Chichicastenango y la Lucha Interminable

There is already much too much to write. To start with, Ryan and I have started “teaching.” One day last week, we went into the school for what we were told would be our orientation. I asked a few questions and we began looking at one of the textbooks when in walked a guy named Alejandro. Marilu, our boss of sorts, then subtly asked if we could teach him right then, and she shuffled Ryan and I into a tiny room connected to an Italian restaurant where we were to attempt to teach this man “3rd level” English (which is more difficult than you think when you haven’t had time to look through the book, haven’t been trained at all, and aren’t quite sure of how much English this fella knows.) Ay. So we did our best to teach Alejandro the difference between “this”, “that”, “those” and “these” while getting him to use his new vocabulary (he had a really difficult time pronouncing the word “vegetable”). English is weird. So I guess we’re teachers.

We will probably teach our own classes soon, but for the first two, we worked together since our schedule has been so random and last-minute. Our next student was Guillermo. He is a 6th level student, so we were able to teach using mostly English. It was a little easier the second time, except that none of the dry-erase markers worked. Try explaining the present perfect tense without any kind of a diagram or board. I think he gets it, though.

It also looks like I’ll be volunteering for this organization called Trama Textiles which is an association of women backstrap-loom weavers, representing 400 women from 17 groups in Guatemala. The women send their textiles to the store and sell them at the prices they want. To supplement costs, there is also a weaving school. It’s pretty cool. The main thing I’ll be working on right now is researching the history of Mayan weaving and then writing out what I feel is relevant so that the organization will have that information to pass onto the weaving students. It should be interesting. I already find myself staring at the designs on the huipiles and cortes (blouses and skirts) of the women in traje. And! I might get to learn how to weave!

A few days ago, I went through my first bout of inevitable indigestion problems, but I think the worst is behind me now. It was probably just my stomach and body getting used to the changes in diet and such. Needless to say, the weekend was pretty laid back for the most part.

Yesterday, however, Ryan and I woke up with the rising of the sun (so much has changed), and set out for Chichicastenango, home of the huge, famous market. To get there we had to hop a ride in our old friend, the microbus. It’s unbelievable how many people they pack into these things. The same goes for the “chicken buses” or 2nd class buses, but I’ll tell that story a little later on. Anyway, I’ve never sympathized so much with canned sardines until using the transportation in Guatemala. But seriously, what happened in the microbus (or the chicken bus) could easily be the set-up for a skit on any bad sketch comedy show. Picture a van. Every seat is already taken, and the door is hanging partially open, and the driver keeps stopping to let more people in. People are sitting 3 to a seat, 4 to a seat, standing, crouching, sprawled out across your lap. I’m sure someone would laugh at this. In this reality though, no one is laughing. They just have places to go.
We arrived at the bus terminal for the first time, trying to find the bus to take us to Chichicastenango. Some men ushered us to a bus at the end of the line and we hopped on. We soon found out that we’d have to get off the bus a few hours away at Los Encuentros and catch a second bus to Chichi. Fine. This was one of the more comfortable rides we had that day. I made faces at a cute little girl in the seat in front of me and was amused at a man who hopped on the bus and started to make a sales pitch. At first it sounded like he was going to start preaching about his religion and saving ourselves from our sinful ways, (like a man on the bus to Almolonga did), but he instead started talking about how the human brain works. He was equipped with visual aids and everything. This was all a platform so he could dive into what he really wanted to talk about: selling brain vitamins. Sadly no one was interested and he wished us all a “buen viaje.”

As planned, we got off the bus at Los Encuentros and jumped on our bus headed towards Chichi. We found seats in the back of the bus, which we later regretted as the bus driver drove insanely. At every bump in the road we were airborne. Thankfully, the ride wasn’t too long and we soon arrived in Chichi. I knew this because we began to see tons of white middle-aged tourists wearing wide-brimmed hats with cameras dangling from their necks unloading out of their shuttle buses. This shocked me for some reason, since I hadn’t seen so many tourists in one place in the country thus far, and especially not these kinds of tourists. I should have expected it though, as my trusty guidebook said to expect just that. With this in mind, we got out of the bus, ready to explore the market.

This was definitely by far, the biggest market we’ve seen in the country yet, but we have only been to the ones in the city and Almolonga. Things for sale included tapestries, blankets, jewelry, ceramics, masks, etc. and then the typical vegetables, fruits, shoes, and clothing (things the locals were interested in). I was excited to see the beaded bracelets I love so much everywhere—and at low prices I hadn’t encountered since Mexico. This was a blessing as my other beaded bracelets are lost or broken. So… I bought two! And I got to bargain with children twice, getting a great deal for a little beaded quetzal keychain. Oh yeah. This little girl said it was worth “15” (quetzales of course), and I said, “mmm, 7”, and she said, “8!” So I agreed. That’s like a dollar. Just then a woman who I can only assume was her mother came back and in Spanish reprimanded the girl for selling it to me so cheaply. But it was too late, I’d won! Ha! (Ok, maybe cheating a poor family out of a few quetzales isn’t a feat to be proud of… but the girl agreed.)

We wandered past stalls, still in a slight state of shock from the amount of gringos amongst us. It was sad to realize that to the vendors and people of the town, we were just like the rest of them. “But we’re different!” I wanted to shout. Being the minority in another country where they judge you immediately and write you off as dumb tourist who buys everything really makes you realize how rough it is to be in that position. I wish every ignorant, racist American was forced to leave the country and see what this is like, but for some reason I’m not sure they would all see it the same way.

It’s a terrible paradox, you see. I love to travel, but I hate tourists. I go somewhere and see other visitors and think “oh no”, but I myself am not unlike them. I guess it’s true that an American abroad is the biggest critic of other Americans. I just try to be the best open-minded visitor I can be, which is all that you can really do. So to be an American critic again, I do not think of some of these people were trying to be anything but obnoxious. They walked around videotaping the proceedings of the market, local people walking by, without even asking permission. And vendors constantly approached us, pushing their goods on us, hardly taking no for an answer. It makes you feel kind of bad, because you realize how poor they are, and this is probably how they make a lot of their money, but we did not want little dolls that “bring you good luck” or blankets at the moment. I tell you, the traders at Chichicastenango would make great telemarketers. They always do their second (third, fourth, and fifth) attempts. The most appalling case of awful tourists at their finest came when Ryan and I were asking a woman about the price of some blankets. There were two other older American women looking at some purses. In English we heard the younger woman ask the vendor in English how much the purse was. The vendor replied, “setenta.” (70). She then asked, “best price?” several times to which the vendor did not answer. How rude. I mean, this woman’s first language isn’t even Spanish, and you’re expecting her to know what “best price” in English even means. So Ryan stepped in and started interpreting for them. The vendor said her best price would be 60 quetzales, to which the dumb American broad replied, “try 55”.. the vendor wouldn’t budge. I mean, you already asked best price, and she said 60, what more do you want? Oh, and the difference between 55 and 60 quetzales is a whole 65 cents. I bet that would really set her back. And then she didn’t even thank us for helping her. Ugh, people. At least these people are giving some of their money to this country, I guess. That’s the best I can really say.

Anyway. Expectedly, we had to dodge the crowds a few times, and turn onto a side street away from all of the clamor. It always amazes me in very touristy congested areas, how sometimes you can just turn onto a side street and it’s suddenly perfectly calm. You wouldn’t know you were just a block away. I took a few clandestine pictures of the church and the smaller church whose steps we were sitting on.





Around 2:00 or so we started to head back. Even though I had mostly negative things to say, I’m glad that we went, if nothing else, just so that we could see what it was like and have more perspective. The bus ride back to Los Encuentros was on of the most excruciating, surreal experiences. Everyone was already sitting three to a seat in this old North American school bus. Ryan, myself, and some other folks had to stand in the aisle where there was already hardly any room. Somehow, more people still kept climbing into the bus. My arms were gripping onto the metal bars above me as we soared down the mountains, my legs sandwiched between one man’s leg and a little girl’s sleeping body. I couldn’t believe it when the fare-collector walked out the door (while the bus was in motion), climbed on top of the bus, walked to the back, and opened the back door and started asking for money, pushing through all of us where no space was thought to have existed.

Somehow we survived, and the bus ride back to Xela was comparatively uneventful. We walked all the way back home from the bus terminal, which really didn’t take too long. The sun was just beginning to set and I took a few pictures of the empty Sunday streets and the lovely sky.



Back to Xela life, things at the apartment have been interesting. I have thankfully discovered how to take warm showers, which makes me happier than I would have thought possible. Apparently, all you have to do is turn the knob ever so slightly to the left until the water makes a “harder” sound when it hits the tile. That means it’s warm! Haha, of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that on my own. There are women here cleaning almost everyday so far, sometimes with little children, sometimes not. We aren’t sure if they live here, but we learned two of their names. Here you can see our room:




That’s about all for now. I should also mention that Ryan has been posting has pictures (which so far have all been of things I’ve been at as well) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamsullivant if you’d care to take a looksee.

Una semana entera

It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been in Guatemala for a week. The passage of time is always slightly difficult to grasp when thought about too hard—it’s the kind of thing where on one hand it feels like less time has passed, but then when you think about it the other way, it feels like it’s been like that forever. It’s something that for whatever reason always surprises me and will probably always surprise me.

Well to kick off the one weekversary of this Central American extravaganza, (and the fact that neither Ryan nor myself has started working yet, and thus have nowhere we have to be, we sauntered down the road to hop on another chicken bus—the same one we took to Almolonga, but this time we took it to the end of the line: the town of Zunil. While Zunil was fairly similar to Almolonga, it was much sleepier due to the fact that it was not market day. We wandered down to the main plaza which contained, what else, a big white church (and taco carts). We went inside where little Mayan women were lighting candles and praying in what I can only assume was K'iche.



There wasn’t much else to do in Zunil, and we weren’t quite bold enough to find out where San Simon, the evil saint was located (an evil saint named Maximon who supposedly is stationed in a different house in Zunil every year. People come to this idol to pray while making offerings such as cigarettes and rum, or so I read.) In a rather capricious moment, we decided to go to the Fuentes Georginas, which is a bit of a resort consisting of a hot natural spa heated by the volcano. To get to these Fuentes from Zunil, you simply say, “Si” to one of the many determined, hopeful men in pick-up trucks who look at you and inquire “Fuentes, fuentes??”

We found our soon-to-be pick-up truck chauffeur near the bridge where we first came into town. He told us it would be 80 quetzales for there and back (around $10) which isn’t really so bad, but much more than he would charge a Guatemalan, as we later saw. I felt like the trip was never going to end. We kept driving up higher and higher, up the mountains, into the clouds, as our driver Jose Maria sang along to his tape of marimba music and asking us all sorts of questions, while I prayed to all my gods that we wouldn’t fly off the mountainous road without a guardrail. Finally and thankfully, we reached the Fuentes. We paid Jose Maria. He said that he would return in two hours and we could do nothing but hope that he would keep his word.

The Fuentes were much more beautiful than I would have thought, and I’m glad we decided to go. The clouds were low so they partially obscured parts of the mountains, making everything look fairly misty. There were mostly other English tourists here, along with some Spanish-speaking tourists. It thankfully wasn’t that crowded and I was shocked at how warm the water actually was (since all of my showers have been lukewarm at best so far). It was really a rather relaxing experience, and now I can say I’ve been in waters heated by a volcano, hey.




The time had come to leave and for Jose Maria to return in his pick-up truck, and sure enough he did, this time with a little girl wearing her traditional Mayan dress. We soon learned that this was his daughter. We squeezed into the front while quiet little Rosa Maria stood smashed in between her father’s shoulder and the open window, poking her head out the window the whole way down. The ride back was the most amusing, as Jose Maria sang loudly along with his religious music, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in Quiche, translating for us as he saw fit. As we glided down the mountain, he would stop to pick up random people on the side of the road and they would pile in the back. He got us back to Zunil safely, and we caught our same chicken bus back to Xela. I can now officially say that I have been serenaded to in a pick-up truck by a Guatemalan in the mountains. Thank goodness-- I had really been waiting to check that one off the list.


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Yesterday Ryan and I moved into the new place, Casa Concordia. Its fine so far except for the fact that the showers are a little too cold for my liking, but um maybe we're not doing something right? to be continued...

I believe this is the address at which I can receive mail--

Ilene Blumberg
Casa Concordia
6ta. Calle D11-29 zona 1
Quetzaltenango
Guatemala

Try it! It might work.

Still havent started working.. im waiting to hear back from the english school. but today is the volunteer fair so at least i should have something to do soon. We tried to go to two museums but the first was closed because it was 'on vacation' and the other seemed to be being worked on.. C'est la vie.

Una gringa en Guatemala

On January 16th I began my Guatemalan adventure, waking up at 4:30 in the morning and saying goodbye to a tired mother and dog. My backpack and duffel bag were stuffed, and to imagine that this is the lightest that I’ve ever packed for a trip of this duration. I guess this is the closest I get to achieving backpacker or “mochilera” status. I guess I can deal with that. My father sweetly took me to the airport before he went off to work.

After a short delay, which frankly made me nervous,--my flight took off for Charlotte where I was reunited with Ryan after our month-long separation. We landed in Guatemala City with little troubles, after trying to avert eyes from the in-flight movie Flicka, which I’m sure is even funnier with sound. The Guatemalan airport was tinier than I expected for some reason, even though now I recall it being not too unlike the airport in Leon, Mexico I landed in several years ago. We walked about confused, looking for an ATM, but finding none. I was surprised to see that ATMs were so difficult to find in a city of 3 million people. Anyway, more on that later. We were hustled toward a taxi which would take us toward the Hotel Colonial where we were staying that night. Our taxi driver, Oscar, gave us his card and welcomed us to his country.
Guatemala City, or at least the part of it that I saw (zona 1), left me feeling intimidated and defensive. It was pretty much as everything I read had described it, and I’m glad that we did not spend more time than we did there. Before dinner, we trekked out in search of an ATM. We finally found one in this weird mall-like place but lo and behold it wasn’t working. So there was another one on the fifth floor. We walked past strange arcades with teenagers playing games, idle bumper cars, and pizza stands to receive our first quetzales. In our small hotel with thin walls, women congregated in the halls several times throughout the night laughing and clapping their hands loudly. I’m not sure what was so funny, but I surely wasn’t in the mood to laugh along with them at 4’oclock in the morning.

Onto Xela.. (the cute little nickname of the city where we shall be living, pronounced Shay-la, and much easier to remember than Quetzaltenango )…

I was quite eager to get out of Guatemala City. We took a 4-hour bus to Xela which actually was a little longer than 4 hours because of some road construction. The bus plopped us down in the zona 3 of the city, and studying my map, I knew the direction to walk in to get to our hostel. We ambitiously dragged our bags half-way across the city, past children in school uniforms and Mayan women wearing their traditional dresses.
Since we’ve arrived we’ve mostly been trying to acclimate ourselves to our surroundings, find a place to live, eat some good cheap food, and find jobs. Most of these have been accomplished. We will most likely move into a new guest house of sorts this coming Wednesday which is apparently somehow connected to the Lutheran church and that is why it is so darn cheap. (Imagine paying $50/month in the nice central part of the 2nd largest city in the country, cause it looks like that’s what we’re getting’.) Ryan and I were both offered jobs teaching English in the mornings by the school that calls itself the “Best English School.” I could start as early as Tuesday. It sounds like I will have no more than 4-5 students per class and that they should be at least 14 or 15 years old. I think I can deal with that. I’ll just pretend like I know what I’m doing and hope that people believe me. It doesn’t pay much money, but we don’t spend much money here either, and it will be a way to at least balance expenses a bit, while keeping busy all the while.
I’m going to try to look for some kind of volunteer position here as well since NGOs abound in this city, and I think it would be a good experience. Apparently there is a volunteer fair here this coming Thursday, so I should be able to get some ideas from that.

Yesterday Ryan and I took a “chicken bus” as they’re endearingly called, to the nearby town of Almolonga, because we read that it was their market day. While this was quite a sight, I must say that I have never felt so much like an outsider in all of my life. It was a little overwhelming to the say the least. Once we found the center of town, we were treated to the display of crowds of Mayans, most in traditional dress, bargaining and exchanging their vegetables.

A little girl came up to us and in Spanish asked us if we’d like to take her picture, (for money I’m assuming). We said no. I mean, she wasn’t even dressed up. Silly girl. The chicken bus experience on the way back to Xela was interesting as well. I should also mention that these chicken buses are old American school buses that are painted and decorated brightly. So on the way back, I was sitting three to a seat, sandwiched between to Mayan women. Something started moving under the blanket draped on the back of the girl on my right and I quickly realized it was a crying baby. I’m constantly surprised here.

Other outings included a trip on a “microbus” which is basically a van where someone shouts out “Parque parque parque!” or whatever the destination is out the window. In our case the shouter was a very young child who was really quite the businessman. They pack more people than they can fit into these vehicles, and you really get to know your neighbor. We took this microbus out to the mall which was new and nice, if you like malls. I normally don’t like malls, AT ALL, but this is where ATMs that supposedly work were located, so it was my friend. It also contained a Wal-Mart-like store called Hiper-Paiz which lets one use a credit card—also nice. Well, it’s a wal-mart whose aisle signs are written in both Spanish and K’iche. A little bit different, I suppose.
We wandered down to the Minerva zoo since it was nearby. It’s a tiny little free zoo within the city and it is quite unlike any other zoo I’ve ever been to. For one thing they featured such animals as doves!, rabbits! (I guess they were pretty big, but still), raccoons!, and deer!

There were also a few more typical zoo animals like monkeys. It was cute to watch the little children point at the animals shouting “Mira, mira! Un mono!” My guidebook mentioned that the zoo was supposed to have one solitary miserable-looking lion, but we sadly did not see him.
We caught an equally insane microbus back to our side of town after walking past the Minerva temple, and snapping some photos of that.

Since I’m quite the thrifty spender, I have been most satisfied thus far with the cheapness of this country. There are little comedores located throughout town that offer lunches, often with an entrée, some sides, a drink, maybe a dessert, (although the dessert at the place yesterday was yellow jello with a bug leg sticking out of it…) for around $2-3. Amazing. We have also taken to eating food from little carts around the main Parque CentroAmerica. Men and women there sell such delicacies as pupusas, tacos, paches (tamales with potato), buñuelos, and fried plantains for under a dollar, usually. This means I’m probably going to be even cheaper when I get back to the states, than I was before... if such a thing is possible. There are lots of good restaurants around, including even Thai, Indian, Taiwanese, French, Mexican, Italian, and of course Guatemalan.. I trust we’ll try them all in time. Things seem to shut down pretty early around here at night, which is quite the contrast to Madrid nightlife. I’m okay with that though. Each morning when I wake up, I am also treated to a rooster crowin’ at the break of dawn. (as Dylan would say.) Since I’ve been here, memories of my time in San Luis and Guanajuato, Mexico have really been returning, more vivid than ever. The sounds, the smell of tortillas in the air, the constant honking of the car horns, the small broken sidewalks and bright colors. It’s curious, the way the senses behave.
I already miss people, but that’s to be expected. I shan’t be gone long and hopefully I’ll meet some interesting folk being down here. In the hostel there is an interesting mix of foreigners, mostly English-speaking. It seems that most of the foreigners staying in Xela are usually backpacking, hippie, free-spirit types, trying to learn Spanish, which is a little bit different than the typical traveler you’d find somewhere else. I’m not sure I exactly fall into that category, but I guess it’s not so bad.. unless you’re like that pretentious girl we met the other day in the kitchen who uninterestedly snapped, “so where you from, where you going?” like she asks that questions 50 million times a day. She is the type of person who asks you about yourself merely to tell you all about herself, because she taught in English in San Cristóbal, Mexico and has traveled down here to (pay people to) work on a coffee plantation. Well good for you, missy. Do you want a prize? Ok, end bitter diatribe. It’s all about tone. I’ll be nice.

Anyway, I’m thinking things will get more settled everyday. This week should bring routine, a new place to live, and hopefully a phone. I’ll be posting pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71068596@N00/
Please, please send me e-mails cause I like keeping in touch: ileneb@gmail.com and if you haven’t already, give me your address if you’d like a postcard. And if you read all this, I’ll send you a super special secret prize, maybe. I am also the proud recipient of a cell phone now, so if you want the number, let me know. Hopefully, more coming soon. Stay tuned.