Lago de Atitlan

Originally uploaded by lauraespence.

Just returned from a weekend trip to Lago de Atitlan. The lake is one of the deepest in the world, and is said to have formed after a volcano collapsed. Today, the dormant volcanoes that are found around the lake actually used to exist inside the original (massive) volcano. The lake culture is now split between bohemian villages (of gringos who settled there decades ago and never left) and ancient Mayan civilizations that continue to live off the land.

Kevin and I caught a chicken bus on Friday afternoon, hoping to make it to the lake in time to catch a lancha (launch boat) to the village of Santa Cruz before service stopped for the evening.

Chicken bus drivers are famous for packing on 4 people to a seat and driving like they were trained on a NASCAR track. In turn, passengers are generally thankful for whatever space can be managed, and learn to position themselves accordingly. During our bus ride, we talked to a charming Mayan teenager for hours, sharing (among other things) our theory that passengers on chicken buses are like trained monkeys.

That theory was later proven when we made a tight connection in Sololá. One of the helpers on the bus opened up the back door while the bus was pulling away and pulled us in. There was, of course, no room for us to sit down, so as the bus was barreling through its descent to the lake towns, we were bending it like Beckham, trying to hold on for dear life while laughing hysterically. It is a new sport Kev has deemed "Guat surfing" and it is pretty much like riding a rollercoaster without the stabilizing mechanisms.

Beautiful as the lake is during the day, I actually found it more beautiful at night. The moon seems electric and the volcanoes surrounding the lake seem even more massive. On the mountainsides, you see sprinkling of lights in the small towns that reminded me a lot Italy's Amalfi Coast. The Iguana hotel where we stayed had no electricity, and I cannot remember the last time I slept without hearing a single outside distraction.

Saturday we went rented a double kayak to venture to a remote snorkeling location (during which time Kev was very patient with my singing of the Pocahontas soundtrack...because he sang over me, for the most part). The snorkel spot was along one of the fault lines, and you could dive down the stick your hands in the sand that is still hot from the previous volcanic activity.

Dinners at the Iguana are served community-style. Everyone packs around a huge table and eats amazing meals the Mayan women prepare. Saturday nights, they host a huge dress up party (which can only be compared to fancy dress parties in England). Women dress like men, men dress like women, and I dressed like a raging idiot in a polyester yellow and black jumpsuit I found in the Iguana's "dress up closet." The event is legendary around the lake, and people come in from all corners to join in on the festivities.

That night, we were joined by a freelance journalist from the BBC and The Guardian named Martin. We talked to him all night, comparing perceptions of Central America and bonding on all things...well, everything (including Rufus Wainwright). He's ab fab, as they say.

Too many amazing experiences to count, too many amazing stories to share. If you are ever within a 500-km radius of Guatemala, make the trip to the lake. It's magic.

Spanglish: The breakfast of champions

My English is getting a whole lot worse down here. I am starting to translate Spanish words back to English and actually said “explicate” today instead of “explain.” The sad part? My Spanish doesn´t seem to be getting any better either.

Today in class I asked my teacher (in very broken Spanish) if she ever gets tired of talking to adults who have the communicative ability of five year olds all the doo-dah day. She laughed, then corrected me for subconsciously translating Spanish words into English as I was reading aloud to her.

Not being able to communicate well is perhaps one of the most frustrating things ever. My current Spanish vocab lends itself to phrases like, "I really like it when the sun shines," and, "My (neighbor´s) dog ate my homework."

What I really want to say is, "I have never learned how to phrase sentences this way, and I am trying really hard, but I still feel like an idiot. And I am too tall for this table, and everything else in this country while we´re at it. My legs have to bend in this funny way for me to fit and I am beginning to feel like I have rheumatism...Sorry, I know I talk too much."

My happy compromise is Spanglish, where I say phrases like,"I am so feliz to hear that!" It has also expanded to sound effects. Earlier in the week I tried to explain to Barnaldo what I meant when he walked by in an outfit circa 1974 cinema and said,"Ohh, Ronaldo! Bow-chicka-bow-wow..."

The new game is this: mincing (English) metaphors with new Spanish vocab. Example: "That man is up a creek without a caballo," mixing "up a creek without a paddle" and "you can lead a horse (caballo) to water..."

No? Anyone? My sides? Bueller?

My tummy hurts. Again.

Apparently every foreigner gets sick in Guatemala at some point. There are all sorts of parasites down here that our bodies have not yet been exposed to, so as far as food selection goes, it seems to be a game of Yahtzee—

and it was a game I lost this past weekend. I rolled the dice on a spinach salad, and spent the rest of the night practicing my four-letter Spanish words with the porcelain god. Today while I am busy studying Spanish, my stomach is busy sorting itself out. Still. And probably for the next 2 weeks.

The other night Kevin and I went to El Cuartito, our favorite socially-conscious coffee shop & bar. We usually operate on the "You do not even need to ask" premise when it comes to ordering a jug of vino, so he was surprised (and a little disappointed) to hear me order the tea for foreigners or, as it is listed on the menu, Para dolor del estomago.

Looks like tonight I will be ordering a double.

Trama Textiles

Today, I started my first day of volunteer work and a local Mayan women's cooperative called Trama Textiles.

After the Civil War ended here, a group of indigenous women from different villages began to collaborate to sell their goods communally (to put it simply, it is kind of a huge deal here when people from different villages get together for a common purpose). They now own one of the most dominant textile cooperatives in Xela, and they market and ship their fair trade goods internationally.

I will be helping them design a new catalog for their merchandise and build a website. In return, the women have offered to teach me to weave their garments (or at least begin to), and also help me with my Spanish.

As I left the weaving co-op today, one of the women got up from her loom to kiss me goodbye on the cheek (the customary salutation in Central America) and to thank me for my projected work. She also uttered a phrase in Spanish which, when translated directly to English, says: "Here, we will always wait for you."

In Difference

In America, life is about happiness and comfort. In Guatemala, I find, life is simply and honestly about survival.

This week I have been wondering why Americans are so out of place in third world cultures. My inclination is that it's not because we are taller or better dressed, but because we are the products of a culture that encourages us to correct, cover up and overcompensate. If we are born with things we don't like, we get braces, contacts, jeans that make our butts look smaller, new noses or Crest White Strips. Our lives are largely about avoidance and preventative measures.

People in Guatemala frankly don’t have the time (or the resources) for it all. Last week I was talking to one of the teachers at school, asking him if he ever thinks of leaving Guatemala to live somewhere else. "No," he said. "The only thing I dream about is providing for my family. Americans dream, we live."

Most Guatemaltecos work every day of the week, oftentimes 8-10 hours a day, and are quite happy to do it. Underneath their amiable demeanors there is a somber lining that suggests these people have a truly exceptional understanding of tragedy. And they do.

This country is less than 20 years out from a brutal civil war. The conflict that has only recently been acknowledged as a massive genocide (initiated largely by the U.S. government) turned neighbors against each other, saw indigenous peoples viciously tortured and murdered in front of their communites, and left families missing loved ones who the government still claims merely “disappeared.” (For more info, check out Guatemala: Never Again!)

The nation's first generation war victims are often my age, and have an deep understanding of death and brutality. Now it seems they desperately trying to find peace and civility without really knowing where to begin.

The culture here is nothing if not raw. Walking around the streets of Xela, I see drunk people passed out on the sidewalk, dead dogs that were run over the night before, people missing their arms, and guardian-less children dodging speeding cars in the streets.

Last Friday, as I was walking home from class, a little girl who I imagine was less than 5 years old came up behind me and grabbed my hand. I smiled at her and tried to initiate a conversation, but she just looked up at me silently and smiled. We walked 3 blocks together, holding hands in silence. I got to my gate and told her it was my home. She looked at the gate, then looked back up at me, and let go of my hand. As she walked back down the street, she smiled and waved goodbye.

There are many emotions I feel here, in varying degrees, both for the country and for its people. Amid the more one-dimensional and erratic, I think the deepest emotion I feel here is hope.

What's Missing

Walking around Xela everyday, I find myself missing certain people from various segments of my life. Standing in front of noted landmarks, experiencing totally new things, or being in quirky situations, I miss their companionship and the rare, seemingly eternal connections humans experience when they get the chance to explore foreign places with other people.

Before I left the States, I wrote to a friend about the semantics (at least in my mind) of missing people. I think we often miss people for they roles they have played in our lives, but on some rare occasions we can also miss people for the roles they have the potential to play in our lives. I realized today that sometimes we can miss places for the same reasons.

So tonight, I’m wondering what parts of Xela I’m missing in a haze of linguistic insulation (at this point, I’ve estimated that I understand about 25% of what’s going on around me). Saying that, I find that I’m already discovering parts of this culture I’ll miss when I’m gone.

Barnaldo

Me & Ronaldo @ Celas Maya
Originally uploaded by lauraespence.

For 5 hours a day, 5 days I week, I am in Spanish class at Celas Maya. The lessons are taught one-on-one, solely in Spanish, and for my first two weeks my tutor will be Ronaldo.

The culture of young adult men is strange here, and it often keeps us gringas questioning whether the guys our age are gay, straight, or somewhere in between. Young adult men here are legitimately obsessed with Loony Tunes and beauty pageants. When they compliment you on a physical attribute, they tend to look you up and down sterilely - not like they are getting ready to ask you out, but instead like they are wondering if you are worthy of their sponsorship in the next Miss Guatemala contest.

Ronaldo (apart from showing me a picture of every one of his cousins, sisters, or friends that has justifiably sported a tiara) is also obsessed with America´s Next Top model, Fashion Police, and Project Runway. He is a fashionisto who compliments me everyday on something that I am wearing, and has talked most of the staff at the school into calling me ¨Laura fabulosa.¨ He loves Kenny G, accessorizing, and white shoes. I call him the latino Barry Manilow (hence the nickname). Earlier in the week, he bought me a gorgeous pair of earrings, and gives me advice on how I can improve my latin image nearly everyday. I´ve decided he is either my new best friend or my soulmate.

The first few days we used charades for much of our communication, and a few rather poignant communicative blunders occured. I was telling him where I am from in California, and asked him, ¨How do you say Pismo Beach in Español?¨ He got a very confused look on his face, and asked me to repeat the question. ¨Pismo Beach,¨ I said. ¨Soy de Pismo Beach. ¿Como se dice en Español?"

¨Laura,¨ he said, which sounds like low-da when he says it. ¨You want to know how to say Pismo BEACH in Spanish? You mean, like, Snoop Doggy Dog and his BEACHES?¨

No one can fault Barnaldo for being up on his international pop culture.

The night the lights went out

Last night, Tiff and I went out to dinner at a local vegan eatery called Cafe Q. It's a quaint little restaurant owned by an Indian couple and managed by European students visiting Xela for Spanish classes.

Halfway through our dinner, the power went out (and stayed out for about 5 hours). The staff brought us a candle for our table, and we struck up a conversation with a group of travelers at the bar. They are a retired group of friends from Germany who recently sold all their worldly possessions to travel till the money runs out. We talked with them over Mozas (my new favorite Central American brew), and were reminded of how travel opens people up and brings people together.

Tiff and I walked home in utter darkness. The entire city was without power, and when Xela is without power, it is also without running water. Tiff and I lit candles and took them up to the porch on our roof, staring up at the stars and talking endlessly.

It's funny and strangely comforting to see how quickly our lives can be stripped down of the creature comforts. In some ways it changes everything; in other ways it changes nothing. And sometimes, it feels better to simply be without.

Guate to Xela

If England is the land of roundabouts, Latin America is most certainly the land of speed bumps. This morning, we made our way to Quetzaltenango (better known as Xela, shay-lah). Once we got out of Guate, I was introduced to the staggering beauty that defines the Latin American countryside.

Our 4-hour car ride to Xela was wallpapered with banana, coffee and sugar cane plantations. At any given moment, I was looking out the window at dueling political billboards, sleepy coastal towns with endless fruit stands, families who pass their time in lawn chairs on the side of the highways, and more starving stray dogs than I could count. Guatemala is also home to 27 volcanoes (only two of which are still active) and the outlines of these giant masses create a dramatic landscape throughout our journey from the capitol. Within a few square kilometers, it is not uncommon to see a 7,000+m variation in altitude.

Throughout the mountain towns, you see farmers cart their produce around on bikes. They balance their children on their handlebars and share the narrow, winding mountain roads with commercial trucks and renegade cars. Children go to work with their respective parents to begin to learn the merit of the toil, and Mayan women paint the streets with electric colors, balancing baskets on their heads with their market purchases.

It's hard to feel like anything more than a voyeur at this point. Tiff asked me today why I was so quiet and I told her that, early in my travels, I find that I don't engage with much. I gauge boundaries and draw up similarities and differences based on the world(s) that I have formerly known. I suppose we all have biased impressions because we seem to always need something--some belief or former perspective--to base it all on. It's the benefit and the burden of travel, I suppose.

First impressions? Beauty, tragedy, uncensored lives, and staggering possibility.

Day 1

Tiff and I landed in Guate (Guatemala City) just after 8p.m. on Friday night. Walking through the terminal with a handful of Guatemaltecos, a band of obnoxious Rotarians, and an uncomfortable load of luggage, we found our ride in the parking lot that was packed with cars like sardines in a tin can. If you’ve ever seen that video of the busy intersection in India, you get the basic gist of the ride to our accommodation for the evening.

Guatemala City is, in a word, shocking. It's a grab bag of modernism and archaism, civility and unrest, accessibility and total desolation. RadioShacks sit next to open-air, indigenous markets, and men herd goats down sidewalks, passing groups of adolescents wearing over sized FUBU shirts and talking on their cell phones.

It’s estimated that, in this city, there is 1 police officer for every 5,000 civilians. The national army compensates for this incongruity by stocking the streets with camouflaged officials armed with Uzis and the inclination to subjugate vigilantes by any means necessary. Family restaurants also hire machine-gun toting men to guard their doors, and patrons pass by without even a blink or a shifting eye.

More often than not, public buses spill over with passengers, and it’s an unspoken rule in Guatemala that when the public buses are full, commercial and civilian trucks will take the overflow. In this stead, nearly every Coco-Cola or farming truck is packed with romping, rolling men and children.

Highways are packed with trash, unsupervised children, and families crossing the four-lane highways. Seeing these scenes play over and over every few kilometers, one begins to feel like she might be watching vignettes from a border refugee surveillance camera.

Tiff and I had a sleepless night in Guate. We heard a rooster screeching (not crowing) all night outside our window, a viscous dog fight in which we’re pretty sure at least one dog died, one knock-down, drag out family fight (involving parents, small children, and pets), and five pistol shots within ear shot. Everything about the capitol seems frantic, lawless and anarchic.

Normally, I wouldn't think these experiences generally need to be made public. I share them because I think I realized that night that most of us are merely reacting to the world that surrounds us--sometimes positively, oftentimes negatively. To a certain extent, we’re all simply (and sometimes alarmingly) products of the environments in which we live.

After only a few hours, I see that this is the type of place that will vastly broaden my perspective. So. Here's to new surroundings.