Dispatch Number 21 -Errant Thoughts III

Guatemala

How the Place felt on the First day

The police are few and the place takes on the air of self-rule. To live here you need to be aware of everything. At all times.

Money
Guatemalan money is so worn out, it is limp and lifeless in the hand. It feels damp easily. One does not like to touch it. Dirty worn paper.

Tough
I knew Ted was tough when I learned that he used newspaper at the toilet. He grew tougher in my eyes when I watched him blow his nose with newspaper as well. A single roll of toilet paper in Guatemala costs 12 cents. So it is not about the money.

Sleep

I sleep without charge if I promise to take my meals at the comedor. A comedor is an inexpensive family restaurant that usually offer one or two dishes; it is a pared down affair and the food is usually good. It is the only comedor in this village, I will sleep here. Out back.

I listen to the sounds of the family in the kitchen and late night conversation with their friends. I sit on the tailgate to write and capture the day. I will bed in my tent next to the chicken coop and smile myself to sleep. A splendid day.

Visiting the Same Place Twice
What once charmed now depresses.

On Not Being From There
What is normal for them is an adventure for me.

The British Traveler
Mexico is beautiful, are you planning to go there?
I can't go to Mexico.
Why?
Because my government says I can't travel there. Too dangerous, there are travel restrictions.
So you are not going because of that?
My insurance will not work in Mexico because of government warning about travel there.
So you won't visit Mexico because your insurance won't work there?
I won't visit Mexico.

Wow, I thought...I won't visit a place because I won't have insurance coverage. Industrialized nations and their peoples obsession with safety and predictability. A paralyzing dependence on insurance. It's nuts to me.

Misadventure
This is an interesting experience. I wanted some risky travel and here it is in my lap. The roads less taken and I am on them.

Conversation Stoppers...What?
"The first and only time I shot a gun was my first date with this girl." -Ted Joseph

Mighty Ants
Small ants are eating their way into my tent. A new set of tiny holes appeared every night for several days before I realized what was up. They eat holes in the floor pan of the tent, a rather tough fibrous form of plastic, but the holes are only large enough to get their own bodies through, on the return trip with food they cannot bring the coveted insect body parts with them.

Once I catch on my only defense is to hang the tent during the day from a tree, then lower it at night to sleep. It is starting to look like a duct tape quilt.

Shoeshine
Business is bad for the shoeshine boys. The sun is low and they walk town's main park seeking customers. Most are perpetually soiled characters that are 7 to 10 years old. When customers prove to be scarce a few of them begin to play, when only moments ago they were competitors scouring the park for a pair of shoes to polish up.

The purity of children. Instead of sizing up potential customers they build and fly paper airplanes, then their attention moves to faux kung-fu fighting. It is of high quality with kicks punches, spin kicks, hand chops and other moves I do not know the names of -just like the movies. They are good. It is entertaining to watch and especially when the the play action is filled with happy excited giggles.

Guests
I sit alone taking a meal at an inexpensive diner, comedor with so-so chicken. Lazy flies hover about and stake claims all over the table. Raids are launched against my plate of food, the coffee cup and the ever present stack of tortillas. I feel defenseless. The flies run free in this town. The fly strips are at capacity, where is the sheriff?

Differences
The difference between a man and a boy:

A man knows what he wants to do with himself when he is presented with unstructured time.

Time
Time alone in a foreign place has you contemplate yourself -your location in a time and place. I ponder the meaning of my solitude. Reaching no conclusions.

Amy Winehouse
My guide, Manuel and I are lost deep in the northern lowlands of the Guatemala jungle. We are happy, yet lost in this maze of dirt tracks leading in all directions. There are no road signs and few people are around. There are no buildings out here. Amy Winehouse blasts.

There is no line of sight in the jungle, no vantage point to be had. Only dense forest that you can barely see 20 yards in any direction, including up.

Sweet Old Lady
I take breakfast at the tortilla makers house, dirt floors with baby ducks and chickens running about the room. When my feet are still the chicks peck at my shoes. After this I will take a walk in the jungle and contemplate leaves and things like that. Her tortillas are excellent, made from scratch, the corn meal was made from whole corn kernels.

Gold and Silver

The people of Guatemala are born with natural beautiful teeth, they are square and proportionately broad, straight and true with an easy shade of white. However, where dental care and daily maintenance are concerned things fall off fast. The majority of men and women have tooth rot on their front grill. Depending on availability of money the damaged teeth are filled in like picture frames of gold.

Going Mobile
You have travelled too far.

Books Read in Past Two Months

The War of the Worlds, Midnight Express, Bourne Supremacy, No Country for Old Men, The Glass Key, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, Lives Per Gallon, Blink, The Maya, Civilization and Its Discontents, Rule of the Bone, Sweet Waist of America, The King of Torts. I think I am missing a couple.

David,
Coban, Guatemala

Dispatch Number 20 -Back Roads: IV

Guatemala-
Tortillas and Beans
I opted for full cultural immersion, taking up a month long residence with a ladino family (Spanish/Indian mix) where only Spanish was spoken, in the small town of Todos Santos in the Guatemala highlands (pop. 3,500 at 7,900'). I studied Spanish one-on-one at a school in town and took all my meals with this family in the cramped smokey kitchen. The experience was rich and filled with cultural exchange at every turn. I'll lead with a favored subject: food.

In Mexico the food dances with vibrant colors and flavors and the peoples relationship to it is strong. To the south across the border Guatemalan food sits limp and near lifeless on the plate, it looks disinterested in being eaten. In Mexico the food jumps into your mouth. In Guatemala it is dull on the tongue and is like a beautiful woman without charm, it is food without spices.

Food without inspiration. I stare at my plate with dull eyes. The stack of tortillas stare back. Black beans fan out across the plate. Always beans always tortillas and if I am lucky a piece of chicken or gristled meat. It is food without charm. My head droops over the table in sullen air while the plate of Guatemalan food waits with patience.

Mexico is relatively modernized and has machines make most of its tortillas. The Guatemalan prepares them with love from scratch. Corn kernels transformed into corn meal then hand patted into the best tortillas I have eaten. Ah, the contrasts of the Guatemala I have come to know.

Hens
Last week of Spanish class. Last week in this house full of women. I suppose it is natural instinct in them to hen-peck the only man in the house. One man and three adult women, the hens take over. In my case I am hen-pecked by two of the three women. Nora the master of the house is a 48 year old elementary school teacher and my Spanish instructor. Clara is a hired hand to keep house, cook, clean and keep after the infant boy.

Clara is a cute and very short ladino of 18 years with a well developed Guatemalan Pouch -a sumptuous bread basket of a belly that hangs over her jeans. She is very pretty and overfed with tortillas. The diet here is carbohydrate laden with beans and tortillas. Clara gets after me to either eat more tortillas at every meal or chases after me when I boil water for coffee or oatmeal. When I am "cooking" she looks over my shoulder and comments on this and that, this all leaves an air of impatience on her part with my presence in the kitchen, cocina. The kitchen is her domain, she prepares every meal over a gas range and over a wood burning stove. In Guatemala the man is not welcome in the kitchen unless it is to solely eat.

I can't tell if I've become more sensitive to the hen-pecking or they have grown comfortable dominating me like and infant or imbecile. I write of the frustrations of being hen-pecked, however, it is important to note the sense of humor that pervades the house between the three of them, it is a fun lighthearted house and the conversations at the kitchen table are colorful.

As for Nora she concerns herself with every movement I make, may make or have made. If I am making coffee with Nora it's, What are you doing?. If I have a jacket on because it is cold in the house it's, Where are you going?. When I walk in, Where have you been?. To me it is tiresome and pointlessly obvious; sometimes I am certain they are not listening to my answers. They just can't let it be. When it is early in the morning and they do this I snarl some and retreat to my private room.

I suppose a great deal of it is culture. The Latin Americans of Guatemala and Mexico are never alone. For example, in my house there are three bedrooms with beds, yet all three adults sleep in one big bed, three women, one 6 year old and one infant. All that space and they choose to sleep together like a litter of kittens. That is cultural.

Their need to dominate manifests with them checking in with me or rather on me and it cramps my cat-like solitary ways.

Side note:
On Sunday, June 28 there was a bloodless coup in Honduras. I am one week from entering that country and should make for some interesting travel and possible dispatches.

David,
Nebaj, Guatemala

Dispatch Number 19 -Back Roads: Part III

Odyssey

In short, I believe Guatemala has been a spectacular experience because I have chosen to travel alone. Beautiful friendships have been made along the way with a travel agenda all my own. I have hiked over ancient Maya ruins in Tikal, trekked by foot and car into remote reaches of the northern lowland jungles to observe abundant wildlife and walk among more Maya ruins that very few have heard of or know about, undeveloped sites not open to tourism that necessitate a local guide. The best part of these remote sites is that you can pitch a tent and sleep in the ancient cities. To go to sleep and to wake up in these forgotten temples is beyond words.

Where I have traveled in Guatemala there are no backpackers or tourist buses. I take the back roads and rocky mountain passes in my 1986 Land Cruiser, this has made for some very colorful travel. Maya hamlets and villages lightly populate the dusty roads where the men and women wear traditional clothes. Each Indian community has its brilliant costume of many colors. Remote places where the sounds are Spanish or one of the local Maya languages, of which there are more than twenty. The Maya Indian represents over 1/2 of the population of Guatemala.

I will admit I see them entirely from the exterior, like a film with brilliant color but silent. They are opaque and mysterious to the other 1/2 of Guatemala let alone myself the complete outsider. Some days I feel deeply in it, both smooth and comfortable in the environment, other days spent in reflection I realize that I am really removed from where I come from.

The mountain setting of Todos Santos is stunning even for this traveler who grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and hiked them regularly as an adult. At over 7,900 feet the air is dry and cool for a change (the lowlands were brutal with heat and humidity) and the green mountain sides are filled with terrace farming of potatoes, cabbage and corn. Striking. I took a two day hike in these mountains passing through areas where there are no roads, no cars, no phones and no electricity -it is the heart of Maya lands. There lifestyles are remarkably preserved by way of customs, language and bloodlines. Rich cultural dimensions in mouth gaping countryside.

After language school in Todos Santos I will leave Guatemala for Honduras to continue the journey south. The feeling coming over me these days is that I started as a tourist who became a traveler and now this is giving way to the deeper sensation that this is an odyssey.

To continue in next Dispatch about the family I lived with and Guatemalan food.

Reply to remarks from readers:

The question of photography has come up more than once. I was careless in Mexico and lost my camera. It has been replaced, however, the love affair I had with previous one has not carried over to the new one. So, I capture images in words these days. Perhaps my lust with the camera will return, then I will have pictures to share.

I will continue to post several Mexico Dispatches mixed in with ones from Guatemala.

David,
Todos Santos, Guatemala

Dispatch Number 25 -Weddings

I have attended many weddings in my life, even witnessed my own and over time understood I do not like them. When traveling in Mexico an invitation to attend one came my way while I was studying Spanish not far from Mexico City. Taxco where I was living is a colonial gem of a city with whitewashed buildings and cobblestone streets set on a very steep mountainside. The centerpiece, as in most towns in Mexico, was the beautiful Santa Prisca Catholic church that has been the religious anchor in this silver town of 90,000 people for over 250 years.

The wedding ceremony for Gabriel's daughter was held in the incredibly ornate Santa Prisca with gold leaf baroque figurines covering all walls from floor to ceiling. The setting was impressive to say the least. It is a lovely ornate church. I had never attended a Mexican wedding let alone one in a church I admired -with excitement I accepted the invitation.

I attended the ceremony and reception. I had visited and spent time sitting in Santa Prisca on a previous occasion and felt ready to visit it again to witness a wedding ceremony. As anticipated the ceremony in the church was a pleasure, after it was over we set off for the reception across the hilly town in white Volkswagen Beetle taxis. The reception was full of cultural surprises that delighted. In the end, however, for me it was still a wedding -between conversations I wrote this:

Weddings are boring. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Boring. Drudgery at its finest, they can be such dull affairs. People trapped in pointless conversation while others sit still in silence looking dead bored. Trapped here. Weddings -is there a good one? Painful social experience. Painful. They are necessary and one of those things man does and does and does. Like a bad invention or poor product the wedding is never improved upon or revised. An antiquated ritual.

Man effectively manages to improve his highly touted technologies with great rapidity in things like cars and computers, but the wedding party remains unchanged, outdated and horribly dull. I am held hostage at this event for appearances and the prospect of a warm meal. The things we endure for friends and a free meal.

Yes, I know it is the people that make the party and I must take my share of the responsibility for the dullness that ensued. Perhaps my mood was effected by a mild hangover, dehydration and that I was very hungry at the time.

A week later I was in the same grand setting of Santa Prisca in the early evening to listen to a classic guitarist perform. Maestro Atsumas Nakabayashi, a master of the instrument filled the hall with beautiful sounds that gently filled the gold chamber. I thought, David, you can live anywhere in this world -anywhere. There is culture everywhere. The church was impressive on its own, to have attended a solo concert and a wedding in it was memorable.



David

Danli, Honduras

Dispatch Number 18 -Back Roads II

If you are curious as to why I have written so little of recent it is because of the limited availability of Internet cafes in the areas I visit. When I locate one it often does not work. I have really gotten off the beaten path. Where I live now,Todos Santos (pop. 3,500 with an elev. of 7,900') there are two Internet cafes and between the two of them with their poor service levels there may be 2 or 3 days a week when they are open. It is not a writing environment and I dearly miss the activity of writing dispatches. The journals fill and the keyboard cools.

Back Roads: Part II

On the dirt roads there are no road signs to guide you -you must stop and talk to people, something of a challenge to the American mind of rugged self reliance and a "bring everything you need" approach to travel. I have brought little with me, so I pay Internet cafes each time I want to write, I do not own or use a phone and use maps made of paper. Most Latin Americans I have met regard maps as documents written in Chinese, they cannot relate to them.

The back roads have pushed me deep into rural Guatemala where the largest town I have been in had a population of 25,000. I am only glad to be in these cities for truck repairs and to eat at the plethora of inexpensive restaurants that they always have and even with all the choices the food is horribly dull. The food here is like a beautiful woman without charm. If you didn't put that together it means food without spices. Outside of these reasons cities in Guatemala feel dangerous or to use different language they are snake pits. Street smarts from childhood are reengaged when I visit them.

Off the beaten tourist path I have had meaningful experiences with Maya Indians and granted a unique view into the unvarnished agrarian lives they lead. A marginalized people scraping to keep it together between a number of forces: subsistence agriculture, acute poverty, a deeply corrupt government, lack of social services, feeble police protection, a legal system that favors the rich, and land rights issues. These people are left to fend for themselves.

They form their own Municipal governments at the pueblo-aldea-comunidade (town-village-hamlet) to provide basic public services, form community organizations, and the most difficult for this traveler to digest, vigilantism as a means of law enforcement. At first I was shocked to learn vigilantism actually had a role in their culture, however, when I learned more of the contemporary social fabric and suspended my own judgment I began to understand why vigilantism was alive and used across vast areas of rural Guatemala.

I have first and second hand accounts of beatings and murders delivered under mob-rule, but choose not to sensationalize the point. What I can say is it is done very publicly as a means of deterrence. There is no trial or hearing. They do one of the following: kill them publicly, fine them, free them, issue a jail term, turn them over to police or ban them from the community. Being ostracized from your community is a big deal, most spend their whole lives in one and when a person shows up in a community to start anew they are looked at with deep suspicion. Starting a new life is exceedingly hard.

The town I live in now, Todos Santos has a two cell jail facing the sidewalk right off the main square. Public viewing of the detainee is permitted and encouraged. The point is public humiliation. Family members can bring them food and hang out, there is no bureaucratic step to making a visit, just walk on up. I have walked up and greeted them myself. I like it. Life lived out in the open.

The federal government is largely inactive and in general non responsive to the indigenous population (60% of total pop. of 13+million), police are reluctant to get involved in anything and during mob moments, and they happen everyday, they stand off to the side and only watch. A tranquil jungle can hide criminal activity as good as the best camouflage. I am writing a Dispatch on a violent event I was close to in theComunidade Santa Lucia and plan to post it soon. Guatemala is closer to a wild west show than to an urbanized country with basic law and order. Relative to Mexico, Guatemala can at times be a dangerous place, one also filled with stunning natural beauty and a rich indigenous culture. It is a diverse and complex country.

The guide book, Lonely Planet put it very succinctly of the people of Guatemala,"They're a long-suffering people who don't expect wealth or good government but make the best of what comes their way -friendship, their family, a good meal, a bit of company."

Guatemala is a country of extreme contrasts. I have both driven and walked the country and have experienced nothing like it in my world travels.

To continue in following Dispatch.

David,

Todos Santos, Guatemala

Dispatch Number 17 -Back Roads: Part I

The journey into Guatemala has been filled with rich experiences and closer contact with the people than I experienced during extended travel in Mexico. It could be attributed to the people, my increased comfort with the language, or perhaps the most influential, my choice to travel alone. I entered Guatemala by myself and have continued to travel this way for over 7-weeks.

The experience of living with Guatemalan people in their homes has been an unvarnished one. It has broadened my horizon. I have lived with Maya subsistence farmers, a Peace Corp volunteer (hats off, it is hard work often in isolated environments), I currently live with a Ladino family in the Cuchumantane mountains in northern Guatemala (Ladino is those of mixed Spanish and Maya blood).

I have taken meals in rural smoke filled houses with dirt floors under candle light, made friends with a Guatemalan biologist who was passionate about the under served people in her country, and discussed social differences between the U.S. and Guatemala with Salvador the owner of a hostel I stayed at for 10 days.

Of special note, I had the fortune to attend an ancient Maya Maize Ceremony, corn ceremony to pray for an abundant crop, it is rare for a foreign visitor to observe this ritual that goes back over 3,000 years, we drove many miles into the night crossing many rickety bridges to attend this gathering at a small hamlet close to the Mexican border. It was back roads travel at its best.

Many of the places I spent time in had no electricity, so when night fell the magic of candles took over. Walking about you could see families gather for dinner around candle light, it is a calming beautiful sight -the flame gently bursts through the wood slat houses delicately revealing silhouettes as you pass by on the foot path.

During the 7-weeks in Guatemala the visit has been punctuated by concentrated visits in three areas. All of them in the northern part of the country, these areas are jungle lowlands and steep mountains that make up the heart of Maya country. These lands have been continually inhabited by the Maya since 1,800 B.C., their blood lines and customs are remarkably intact. The journey has been punctuated by old and new. I have made visits to many ancient Maya sites, which are more numerous that most realize, it was a vast cultural empire but never unified under single rule.

I have been living with Guatemalan families in towns of all sizes. The equivalents are: towns-pueblos; villages-aldeas and hamlets- comunidades.

It has been raw and rewarding. It has also been dangerous and exhilarating. As I get to know myself better I realize I would not have it any other way.


To continue in next Dispatch.

David,
Todos Santos, Guatemala

Dispatch Number 16 -Errant Thoughts II

Errant Thoughts II

On the Human Race

We are not a doomed species, look at the cities we build.

Insecurities

We are shaped by our insecurities.
Perhaps this is a way. To live. It is not a healthy way.
Our insecurities lead us to fail with excellence or succeed in excess.
Perhaps the Art of Living is to live life without being dominated by one's insecurities.

Hostel

Italians run this hostel, one without a kitchen and no common area to prepare food like other hostels, so we live in the sand like animals.

The Walk

Zipolite is a hedonistic zone for white people on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, it is also known for yoga and the meditation retreat. It has a good vibe. There are more drunks and druggies than "healthful" practitioners of yoga, meditation and the like. You can spot the yoga girls -they prance about like stately horses with heads held high and backs arched excessively. Their feet have a way of slinging out like hooves the way pretty horses do. It is a stately gallop. They move about with an air of supremacy.

On Relaxation

Travelers come to extra tranquil spots like this one in Mexico. Extra tranquil, that says a lot because most of Mexico is very relaxed and easy. At this coastal town many of the travelers bring "the City with them". Impatient and rushing about to schedule the next activity. Many of them smoke copious amounts of pot to act relaxed. Manufactured relaxation. Intoxicated on liquor or pot is a common choice for many travelers. Self-medicated relaxation; a mask of manufactured relaxation that thinly hides agitated and anxious people
-they do not feel authentic.

On Jails

America and her law enforcement fantasy.

Difficult

I am a difficult man, it will take a special woman or a bunch of average women to deal with me.

-we came up with this one over beers in the company of men

Mirrors

Sometimes you look into a mirror by accident and not recognize yourself.

Headlights

Don't drive in Mexico at night -a universal admonishment. It didn't take long to break that rule. Several night drives under my belt and this time with a Mexican on board, but what does that change? High jack is a high jack. Robbery is robbery. A stupid sense of security prevails at all levels of intellect.

In Guatemala, I do not think I will ever break this rule.