems with the municipal leaders. I got to help create the game plan on what to do about it, and if they stick to schedule (which is a huge if down here) I think it'll be fairly effective and I'll get to see the whole thing through. I'm really not sure why they want my input and advice though, it's not like I have any experience, but they seem really excited about having me there, and getting me involved, and they're wanting me to go with them to visit the communities and everything, which I'm really excited about. The school is trying to talk me into being their coordinator again, and they're pretty insistent even though I told them I'm really not interested. They said to take a week to see what kind of commitment the Human Rights is going to be, and then see if I can schedule them both.

Plans for tonight include a salsa lesson, dinner at an Indian restaurant with everyone from my Spanish school, and Omar's concert at the Brooklyn Cafe, then we're off bright and early tomorrow morning to visit Panajachel at Lake Atitlan.

Church is like a Potluck

You really can´t visit a Latin American country without attending a Catholic church. So this morning Katie and I went to mass at San Pedro. Now I´ve been to very few masses in my day, but this one seemed alittle different. At the beginning, when the priest comes in and kisses the Bible and has the incense and everything, I expected it to be a very solemn occasion. But this priest was really moving! They were playing really upbeat music, and the incense was billowing smoke which had the effect of a fog machine. I have to say though that I got alot more out of it than I did Jubilee. The priest was talking about I Cor. 12, with the church being one body with many parts. He compared it to a potluck (my liberal interpretation, he actually said fiesta) where everyone has their own specialty and something they´re good at, but it´s not complete with only one person´s contribution, you need everyone to pitch in and do different things. He also talked about how the church can be so focused on form that they neglect the really important things. We go to church on Sunday, but the rest of our lives don´t reflect that we are Christians. We sit around waiting for miracles but don´t want to have to work for anything, like the student who prays for an A without having to study. Anyways, he had some really good points, and I enjoyed most of it. Communion was a free for all where everyone just headed to the front of the church. Including this one woman (American?) who brought her camera up and started taking pictures of the altar, the crucifixes and even everyone taking communion. Seriously, who does that?? Have some respect! I was pretty disgusted.

Laguna de Chicobal

This morning my friend Katie and I (and a group of people from her school) went to Chicobal, a volcano that has a lagoon. The trip was pretty scary. We took a bus up a dirt road through the mountains that I wouldn´t have driven without fourwheel drive. My personal favorite are the signs that post the prices... 1Q for children and locals, 5Q for nationals, and 15Q for foreigners. Then we hiked up to the lookout spot, and about 10 minutes after we got there Santaguito started erupting (no lava, just billowing smoke). It was really amazing! The other lookout ¨tower¨was over the laguna. Also, unbelievably beautiful! But scary too, as the lookout tower consisted of a few poles tied together with thin planks laid across, that weren´t even attached. There was a sign that said a maximum of 8 people were allowed on the lookout stand at a time. Then we hiked down to the Laguna which is sacred Mayan land. It shouldn´t have been that hard of a hike, but climbing back up from the Laguna was ridiculous because of the altitude.


Other miscellaneous thoughts on Guatemala:

It´s cold!!! Whoever decided to call this country the land of eternal spring should be shot.

The people here our crazy: I met someone who is currently in the process of forging a plane ticket in order to get a visa into Brazil.

I love my home stay! Dona Veronica is amazing and tells the best stories. One day I should dedicate a whole blog to her worst homestay guests ever (she´s been doing this for 11 years so she´s about seen it all).

School Coordinator

So on my 3rd day of class the director asked me if I would be the international coordinator. Yeah, that´s right, I pretty much own the place. I told them I´d help them out this week while they look for a replacement since I can´t start my volunteer work until next week. So it´s only temporary, but it´s still pretty neet to be able to sign emails as the international coordinator.

Let´s see, besides that I´ve visited the museum of Mayan clothing, which was not so interesting. I learned how to make tortillas from scratch, and I went to my first Salsa Lesson which was alot of fun, but slightly embarrasing as Katie and I were the only ones who not only couldn´t salsa, but also didn´t speak Spanish all that well.

At the fair referenced in the last post, we watched a traditional Guatemalan dance, visited the church of the Black Christ, and went on the ferris wheel, which was forever old and scarier than any roller coaster I´ve ever been on. It didn´t occur to me until I got to the top that I hadn´t seen a single other person on the ferris wheel, I guess even the Guatemalans didn´t trust it.

Rural Guatemalan Fair

Parking: 5 Quetzales

Entrance into the fair: 5 Q

Purchase of ball: 5Q

Being able to tell your friends you own a ball made out of a pig´s intestines: Priceless

Jubilee

Sunday morning I went to church with my homestay. It was called the Jubilee Christian Church- Ebenezer Ministries, whatever that means. Apparently it was some kind of evangelical denomination. The service lasted 3 1-2 hours! They opened with a song, complete with a band, trumpets, and nine girls dancing- don´t worry their heads were covered. The second song was 50 minutes long (literally... there was a clock in the church). The dancers traded their head scarved for tamborines with long ribbons and the women in the audience started waving their scarves around their heads (think lasso style). I was so tired of standing and clapping, I don´t know how those girls danced for that long without a break. Although afterwards someone brought them napkins to wipe off the sweat.It was incredibly difficult to hear over the drums and trumpets but they had a 3 minute chorus of ¨A Jehova¨and several long choruses of ¨Libertad¨. The 3rd song was called On the Wings of a Dove, and by the end most of the people were crying, and it ended with everyone making up their own version of the song. Anyways after 2 hours of standing, singing, and clapping we got to sit for the hour and a half sermon. We had a special guest speaker from Cuba who surprisingly had an understandable accent. It was very interesting, and although there were definitely things I didn´t agree with (in the sermon, I recognize that different cultures need to be able to express their faith in their own ways and our church would not make it down here) I liked that it was completely run by Guatemaltecos. In conclusion, I´m really glad I went, but would like to find a different church before next Sunday.

Xela vs. Heredia

Well today was a much better day in Xela. The highlight was going to the Xela-Heredia soccer game. It was quite the experience and I got to sit midfield less than 20 feet from the field. I have never heard so many people chant swear words in unison for so long. My vocabulary was definitely expanded. Guatemalans take their soccer games very very seriously. It was almost as fun watching the crowd as the game. They would try to throw fireworks (the kind that keep burning for a long time) onto the field, and succeeded several times in getting quite close to the players. The would also throw cans on the field. And sweet looking little old ladies turned out to be much more vulgar than any of the men. There were also smoke bombs and actual fireworks. It really amused me that they found it necessary to use riot guards to escort the refs at half time. Why would you attack a ref during half time? Especially when your team is winning 1-0?

As for the game itself. It was very theatrical, anytime anyone came near on defense, they´d fall down on the ground and grab their shins. You do have shin guards people (I saw them, it´s not just an assumption). They also struggled with basic trapping. My favorite is 5, Luis Rodriguez. He´s consistently solid, can trap the ball and doesn´t try to draw fouls for no reason (he also happens to be a full back). We managed to win 2-1 so it was a good night for the ¨Super Chivos¨ or literally Super Goats, how fantastic is that name? And yes, I bought the jersey, I couldn´t help myself. The Guatemalans were excited about the gringa ¨Super Chiva¨ as they called me.

Thanks for all your comments on yesterday´s blog, I appreciate the feedback. I want to do the right thing, but I don´t want to be stupid about it.

Disillusionment in Xela

I'm staying in Quetzaltenango also known by its Quiche name Xela. It is the 2nd largest city in Guatemala with all of 150,000 people. It is now day 5 in the country and I apologize for not putting up anything about the first 4 days. I had a great start but I'm alittle disillusioned with the city right now. There are way more foreigners than I expected... i picked xela to try to avoid that. It's alittle impersonal being in a city, and it's really polluted. My problem is I need to spend less time with the gringos and find a way to make friends with the locals.

Anyways, the real issue of the day:
Last night I was walking down the street with some of the gringos I'd met the day before. We passed a Quiche woman lying down in the street with a man sitting on a step beside her. She looked unconcsious or close to it. We kept walking until she screamed and we turned around and he was hitting her and trying to drag her body down the street. There were 6-7 Guatemalan men standing around watching and in my group there were 4 guys and 1 other girl. They also stood there watching and one said we should keep walking there was nothing we could do. I asked if they were seriously going to walk away and do nothing. One of them walked up to one the Guatemalan men, tried to ask something then walked away. He started kicking her and I couldn't take it anymore and walked back down the street. For those of you who would be mad at me, I could not live with myself if I had walked away and left her. I also had 4 guys with me who would have had my back. Anyways, when I reached them he sat down on the step so I knelt beside the woman and took her hand. He started crying and told me she didn't speak Spanish, only Quiche and that she was his "woman" (don't know if this means wife) and she wouldn't go home with him. He said he had her shoes and was trying to get her home but she wouldn't move and he kept saying over and over that he didn't know what to do. He hit her again across the face, and I told him not to and he stopped and said okay. I asked if he wanted help and he said yes. He was still crying and mumbling when the police showed up shortly after. Once the police got there and started asking questions we left. I was shaking, I was so angry. How do 10 grown men stand around watching a woman taking a beating? Is this machismo? Not having the guts to do anything but stand around watching like a coward?

I realize that what I did was unsafe and that God was really there watching after me. And I've already been thorougly lectured by my homestay mom on how dangerous it was, ,what could have happened, what the circumstances could have been, why not to help, etc etc etc. At the same time though, how can you justify walking away? I can't see Jesus leaving some woman lying in the street. And again, I did have a group with me. (also, for those worried about me being here by myself, my homestay was shocked and said that does happen in the villages alot, but not in the city, it was extremely abnormal)

Anyways, I guess I'd like a few opinions on whether I did the right thing or was just being completely stupid, but please avoid the lectures, i've already heard it.