Week 38 - Opus Ultimum

It is with great sadness that I write this post, the last of my Peace Corps adventure in Guatemala. Earlier today I was medically separated from my service due to what the Peace Corps deemed an “unmanageable condition” within Guatemala.

Many of you I know I have suffered persistent dental problems since early July, and after 10 chipped teeth, 8 medical visits to Antigua and Guatemala City, a night guard, and prescription toothpaste, -spray, and muscle relaxants, Peace Corps has admitted defeat. After submitting to a battery of closing procedures, I will be back in the United States early next week.

The irony that this is exactly what I fantasized about during the weeks immediately surrounding my departure in early January is not lost on me, a way to go home with my honor intact. And yet, now that it´s here there is no relief, no satisfaction. I am depressed to leave, even as I´m acutely aware I was drooling over an American-style sandwich less than a week ago.

As a coping mechanism I keep trying to hate this place, to remind myself of the cold showers, the intestinal fireworks, the frustrating work situation…

But I can´t, because it´s not any of those things that have made the greatest impression on me. Rather, it has been the people of this truly remarkable group. My fellow PCVs have been my confidants, my drinking buddies, my fellow explorers into parts unknown. They have been my surrogate family, even when (and perhaps especially when) surrounded by the peculiarities of my host families. What truly destroys me from this violent expulsion back into the proverbial “real world” is to no longer be part of this fraternity of shared experience forged—and yes, improved—by hardship.

In these final hours of my service, I have been thinking with increasing fondness of its beginning: I remember riding the chartered bus through the deserted streets of Washington nine months ago, that early morning darkness tinted by the orange glow of street lights. It just as easily could be nine years ago for how distant that person seems from myself. I was terrified; each passing building took me further and further from the known, the safe.

I remember those first days in Santa Lucia, so unsettled by my surroundings I thought about bolting back to the airport, begging the airline to forgive my enormous mistake even as I continued to hide behind my painted veneer of bravado.

But you fake it ´til you make it, and after a few months here I found little fault with my life on any day-to-day basis. The strangeness of the everyday became exciting only after it ceased to be terrifying.

And now that I’ve relived that cycle in San Se, supplanting the threatening with the thrilling, growing accustomed to—and then comfortable with—the banality of my routine, I can´t help but be sentimental to the way life was, and will likely never be again.

I am scared, and I make no secret of that fact. Not so much about substituting one country for another, but that I will never fully be part of this motley crew again. I can—and will—continue to keep up communication over Skype, Facebook, and the easy conveniences of modern technology, but it is the daily grind that brings us together, not the distilled talking points each evening.

So now must I resort to being a member of an imagined community rather than a physical one? Am I now part of the Peace Corps diaspora that was not unified in the initial country and dispersed to distant lands, but united in distant lands dispersed to the initial country? Or has the betrayal of my teeth against my PCV status precluded me from being part of this “deep, horizontal comradeship”?

But I´ll only get a bruise from beating my head against this wall of unknowable, not some sense of vindication or epiphany. For that, perhaps only time.

Goodbye, Peace Corps. You weren´t perfect, but we had our moments. And now, with great remorse, I admit that for or better or worse, this too has passed.

Week 37 - Computer Aneurysms

It was a mediocre movie, and it was perhaps for this reason that it happened: My computer had simply had enough and, like the Mahayana Buddhist monks, chose self-immolation as a form of nonviolent protest.

That is to say, my computer caught fire, and it was its own damned fault.

Living in San Se gives a lot of time for personal reflection, and after the first few months, there really aren’t a lot of things left to reflect about; movies become a big part of my nightly routine.

On the particular night in question, it was Marley and Me, a middling movie with a squandered cast based off the book of the same name. It features a young blond couple in Miami trying to raise a dog, and later a family.

I didn’t get it; where were the live-in grandparents? The irregular water pressure? The tortillas? It was entirely unrelatable to my current situation.

Still, my computer seemed to be enjoying it just fine until the beginning of the third act, when a postpartum depressed Jennifer Aniston was yelling at her uncomfortable-with-his-literary-success husband, Owen Wilson. And right there the movie jumped the shark.

I mean, how could anyone find cause to yell at Owen Wilson?

My computer seems to pause, the screen becoming cloudy as it tries to rationalize Aniston’s irrational behavior.

Dark holes begin to appear in the right corner of the screen—my computer is having an aneurysm.

With a shriek that would put Wilhelm to shame, I lunge for the power button. In a few seconds it goes dark. My heart is thumping wildly. For a brief second I contemplate Peace Corps life without a laptop, and fear seeps over my chest, swelling my throat and face like air into a flaccid balloon.

I wait a few minutes. Usually these sorts of issues are the result of overheating, but the localized pixel dead zones have me worried. Like the brain cells after an aneurysm, a lot of times they don’t come back to life.

With a muted prayer to not punish me for cutting corners and buying a Dell, I depress the power button once again. The clicking and whirring of a normal computer boot-up greets me. The screen is still dark, but with a brilliant flash, my darkened room is painted in light.

Unfortunately none of it makes any sense. The pixels are working, but there’s no picture, just jumbled grayish lines of pixels swimming about without cohesion. On the right, the dead zones stay dead, and several more restarts improve nothing.

The fear turns to disappointment and deflation. I immediately start trying to recall the last time I backed up my files. Had I saved since the Tajumulco photos? The great cooking experiment? I had now way to check at that moment, and with little other recourse, I went to bed.

The next day I drank my coffee staring despondently into space rather than reading the New York Times.

Later, I rode into Huehue, hoping to get my computer examined and receive an estimate for its repair. It sounded like my internal hard drive was spinning, which was a good sign, and I felt fairly confident that if I connected my laptop to an external monitor I could back up the system once again before leaving it in a questionable condition in a questionable shop.

I got to the internet café, and was pleased to see my hunch was correct—the rest of the computer was working as it should. I spent the better part of the morning dragging and dropping files from one folder to another, ultimately confirming that the most important elements of my digital life had been salvaged.

Almost on a whim I went online and contacted Dell customer support. I expected no favorable solution as I got connected via their chat program with “Jaspreet,” a customer service representative.

“My, uh, computer recently caught fire while watching a movie, and now I want you to replace it.” I sounded lame and mildly deceitful even to me.

He replied with one of those cheerful nonsequitors that make you wonder if you’re connected to a person or an answering machine. “Hello, and welcome to Dell support! If it’s not too much trouble, may I have your service tag number?”

I humor him, though I’m already formulating my arguments for why this is everyone’s fault but my own, and the character assassination I will rain down upon Dell if they leave me unsatisfied.

As the conversation progresses, he actually seems like he can make something happen, and when he assures me that Dell will overnight the parts to a technician who will come to my house in San Se to replace them, I am pleasantly shocked. We end on a good note.

A few hours later I receive an email from him to that effect, along with the transcript of our conversation. The email tells me I need to contact Dell-Latin America, presumably to work out some final details or something.

They are not as helpful.

“I’m sorry sir, I know you have proof of our prior agreement, but you need to upgrade your warranty to include Latin America.”

“Then why did the other representative say I would be granted an exception and specifically do not need to upgrade the warranty?”

“…You need an upgraded warranty.”

I switched back to Dell-US to complain, and they seemed to split the difference. “We’ll ship you the parts, but you’ve got to install them yourself.”

I’m annoyed, but it’s still a better resolution than I originally hoped for. The problem is that I’m legitimately afraid that a big box marked “computer parts” will never make it to rural Guatemala. All of my care packages are sent with “family photos” and “history books” translated into Spanish and liberally scrawled across each face of the box. Even with these unprofitable sounding descriptions, they can get stolen or “mislaid” by the postal service.

I guess all I can do at this point is wait. I’m sure Marley and Me will still be there when I get back.

Week 36 - Evacuation and Standfast

The general election has finally passed. Since getting here, there’s been a steady ramp-up in violence perpetrated against both the citizens and politicians of Guatemala.

“But don’t worry,” everyone kept saying, “the situation will improve after the elections.”

And so this past Sunday an estimated 65% of the populace went to the voting booths and selected from ten candidates for president and hundreds more for congress and various local political offices.

Many people believed that it would be the mayoral, not the presidential, elections that would cause violent reprisals. More than 35 mayoral candidates and/or their families throughout the country have been assassinated in the preceding months (including orchestration, on at least one occasion, by a rival mayoral candidate). Because San Se’s mayor was publicly assassinated last year, as well as concerns expressed to me by my friends in town, Peace Corps decided to evacuate me and Lauren for the days immediately preceding and following the general election.

This was hardly uncommon; more than one third of the 250 volunteers in Guatemala were relocated to safer areas and told to stay put. On Friday morning I left for Aguacatán, about two hours from San Se, and stayed with friends, returning to San Se earlier this morning. It proved to be a popular spot: Including myself, there were four refugees.

For the most part it felt like a giant party. The three volunteers who were putting us all up made sure we felt welcome and relaxed. Work, mostly due to the widespread and continuing strikes, was hardly a thought, and travel outside of the municipality was forbidden by the Evacuation and Stand Fast orders issued by Peace Corps. Thus, we amused ourselves by going to the pool one day, hiking to a beautiful mountain spring the next…

On the day the election there was increased traffic on the roads as people came in from the surrounding communities to vote as mandated by law. While Aguacatán is hardly a sleepy town—I was envious to see that they have reliable sources of pancake mix—it became bloated with traje-bedecked Aguacatecos (traditional Mayan dress; people from Aguacatán, respectively). I kept expecting there to be more drama as the day progressed, but save the occasional rat-a-tat-tat of firecrackers, it seemed, as hoped, rather tame.

In order to win the presidency, a candidate must get an absolute majority of votes (50% plus 1). As the polls began reporting, it became clear that Otto Perez Molina, the heavily favored frontrunner, would fall well short of that majority, entering him into a runoff with second place finisher Manuel Baldizón scheduled for November 6th.

Controlling crime has been the greatest issue in this race, though few remember—or seem to care—that former School of the Americas graduate Perez Molina was the director of Military Intelligence during Guatemala’s lengthy civil war. Thinly-veiled accusations in the media that he ordered several of the major human rights violations perpetrated by the Army have bred skepticism that the tough-on-crime Mano Dura (Firm Hand) policy he now seeks to implement will not result in extra-judicial killings or open war in the street between the military and the equally well-armed narcos.

Baldizón, by contrast, is a wealthy business man from the department of Petén, the heavily narco-infested region of northern Guatemala that made news when 27 farmworkers were slaughtered by the Zetas in pursuit of the ranch’s owner earlier this year. He is inarguably more centrist than Perez Molina, but his strongly pro-business stance and conspicuously opaque campaign finance reports make him a question mark for the future.

But I really should get away from making statements regarding the politicians. Not only is it bad form given my overall level of knowledge on the race, but Peace Corps rightly maintains political neutrality for our safety and its continuity from one political reign to the next.

Moving on; as I mentioned, we cooked, we ate, we relaxed. Unfortunately, not all municipalities experienced as much tranquility as Aguacatán.  At least four municipal offices were torched by protesters in response to real or perceived voting irregularities in Huehue alone, and dozens of similarly violent riots took place throughout the country.

When I got back to San Se I was eager for news regarding our own situation. Had violence occurred? Do we have a new mayor? Are there still chocolate- and peanut-covered frozen bananas at that store near my house?

No; yes; yes, respectively.

According to everyone I talked to, the political structure remains standing here, though the son of the deceased mayor was elected under the banner of the incumbent UNE party. Without knowing a single thing about his politics, there would seem to be a tragically heroic story in the making, of sons taking up the mantle of their slain fathers, courageously fighting the good fight against shadowy criminal forces, getting the girl in the final act…

So now we are left with greater questions: Will the future president be able to control crime? Will the threat of getting a country-wide Peace Corps evacuation diminish? Will that store near my house continue to sell choco-bananas? Only time will tell.

The photos can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/114291229338134891582/Week36?authkey=Gv1sRgCLToqt763pLm3gE

Week 35 - Tax Season

Arguably the hardest aspect to resolve with preconceived, pre-departure notions of what service will be like is that we are still a part of a bureaucracy. While the entire application process, frequently lasting more than a year, is an enormous mess of paperwork, signatures, background checks, and interviews, I expected it to end when I got out into the boondocks. Here we often feel like we’re out in the middle of nowhere, free to do virtually whatever our own sense of morality and work ethic let us get away with. Most of the year this is true; then again, there’s that one nagging downer on the calendar. Like tax season for real adults, there comes a time where we are held accountable for our actions over the previous year. And like real adults, we hate it. We hate it a lot.

It’s called the Volunteer Report File, or VRF, and it chronicles everything we do related to our job over the fiscal year, from baseline surveying to running workshops, school visits to addressing the city council.

I don’t doubt the need for such a tool. As much as I despised doing it, I never once questioned that it wasn’t an important diagnostic by which Washington can measure the Peace Corps’ efficacy. Rather, it’s just so boring. Beat your head against the wall and run screaming for the internet boring.

Vaguely Recalled Failure

As I look through my datebook, deciphering scribbles in black and blue ink, I take stock of what I’ve done in the last 5 months since getting to site: Visited each school (30) once to introduce myself and give a broad overview of what Healthy Schools is about; Visited each school (15, my half) once to conduct baseline surveys of the current infrastructure and health practices; and conducted a workshop in 7 schools delving a little more in depth about how to become certified as a Healthy School.

Beyond a few little odds and ends, that’s about it. 52 school visits in 5 months. Even only going to one school per day (I try to go to two or more), that’s only going to work every other day. In any other field in the world I would be fired. Here, in the land of strikes and unplanned holidays, it’s about par for the course.

The VRF sits dauntingly empty. There’s no way to increase the margins or make the font size 13. Just me and the tragic loneliness of the reporting tool.

            Very Real Frustration

I enter the same details again and again and again: School name, number of workshop leaders, subject presented…In a minute I can no longer force myself to go on, and take a break, wallowing in the shared misery of all the other volunteers expressing their frustrations on Facebook.

“Mine didn’t save,” said several status updates. “There goes 4 hours of work, down the drain.”

I press the save button on mine 3 times in a row, still not convinced it’s telling me the truth when the program tacitly says “enough already.”

A lot of it is just the typical complaints of burdened shoulders. I certainly give in to it—frequently, in fact—and cannot begrudge anyone partaking in the same.

After a short period I decide that others’ melancholy is increasing my own, and I go back to the form.

            Verbosely Reported Fluff

How can I make my own accomplishments seem more grandiose than they were? I use eye-catching filler words, like vis-à-vis, indubitably, and hence. Hopefully my lexicon will be conflated with an equal dedication to precision and efficiency.

Three hours later I’m finally done. Entries litter my file, and all of the essay questions (“Describe a success you’ve had”) are completed.

I email it to my bosses, and then lean back, exhaling. Tax season is done for the year.

Week 34 - Food: It's What's for Dinner

Food holds special significance in a person’s life. Whether it’s that recipe that reminds you of your mother’s cooking, or that single, sinful dish which makes you feel like a happily atrophied bag of goo, it has the ability to transport you to other times and places.

In Peace Corps, food hold special meaning for us, too, though perhaps in a way that is unique to expats and long-term travelers alone.

“Bacon?!” I exclaim, “Someone in your town knows a guy who knows a guy who can find you bacon? Wait there, I’m coming over!”

Never mind that from my current location to theirs was separated by six hours, four camionetas and untold physical discomfort: It was bacon.

While bacon itself can be interchanged with just about anything we can find only in a US supermarket (sharp cheddar cheese, Sriracha brand hot sauce, waffles, anything from Trader Joe’s…) the message is, there are virtually no hurdles too great to stymie our quest to consume it. It leads to some odd care package requests, and a reevaluation of what constitutes luxury: Familiar items are worth their weight in gold, while more expensive—and arguably rarer—items are overlooked. Give me a huge jar of Jif peanut butter over caviar; Kraft mac ‘n cheese packets above white truffle oil.

Hanging out in another volunteer’s site is always a treat, and Jaron R. is known as an especially good cook. Camionetas are a small price to pay to live like a king for a weekend.

“So I vote we cook the bacon first,” she paused for effect, “so that we can fry the pancakes in the grease, and maybe a fruit salad to go with it? To drink I have real Starbucks coffee I got in a care package…or Aveda tea.”

I was at a loss for words. Pancakes, while simple, are a luxury afforded only to those near the cosmopolitan cities—Xela, Antigua, and perhaps Panajachel. I had snagged the only box of mix in San Se several weeks ago, wiping the patina of grime from the unopened carton the way a doting parent might their child.

“That sounds like it might work.” I tried to play it cool, but I’m pretty sure my voice cracked with eagerness.

We cooked together: One of us looked to bacon while the other made sure the music was ever-flowing. I doubt it’ll be hard for you to guess which job was mine.

Three large pancakes, a half dozen strips of bacon, and the must succulent pineapple I’ve ever tasted later, I was temporarily sated by Jaron’s eleemosynary inclination.

But breakfast is just a single meal, and there are at least two more worthy of consideration on any given day. It would border on sacrilege to ignore them with such quality resources at hand.

A few hours later, with the dinner hour approaching, we began brainstorming about what to cook.

“You know, I make a pretty decent mango curry,” I offered. I’m not as good of a cook as she is, but it was edible and filling, arguably two of the most significant characteristics of a nightly meal in San Se.

“Mmm, that would be good.” Jaron’s reverie was broken at virtually the same instant as my own by the practicalities of what I was suggesting: Mangoes are out of season, and have been so for some time. It will be another few months at least before they become common once again. It would probably be possible with pineapple, but it just didn’t seem the same.

“What about Chicken Parmesan?” She was staring at the small box of seasoned bread crumbs on the shelf. “Chicken Parm with broccoli florets and a tomato-based coulis? I can’t puree, but we can sauté diced vegetables with some butter, onions, and maybe some oregano and basil; keep it really simple.”

My mind raced to remember what the meal tasted like: That time a housemate had made it while we were all living together for the summer during college; the kindly Jewish mother of a friend who let me and another stay at their house while road tripping to a music festival. It was a magnificent dish.

“That’ll work.”

Again we divided the tasks, and while Jaron started boiling water and preparing the sauté, I tried to filet the chicken. Having very little experience in butchery (except in matters of Goldfish crackers), I messily went about my task. She shot a raised eyebrow in my direction as I awkwardly attempted to slide the knife along the breastbone, running into resistance at every rib, but said nothing.

When I was done, there was only enough chicken for one, so I ran to the little corner tienda (store) for more. Unlike the meat in my town, it seemed well-preserved and disease-free, and at 12Q ($1.50) per pound, we could essentially afford as much as we wanted.

When I walked in the front door to her apartment, the aromatic tendrils of garlic and frying onion led me up the stairs and back into the kitchen. Everything was bubbling, sizzling, and smelling as it should.

A few minutes later we sat down to our meal in the same space in which we had prepared it. While she has more living space than I do, a problem endemic to Peace Corps is the chronic lack of diversified furniture.

We stared at our plates for a moment, admiring the soft browning of the breadcrumb crust enveloping the chicken, the vibrancy of the fresh broccoli and how it complimented the soft reds and golds of the sauce. The contemplation lasted only a moment, and then the growling of our stomachs took over.

With a grin we began.

Food took precedence over photos, but I still managed to snap a few. See them here: https://picasaweb.google.com/114291229338134891582/Week34?authkey=Gv1sRgCOaUt971ov7zuwE

Week 33 - My Immortality is not Immortal

Guatemala feels like it is getting worse. The violence (perpetrated by gangs), the restrictions to personal sovereignty (perpetrated by Peace Corps), and the sense of being useless (perpetrated by a mixture of the continuing teachers’ strike and my own impotence) are all weighing more heavily.

As I mentioned in Week 30, I have been having some trouble with my teeth. Namely, little pieces keep committing sedition. I’ve now had 4 or 5 dental appointments in the last two months, with varying levels of success. They keep fixing the cracks and chips, but a few days later it reoccurs. I now am the proud owner of prescription tooth paste (extra fluoride), prescription tooth spray (extra potassium nitrate), a second night guard (extra grinding protection), and  prescription muscle relaxants (extra…relaxing?). My nightly routine has ballooned to about 45 minutes.

However, there is a reason for this recapitulation of an earlier post. When I went to the dentist most recently, last Friday morning, it required me to arrive in Antigua Thursday evening, a pretty typical scenario.

Shortly before embarking upon my 6 hour bus ride from Huehue to Antigua, I received a call from the volunteer a year ahead of me, a friend who also lived with La Familia Loca (The Crazy Family), the name we fondly bestow upon the host family we both lived with during our respective training periods.

She was calling to check up on me, partly at the request of La Familia. They had written me a text message a few days ago and I was slow in responding. After a short conversation, we both realized that we were headed towards Antigua, and she suggested I stay with her at La Familia’s house in San Lorenzo. The family, for their part, always loves surprise guests.

“Why not,” I reasoned. “After all, it’s been some time since I’d seen them, and it’s free room and board.” It would mean that I wouldn’t get to meet any other travelers at the hostels in Antigua, something I greatly enjoy, but the pros outweighed the cons.

It’s a very good thing they did.

I only know myself. I cannot speak with certainty about hypothetical events, but in knowing myself, I feel pretty confident in how my night would have gone:

In San Lorenzo, with La Familia, I ate a meal of fried chicken, spaghetti, tortillas, and a single pickled jalapeno.

In Antigua I expect I would have ingratiated myself with a group of single-serving friends—tourists—and brought them to my favorite, dirt-cheap, hole-in-the-wall felafel joint.

In San Lorenzo, I washed my meal down with a wineglass full of Pepsi.

In Antigua I would have been convinced by the starry-eyed novices to help the food settle with a few beers, some dancing, and a late walk home.

 Meanwhile, not far from Kafka, the hostel I most typically frequent, someone was getting mugged, and then. as an exclamation point to this traumatic crime, they were stabbed. This someone was not Guatemalan, but a gringo that was targeted for that reason. This someone who was probably just like me.

And then it happened 6 more times around the city over the next few hours.

The crime rate in Guatemala is perpetually high, but the truth is, security incidents against Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala are grossly under-reported. We are—imprudently I might add—more concerned about potential judgment or administrative separation (getting fired) from Peace Corps than the actual crime or safety issue that has taken place. On several occasions I have heard of volunteers unwilling to report being robbed at knife- or gun-point in a place frequented by other PCVs because they had not called out of site. It is more important to know where the dangerous places are than to punish people for administrative transgressions.

When I think about this, it makes me pause. Antigua is the beautiful city, the safe city. Antigua is the oasis in Guatemala where violent crime does not occur. I’m not saying that it wildly reforms my notion of the country—I know that the country in which I live is dangerous—but it forces me to be more reflective on what I do to be safe and, more importantly, the wanton randomness of street crime. Simply put, I could be doing everything right and it still might not matter. My sense of immortality, which I’ve carried with me since I was old enough to know what “hubris” meant, is dead.

Week 32 - Vertical Endeavors of a Mediocre Mountain Man

I came back into the tent after peeing off the side of the mountain. The rainy haze-infected darkness gave me more privacy than I get inside my bathroom in San Se.

“Is it 3:45 yet?” Alicia asked me groggily as I began to unzip the tent flap. The timbre of her voice suggested that she hadn’t actually been sleeping.

I checked my phone, the luminescent numbers uncomfortably bright to my unadjusted eyes. “No, it’s not quite midnight.”

“Damn it.”

It’s a rare occurrence when an alarm goes off well before dawn and it’s met with an enthusiastic response, and yet when the hour finally came there was no complaining, no attempts to hide from the world for a few minutes more; rather, it was received with a collective sigh of relief.

The seven of us crawled out of our sleeping bags, donned our warmest clothes, and set about getting ready to summit the highest peak in Central America. We were on the Tajumulco Volcano, 13,000 feet above sea level, and within an hour’s climb of the top.

Still, the trek it had taken to get to this point was far from luxurious. Most of us had suffered almost 7 hours using camionetas and a single, absurdly overladen taxi to get to the base of the mountain. More than that, we had endured 4 intense, though enjoyable, hours of climbing overgrown goat paths and bushwhacking before we reached what would become our base camp.

As we began to set up our tents, a four-person and a two-person (that would ultimately be stretched accommodate 3 of us), we noticed crucial items were missing: We had no rain flies and, in the case of the smaller tent, no poles. There was little we could do about the rain protection other than hold our breath that canícula (essentially, a week-long drought in the middle of rainy season) would hold out. It didn’t, and parking ourselves in the middle of the cloud layer would prove to be a poor choice. The smaller tent was held aloft by the reappropriated drawstring to a backpack tied to a low lying tree branch. It wasn’t great, but it kept everything roughly triangular.

The rain began pouring shortly after we finished our unheated dinner of beans, corn, and tortillas. A fire would have been a welcome comfort, but the dampness from the omnipresent clouds made keeping one lit unsustainable. We retired to our tents by 6:30, though the cramped quarters, growing puddles, and impending altitude sickness made sleeping next to impossible. Every time I was able to get my nausea and racing heart rate under control enough to doze off, a new source of water or rustling from an equally uncomfortable companion would awaken me.

And so, when 3:45 hit, it was a relief rather than an onus. Finally we could quit this tiresome charade of sleeping and set out to do what we had intended.

The temperature had dropped since we had gone to bed, and now hovered in the low 40’s. The beams from our headlamps were reflected off the moisture in the hyper-saturated air, showing not just the surface the light hit but, like lasers, the linear path it took from its source. We laced up our boots, donned our outer layers, and wrapped our sleeping bags around ourselves in one final, desperate attempt to stymie the seeping cold.

Our goal was to make it to the summit before dawn, so that we could watch the birth of the new morning in complete detail. We set off just after 4:00, initially playing leapfrog with a crew of tourists and their surly guides before outpacing them midway up the trail.

The way was difficult, certainly far more so than at any point earlier in the climb. Where our route had initially been fairly obvious and gentle, we now had a path that led over loose, irregular boulders, made all the more treacherous by the rain and darkness. A single misstep meant a broken bone or worse. We trod carefully upwards, sometimes just a step or two away from the void.

The oxygen deprivation and gale-force winds, relentlessly increasing since we left base camp, peaked on the unprotected final two hundred meters. The slope was such that I could only see a few dozen meters at a time, and each time it made me think that the end was at hand. If I just trudged a few steps farther, I would be at the summit. Then I would reach that point and see it continued for a few more steps. By the fifth such disappointment it was getting difficult to convince myself that I was making any real progress.

And yet, like everything, the mountain too came to an end. With a final push I slipped over the lip of the mountain and found myself standing on a relatively flat natural platform of rock, 13,845 feet above sea level. The wind, stronger than any I have experienced, whipped at the sleeping bag draped across my shoulders, making it look more like a biblical robe than a sodden piece of synthetic fabric. I held on to it tightly; if I let go for even a second, it would literally blow off the mountain.

We had beaten the sunrise by more than a half an hour, so we sat amongst the boulders, doing our best to shield ourselves from the relentless onslaught of the elements. We had risen above the clouds, and thus most of the wetness, but the cold was exponentially worse. We huddled against each other inside our sleeping bags, voicing an expletive every now and again, as if the forcefulness of the word could warm our bodies.

When the sun began to rise, it was hard not to gasp. The discomfort went away—within reason—and was replaced by the sheer thrill of adventure. It felt like we were standing on the roof of the world, all other peaks preferring to bow in meek deference to our majesty. To walk from one side of the summit to the other took only a few seconds, but the views could not have been more different. The clouds that had made our night so miserable were spread out to the east of us like a roiling sea, so dense that it dared us to walk across. On the western slope the moon was still visible, the terrain bathed in blue gradients. We could see for dozens—perhaps hundreds—of miles in every direction.

I was alive, and the cold and the muscle aches were a small price to pay for that feeling.

The photos are truly amazing. Check them out at https://picasaweb.google.com/114291229338134891582/Week32?authkey=Gv1sRgCL6t39KixJXJwgE

Week 31 - Supermen and Crazy People

There’s a race in Huehue, called the Ascenso (Ascent) that runs from the center of town to the top of the Cuchumatanes, the highest mountain range in Central America. It’s approximately a half marathon and gains more than 5,900ft in vertical elevation. It has few flat sections to break the monotony of climbing, and not a single downhill. It was supposed to be this last weekend and I, considering myself an athlete, decided to check it out. However, before I go any further, we should get one thing clear: I didn’t run in it; Are you kidding? I’m not crazy.

…But a few of my friends are.

As I said, the race was supposed to be this weekend, and for months my compatriots have been training for it. Unfortunately, due to another epic fíjese que, the race directors changed it at the last minute to next weekend instead. For most people I’m sure this is not a huge problem. Then again, most people in Guatemala don’t book non-refundable flights to the United States for a few days after the race.

My crazy friends decided to run it this weekend anyway.

Despite my epic walks through the very same mountains, I am in no shape to run 13 miles, much less through the wispy air at almost 12,000ft. Instead, I offered to be not the thoroughbred but the mule. I raced up the mountain in relative luxury, toting the accoutrements of distance runners: Sweatshirts, pants, extra bottles of water, cell phones, wallets, cameras, and—because it was almost her birthday—clandestine candles.

They started up the road shortly after 7am, with me following at 8. I was bent on arriving at the top first so I could cheer them through the final meters and snap “victory” photos of their triumphant arrival. Unfortunately, the only available transport was a microbus with a maximum capacity of 15 passengers. Unsurprisingly, it contained 22.

Motivated by my task, I handed off my grossly oversized costál (tote made from reappropriated rice sacks) to the driver’s assistant and squeezed into a jump seat already occupied by 2 others.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” I smiled weakly. They grumbled but said nothing; these sorts of inconveniences are expected in this part of the world.

I received my just desserts as a woman behind me attempted to get out and then 3 others get in. Only two of them could fit inside, with one sitting on the armrest between the front seats, staring despondently back at the rest of the micro. The other remained standing, my knees and his lost in a tangle of unclaimed limbs. The third, along with the driver’s assistant, clung to the luggage rack on top of the vehicle, waiting for more space to open up as we began to trundle off.

As I started up, I palmed a camera, hoping that I could whip it out to get an action shot or two of the racers on their journey. The standing man was forced to keep switching his stance as we swerved right then left along the serpentine road. His jean-clad posterior kept blocking the only window available to me. After a few unsuccessful—and entirely awkward—attempts to position my camera towards the opening, I gave up. I’d just have to catch them at the top.

I felt increasing admiration for the runners as our micro ate up more and more road without seeing them. Finally, far later than I expected, we began to pass my friends, two walking during a particularly steep stretch here, a solitary warrior winding their way up there, until I had passed all 7.

With about 20 minutes before I could expect the first runner to appear, I got out of the micro, paid my fare, and trudged off towards the Mirador (Lookout) recessed from the road that marked the race’s conclusion.

I became antsy. I kept checking the settings on my camera to make sure that it was tuned to the proper capture mode, and then my watch to estimate how much time it would be before the first arrived. I propped the costál against a stone, within easy reach but out of the way of the runners who were sure to be stumbling across the final stretch.

Again I checked the camera. Again I checked my watch.

I continued this ritual for an interminable length (ironic, since I kept fiddling with my timepiece) when the first, the only male, rounded a bend and exploded into view. I waved to him like an idiot, as if his success was somehow the exclamation point to my own. As he approached I began fumbling with the camera, suddenly unsure how to get it to focus. I trotted alongside until he burst through the imaginary finish tape and bent over trying to catch his breath, hands resting sturdily on his knees. He stopped his stopwatch before looking at it.

“Huh,” was all he said at first. “Huh.”

I gave him some water.

“I just ran that in an hour and 24 minutes.”

“Huh,” I responded. “That’s fuckin’ crazy.” I was impressed by the bounds of human endurance.

We both sat on a cement embankment and waited for the next runners. Slowly, they began trickling in, until we were all there.

Two more PCVs showed up, bringing along a clandestine birthday cake to compliment my candles.

“Happy birthday!” we all shouted to the birthday girl.

Her eyes lit up, and she immediately began picking at the chocolate, a slave to the restorative properties of calories and cocoa powder after a long run. As she picked at it I tried to place the candles, but my unobtrusive aim was no match for her barbarism: She executed the dessert with extreme prejudice.

We lazed around at the lookout, partly resting, partly waiting for the thick cloud cover to lift so we could see Huehue laid out below us. It never did, and after an hour we unstuck ourselves from the ground and hitch hiked to a comedor (independently owned family restaurant) nearby. Two decided to run there as a cool down to their earlier workout.

When we got to our table I picked the nearest seat and slumped into it.

“What’s with you?” One of the others asked.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m exhausted.”

They laughed politely, thinking it was a joke, but I had meant it. The thin air, the excitement of the run, the crowded jockeying in the micro…I was just a normal man among a table full of supermen.

Jesus, I really should start running.

Find the photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week31?authkey=Gv1sRgCJHe3d-n_fGkDA

Week 30 - Your Mouth Should Never Billow Smoke

Teeth, like good friends and certain venereal diseases, are expected to stay with you whether you want them to or not. Given this sentiment, I don’t think it’s out of order to feel a certain amount of betrayal at my own for their increasingly flaky behavior: Lately, they’ve been jumping ship like it’s cool. Or rather, little pieces of them are deciding, with hardly any warning, to spontaneously unstick themselves from the calcified majority and wander off.

In the last 6 weeks, I’ve had 5 teeth crack or chip. Naturally this has necessitated getting myself to a dentist, and that is where my story begins…

The dental office sat on an Antigua side street above the west end of the park, nestled between a tailor and a bed and breakfast. All three were named Ovalle, and it made me wonder if the family was as financially diversified as the location suggested. I walked in the front door of the clinic and announced my presence to the receptionist. She smiled, pointed upstairs, and indicated that the dentist would be with me shortly.

Wallpaper pictures of Pixar characters made a lazy rotation around the room. In a corner sat resilient toys made of impact- and stain-resistant plastic. A hygienist smiled and me and reminded me that the dentist would be with me shortly.

I busied myself by trying not to wonder about the dentist’s qualifications. If the Peace Corps had sent me to her, then she was certified by the U.S. State Department as equal to the care I would receive at home. Still, a lot of uncertainties bubbled through. It’s hard not to think about all the things that can go wrong in a third world dental clinic. That it’s a common fashion statement for Guatemalans to have their teeth pulled and replaced with some combination of gold, faux pearl, and star designs only made it more so. I’m rather attached to the natural elegance of my front teeth.

After a few minutes a different hygienist directed me to the chair where it would all take place. The big show.

The dentist turned out to be a dentista, and she immediately began questioning me about my teeth and brushing habits. I answered as best I could, but when it came time to describe why I was there, my equal mix of academic and countrified Spanish began to fail me. My previous language education had never prepared me for the possibility of tooth decay.

“Well, uh,” I began, “My teeth are…breaking…little pieces.”

As I started to falter, she held up a single latex-covered palm.

“Stop,” she told me, “and let’s switch to English.” She spoke it with a sizable accent, but was quite understandable.

“Right. Lately my teeth have begun to chip. There are little pieces missing out of the cutting edges, and I want to get it dealt with before any more damage occurs.”

“Ah, yes; I see,” she began as she poked delicately with her mirror and hook probe. “Unfortunately, the damage has progressed too far and we’re going to need to pull these two.” She indicated my top front teeth.

I nearly fell out of the seat as she began laughing. Apparently she was no stranger to the aversion gringos held towards obvious prosthetics.

“I kid, I kid. This is easy work.”

I settled back into the deep recline of the dental chair, heart still battering itself against my ribcage. I was ready at any moment to flee if I saw the slightest flash of gold.

She picked up a drill with a flat, saucer-like attachment at the business end. “Don’t move,” she told me, all humor aside.

She pressed the power button and it began to whir. Like a bad horror movie, it inched closer to my face. My eyes bulged, but I was too afraid of what additional damage turning away might cause. It became lost inside my mouth, the sensation a dull vibration that resonated along my jaw and into my eardrums.

“At least it doesn’t hurt,” the relentlessly optimistic part of my psyche chirped.

My teeth began to heat up, the way they do when you hold hot coffee in that space between your teeth and lips. Smoke—honest to goodness smoke—began billowing out of my mouth. I closed my eyes. My optimism, already in the gross minority, was beaten almost to death by my increasingly powerful neuroses. Somehow I just knew that from this day forward I would never be able to smile in public again.

A few more minutes of drill work and the dentist asked one of the two hovering hygienists to fetch the composite. When it came, she slathered some on my filed teeth and began forming them into approximations of what they used to be. I couldn’t tell how good of a job she was doing, whether it would dry clear or white, and how it would hold up to the daily rigors I put my mouth through.

“That would make a great ‘that’s what she said’ joke,” my cowed optimism whispered, not looking for another pummeling. My pessimism left it alone, just this once.

Opening my eyes, I peered up into the orange safety goggles the dentist had donned. She was using the UV light to harden the composite. I wondered what the likelihood was of getting mouth cancer from such treatments. Was it like a CT scan, dishing out carcinomas to one unlucky patient in every thousand? I believed my optimism when it said it was less.

She pulled the ray gun out of my mouth and stuck a piece of black electrical tape in instead.

“Bite,” she commanded.

I bit.

She looked at the strip. “Do any of your teeth feel larger than they should?”

“The top left one feels longer than normal.”

She nodded, as if this statement confirmed what she already knew. Out came the drill again. Out billowed the smoke. Out boiled my neuroses.

When she was done, I ran my tongue along the offending incisor. It felt more normal.

Again she stuck the black electrical tape in my mouth and told me to bite. Only then did it occur to me that she was checking that the pressure of my bite was equal along the strip. Equal pressure meant equal tooth length.

Out came the drill twice more, and each time I winced in expected mutilation. When she was finally done she handed me a mirror. My teeth had a different texture, somehow more rough and plastic, but the mirror told me that no permanent damage had been done. Aesthetically they looked no different than they had a month ago.

Somewhere, deep inside, my narcissism breathed a sigh of relief.

Find the accompanying pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week30?authkey=Gv1sRgCOWiw92E3ev5Dw

Week 29 - This is What it's Like When Worlds Collide

As some of you may know, my father, in a fit of what can only be described as impulsivity derived from paternal love and relatively cheap airline tickets, came to visit me this last week. Much of the visit was very good, but what struck me was not that it was so good to see an old, familiar face (indeed, the oldest and most familiar), but the way it reflected my image back at me.

I suppose I should clarify that last sentence a little bit. I’d hate for you to think that I was so self-absorbed that I need to see myself in every situation. What I mean is that my dad is someone who knows virtually nothing about contemporary Guatemalan mores, and speaking Spanish is, put lightly, not his forte. In essence, he is exactly like I was when I first arrived.

When I first joined Peace Corps, I knew nothing, and it forced me to construct a new world of familiarity. Everything was new to me. Even the people with whom I came were entirely foreign. They had different educations, interests, Spanish abilities, stereotypes, and accents. Obviously, to survive here, I had to make their acquaintance.

Little by little, I became more knowledgeable about my fellow volunteers, about my host country, and about Spanish as a language. But in doing so, it remained entirely divorced from my life back home. There was no pollution of old relationships—to the people or the culture—that crossed from the old to the new. My point, if I have a point, is that everything that I’ve built here has been unique to this place.

So when my father came to Guatemala it was unexpectedly more complicated than simply having a loved one come to visit. It’s difficult to overlay separate lives, and it felt like a profound collision of my old world with my new one. I’m not saying that I am necessarily an entirely new person, or even that I’ve consciously worked at reinventing troublesome parts of my personality, but I found it uncommonly difficult to straddle both personas: I was the dedicated PCV during the mornings, then the concierge during the afternoons, the translator throughout the day, and the young adult off with his friends after my he went to bed. I loved having him here, but it was a role I wasn’t prepared for. It was a role that others had filled for me during my first weeks in country.

Mostly it felt weird to be in a condition where that was possible for me to do.

It’s happened only one other time in my life: My friend and former roommate Will L. once visited me while I was studying abroad in Athens, Greece during the fall of 2008 just before the U.S. presidential election. While there I wrote weekly emails with almost as much religiosity as I do here. Being a digital packrat, they weren’t hard to dig up. At the time had this to say about his visit:

“I'm finding my ability to speak and understand Greek has improved noticeably. I guess that's to be expected, given that I came to Greece knowing nothing and now know at least a little something, but Will really made me realize that my language classes are not necessarily the poorly-organized jumble I thought they were. I surprised even myself by having a mildly intelligent exchange with a shop owner while Will looked at all the trinkets and t-shirts that stores near the Acropolis try to hawk to tourists like, well, him. I won't go into the meat of the dialogue, but I assure you it was ripe with comments concerning where I was from, what I was doing in Athens, and the didactic nature of Sophoclean thought and its pertinence to the contemporary geopolitical climate. That is, ‘go Obama!’”

What strikes me with this is that it is virtually identical to how I feel now. My question is, is this a normal phenomenon? I’m not talking about the slow acquisition of acculturation or linguistic competency, but rather that it seems virtually impossible to see how far you’ve come without literally standing next to someone on square one? I suppose on some level it’s like anything else, the athlete who doesn’t know how good they are until they disgrace their old training partner; the child who must stand next to last year’s penciled height mark on the doorway to see how tall they are now.

I guess it really doesn’t matter; if you’ve read my other posts you know that I haven’t been too shy about making sweeping claims about personality changes. “I’ve gotten more mature with this,” or “my that has improved substantially.” Still, having a stationary target to compare myself to really helped me to see what’s really going on. As a result I feel mildly refreshed; I looked forward to going back to San Se, to continuing my life rather than staying in Antigua, the tourist heaven I idealized so much during training.

To paraphrase the immortal words of the Pampers jingle, “Mommy, wow! I’m a big kid now!”

Sorry, I forgot my camera while he was here, and so, like last week, there aren’t any accompanying pictures. Next week, I promise…

Week 28 - An Albeit Short Ode to Coffee

In the land of the volcanoes, it’s the little things that keep you going. Perhaps as a semi-intended continuation of last week’s entry, I’d like to talk about that little thing that keeps me going: Coffee.

When I walk into a good coffee shop, you can immediately tell: Only the good ones rely exclusively on their java. In a culinary Darwinism, the good coffee survives and is allowed to spread its bean. It's the ones that water down their menu--even their selections--with too much choice that you have to be aware of. The caramel macchiato with soy milk and extra whip cream, while ephemerally tasty, really isn't about the beans, and the twice-as-large price tag makes it attractive as a profit subsidizer. Still, the good ones are small, with the espresso machine confronting you before anything else. My coffee shop du jour, the Refuge, is a simple hole in the wall about the size of my bedroom. Its L-shaped counter is made of varnished white pine, and it has only 4 drinks on the menu. The lime-green espresso maker sits front and center, dispensing bean-based truth to its gathered disciples.

It’s amazing how much of the stuff I can put back throughout the day if I’m not required to leave the easy proximity of a pot. What’s more amazing still is the nuance in flavor that I can now detect. The old, shriveled beans that have hidden in the permafrost of a freezer since the dawn of, well, freezers, taste much less complex than the babies that were roasted this morning; The slightly burnt, acidic taste of a mediocre drip blend is a 9^th grade Sadie Hawkins compared to the melodious Tarantella created by a professional-grade machine.

Then of course there’s the difference the barista makes: Try as I might, I will never be quite as good as the near-mythical Alex in Antigua, or the dedicated entrepreneurs of El Museo in Huehue. You taste that in the ambiance, and the little flourishes at the end: The garnishes, the designs in the foam, the graceful slant of the sugar spoon against the ceramic. Presentation, while not everything, rates a solid “important.”

But I think it's the routine that I like the most, those infrequent moments where I have the opportunity to read the paper under the avocado trees of my favorite coffeehouses. It feels so sophisticated, especially compared to the rest of my life, to read meaningful articles and ruminate on the lacunae of the global political process.

Will I ever be the same in my predilections for a good java? Can I go back to the mouthwash that I drank in my darker moments of college? God, I hope not.

Also, my dad is currently here in Antigua and, like a few weeks ago, I am finding it hard to write a meaningful entry. Still, if I let it go for a single week I’ll never be able to maintain my near-perfect adherence each week. It’ll be better next week. I’ll have no distractions (or fun, no doubt).

Signing off…

Week 27 - Early Mornings: Suck.

They say that the morning starts out with a quiet calm, and those up early enough catch the worm. Let me tell you: If the person weren’t so sleep-addled, they would realize they have no need for a worm to begin with. After almost 7 months of Peace Corps life, I can tell you that my relationship to the dawn has drastically changed.

The day's genesis isn't always bad, it just feels that way at the time. When I first stir at 5:10am, wipe the sleep bogeys from my eyes, and stumble over to the toilet followed by the percolator (rarely confusing the two pots), I can hardly appreciate the way the mist rolls through the trees and down the mountain behind my house. I can barely stand that soft chirping of sparrows, and truly despise the rustic call of a rooster echoing along the valley.

Gone are the days of forcing myself to bathe as soon as I awake. Our shower is solar-heated, and while you can have a truly divine experience later in the afternoon (just before the rains), at 5am it’s no better than the river. My body has awoken to a hot shower almost every morning since 8^th grade. Even those terrible 8:30am “1a” classes in college usually were preluded by a quick rinse. Now waking up at 8:00 seems like an unfathomable luxury. Oh, how spoilt was I!

During high school I always took a certain amount of pride in the maximal efficiency of my morning routine. It was a team effort, not unlike those rapid pit stops during Nascar races: Wake up at 6:33, out of the shower by 6:45, dressed by 6:48, and out the door by 6:55. I had memorized each split, and the slightest slip from any of my pit crew—“Dad, get out of the damned shower!; Mom, peanut butter that bread faster!”—was enough to upset my morning. Today it’s the same race, but a different course, a solo dune buggy sprint across a feral landscape: Up by 5:12, urinated by 5:16, coffee started by 5:18, pack my bag for the day by 5:21, coffee off the burner by 5:22, and then head back to the bathroom to brush, primp, and deuce. Of course there’s usually no water that early in the morning, so precious minutes are wasted going to the pila with a bucket and bringing back enough water to manually trigger the flush mechanism.

By the time I return to my room for the second time, my coffee has cooled enough to drink, and I spend a few more minutes feebly trying to appreciate it while reading an online article of the New York Times. That first taste of coffee, now taken with a half-spoon of sugar and no milk, is good, but my dozing taste buds can hardly make the distinction between this organic, hand-picked, from the finca previously just-for-family-but-now-also-a-few-select-gringos and that brown swill that's patented by Nescafé.

I toss on my pants—those same dungarees that I’ve been wearing with adroit comfort for 22 consecutive days now—but the coffee has already begun to stagger in its daily war against the tentacles of that beast Slumber. In a final excruciating feat of masochism, I make my bed and flop out the door.

The time says 5:55am.

I live on the very outskirts of town, and walking to the center to beg a ride up the mountain takes just under four minutes. By the time a suitable chariot is found, the caffeine is starting to hit my system. I perk up a little, especially now that the siren song of my bed is drowned out by the chug of a poorly maintained combustion engine and a concentrated effort to not fall backward out of the pick-up bed. The wind is fierce, and I’m jealous of those older/cooler/more pregnant teachers who have secured a seat in the cab. My butt begins to hurt from the rock-strewn road’s constant jolts. I tell my butt to shut up. I’m in the Peace Corps, damn it. It reminds me that this is not that type of hardship it signed up for, and furthermore, I’m talking to my ass. Point, butt.

There are only cars moving along the mountain in the early morning and in the mid-afternoon, so while we are coming up the mountain workers are usually coming down to work in the lower fields or in Huehue. Despite the fact that they see me almost every day, the workers, all indigenous, gawk and whisper. I’ve become more brazen, too; while they stare at me coming up, I stare back. Neither side is willing to give in, their bemusement against my indignation, so we rotate like geriatric sprinklers, hardly blinking as we pass. This uncomfortable dance finishes when the road finally makes another of its ungainly switchbacks, blocking us from each other’s view. In the wind I hear a final Mam catcall of me’xj (pronounced “mesh”; lit. guy-with-the-hair-made-of-corn-silk). Despite the fact most people in the US would consider my hair to be some synonym of dark brown, here in Guatemala there are only variations on the shade of black. Since mine is not equally jet, I automatically get lumped into the category of “blond.”

Trying to distract myself from my growing discomfort allows for a lot of planning: I plan my walk. I plan my pit stops. I plan how I’m going to get back down the mountain, and if there’s anyone I can guilt into giving me a ride. I typically visit two schools each day, and and that means four to seven miles of walking. If I finish early for the day and don’t want to wait for the afternoon cars, it means another ten or more to get home. The Peace Corps does not allow me to own a motorcycle, and the mountains are too steep to use a bike. I often fantasize about owning a hang glider.

The truck stops and I get out. The time says 7:15am. I have reached my job site. It’s time to begin my day.

The photos, an equal mix of work and the walks between, can be found at https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week27?authkey=Gv1sRgCL31itPUieWRqgE

Week 26 - American Appetites

It’s an unexpected truism that patriotism expresses itself differently when you’re an expat. Take for instance my typical celebration of the 4^th of July in the US: Maybe hanging out with some friends, drink a few beers, eat a few brats, and call it a night after trying to blow something up with tiny explosives. Here—and I have it on good authority in almost every Peace Corps country—the 4^th of July is one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Perhaps it’s because it’s one of only a few US holidays we get to officially recognize here, or perhaps it’s because all the volunteers come—even those from the mythical Oriente (East side of the country)—and you get to see people you ordinarily don’t, but it’s a party atmosphere all weekend.

I ‘m not going to go into too much detail of what I did. Most of it really doesn’t translate well into an anecdote; do you really want to hear about me eating 3 burgers and a hotdog in only a few minutes and then the stomach-situated misery that followed? I didn’t think so, though I will say at the end of the day it was totally worth it.

Instead, I want to focus more on the sense of patriotism, and more generally, the connection I felt to other Americans on that day. I felt it too when I was in Greece in 2008, awaiting the presidential results that would put Obama in the White House. I’m not by nature prone to what more outspoken conservatives would call “patriotism:” I don’t wear a flag pin on my lapel; despite Rush Limbaugh’s abhorrent philosophies, I’m pretty sure he’s not a Nazi; and, except when I’m in the company of a select few, do not elongate—while simultaneously dropping most of the vowels from—the word “terrorist” (Will, you’re a dirty, dirty trrrrist!).

And yet, I find myself feeling pleased to hail from the United States. Is that really patriotism then, if I only feel it with other Americans, a beer and a burger clutched in each hand? I suppose it doesn’t really matter. More important, at least to me at least, is that Guatemala feels a little bit more familiar…

…I’m writing this in a café in Antigua called Y tú piña tambien (And your pineapple also), and the proprietor just came over and offered me a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. I figured that it deserved a shout-out.

…And now, upon leaving, I see that he charged me for it. Asshole.

But back to the matter at hand: Is it because we are all, at least in some sense, banded together as expats that we express a common ideology? I don’t think so. We’re all in Peace Corps, and I think that forms the basis of our connection. Patriotism is secondary to talent shows that make people look like endearing fools.

Indeed, when I arrived at a bar on the actual 4^th of July (the Peace Corps’ celebration was on Saturday), I was turned off by the profligacy and boorish representation of what being “American” meant to most of the patrons, only a few of which were Peace Corps. Beer was flowing, shots were shooting, and the playlist was chockablock with southern twang. Granted, it was a “redneck” themed party, but still. I’d be remiss if I suggested that I don’t occasionally party also (and let’s face it: The three lead guitars of Lynyrd Skynyrd are hot enough to melt your face off). There are a lot of volunteers who have a problem with how we portray our culture to locals, but what gets me is the projection we’re emitting of America to each other. Is this who we are? Where have I been?

Sorry this installment is so short. I’m still stuck in Antigua while I wait for the roads to be unblocked by protesting farmers and an “emergency security meeting” tomorrow afternoon at the Peace Corps office, whatever that means. My mind is other places at the moment.

Pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week26?authkey=Gv1sRgCLujsNvIquKIDg

Week 25 - Falling Off My High, High Horse

I think by this point you’ve all heard my half-hearted griping about the fíjese que’s, the impromptu holidays, and the general state of disrepair in which the Guatemalan school system finds itself. It still all holds true, of course, but I find myself having, given what transpired this week, a harder time sitting on my high, high horse.

The MINEDUC (Guatemalan abbreviation for the Ministry of Education), in conjunction with the San Se mayor’s office, sponsor a trip every school year not for the students, but the teachers of my district. They mostly pay for transportation costs, but are also able to finagle discounts that would be otherwise unobtainable on a smaller scale. I was pleased, but not terribly surprised, when my boss, the CTA (Superintendent) invited me to go along, given that I am, in some sense, both a teacher and an employee of the MINEDUC.

Who knew Guatemala has a perfectly respectable waterpark in the middle of the southern jungle?

I was torn. On one hand it seemed like a great way to build confianza with my teachers. On the other, it was exactly the kind of non-accountability that I’ve grown so frustrated with. This two day trip, on a Wednesday and Thursday, was another glaring testament to the maxim, “teachers refuse to do anything during the weekend.” Much of the trip seemed to say, “Students? What students?”

Forget that this was a trip to the Guatemalan equivalent of Six Flags with a quick stop off at the beach first. Forget that it was heavily subsidized by the MINEDUC. Forget that it was perched comfortably between the ordinary work days of Tuesday and Friday. Well, maybe don’t forget that part; that’s kind of my point.

There seems to be no continuity, no flow, to the school week. It’s as if an axe murderer is lopping off a day here, two or three there, until the supposedly nine month school year feels like 3 or 4. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a good vacation day as much as the next person, but it honestly feels like the MINEDUC panders to the teachers over the students, always forgetting—or ignoring—which ones are the children.

You might think that I would forgo the trip as a politick statement of my distaste for this style of education. You give me too much credit. Officially speaking, it was the chance to build relationships with my coworkers, and more personally, create friendships so I’m not stuck in the house every night after 4pm. Also, Xocomil (sho-koh-MIL) is a Mayan-themed water park. It seemed worthy of an anecdote.

Wednesday morning I woke up at 3:30am so that I could be waiting for the MINEDUC bus by 4. By this point a lot of the teachers know who I am, or at least my face, but I think they were still a little surprised that one of the two gringos in town was headed out with them for the coast. Lauren, perhaps more overtly dedicated to her principles than I, declined the invitation.

Only about 40 teachers came on the trip, and when we reached the beach at Champerico around 10, we immediately hit the surf. Well, I waded in with gusto, remembering just how hot the beaches can become. Swim lessons are not very popular (or indeed, available) here, so few teachers know how to cope in deep water. Combine that with a strong riptide and vicious waves, and only the most daring went past waist depth. The majority dipped toes.

We packed it in after lunch, where I had caldo de mariscos (crustacean stew). As I think I’ve noted in other posts, Guatemalans don’t put much stock in making it easy to eat food. The stew was excellent, but it was pretty shocking to see a miniature ocean biome floating in front of me. 3 crabs (shell on), a dozen or more shrimp (shell and heads on), a fillet of fish (possibly tilapia, skin on), and fifteen tiny mussels floating around the soup like a rocky garnish (shells opened, but attached). When I was done, there was a graveyard surrounding the bowl and nearly as tall. Filling, messy, delicious.

That night we stayed in Mazatenango. Some teachers, tapping hidden reserves of herculean energy, suggested we hit the discos after dinner. I was born with no such assets. I called it a night around 7:30 and was asleep by 8.

The next morning we finally got to Xocomil. It’s been quite some time since I was at a water park, but I can assure you, those I went to in my youth were nothing like this. Towering step pyramids, painted in garish colors, poked above the banana and palm trees. From your vantage point at the top, just before sliding down, you could see miles and miles of uninterrupted forest. Virtually the entire park was fill with teachers from other districts, apparently equally drawn by the MINEDUC discount of half-priced admission and free lunch (total cost for the day was 50Q, or roughly $6).

There were really all of the rides you’d expect at a large water park in the US: Waterslides for both inner tubes and people without, giant slides, a lazy river, and wave pool. Were it not for the exotic views, it could have been anywhere.

I spent the day alternating between two groups of people, and by the time I was done I felt like I had created some foundations for friendships that will last me while I’m living here. I think it helped to be seen in a less professional, stiff environment. Everyone bends over backwards to properly greet and acknowledge the titles of others. At Xocomil, standing there in my oversized bathing suit, laughing, wading, floating, just like everyone else, I think it helped me be seen as a real person. I’m still a light-eyed, English speaking, sorely burnt oddity, but now slightly less so.

So was it worth it overall, swallowing moral indignation in favor of further establishing myself here in San Se?

I hope so.

The pictures, of which there’s only one (it’s hard to take pictures at a water park!),  can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week25?authkey=Gv1sRgCNT89MuHjszl7AE#5623078790259948386