the tourists are here…it is evidenced in very small ways that are very expensive.
the launcha -the spot where the boat taxies wait to drive you to one of the other towns sit in front of a row of hotels and cafes. this morning i took a walk looking for shade and a place to read and saw a tourist bus -complete with sign (as if it needed introduction) and a crowd of white people…maybe german…eating and mingling around a particular cafe. the sign read Q20 for a burito. not bad by american terms and i would imagine german as well. about three bucks our way, a little less. but i laughted, because the night before i had a taco (pretty much the same price range) for Q5…gotta love knowing where to go to get what you want.
the other one is right here in the internet cafe. international calls are advertised everywhere for Q3/min. seems reasonable for international calls. only it costs Q1/min on the regular pay phone. my parents commented on just how clear i sounded – much clearer than mycell phone back home.
so there you have it, observations of a gringo…keep it in mind if you come to guatemala…it may save you some change.
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i have a couple of short notes about the past few days but i keep forgetting to bring them with me. instead i´ll tell you about right now. right now i´m in flores, a cute city completely surrounded by the lake and reached only by a strip of road that leads to santa elena. it is a picturesque little town. a little touristy but still quaint. easily walkable. the concept of english is still far fetched which is good because yesterday i spen the day speaking spanish to a shopowner. not a few minutes, but most of the day. the patience of people here boggles my mind. listening to me struggle and mutilate spanish is painful for me and i´m doing it. even so, it was nice to have a warm shower – at least in theory as the water wasn´t not caliente as promised. i´ll have to search out a new place so that i can wash my hair and then study some for the coming week. i guess it was less stressful to talk to him because he doesn´t know how much work i´ve put in and i´m less concerned with him judging my progress. sad but true. not much else going on…i´ll try to find my notes and post those later. i´ll have access to internet for teh next day or two so if you want to write me -now is the time. much love! |
today was a battle. so much spanish so little time. and each day i hear so many words that sound familiar and i know i should know and deep deep somewhere in the recesses of my head i do but…alas they fail to appear when i need them most. even so, mi maestro es muy patient and we struggled through it.
afterwards, we went to ixchalap (a mayan word i{m sure i just butchered) a forest at the top of the town. only 15 years old, the trees replace crops of maize and beans of the past. even so, it was amazing to stand on a clearing and hear samuel tell us (en espanol) that the spot we were on was a burial temple for the mayas. this truly is mayan country…all around me is proof.
after swinging a machete to clear the harmful brush from the new trees, sweating and feeling like bugs were crawling on me, we walked back down down down (abajo abajo abajo) the hill that feels like a mountain. of course that meant stopping at casa de mi hermana to chat with her and my hermanos. and onward to the lake for a quick dip to get the funk off. nightfall means no water and the idea of sleeping in all of that forest freshness was not appealing.
at the water{s edge i met a panamanian missonary who wanted to know if i was from panama, and chatted with him as best i could.
then, 0nce i found myself back at home, full of tortillas, frijoles y juevos, i decided to be less myself (read stay in the house and go to sleep) and so followed mi hermano here.
more later…maybe…
it is beautiful…the landscape…they sky…how all the buildings face the lake.
the streets are steep. this is the rainy season and walking for us gringos poses a unique challenge that seems to escape the locals. they navigate with ease while we are clumsy and self conscious.
spanish is coming along. my thoughts are still very much english but i understand far more than i anticipated. here i have been removed from spanish at length and now i am surrounded by it.
i met an rpcv on the plane and she commented to the friends that met her (and ultimately me since they gave me a ride into flores) that i am either very stupid or very brave. this because so few people speak english and my spanih is so limited.
still – i forge ahead. still i practice. still i sleep a lot as it is hotter than i anticipated.
my family is wonderful. the food is good though not great. my maestro is wonderful. the potential to see and expierence is great.
peace corps was good for me. it let me try out living someplace and see what it is like so it is less foreign to me. that said, i won´t be posting much. i want to stay in the moment here and experience what san andres, guatemala has to offer.
i am packed…i think. i seem to get more and more lax each trip i take. before peace corps my friend kathy came over and packed for me. i don’t know why i couldn’t do it myself – i had all my stuff in a pile on the floor of the living room. but it had been there for days…maybe weeks and i hadn’t made a move.
kathy came over and held each piece up and asked if i needed it and i nodded yes or no accordingly and she packed or discarded it.
for sri lanka i took a minimalist approach and had a light load.
this trip i’m packed higher than i normally would – but i’m unsure of what to expect and i since i’ll be staying with a family i don’t want to offend them with my appearance.
now that i’m thinking about it…i’m a little unnerved…i haven’t traveled alone since china. even then, only part of my trip was alone. this time i’m flying solo from airport to school to putzing around.
i’m not sure what kind of access i’ll have to internet but i’ll do my best. keep me in your prayers please and i’ll be back in decemeber.
living with my sister has its perks. i love her and her whole family…ced, the smidget, cam. but it also has its drawbacks. one of them being oprah.
please don’t misunderstand me, i respect oprah and what she has done with her money, celebrity and time over the years. i am amazed at how she has empowered people to feel like what they do can make a difference – not just her millions or billions, but my $20 or 20 minutes or a random act of kindness.
even so, i don’t watch her show on my own.
i had a roommate in college who loved her. we only got two and half channels on (one channel sometimes got sound sometimes pictures – never both). it was small, black and white (or maybe that was just the snow i’m remembering), and sitting in all of it’s 9-inch glory on the ground.
she would lie in front of it weeping about some tragedy or joyful occasion. i would sit against the wall and laugh.
now, at my sister’s, oprah is non-negotionable.
if she’s here or if tivo is driving the ship, oprah is a must.
as a result, i’ve been subjected to more oprah in the last week or so than i have since my senior year in 1998. that’s how i saw today’s show.
i was close to crying. niambi you can laugh at me now.
the show was about Lavernues Coles, a football player in the nfl, who was molested as a child and who has just gone public.
i know, i know…not the first person to come out and talk about it. but he was the definition of manhood. and it hurt me to hear him talk about how he felt emasculated because of what happened to him, because it took him so long to tell anyone, because he was scared to go public with his story.
but courage isn’t about being fearless, it is doing something in spite of fear. and being a man isn’t dictated by what happens to you, but by what you do as a result of what happens.
i was moved by this man’s ability – no, his willingness to bear his deepest and closest held secret to the 50 gazillion viewers that tune into oprah all over the world. not because it was easy, not because he stands to gain, but because he recongnizes how his coming forward may enable a child somewhere out in tv-land to feel less shame, to possibly share his/her pain.
i was moved…am moved. tv doesn’t show real men on tv as a rule – just archetypes we’ve been fed over the years of what “manhood” looks like. it isn’t about muscles or money – though he has both, it isn’t about beating people up and never crying or how many women you can get. it is about working to get “self” to a place that is healthy and safe enough to lend a hand to help someone coming up behind you.
hell, that isn’t just the definition of a man, it’s the definition of a real woman too.
when i was younger i didn’t really have a desire to go out much. in college i would throw pot-lucks and have a bunch of friends bring food (of course) and we’d crowd around my floor (i didn’t have much furniture) and talk about whatever came to mind.
and while i knew a slew of folks who also attended these little gatherings, they also shook their groove things pretty often – while my shaking was minimal (partially because my groove thing was much smaller then) and usually kept to special occasions.
it seems almost cruel now that i’m pushing 30 and my girls (at least the single ones) are scattered to the wind (or maybe that’s me) and i’m finally in the mood to shake what i’ve been given (it’s bigger now).
i feel this overwhelming desire to talk to strangers and dance until the wee hours of the morning and then sleep very deeply after breakfast at some dive that is my “usual” spot. i’ll have to work on that in guatemala.
is it possible to cultivate a spot in 6 weeks or less?
Tags: me-ness
getting to sleep and going to sleep are two different things for me these days. now that i’m done with the 10 and 12 hour workdays and i’m just making plans for my time being tired is more an emotional state then an absence of sleep. don’t get me wrong, i’m sleepy too – it’s just that i find myself awake at odd hours and not wanting to lie down not wanting to surrender to that tender part of the night that i enjoy so much under normal circumstances.
people keep asking why i feel the need to leave right now, why i’m not staying on longer to bask in the love i have surrounding me in texas…up ’til now i haven’t give a sound answer. but the truth is that i need to do something. the thought of sitting around and not “doing” something -although usually alluring to me – somehow seems akin to hell.
so i prepare to face some new unknown, some thing that i can control if only a little and forge ahead to figure it out.
control freak that i am, part of my discomfort right now is just how little control i have over my life. where i live and the job i have (or currently don’t)…the carefully laid plans that, although full of all sorts of space for me to color in the details as they presented themselves, i decided the when and where and why of – have been drained into lake pontchatrain with the rest of new orleans.
so i prepare myself for a thing that i’m not supposed to control. a new journey that i will embark on by myself and expereince as it unfolds in its own time before me. and maybe then i’ll get to reclaim the sweet breath of night i so enjoy savoring at the end of a long uncontrollable day.
Tags: katrina, me-ness, transition
in a week i’ll be gone again. living out of my backpack legitamately not because i’m homeless. off to guatemala to learn spanish. and on the side i’ll be checking out the public health situation in the area.
i know i know – hurricanes and mudslides. but i checked with the school and they haven’t been affected. so off i go to surround myself with something else – something new.
focus…i’m going to try to focus on something other than what i’ve been focusing on.
tu hable espanol? or is it habla?
Tags: me-ness, transition, travel
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