Week 24 - The Faux Fixety of Time

I believe it was Shakespeare who once said “Time: What the fuck?” Sometimes it passes slowly, sometimes quickly, but rarely do its distortions feel like both at the same time. That may, in fact, be a lie. When I was still at Carleton I felt that it was full of long days and short months, supposedly quick papers that turned into marathon slogs, and hourly battles between my fatigue and jump starts at the coffee shop. Still, deadlines teleported to the present, terms ended spontaneously, and somehow college concluded in only four pinched years.

I really don’t write a lot of papers here but, like Carleton, I find myself marveling at the time paradox. It’s been 24 protracted weeks, give or take a day, since I last saw my oldest friends, drank water from the faucet, or fell asleep in America. That means it’s been six miniscule months of riding camionetas, exaggerating religious fervor, and straining to understand what’s culturally appropriate.

It really depends how I look at it, a sort of “glass half full/half empty” situation. If I think about the last time I was in the US, it seems like it’s been forever. I’ve changed, the US has changed, as has our relationship to each other. Where has all that time gone? My life back then was just that—a different life. I’ve found new parts of myself that I didn’t know existed, unknown reserves of patience and strength as well as buried flaws and irrationalities, and used those as tools of reinvention. There is a truly significant break between what I was and what I am. It’s been years since I was Old Me.

On the other hand, if I look at my time here, it’s passed in almost a blink. The time blurs and meshes together into irregular chunks, so it feels like it’s been only a few hours since I wrote Week 23, a few days since I got to site, and perhaps, with a huge burst of mental reckoning, a week or two since I was getting Spanish lessons around a kitchen table during training. Indeed, I’ve only been New Me for a couple of seconds.

The day I left Minnesota, my brother, an RPCV himself, and I sat in a commercial bar in the airport, styled to look beaten down and faintly dive-like. We sipped mass-produced microbrews in a booth at ten in the morning, much more for my sake than his. As my tremoring hands gripped the contoured pint glass, already steadied once a few hours earlier by a mother-sanctioned slug of bourbon, I remember him telling me, no matter what, to stick it out for the first six months.

“If you make it through the first six months, you’re probably fine,” he told me, suggesting that it takes at least that long to feel comfortable in such new surroundings. “It’s not the physical hardship that gets you; you get used to that pretty quickly. It’s the mental stuff that’s the hardest, the loneliness and feeling out of place; the boredom. The sense that what you’re doing doesn’t benefit anyone. You’ve got to get through that.”

I looked up from my beer and the little circles the glass’ condensation made on the wooden table. I didn’t really believe him about the physical hardship. He had a house with electricity and running water when he was in Namibia. I was positive I’d be shitting in a bucket stored under a reappropriated army cot, picking the tarantulas off me with improvised salad tongs. Still, six months seemed like an eternity. Even as I prepared myself mentally to go, I was sure I wouldn’t last. Parts of me at that moment hoped that I would get injured and medically separated within the first few weeks, sent home for something that wasn’t shameful or my fault.

“I know you’re scared, Jóbalo,” he said, calling me by a pet name that only older brothers can get away with, “but just take it one day at a time. Every night that your head hits the pillow is a victory. And when it gets really hard—and it will—just keep telling yourself ‘for better or worse, this too shall pass.’”

It’s usually the nights that are the hardest. After I’ve eaten my solitary dinner and finished my single serving of dishes I perch on top of my bed and don’t know what to do with myself. It’s in those undistracted moments then that the longing resurfaces, that desire to see my roots, my friends and city, sharp and disorienting and animal; like a hook twisted along my guts, pulling me backward and up from somewhere behind my navel. In all truth I still can’t face the idea of 21 more months without an element of panic insidiously seeping in. And so I think of the months I’ve been here instead, stroking the number like a baby would a security blanket. It grows longer and more solid every week, better able to remind me that despite my occasional misgivings, I am still here. I am succeeding here.

And now that it’s been six months—that length of time that seemed like aeons to Old Me—I see what he meant. He has been prophetic, a slightly taller Yoda with a curly Jew ’fro. I feel more comfortable here. I still have low moments, moments of panic, but they’re not met with the same canned responses to the silent, landscaped question:

“What. Am I. doing, here?”

I am here because I enjoy it. I am here because I want to be. I am here because the alternative would be a cubicle in a hospital talking about interest rates and potential repayment plans, making ten times the salary I make now with one tenth the thrill. I am here because life’s an adventure and I want to push myself, to be that indomitable spirit that’s alright with looking like an idiot in the name of self-improvement.

Old Me wouldn’t be comfortable with that.

Please find the pictures, a veritable clip show of my service, here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week24?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ25md_hjvv0nQE

Week 23 - Decadence and Luxury in the Third World

A lot of people conceive the Peace Corps to be a life of discomfort, loneliness, and mental anguish. It’s hard, I won’t even attempt to deny it, but like anything, you acclimate. While I risk eroding the illusion that we’re all superhero ascetics (for the record, we are), you get to a point where intestinal parasites, irregular utilities, and large arachnids don’t bother you. You find that you can go months without a proper shave, and, with hardly any effort, your life continues to proceed without you 2600 miles to the north.

One of the main reasons I joined the Peace Corps was for the excitement and adventure that it promised. My service has certainly offered me the opportunity to explore the highest and lowest emotions my psyche has to offer, and also put me in situations that I never thought I’d see or experience (Heads Should Usually Remained Attached, On Second Thought, Let’s Change that…), but one thing that has been lacking has been the sense that this is any sort of luxury vacation.

This past weekend I had the fortuitousness to experience luxury that would have qualified as “luxury” even if I were still in the First World. It was awesome.

About an hour outside of Xela exists a medium-size town called Zunil. If you grudgingly pay a very smug man 20 quetzales, he’ll take you up into the mountains, past the road’s switchbacks framed by pines and the patchwork of farm plots tucked against the slopes, until you arrive at what is almost certainly God’s bathtub.

When Kate, a recently-made non-PC friend, and I got to the parking lot of the Fuentes Georgina, it was deserted save for a few idling parking attendants, who instructed us to continue along a path leading even higher than the several thousand feet above Zunil we were currently standing. The heavy wooden bannisters and the bare rock face quickly gave way to a clearing and, proudly displayed in its center, three cascading pools, the roughly-hewn flagstones lining the bottom dyed green from mineral deposits. The steam shone golden as it curled off the water and became backlit by the sun.

There was just one other duo there, and we were easily able to pretend we had the place to ourselves. For the first glorious hour we joked about the unfamiliarity of true decadence. This was what traveling is all about, right? To find those hidden gems far away from the norm, soaking in (sometimes literally) their charms?

Changing into my bathing suit, intentionally bought when it was uncomfortably tight, I noticed that it seemed in danger of slipping off during the next particularly boisterous bought of cavorting. I appreciate a good cavort now and again, and this boded ill.

“Can you get a bathing suit tailored?” I asked myself as I examined my weak muscle tone and general level of abdominal pastiness. I’m going to have to start on that P-90X stuff that all the volunteers keep talking about. Running and weightlifting are practically impossible here. Of course, more exercise means more weight loss, and thus more tailoring.

Kate and I surveyed the pool before us. Irregularly shaped, with two walls butting against the rock face that fed it with its boiling waterfall, it could have been mistaken for a natural lagoon if the underwater tiling didn’t give it away. Had we come later in the day, the café and bar making the third wall would have been far more inviting. Instead, it was impossible to ignore that it was nine in the morning, almost, but not quite, entirely the wrong time for a beverage. It was too late for coffee to sound very appealing before a hot soak, and not quite late enough to sanction a brew.

The fourth wall of the pool created a walkway between the largest, hottest, and prettiest of the pools, and the second in all three categories. Underground pipes from the first, assisted solely by gravity, cascaded water that kept the second’s temperature more or less constant. The same occurred in the third.

I dipped my toes into the first pool. It was hot, but bearable. I immersed myself up to my knee, and right about then decided that I was too much of a weeny to go any further. The heat, to which I had hoped I would acclimate, did not seem to get any cooler. Instead, words like “searing,” and “ohmygodthisissohotican’tstandit” kept thumping themselves against my consciousness. Is this the way a lobster feels as it contemplates the final moments leading up to the great beyond?

“What do you think? 140 degrees? 150?” I asked Kate as she walked up beside me. She shot me a look that clearly suggested I needed to re-zero my internal thermometer. “Forget this, let’s go to the cooler pool.”

Kate’s example and snide allusions about my manliness eventually got me up to my chest in the main pool. When I tried to move however, my zen-like concentration on penguins and snow days was instantly broken, and we spent much of our remaining time alternating between pools number two and three. While they were certainly cooler than the first, they were plenty warm enough to work away at our muscle knots and induce that sleepy, sluggish feeling that hot water brings. I hoped the minerals would be good for my skin, but found myself wondering what the students at my 15 schools would say if the gringo walked up dyed as thoroughly green as the stones. I’m already huge here; would “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” translate, or would it be taken as a polite, though obvious, statement of personality?

After several hours, our skin seemed irrevocably pruned, though still depressingly similar in color to when we had arrived. Throughout the morning, the cloud forest kept sweeping in dense fog, then lifting it just as suddenly. We didn’t even get bronzed; I’m still rocking the farmer tan.

Eventually other obligations reminded us that we couldn’t stay forever. Standing fully clothed a few minutes later, I surveyed my surroundings one last time. This wasn’t mental anguish, and I’m not even that lonely, I decided. Is Guatemala simply the Posh Corps, or have I found a hidden gem?

The photos for this week can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week23?authkey=Gv1sRgCPv7vNPVwpjJQw#

Week 22 - Across the Great Disparity

Some of the best things in life are free. Unfortunately, most things require a little bit of cash, especially in Guatemala. As I figured out what I would need for lunch in Huehue last week, this little tidbit should have been more prominent in my brain. Instead I covered the basics: Cellphone? In my pocket. Wallet? Different pocket. Pen, keys, and USB drive with the documents I needed? Pocket, pocket, and pocket.

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the twilight of my room, I had only two things on my mind: Getting my grant applications in on time and a ride into town. I headed down the path that would take me to the highway, not really in a hurry, but anxious to check my email on a connection that wouldn’t conk out when I tried to do something as taxing as reading the New York Times.

I got to the highway, crossed it, and sat down on in the shade of an overhang. Sitting next to me was an indigenous woman of perhaps 60 or 70. Her traje implied that she wasn’t from San Se. She smiled, though was clearly confused why a gringo such as myself was sitting in the middle of nowhere, far from the nearest tourist attraction.

“Are you coming from La Mesilla?” She asked, referring to the Mexican border crossing 75km to the northwest. I guess she thought I must simply be passing through.

“No, ma’am, I actually live here in San Se. I’m the new Marcos, working in the schools.” Marcos was the volunteer before me and Lauren.

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, I knew him! He was so nice, always singing with his guitar. He’s left now though, right?”

I responded in the affirmative just as the bus heading to Huehue pulled up. She was headed elsewhere, I guess, because she didn’t move to get on. “Goodbye!”  I shouted just as the bus started to pull away. As I found an empty seat, that familiar sense of accomplishment washed over me. Another successfully banal interaction. Perhaps I’d reward myself with a parasite-free salad when I got into the city.

Still smiling, I reached for my wallet, getting my money ready for the ayudante (eye-you-DAHN-tay, lit. “helper”) to collect. You never knew when someone would try to squeeze in next to you, trapping your back pockets. Then the only way to access them would be to root around in that sweaty, fleshy chasm between their leg and yours. No, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I looked in my wallet: Peace Corps ID, my Guatemalan debit card, two vouchers for free coffee in Antigua, and a few assorted things that were both American and long since expired. The one thing that was missing was the only thing I needed: Cash, equal or greater to 5 quetzales to be exact.

Worriedly, I looked up and saw that the ayudante was still chatting with the driver. At least I had a little bit of time.

I looked in my wallet again, hoping that the paycheck which had been deposited into my account had magically spilled from the abstraction of cyberbanking into my billfold. Still nothing.

I cursed the laws of physics as I frantically started patting my body all over, looking for a forgotten bill somewhere. The people nearby began shooting me sidelong glances, and moved away ever so slightly. Either the gringo had been the target of a sudden and coordinated assault from a renegade band of fleas, or he was going crazy. Either way, a little distance couldn’t hurt.

I found a single quetzal note after tearing through my backpack and clothing. This wasn’t good. Alternative methods needed to be explored, and I was desperate. We were at least 9 or 10 miles from anywhere, and the most common result of failure to pay is to get booted from the bus.

I looked behind me, hoping there was an acquaintance or friend that I hadn’t seen who could lend me 4Q until I could hit up an ATM in Huehue. No one. I was on my own, unless I wanted to explain to a total stranger how I, as the perceived rich gringo had absolutely no money and was begging from subsistence farmers. The irony was not lost on me, and I didn’t think that it would be on them, either. I would avoid it if I could.

The ayudante started his relaxed, ponderous stroll from the front of the bus towards me, collecting the fares from each person as he went by. Each of them was able to pay. I would not. With mounting dread, I looked through my wallet one last time, hoping that I had somehow missed something during the previous two searches. It really isn’t a very big wallet.

By some stroke of luck I actually had.

In the hidden pockets behind the sleeves for the credit cards, I found a single, folded one dollar bill. I noticed a slight tear on one end and dimly recalled how the bank had refused to convert it when I tried several months ago. The current value of the US dollar is around 7.50 or 8Q. Maybe, just maybe, this could save me from a hot, dull, slightly perilous trek along the highway back to San Se.

The ayudante reached my row, and took the fare from the guy sitting across from me first. As he turned, I began to sputter the carefully-rehearsed lines I had prepared.

“Hi. Fíjese que I just realized that I don’t actually have enough money to pay the fare.”

The ayudante looked at me like he hadn’t understood, which he probably hadn’t since I was too nervous to actually consider the grammar or pronunciation of what I was trying to say. Gamely, I struggled on, his face slowly showing recognition that the “rich” gringo was a pauper.

“What I can do is run to the supermarket near the terminal where there is an ATM and come back and pay you. It wouldn’t take a minute.” I smiled weakly, hoping a joke might lighten the mood. “Unless you take plastic?”

“No,” was his simple reply, and I wasn’t sure to which statement he was referring. He started looking back at the driver as the passengers around me began to catch on. He was going to tell the driver to pull over. I guess he meant “no” to both. The whispers, which I was too preoccupied to translate in their entirety, were of a nature that suggested the irony was not lost on anyone.

“Well, look. What I can do is give you this one quetzal note and this American dollar.” I let the word “American” hang for a second to emphasize its exotic and profitable nature. I tried to hide the tear from view. “The dollar is worth 8 quetzales, so in some sense it would be like I’m paying nearly double the regular fare.”

He turned back towards me. Incredulity was etched over his uncommonly-expressive face. Again I smiled weakly, trying to shove the two bills into his hand. He looked at me for a second, then down at the bills, and back at me again. Was this gringo for real?

He took the bills grudgingly. I highly doubted he’d go to the bank to actually collect on the fare, but they were on a deadline, and stopping would throw them even more off. He turned, and continued collecting the fares of the other passengers. Those nearest to me, who had heard the entire, mortifying exchange, chuckled. I sank lower into my seat, trying to hide for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, school buses are not meant for people of my size, and it didn’t work. From the back of the bus, I’m sure you could see my scarlet ears towering over the backrest meant for 4^th graders.

When we reached Huehue, I got off at the mall, ran in, and promptly withdrew 500Q. I was a rich gringo again, and had traveled from one end of the great disparity to the other in only 30 minutes.

Find the accompanying pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week22?authkey=Gv1sRgCNqw56TRyOfPSA#

Week 21 - Sex and Its Forms

I had a funny thing occur to me a couple of nights ago. I’ve been waking up at around 5am lately for work, and as a result have been going to bed around 8:30 or 9.

A beep twice, I had received a text message. Groggily I checked the time. 11:45pm. Who on earth could be texting me now? I checked it, slightly concerned that something bad had happened to a friend or something. It was from Mary, a woman in my town I met once before for about 15 minutes. "Hey José, I’m standing outside your door. Come outside so I can give you a goodnight hug.” Signed, “The Moon.” Frankly I didn’t believe it, put my phone down without responding, rolled over, and was asleep again in less than 10 seconds. Work comes early, I barely knew this girl, and highly doubted that she would be content with just a goodnight “hug.”

Another double beep signaled the arrival of a new message. It was 11:48pm. “Hey, are you sleeping or what? Come outside.” I briefly debated going outside to tell her to go away and let me sleep, but decided that playing “comatose” was the better course. It was still mostly true, after all.

I don’t bring up this little crumb of an anecdote to illustrate my (nonexistent) sex life, or even to support my earlier, slightly humorous assertion that I am the most eligible bachelor in San Se. Rather, it provides a reasonably-related entrée to my main topic for this week: Sexual identity and practices. There’s a lot here that doesn’t fit the expected mold.

When I first got to Guatemala, the first thing that struck me was the hyper-masculine culture and its chained attack dog, machismo. In the name of machismo, men catcall women to tears, retain mistresses to prove that they’re real men, and expect executive control over the family. Drinking only further exacerbates this, as I’ve never seen a middle ground; drinking in moderation is for wimps and huecos (an ugly epithet for people who are GLBT...and whose English translation I despise too much to include).

If you stay here awhile, you might begin to see the hallmarks of an idealized feminine type too, at least within a chauvinist construct. Women, especially in the areas where I live and work, stay in the traditionally female social spheres—usually limited to the house and the market. When I volunteered for the afternoon with another organization to interview teenage girls about their knowledge of HIV/AIDS and prevention, most professed no knowledge of condoms or birth control. Whether it was true or not is almost arbitrary; what struck me was that this image of ignorance was what they thought I wanted to hear. After all, isn’t the morally-pure woman supposed to know nothing about sexual safety and practices?

With this as a starting place, imagine my surprise then when I was in Xela for the first time and saw a woman dressed in a tight miniskirt, an even tighter tang-top ending well above her navel, heavy makeup, and long, flowing hair. To say “extremely provocative” is an understatement. Was she a prostitute? No.

She was a man; a transsexual to be exact.

One of the few places it seems that the male and female halves intersect is in the castigation of alternative lifestyles. In large cities there are a few, well hidden gay bars, but every so often, not unlike the US, you hear about a hate-crime being committed against its patrons. Strictly speaking, GLBT lifestyles are not illegal, but they do receive less support from the authorities than those who are straight. Shocker, I know.

Peace Corps does a lot of sexual lifestyle-related outreach and, as a result, several of the more outgoing transsexuals are friends with a few of my own. Last week there was a Peace Corps-sponsored gay-pride event, and afterwards several of us, the more daring ones, agreed to go to the after-hours gay bar.

I had been to the area before. Hell, I'd walked past this very club each and every time I went to the expensive-but-luscious Indian restaurant across the street. Still, I had never noticed it. Then again, I’m sure that was the point.

The entrance was on the lower level of a strip mall, under a gym and next to a gun store. It was tucked into the corner, so the stairs leading up to the second level partially hid its comers and goers from street view. When we walked up to the door, I noticed that there was a locked grill—like prison bars—further securing the entry, along with an armed guard to monitor it. My friends were known here, and we had no trouble getting in.

When I entered, it was an interesting sight. I’ve been to a gay bar in the US before, but I really dug that it was so…illicit. There were probably 40 people in the club, of which 15 or so were obviously transsexual. Everyone looked up as the pack of gringos walked in, and then went back to what they were doing as soon as they saw we were not there to cause trouble. My friends knew a few, and they waived us over.

After five minutes, the music stopped, the lights were turned off, and everyone was sternly told to shut the fuck up by the bartender. The cops were rolling past outside. I never found out if this concern with the law was bred from their lifestyle, or simply because the club was operating after hours. In either case, it was made clear to me that if they found this club, bribes would most likely be the solution.

A minute or two later the door guard blinked his flashlight twice and everything started back up again. People behaved as if nothing had happened; it was just a tiny breather in between dances. This happened six or seven more times before we left, though they never found us.

I don’t know quite were this post is going, or by now where it was supposed to go. It feels a little more rambling than I had hoped. Reading over it, it would appear that my thesis is that “there are all kinds of sexual orientations and norms in Guatemala,” which feels rather obvious for my tastes. I don’t think there’s a huge epiphany coming in the next few sentences while I wrap everything up, but I would like to comment on how interesting everything is when you’re able to see below the surface. Had I just taken a weekend trip here I never would have seen what I have seen, or done what I have done. I never would have been privy to the invisible gay club that I walk past almost every time I’m in Xela, and I certainly never would have been welcomed into it.

It’ thrilling.

I didn’t take pictures of this week’s topic for obvious reasons, so you’ll have to be content with pictures of a few of my schools instead. The two shown here, Tuitzquimac and Chichiná, are applying for funding to build hand washing stations at their schools. Each has only one faucet for 57 and 153 students, respectively. Please forgive the notes on some of them, they’re for Ronald McDonald and his foundation. Find them here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week21?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjy6Jes5NqNzgE#

Week 20 - On Second Thought, Let's Change That...

“In Sicily,” The Godfather tells us, “the women are more dangerous than shotguns.” Well, I’m not in Sicily (no matter how similar the machismo here may seem), but I could say that same sort of line, replacing “Sicily” with “Guatemala” and “women” with “machine guns.” That has a nice, factual ring to it, doesn’t it? “In Guatemala, the machine guns are more dangerous than shotguns.” Guns are everywhere, from the 12-gauge-wielding guard at every fast food joint, to the guy with the Uzi riding—ironically—shotgun in the occasional pickup. I’d say I’ve grown used to their presence, or at least the way I’ve grown used to the large, oddly flat wall spiders I occasionally see: I know they’re around, and I’m sure they serve at least some beneficial purpose, but for God’s sake, please keep them away from me.

It should come as no surprise then that in order to protect the gun-totin’ public, the police need to have more intimidating, powerful weapons. Every cop carries a pistol of some kind, and many also carry large, futuristic-looking TAR-21 machine guns about the size of my torso. We hear stories about the police, their general level of corruption, and how we should really think long and hard before asking them for help. And that’s where my story begins…

This weekend I went to Xela, the second-largest, and nearest truly cosmopolitan, city to me. It was the Welcome Party for the area, where new volunteers like me could meet and interact with the veterans. As a Huehueteco (male from Huehuetenango) I would be crashing it, but nobody ever minds, and it promised to be a great weekend where I could meet a lot of cool people.

Saturday night the Peace Corps took over a couple of bars in the city center, and as it wound down, I agreed to walk a friend back to her hostel so she didn’t have to do it alone. We got to talking on the way back, and by the time we reached the door a few blocks away two things became clear: First, we were waist deep in a conversation that was both entertaining and illuminating, and secondly, the night guard would not let me in since I wasn’t a registered guest.

We debated it, and decided to sit on the curb and continue. We talked, we laughed. And then the PNC (Policía Nacional Civil) drove by in their big black-and-yellow pickup. We looked up, saw it was passing us, and then went back to conversing.

The truck slowed, stopped, and then reversed towards us.

“Shit,” we both said aloud, sure we weren’t doing anything illegal, but less certain of how much they would request in bribes to not arrest us anyway.* I’ve never bribed anyone, and I wasn’t sure on the protocol. How much money was enough? Would they accept a check?

The truck stopped again, a few feet away from us, and two officers got out. I’d say they looked burly, but few people can truly look burly when they’re five and a half feet tall. They looked menacing, like they were looking for a reason to arrest us. “Shit,” we both said again.

“What are you doing here?” The first officer, apparently the boss, demanded.

“Nothing, sir. We were just talking. It’s getting late though, and we’re going back to our hostel. Thank you.”

The second, the one wielding what looked like a laser gun, took up a solid stance. We weren’t going anywhere until he or his boss said it was alright. Boss-man was doing slow circles around me, I guess looking for a reason to detain me. Not totally sure what I was supposed to do as he played Earth to my Center of the Galaxy, I waiting until he was directly behind me and slowly, non-threateningly, looked back at him.

He grabbed my shirt and lifted it, checking my waistline for a weapon. Of course I didn’t have one. He began frisking me, working his way down my torso and then up each leg. He felt each of my jean pockets, perhaps for drugs. Nothing, obviously.

“Thank you for your concern, officers,” I began again, “but as I said, we are staying at the hostel that’s less than half a block from here. We know it’s dangerous, and we promise to get off the street immediately.”

Boss-man pretended he didn’t hear me. Number Two seemed slightly bored, but his feet were still wide apart, his hands caressing his weapon. An athletic stance, I decided; this was a man ready for action. I began making a mental inventory of the cash left in my wallet. Were 100 quetzales enough to buy off both of them? 100 each? Did I even have that much on me? I doubted it.

“Show me your papers,” Boss-man demanded. My friend and I looked at each other, bewildered. “Which papers?” we thought. Neither of us had a passport handy. Not knowing what else to do, I gave him my Peace Corps ID.

Perhaps in other Peace Corps countries, the official identification is a little more, well, official. Here however, it’s a piece of laminated paper printed off a low-quality home computer. There are little divots and bulges where the person trimming it faltered. None of the corners make 90 degrees. I didn’t expect it to impress him.

The officer glanced at it, slightly bemused, then looked harder when he saw the seal of the US embassy. Maybe he thought I was affiliated more directly—a diplomat perhaps—but his attitude changed quickly. Gone was the all-powerful swagger, the assumption of total compliance. Number Two saw it as well. He shifted uncomfortably, tightening his grip on the gun's stock. The game had changed.

“Where’s your hostel?” Boss-man asked, this time a little more politely.

“Just over there, barely half a block. We’re happy to get off the street, sirs.” I said again, still not daring to press my advantage.

“It’s dangerous out here, especially for gringos such as yourselves. It’s time to go home now.”

“Thank you for your concern, please have a good night.”

They turned back towards their pickup and we towards the hostel. We saw them drive away just as we arrived at her door.

“What in the hell just happened?” we asked each other silently. “How did we get out of that? What could have happened if it had gone differently?”

“Fuuuuuuck” I intoned quietly, drawing the word out. I tried to let my anxiety and stress out with it.

After she went inside, I was alone on the deserted street. I walked to a cab and, in a brilliant feat of prudence outweighing stinginess, I paid the ten quetzales demanded by the driver to take me to my accommodations four blocks away.

When I got in the taxi the driver began to speak. “I should be charging more because of the hour. The only reason I’m doing this for ten is because it’s dangerous out here on the streets at night. You never know if someone’s going to rob you.”

Brother, you have no idea.

* I do not support, condone, or encourage the bribing of anyone, be they public officials or private citizens.

This week’s photos can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week20?authkey=Gv1sRgCIeEjLXNgMr91wE#. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t take two of these. The internet can be a wonderful thing.

Week 19 - In Guatemala, It's a Winter Waterland

Another week has passed, and it’s becoming harder to find interesting things to talk about; not because they’re not interesting, just that I am becoming more and more inured to the exoticism of my life here. It’s normal to wake up without any electricity or water, to make my coffee in an inherited camping percolator, and wait for a jalón (lit. a “pull”; a ride in a pickup) up to my schools as the mist clears in the mountains.

Another strange thing that I’m becoming more accustomed to? The weather. The Guatemalan invierno (“winter”) began a few weeks ago, and now we get rainstorms lasting several hours virtually every afternoon. I’ve started compulsively carrying around my rain jacket wherever I go, but it’s probably for naught. Give or take 20 minutes, you can set your watch to each downpour’s approach. I suppose a clock that’s off by ±20 minutes is really not all that useful, but you get the idea. I suppose you could say that like everything else here, including my scheduled work meetings, the rains operate on Guatemalan time.

The parabola of the weather necessitates a description. When I awake—which, depressingly, is becoming more and more frequently around 5am—you can see the mountain fog backlit by the rising sun. As I finish my cup of much-needed java, it begins to burn away, appearing almost as if it’s falling off the mountain.

I leave to catch the 6am jalón with departing teachers, it’s nearly clear, and were I still in Minnesota, every indication would suggest that it was going to be a sunny, puffy-clouded kind of day. If I remained at San Se’s elevation of a little under 6,000 feet, it would be 80 degrees by no later than 10 or 11am. As I currently travel to as many as five mountain schools per day, many of which are over a mile higher, it rarely reaches that temperature. Paradoxically, it becomes chillier for me as the day progresses.

By noon the day starts to become more ominous, with bread-like storm clouds seeming to suddenly find they have too much yeast; swelling and congealing, they become a single baguette of promised precipitation.

If I’m not inside by 2pm, it’s usually too late. I’ll be soaked in a minute, and even my raincoat is not enough to protect me if I have to sit in the back of a pickup as we wind out way down the mountain for the better part of an hour. Truthfully, I look forward to the daily storms. Sitting on one of the family’s outdoor couches, protected by an overhang, makes me feel cozy, especially if I’ve worked up the energy to brew a second cup of coffee. The noise the fat droplets make as they smash against the tin roof is hypnotic in its way. Off in the distance thunder claps, but I rarely see the flash that preceded it.

It would seem that these few hours would make a perfect siesta, which is certainly how I spend them, but it’s not as culturally tolerated as I have found it in other Latin counties like Mexico and Spain. Things may close down for a while, but I still suspect that I’m still seen as huevón (lit. a “big egg”, lazy) for watching a movie or reading a book in the middle of the afternoon.

I’ve heard that the Rainy Season quickly becomes a headache. I expect it too, especially as the prolonged dampness breeds mold on my clothing and wooden cabinetry. The roads will begin to flood in the low spots, and the dustiness of a couple months ago will turn to thick muddy sludge. It’s then, when the soil is barely able to cling to itself, that we have to begin worrying about landslides, the most severe of our natural disasters. I am on the far side of a river from the nearby mountains, high up on the opposing bank, so I am well-protected from both landslides and flooding, but most roads are cut into the sides of slopes, and it will become problematic when the Interamerican Highway gets bisected by several hundred tonnes of moved earth, disconnecting me from Huehue and the Peace Corps beyond that. There are emergency action plans, of course, so don’t worry about me being at risk, but it’s frustrating to think that with a little more foresight, or infrastructure, these annual problems could be prevented rather than repeated. In some areas they’re still clearing the roads from last year’s disasters.

When I leave my dry confines the rain has stopped but its clean, fresh scent still lingers. I love that smell. Like too many things, it’s gone far too quickly, and the spent clouds are burnt away by the sun just before dusk. It’s sunny again, and had the bath towel I had left outside to dry not been forgotten there, all evidence of the day’s deluge would have been erased. In some sense it could seem like time has stood still. The pinks and oranges of the day’s ends streak the sky, my towel is still waterlogged, and it looks for all the world like rain never did—nor will--occur.  Is it dawn or dusk? A single reminder snaps me back to reality: If I just showered, why do I still smell like a dusty skunk?

Don’t answer that.

I only have a few photos this week, but they hopefully show the progression of the day’s weather while also showing more of the terrain and manner in which I live. Enjoy: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week19?authkey=Gv1sRgCJGxocG11KiKEQ#

Week 18 - The Success of Banality

It’s amazing how your standards change based on linguistic and cultural fluency. In the US it would hardly register to simply talking to someone, understanding them, and then move on. Here, however, it’s far different. As I become more entrenched in my host site, I find myself beaming from even the most banal interactions. Did I recognize that person correctly and casually insert their name into the greeting so they know I know it? Did I understand 90% or more of what they said without having to go “eh?” every other sentence as if I were hard-of-hearing? Did I properly switch from using buenos dias to buenas tardes at noon, or did I just wish that nice woman a good morning at 4pm?

A large part of my contentment these days stems from small exchanges like these. Even though school—and thus work—has officially restarted after the strike, I still find myself with exorbitant amounts of time on my hands. Paseando (strolling) has become a meaningful method by which to work on my secondary objective: Community integration. As trite as it sounds, I actually feel myself swell with pride every time I walk away from a two minute conversation that I navigated correctly and without agenda. My facial muscles contort into a self-satisfied grin. I feel lighter, cooler, sexier.

The really unexpected thing is that while the positive sensation is still felt during chats with a purpose—discussing vegetable prices at the market, introducing myself to teachers and principals at my schools, etc.—it’s greatly diminished. You’d think that the positive feelings from doing my job competently would supersede the more extraneous stuff. I suppose in a way it does; I feel like an idiot when I screw up a presentation to parents or teachers, where it’s more a hope of not failing than it is of succeeding, but it’s almost as if the banality of a dialogue is what makes it so successful. Anyone can walk up to the woman in the San Se post office and say “do you have a package for me?” It’s only when she says “of course not, this is San Se” and we continue to talk about the people sending me things from home that I start to get that rich, warm, slightly bloated sense of self-competence.

Community integration, and its much-loved offspring, confianza (roughly, “mutual trust”), are terms that Peace Corps tossed around daily during training. Despite the slightly magnanimous way it was always presented to us, it really is an important goal, especially in a country that runs on back scratching and backroom agreements between friends. As almost every volunteer has told me who’s been in country long enough to know, “everything is a whole lot easier when you have confianza.” Need a person to give you a lift back from one of your more distant schools? Need a reservation for the community conference room on short notice? Need a fair quote for those new hand washing stations you’re building?

Confianza, confianza, confianza.

Of course, not all of this is hypothetical. The confianza I built with the principal of one of the schools that will almost surely be mine when Lauren and I split them got us invited to their Mother’s Day celebration last week. I ran into her at the market, where we exchanged pleasantries and gabbed over the price of onions (two quetzales per pound. That’s highway robbery!) After a few minutes she suggested that we head over on Friday morning and see what one of the many major school celebrations is like. Of course I accepted, and Friday morning I hopped on a bus and found her in one of the school’s three classrooms.

“Hey Beatrice, how’s it going?” The standard introduction to some fantastically ordinary conversation.

For most of the celebration I was sitting in a corner, simply watching what the 40 or so mothers and their toddler-aged children were doing. I was mildly surprised—though perhaps I shouldn’t have been—when Beatrice asked me to stand up and say a few words about me, the Peace Corps, and Healthy Schools.

“I, um, am Joe. From the US. I’m from the state Minnesota, which is way to the north, so it’s always cold.” Not succeeding, trying not to fail too badly.

Despite my bumbling, Lauren and I were able to get across the majority of what we needed to say, and then it was back again to watching the celebrations, laughing with the teachers, and smiling at the shy children hiding behind their mothers’ corte (traditional skirt).

When it was over, a grandfatherly old man offered to give the two of us a ride back into town so we wouldn’t have to wait and pay for a bus. His stooped stature and the way his overly-large pants were cinched around his bellybutton endeared him to me immediately. Truthfully, I’m not sure quite how that confianza was forged, but it may have had something to do with the fact that we were the only two men in the room over three years of age. I’ll take it where I can find it. I had seen him, slightly embarrassed, trying to explain to the group why he was there at Mother’s Day and not a female figure, but there was nothing embarrassing about the love he showered upon his tiny charge.

“So you’re José, huh?” He asked me as we were walking to his pickup. “I’m also José. We’re José and José!”

I assume it won’t always be like this. I can’t always be so easily satisfied with myself, right? Eventually, my standards will have to rise. Until then, however, I’m going to keep plodding forward; each word becoming a sentence, each sentence a conversation, each conversation a brick by which to build confianza.

I look over at him and smile. “Hey José, how’s it going?”

There are a few pictures from the Mother’s Day celebration, but the majority are from my school visits that are continuing to occur. It can be pretty thrilling to roll over the spines of a mountain range in a pickup bed with an unencumbered view for what feels like thousands of miles. Enjoy! https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week18?authkey=Gv1sRgCPiiltf_ue2CRw#