All That Remains

Dear Friends and Family,

2012-01-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have a request that I would like to share with all of you who have followed me here over the past couple of years. I wrote a couple of times about my attempts to learn the local dialect of K’iche’ and my patient teacher, Rafael. Throughout the two years of classes I often wondered if someday I would be able to repay the patience and kindness of Rafael and his family. Now, under unfortunate circumstances, it appears that I have my chance.

In the months leading up to my departure, Rafael’s wife, Paola, was due to have their second child. The first sonograms showed some problems and the doctors originally thought that the baby would be stillborn and told them to prepare themselves as such. Thankfully the doctors were wrong and their second child, a boy named Del Angel, was born on September 28th.

Unfortunately, Del Angel was born with a congenital cyst in his brain that needs surgery. In America and other developed countries this is a relatively easy and common surgery in which most of the children go on to lead normal lives. In Guatemala, however, this is not as easy. When I left Santa Maria and said my goodbyes I promised Rafael I would do what I can to help out him and his family. I emailed the MRI images to some family friends who confirmed the diagnosis that was given by the Guatemalan doctors and stressed the need to operate in order for Del Angel to live a normal life. Almost four months later they still have been unable to get the surgery due to a bureaucratic mess with the poorly run insurance and hospitals in Guatemala.

I offered to help Rafael raise some money from friends and family in order to help out and although I can tell that he is embarrassed to have to ask, they are now in serious need of some financial assistance. After talking with him it seems that they will be needing roughly $1,000 dollars for doctor’s appointments both before and after the surgery, travel expenses to and from the appointments (Guatemala City is about a five hours bus ride), paying for a work replacement (Rafael is a teacher and in his absence will have to find and pay another person to fill in for him), and most importantly the supplies for the surgery (the insurance, in theory, pays for the surgery but since the hospitals are usually empty of supplies he will need to provide the supplies which will likely include everything up to the gauze).

I know that this might not be an opportune time to ask for money and for that I completely understand if you cannot contribute. For those of you that can, even the smallest amount will go a long ways towards the relatively modest goal of $1,000 and will be much appreciated by Rafael, Paola and the entire Osorio family. Click on the link here to donate. Thank you all so much.

Stephen

Looking Back On Guatemala

2011-12-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

When I find myself looking up during my two years in Guatemala, I see a stunningly beautiful place. In my time here I have climbed the region’s highest volcanoes and taken in views that I will never forget. I’ve jumped off of a warm springs waterfall into a jungle river. I’ve roasted marshmallows over flowing lava. I’ve seen the sunrise while sitting atop ancient Mayan ruins with the screams of howler monkeys greeting the bourgeoning day.

Looking down is a much different story. Then you see trash covered streets with emaciated dogs digging for their dinner. On most days I see a bolo (a drunk) passed out in the street as adults and children step around and over them as if they don’t even exist. Worse, I see countless, unsupervised children with swollen bellies going in and out of small houses with billowing smoke that eats away at their lungs and their lives. When I look down you not only see the burning garbage or the urine-drenched drunk, I smell them.

This dichotomy has troubled me every day of the two years that I have lived among Guatemala’s beauty and its squalor. I’ve learned that few things in Guatemala can be easily defined or understood and Guatemala itself is the paramount example of that. The factors that lead to this polarity are myriad and complex. Centuries of racism and discrimination, a genocidal civil war spanning over three decades, and foreign manipulation are only a few of the seemingly innumerable dynamics that have contributed mightily to Guatemala’s complications.

I constantly find myself asking questions about how Guatemala arrived at its current state. How can this place be two opposite things at the same time? How can a place with such a vibrant cultural history have such a bitterly depressing present? How is it the 99 percent of the Guatemalans I know are good- natured, respectable people or that its inhabitants all unanimously believe in the same loving, peaceful God yet the country is one of the most ruthlessly violent places on Earth? How can a place with such plentiful fertile coastal plains be one of the world’s most malnourished countries?

In searching for answers, I often recalled reading George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier in a European History course in college. A passage in Orwell’s account of living and writing about the poor coal miners in Northern England in 1937 has stuck with me to this day and I often found myself thinking about it here in Guatemala:

For they exist in tens and hundreds of thousands; they are one of the characteristic by-products of the modern world. You cannot disregard them if you accept the civilisation that produced them. For this is part at least of what industrialism has done for us. Columbus sailed the Atlantic, the first steam engines tottered into motion, the British squares stood firm under the French guns at Waterloo, the one-eyed scoundrels of the nineteenth century praised God and filled their pockets; and this is where it all led to - to labyrinthine slums and dark back kitchens with sickly, ageing people creeping round and round them like blackbeetles. It is a kind of duty to see and smell such places now and again, especially smell them, lest you should forget that they exist; though perhaps it is better not to stay there too long.

It has proved horribly difficult for me to look up at the natural beauty around me, at “civilization,” at thousands of years of proud history only to look down at this: swollen bellied children guiding their drunk, stumbling fathers home; a poverty so complex, so ubiquitous, and so seemingly insurmountable; to a culture so depressed, so confused. I’ve thought many times that if Guatemala were a Greek play, it would unequivocally be a tragedy.

But we cannot disregard this place if we accept the civilization that created it.

If that is one of the hardest things about Guatemala then the absolute hardest thing—to me at least—is deciding where I fit into all of this, or rather, where my service fits into my understanding of looking up and looking down.

I didn’t come here to be an observer; I’m not a tourist or an anthropologist: I came here to live it, not just look at it. One thing my service has taught me is that living it is different from looking up and looking down. Living it is experiencing it. Living it is knowing that there is so much more to Guatemala than one can read in the papers about crooked politicians, tourism, malnutrition, or violence. Living it is getting past looking up and looking down and seeing something that exists in the middle, something that is right in front of you but overshadowed by the beauty and the squalor at the fringes.

When you experience Guatemala you see in the middle a mass of people, millions of them, encompassed by an ocean, a sea and a few imaginary lines who are given the title “Guatemalans” and whose trials and tribulations don’t make it onto the cover of the newspapers or websites the way that of a murdered Guatemalan millionaire or disgraced ex-president do.

Instead they are the silent majority, underrepresented or repressed in almost every imaginable way: politically, culturally, monetarily, geographically. They are all right there for us to see “so hidden in plain sight all around us” yet despite their prevalence they are completely overshadowed in the idea of Guatemala. They are, in masse, people who will welcome someone from a foreign land into their homes for coffee and a snack, who will stop a stranger on a street with questions to satiate their curiosity and who offer a simple greeting of “good morning,” “good afternoon,” or “good evening” not out of habit but kindness.

This majority’s inability to shape the definition of Guatemala adds to the tragedy. Yet with seemingly every imaginable factor stacked against it, Guatemala is full of these gracious and sympathetic people who are its greatest hope.

It is easy to get distracted by the extremes of Guatemala, either by external sensory factors or by some sort of dialogue in your head trying to rationalize Guatemala’s dichotomy as if it is some evil experiment in equilibrium in which one balances out the other. But if you really experience Guatemala, you are likely to realize that neither looking up nor looking down is the true Guatemala and that these extremes, while certainly much more visceral, only make up part of the whole of Guatemala and that if you allow yourself to truly experience Guatemala you will be able to look straight ahead at the nuanced beauty of millions of human faces of the silent majority.

Link 2

2011-09-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Since I'm not really writing anything to put up here I figured I might as well link another article for those that do want to read something. For the last article I linked I said it was nothing like the Guatemala I lived in. Well, this one is a little closer to home. Also, for anyone interested, Guatemala just had its first round of presidential elections and there are a number of interesting articles about what is going on down here for anyone with Google and a little time on their hands.

Checking In

2011-08-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, been a while since I’ve written here. Sorry about that, I guess I just haven’t had too much to say that I thought would be interesting. The other day, however, I started writing a sort of reflection on my service that is currently about six single-spaced pages of rigmarole with little evidence of a connecting theme, random tangents, no end in sight and is about as confusing as the dream I had when I fell asleep after taking my malaria pills and watching “Lost Highway.” If there is a coherent way to express the last two years of my life, I haven’t yet found it but I’ll keep trying my best to spare you from another list.

In the meantime, all is going well down here in Guatemala and it’s hard to believe that my time here is coming to an end. I remember writing here a while back when we had our Mid-Service Conference that it was just a fancy term for the Half Way Done! Conference. Now, in two weeks I’ll have what is called the COS Conference which is just a fancy term for the We Made It! Conference. Of course I’ll still have about another two and a half months left after the We Made It! Conference but I’m really looking forward to the last stretch of my service and finishing up everything I’ve started down here.

Well I just wanted to check in and ease all of your worries that I had gone insane down here and thus not posting anything on this blog; thankfully, that is not the case. (Although I did catch a gecko or lizard or something this weekend and after trying to feed it bugs for about an hour I realized how that would look to someone who lived in the “real world” and thus decided to let it go. Afterwards I realized that I passed the insane test because I never gave it a name or spoke to it, so yeah, I’m doing alright.) I hope all is well with my five readers and that everyone in Oregon right now is enjoying to the fullest the spoils of summer in the Northwest. (Someone freeze some berries for me, please!)

Link

2011-04-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent and fascinating article from the New Yorker about a Guatemala that is nothing like the one in which I live but I thought people would really enjoy. Check it out if you have time whether you know the first thing about Guatemala or not.

Alphabet Soup

2011-03-30T18:37:00.000-07:00

As Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) we are forced to learn a slew of acronyms that make conversations sound like we’re speaking in some sort of secret code. A PCV is a Peace Corps Volunteer and a RPCV is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. The dysphemism for not finishing your service is ET, Early Termination, which always reminds of that scene in the 1976 sci-fi flick “Logan’s Run” where they all float up into the giant fly trap looking thing to kill themselves when they turn 30 because the world is overpopulated. (If anyone gets that reference I’d be shocked.) ET can also be used as a verb i.e. “We knew Jared was ETing when he lost it in Nicaragua” as can COS which stands for Close of Service but holds an important distinction from ET. I know exactly what an APCD and a PTO are (or rather, who they are) but I have no idea what they stand for. If I get sick I have to call the PCMO and if I get robbed I have to call the SSC. Already I have been through PST, IST, PDM, MSC, and one AVC. I had to turn on some MGMT just to write this.

Despite all of these, in the world of the Peace Corps alphabet soup three letters stand out as the most dreaded of all: VRF. I’m pretty sure that stands for Volunteer Reporting File (or something like that) but it really doesn’t matter. It is, as far as I can tell, the root of all evil in the world. The VRF is a tool Peace Corps uses worldwide for getting volunteers to electronically report what they have been doing every six months. If you couldn’t guess, mine is due this Thursday and if you couldn’t guess, it hasn’t been going so smoothly. I didn’t have to go to a community today so I’ve been working on it intermediately between rewatching episodes of the first season of “The Wire” and getting up to wander around to stare at the wall or do anything more interesting than my VRF.

If I sound bitter you have to understand that technology and I have never really gotten along. There is this stereotype that every male in my age range knows everything there is to know about computers and electronics and all that crap. Not true; I know nothing about them. My iPod is really the only electronic device that I've ever fully mastered and the only one I’ve ever had a real propensity towards but mostly just because it allows me drown out horrible chicken bus music for long bus rides.

So it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that it took me about a week to actually get the file to open on my computer. And it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that I when I went back to finish up the last 5% of my VRF a couple minutes ago to find that it hadn’t saved even though I obsessively saved it after everything I entered and it even told me every time, “Changes Successfully Saved to E:\\ 1_2011¬_StephenOliver (1).vrf.” Like I said, the root of all evil in the world.

So now here I sit with a much needed cup of “Mellow Moments Herbal Tea” thinking about calling my APCD to tell him that not only will I ET if he or the CD and PTO don’t call DC about the VRF but that before I COS and am a RPCV I’m going to talk to VAC about bringing it up at the next AVC as long as I don’t get FOC and have to see the PCMO.

Family

2011-03-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

This last week I got back from my one and only trip to America during these two+ years for my sister Maureen’s wedding. Even though I had been building it up in my head for months, it still managed to surpass my expectations. The wedding was wonderful and the reception was indescribably fun. I couldn’t have had a better time and I imagine everyone who was there would say the same. So one final time, congratulations to Maureen and Tony and remember, keep that guest room available.

Here are two things I have written somewhat recently but never posted for a couple reasons. First, they don’t exactly flow with the joviality that I aim for in this space and might seem a little serious or depressing in contrast to the blog that just recently referenced a “tranny” in Costa Rica. Also, they are pretty much the same thing except that one was written before I went home and the other was written after. However, I decided to post them because I thought some people might be interested in the other side of my Peace Corps experience that doesn’t involve trite lists of Costa Rican debauchery and Norm McDonald videos. So here they are, read the top one first…

Erica and Diego

2011-03-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

One of the five aldeas (communities or outlying areas of a municipality) that we work in is a place called Xecococh. It is one of the furthest aldeas from Santa Maria Chiquimula and it takes us about an hour in the back of a pick up across unpaved roads to get there. Xecococh is one of the five aldeas that we work in because it is one of the five most chronically malnourished aldeas in the most chronically malnourished municipality in Totonicapán, which is the most chronically malnourished department in Guatemala, which is the most chronically malnourished country in the hemisphere and fourth in the world. Without going into details or being overdramatic about it, I’ll just say that it doesn’t take long to notice.

Usually when I go anywhere outside of town to a place such as Xecococh the kids are frightened of me, especially the girls. Occasionally one of them will come up to me and ask me a question and then run off to her friends laughing hysterically before I can even answer the question but even harmless interactions such as these are rare. Most of the little girls stare at me from around a corner or from behind their mother’s legs as they cling tightly to her corte (traditional skirt-type thing that indigenous Guatemalan women wear) or run off to find a safer place to stare from a distance. (Actually, this is a problem I seemingly have with women of every age and ethnicity so maybe I’m not really touching on anything new here.)

I know that part of why I put the fear of God into Santa Maria’s finest is that in the aldeas the children and adults alike, although especially the women and girls, often don’t speak Spanish or speak very little Spanish. Also, I know that in many cases I am the first white person some of these kids have ever seen. Even the adults sometimes tell me that either I or another of my Peace Corps friends are the first Americans or non-Guatemalans they’ve met. So while it is still weird to walk into a crowded place and see half of the people there take off running as if I’m Daniel Plainview with a bowling pin (just watched that movie again last night) and the other half giggle as if I passed out next to a sharpie at a frat house the night before, I guess I sort of understand.

There are, albeit very rarely, some kids who seem to understand that I mean no harm and who almost immediately take a liking to me. Seeing as it is very difficult to make and maintain good friendships here in Guatemala because of any number of the cultural differences that I won’t go into right now, I would say that some of my most valued friendships here have been with children. A couple days ago I read a friend’s blog and I thought she hit this dead on, “It makes me wonder what I did to deserve such adoration. To be honest, I did nothing. I don't want to believe that they run to me in the street just because I have light skin and blond hair but, I know that is at least part of the reason. The least I can do is try to rightfully earn their fondness. I'm still working on it.”

About a month ago I met someone in Xecococh whose fondness I hope to somehow earn. We had all finished our presentation for the day and my fellow co-workers were getting thumb prints from the women (very few of them know how to write) on some paperwork so I decided to get out of their way and take in the beautiful view that Xecococh has to offer. As I was staring off to the north towards the Cuchumatanes Mountains I heard the unfamiliar voice of a young girl begin to ask me questions in perfect Spanish. I explained that I was enjoying the view and asked if she knew what those mountains were called. I was almost certain that she didn’t since very few people around here seem to look much beyond their own communities and when she told me that she didn’t, I taught her their name and what department they were in. Then I showed her the mountains of El Quiche, another department visible from Xecococh’s only school, and I could tell that the words Huehuetenango, Chuchumantanes, and Quiche were as new to her as they are to almost everyone reading this right now.

Her name was Erica, she told me, and when I asked if she went to school she proudly smiled and said yes. I asked her if she was going to go to the Guatemalan equivalent of middle school when she finished the Guatemalan equivalent of grade school and when she again answered yes, I asked about what she wanted to do after that. “A nurse,” she said, still wearing the same smile.

We continued our conversation for a few minutes until her mother came up and it looked like they were going to leave. Erica introduced me and I immediately noticed that something wasn’t right with her; she just kept giving me a really big smile and shaking my hand or patting me on my shoulder. I thought at first that she was mentally ill but then Erica explained to me that her mother is deaf so she has to communicate with her through basic hand gestures and mouthing things out for her. I remember thinking that day when we were leaving that despite spending two years with people like those of Xecococh, I will never, ever be able to fully understand the difficulty of their lives. I remember thinking about how later that evening I was going to be in a touristy bar in Xela (Guatemala’s second biggest city) watching the Ducks play in the national championship game and Erica and her mother would still be in Xecococh. I remember thinking that despite how depressing it is for me to see kids here with no motivation to learn, it is almost just as depressing for me to meet a girl like Erica knowing very well the odds that are stacked against her ever becoming a nurse: when she graduates grade school she will have to find a way to pay for her transportation to another community for middle school since Xecococh doesn’t have one and if that happens she will have to do the same for many more years of studying plus tuition in Xela or the department capital of Totonicapán, the whole time hoping her parents don’t make her quit to get a job to help out the family. I remember thinking that it was depressing that I would be depressed from meeting someone as bright and uplifting as her. I remember thinking that this isn’t what I wanted to be thinking about.

On Wednesday we went back to Xecococh and I was happy to see Erica with her slightly crocked smile run and pull on her mother’s corte and point at me when we pulled up. As I got out of the car and greeted the women standing around waiting for us, I went to put something in my backpack and saw that one of the oranges I brought with me got smashed and leaked sticky juice all over my bag and onto my papers and book. I took everything out to clean it when Erica came up to say hello she immediately got bright eyed when she saw my book sitting in the road. “Can I see that?” she asked somewhat astonished by something most of us wouldn’t think twice about. “Of course,” I said, “but it’s in English.” She didn’t seem to care and flipped through the pages trying to decipher the foreign words. “Do you like to read?” I asked, “Books or newspapers or magazines or anything?” “Yeah! I like to read to books!” Considering those words are about as rare here as “I don’t like tortillas,” I felt like I could have bent down and hugged her just for saying it. When I asked her if she had any books in her house she said that she has one and it’s about chickens and farming. It sounds like one of the manuals that are given out by some government programs about how to maintain healthy poultry from who knows how many years ago. “So you’ve read it then?” I asked. “Yeah, ten times!”

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Today we went to another of the five aldeas that took about three weeks for me to correctly pronounce: Tasabalquiej. We got there a little early from another community and those of us who brought lunches went off to find a shady place to eat that wasn’t in front of the women or children since it would be pretty rude of us to do so in one of the most malnourished places on earth. Just as we were finishing a boy who seemingly wasn’t all there in the head came up and sat with us with no reservations. He had cold sores covering his lips, an all too obvious home done haircut, small, torn jeans and shoes that were just a glorified second pair of socks. He had strikingly skinny legs and arms with scabbed elbows; an overbite; an all too familiar high, swollen belly stuck out through his torn and dirty white T-shirt and he walked more like a stiff old man than a 14 year old boy. His name was Diego, he said, and he asked me where were Andrea and Zane, two of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers that have also worked in Tasabalquiej.

Sensing that Diego was an unfortunate exception to the already staggering poverty that surrounded us, one of the women I work with, Angelica, started asking him some questions about his house, family, school. The answers were like something out of the first half of some sick, twisted fairy tale. His mother died a number of years back when she was only 21 as well did his only sibling, a younger sister, when she was still a baby. He doesn’t know what either of them died of. His father remarried and has a kid with his new wife but she refuses to take care of Diego, wash his clothes or cook for him. What little money they have is spent by his father who drinks about once a week and sometimes gets so abusive that Diego has to call his uncle over to help him tie him down to something. He finished grade school last year and since Tasabalquiej doesn’t have a middle school, he’s reached the end of the line in the disgrace that is Guatemala’s education system. Now to earn what little money they can, he goes off with his dad during the days to cut firewood, making trips back and forth from the forest to their house with loads of firewood strapped to their backs.

Throughout our meeting today I kept an eye on Diego. I watched him walk around the meeting and play one by one with the babies attached to the women’s backs, pretending to shake their hands or making funny faces at them. I watched when he tried to show a group of younger kids the correct technique for shooting marbles and I watched when he got shoved around a little bit by a group of older teenagers. I saw him kick an emaciated dog for no reason and I saw him try to teach one of the women with us some words in K’iche.’

When we were leaving the meeting and our group was heading to the car he walked next to us proudly, with a little swagger in his step as he pretended to be going with us to what he was seemingly imagining to be some far off, strange land and said in K’iche’ to everyone watching, “Bye everyone, I’m going with them!” He opened the car door for the women who sat in the cab of the truck and waved to us guys sitting in the bed as we took off and left behind us a cloud of white dust.

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I asked Erica if I brought her a book in Spanish the next time I came, would she read it. She said of course and so I promised that I would. A couple hours later when we were all getting ready to go, I felt someone tug on my leg as I climbed into the truck. “March 7th, you guys are coming back on March 7th, right?” I looked at someone already in the truck for confirmation then turned back to Erica, “Yeah, we’ll be back on March 7th.” “And you’ll bring me a book, right?”

In a couple days I’ll be going home to my beloved Portland where I will be received by all of the comforts and luxuries that our society and culture have allowed us to create and accumulate, none of which ever make their way down to Xecococh or Tasabalquiej. And just as I will never fully understand the difficulty of the lives of the people I live with like Erica and Diego, there are likewise many things about me that they will never be able to comprehend. Despite my best efforts to explain, many people still don’t understand why someone would leave a rich country to live in a poor one or how someone who is both white and American is not filthy rich. And Erica and Diego will probably never understand why I want them to succeed so badly, why it would mean so much to me, my life philosophy and theology, for her to become a nurse (or better) and for him to do or become anything more than what he is and does now, or why I was secretly more excited to see Erica on Wednesday than she was to see me, because I need to know that not everyone here’s life is just the first half of some sick, twisted fairy tale; in essence, a fairy tale without the fairy tale ending.

Beautiful Things

2011-03-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

“Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are a privilege of the rich.”

Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray

Today was my first day back at work here in Chiquimula after my long awaited vacation home to America for my sister’s wedding. Before I left I thought a lot about what it might feel like to be back in Portland for the first time in so long or how it would feel to come back to Chiquimula after going back to my beloved Tenth Avenue. I’ve talked to a couple of my volunteer friends here who have told me that it is weird to go home because when we are here we are always looked at as outsiders and foreigners, then when they went home they once again felt like they were on the outside because they had spent so much time away and so much time trying to integrate into another culture that they had a hard time adjusting to America and its culture. Basically, they feel like they belong in neither Guatemala nor America.

It appears that I am fortunate enough to not have experienced this. It hit me last night as I lay in bed waiting for my eye lids to close that the weirdest part about going home was that it didn’t feel weird to go home. And the weirdest part of coming back to Chiquimula was that it doesn’t at all feel weird to be back. Sure there were times in America that felt a little strange, like going to a Blazer game, but mostly just because I hadn’t done them in such a long time not because it felt foreign to me. Nothing felt out of the ordinary about going out with some old friends or eating out at nice restaurants, even hanging out in one of Portland’s most posh hotels after the wedding, or the wedding itself for that matter were all subconsciously accepted.

Today we went to one of our communities called Chipop. Since I just got back I didn’t know what we’d be doing but it turns out that the organization that funds us wanted us to fill out a questionnaire about the quality of life of the women in our groups: how many people live in their homes, do they have latrines, how much do their husbands make on a daily basis, etc. The answers, as one might expect, were quite disheartening. Out of the 17 women that were there, only two have cement floors in their kitchens, some don’t even have kitchens and cook in the same room in which some of their family members sleep, only a few of them use stoves instead of fires on the floor that fill the room with black smoke, not one of them has a latrine. We then asked them about how far they made it in school: two of them graduated sixth grade, a few made it through second or third grade and for the rest we just filled in the word, “No.” And anyone that knows anything about the Guatemalan education system knows that finishing third grade here is roughly the equivalent of an American kid watching one episode of Sesame Street without the sound.

For some reason when we were going over these questions something popped into my head from when I was back home. A day or two after the wedding, I went with my sister and brother-in-law to return some things with them at Macy’s in downtown Portland. As they were taking care of the exchanges with the clerk I wandered around marveling at all of the things that our culture creates, sells, and buys. I looked at pictures of beautiful people trying to sell beautiful things. I passed up and down rows of kitchen appliances with abstruse purposes. I saw a contrived picture of a smiling Martha Stewart sitting around a contrived table of beautiful dishes and silverware hosting a contrived group of racially spontaneous dinner guests. Finally, I stumbled upon a device that I had to pick up and play with to figure out what it was. It was a battery powered wine bottle opener. I tried not to look at the price but my curiosity got the best of me.

As I sat on my plastic chair next to the dusty road in Chipop I thought about that battery powered wine bottle opener. I thought about all of the people that have no stoves on which to cook their food, the 35 quetzals (less than $4) that these women’s husbands bring home, all of the people with less than a second grade education and I thought about how far away their lives are from the lives of the people that create, sell, and buy battery powered wine bottle openers. I thought about a quote I read recently from one of my personal heroes, Warren Buffet, “If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing.”

But then I started to think back to my original point of belonging. Being in Guatemala for a year and a half has led me to learn that I am much more “American” than I ever thought I was. I like to arrive to things on time and have others do the same. I like football better than futbol. I don’t like small talk, etc. So while I am unequivocally American in most respects and while I now feel comfortable in both America and Guatemala, I eventually concluded that I probably belong somewhere between the side of the road in Chipop and a battery powered wine bottle opener. Maybe feeling like you don’t belong isn’t always a bad thing.

Costa What?

2011-01-09T15:14:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday at about 6:30 at night (yes, 6:30 PM is night here, not evening and yes, that does suck) I got back from a trip that took me to or through five countries and a total of eight border crossings in nine days. I believe the final count for hours spent on busses or border crossings was over 60. I’m just now regaining consciousness.

I took the bus trip with three of my fellow Peace Corps buddies, Barrett Bumpas (aka Bump), Charlie Fulks (aka Dr. Fulks), and Jared Lounsbery (aka The Wildcard) and two others flew down and met us there. Our goal was to meet up with our former Peace Corps friend, Alex, who now lives outside of San Jose in Costa Rica. As always, I could give you a description of everything we did and give you your fill of “had to be there” stories OR I could make a list. I prefer the list. (Actually, we kept a “Capitan’s Log” in my pocket notebook of the trip that consisted of bullet points of crazy things that happened along the way. I thought about just copying that down into a blog post until I realized that the only ones appropriate enough to put up here are inside jokes like, “Clifford’s Beef Pies” or “Jared+Dog+Beach.”) So here it is, things I learned in, on my way, or on my way back from Costa Rica:

1. Anytime you decide to go on a vacation that includes 60+ hours on buses with three friends and one of them is nicknamed The Wildcard, it is very unlikely that you will return physically and emotionally unscathed.

2. Letting a drunken Swiss guy named Gabriel talk you into going to a Costa Rican casino at one in the morning to play blackjack with American dollars has less than a 1% chance of ending well.

3. New Year’s Eve is better in warm climates.

4. Costa Rican taxi drivers understand the word “tranny.” (Don’t ask.)

5. Playing cards is prohibited in Nicaraguan shopping malls but drinking and smoking are not.

6. Spending eight hours in a mall so you don’t have to pay for a hotel room is nothing like the movie Mallrats.

7. The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie is awful.

8. If I ever have a choice between staying at a Crown Plaza hotel or another hotel I’m choosing Crown Plaza because they let us hang out in their lobby after the mall closed and before our 3AM bus left.

9. Even The Wildcard has his breaking point. It came in a Managua bus station after waking up at 4AM to catch a bus leaving Costa Rica, sitting/standing on busses for hours, a border crossing, more buses, getting ripped off by a taxi driver, and finally, being lied to about internet access in the aforementioned bus station. Probably my favorite moment of the entire trip.

10. Despite what the guide books and tour companies say, volcano “surfing” is actually volcano “tobogganing” but awesome nonetheless.

11. You can take Bumpas out of Texas but you can’t take the Texas out of Bumpas.

12. My towel, debit card, cell phone and most of my remaining youthful innocence are still somewhere in Costa Rica.

13. God created coconuts with the idea of putting rum inside of them.

The Master at His Craft

2011-01-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

NORM

Shaggy Dog

2010-12-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I talk to people on the phone or online they tell me, “Hey, you should blog more.” Aside from my aversion to using the word “blog” as a verb, I have a little bit of a hard time with this because I never really know what it is that I’m supposed to “blog” about. The other day my friend called me to tell me that there were apparently a couple of rabid men running around his town and his paranoid boss told him he couldn’t leave his house. I told him to spread goat’s blood over his door and he (and his unborn, first-born son) will be fine. The next day a description of these events and their lunacy appeared in his blog and I thought, “If something like that happened to me, I would actually have something to write about.” I wasn’t wishing for rabid men to be stalking my town, but something equally crazy and quintessentially Guatemalan.

Usually I just start to write things and never finish them. Not long ago I wrote a post about how as volunteers here we need to find the silver linings of Peace Corps Guatemala. For instance, my former sitemate and beer pong nemesis, Zane, finished his service and moved on to the Promised Land. I was thinking about how even though it was sad that Santa Maria Chiquimula lost its favorite son, the silver linings of this was that I now unequivocally hold the titles for “Tallest Person in All of Santa Maria Chiquimula” and “Best Basketball Player in All of Santa Maria Chiquimula.” I was thinking about making one of those championship belts that wrestlers wear to show off my new status and wear it around town. I never finished writing the post though, because I started writing about what possible silver linings I could find for being out of the country for the best season in the history of the Oregon Ducks football team. I found none and the post just ended up being really depressing so I never did anything with it.

I also wrote one about my Midservice Conference, or a fancy Peace Corps term for “Half Way Done!” I wrote another about all of the weird stuff I do in the many hours that I am alone in my room every evening, like spending entire nights doing a bad Mike Tyson impersonation solely for my own amusement, or seeing how many times I can hit the same spot on my wall with my cheap toy gun, hoping the plastic BBs don’t come back and hit me, or screaming out my favorite lines from “There Will Be Blood” in my best Daniel Plainview voice while cooking dinner. (“I AM THE THIRD REVALATION!!! I AM THE THIRD REVALATION!!! I TOLD YOU I WOULD EAT YOU!!!) I re-read that post after I wrote it and immediately decided it was much too revealing about my current state of insanity to post online for the masses. It became a journal entry instead.

In the last season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” there is a scene where Larry David chastises a couple for telling their “how we met” story. “Let me guess how it ends,” he says, “…you met!” This is sort of how I feel about most of the stuff I start out writing on here. For instance, I could have written about my Thanksgiving here, but unless there was some sort of crazy event (like rabid men running around) everyone would think to themselves, “Let me guess how it ends: you ate, drank, and were merry? Yeah, thought so.” And, well, they’d be right; in a nutshell that’s exactly what happened.

So where does that leave me? I have no rabid men, no consolation prize for missing a historic football season, nothing much to say about the Half Way Done! Conference, nothing that I should say about my copious amounts of alone time, and nothing but “how we met” stories. Now you understand my problem.

However, aside from “how we met” stories there is also something called a “shaggy dog” story. These were perfected by one of the funniest people to ever live, Norm McDonald. A shaggy dog story is when someone tells a really long and funny story full of amusing tangents and descriptive details only to get to the end or to the punch line and it is intentionally a huge let down. Everyone usually ends up being really disappointed with the whole thing because of the ending. The point isn’t the punch line, it’s the story. I’ve thought about writing some really long, made up shaggy dog stories about fantastic things like candy trees and unicorns on here only to end them with, “…anyways, then I found five dollars in my pocket,” but I figured that would just piss everyone off.

Anyways, this blog post is a shaggy dog story.

Pictures That Are Better Than Mine Part II

2010-10-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are the pictures that are once again better and more plentiful than anything I am capable of. Enjoy!

Adventures With Little Edie

2010-09-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

Once again the wonderful and lovely Jessica, aka Little Edie, came down here to visit me and once again she took more and better pictures than I did and once again she is much more likely to put them online than I am and once again I will link it here when that is done. Last time she came she carried with her a duffel bag full of books and to continue with the trend, once again she brought me a boat load of goods. First, she brought the computer that I am writing on right now that I bought and had sent to my parents’ house. Cross that one off my list of excuses for not blogging. However, this computer has a game on it called Plants VS. Zombies that is about as addictive and mindless as heroin. Naturally, I love it. Unfortunately, Jessica had the crazy idea in her head that she did not spend hundreds of dollars and travel thousands of miles to watch me sit around fending off virtual zombies with virtual peashooters, so I will have to do my Plants VS. Zombies playing here in Xebe. What I’m trying to say is, add Plants VS. Zombies to the list of excuses for not blogging.

Other than the computer there were some things I asked for from my parents such as reinforcements on the essentials of coffee and Sriacha Sauce, super glue, and my favorite Pendleton Wool shirt. (Aside from these items that I specifically asked for, my mother decided that out of the goodness of her heart she would send me a metal kazoo and an “OOEY GOOEY Squish ‘Em Squeeze ‘Em Frog!” for my birthday. Prominently written on both labels: “Ages 3+”).

However, this isn’t even the half of it. Instead of a duffel of books, this time it was a duffel of candy and food. I’m attaching a picture so you can grasp the magnitude of how much delicious goodness I now have in my possession. Just to list a few, there are Snickers, Almond Joys, Baby Ruths, Reece’s Pieces, sunflower seeds, homemade(!) beef jerky, an assortment of teas, cookies, PowerBars, trail mix, Sour Patch Kids, a bottle of melatonin sleep aid (which will be essential since I plan on gorging myself with candy every night before I go to bed for the next month)… and that is probably only about half. Needless to say, life here in Xebe just improved exponentially.

As for the actual trip, it was the longest I’ve been away from Xebe since I got here and it was nice to have some time to travel and see another side of Guatemala that I did not know. After finding delicious sushi in Antigua on my birthday, we headed up to a place called Lanquin where went on a tour of a cave that we had to swim into and carry candles above our heads for light. Our guide said that a couple years ago some Americans came down to see how far the cave goes and after three days and 11 kilometers they had to turn around, leaving the actual distance still unknown. There was another option for spelunking in the Lanquin area in a place simply referred to by English speakers and the Lanquin Bat Caves. Even though she made it through the first cave just fine, Little Edie doesn’t exactly like small spaces and seeing as I hate bats more than Kobe Bryant’s fist pump, we decided one cave was enough.

After that our tour van/truck took us to the main attraction in the Lanquin area: a freak natural phenomenon called Semuc Champey. It is pretty hard to describe without pictures or having been there but it is basically a place along a river where the river passes underground for about 300 meters and above it is a limestone bridge that has fresh, beautifully blue spring water cascading down it. (Since this is very difficult to describe, here and here are some pictures to give you a better idea of what I’m talking about.) I have no idea how this happened but it is a really great place and because of the difficulty it takes to get there, not overrun by tourists. Because of some tropical storms that caused landslides across the country, Peace Corps told me that I wasn’t allowed to travel for a few days which actually turned out to be good because we were able to go back to Semuc Champey two days later not with a tour and have the whole place to ourselves until the afternoon crowd got there.

Once we got the go-ahead from Peace Corps, we headed north towns the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. Even though it was about 90 degrees at 9AM, we lazily walked around the park and saw all of pyramids and monuments and even had enough time for lunch and some quality (and much needed) bench resting time. From there we went to a place on a lake next to the Caribbean called Rio Dulce. Aside from a minor bus incident where we missed our stop that luckily wasn’t a major bus incident, we made it there and went to another freak natural phenomenon called El Paraiso. Here there is a river that has a hot springs waterfall flowing into it. (Once again, hard to explain so here are some pictures). You can stand underneath the waterfall in river temperature water while getting shower-hot water pouring down on you. Since one of my favorite things to do is jump off of high things into bodies of water, I loved it. There was even a little part underneath the waterfall that you had to swim under a rock to get to that was sort of like a natural sauna. Other than a place called the Taco Mansion, this is probably my favorite place in Guatemala so far.

The next stop was a Caribbean beach-town only reachable by an hour and a half boat ride from Rio Dulce called Livingston. It’s a very strange place and is nothing like the Guatemala I live in. I was told ahead of time by a number of people that the beaches are dirty and littered, but I had no idea. Even though the “beach” is only a couple feet before it reaches a jungle tree line, it is so “littered” that you actually have to walk on top of garbage the almost whole time. The Oregonian in me was crying.

From there it was back to Antigua for the Guatemalan Independence Day. As I explained last year at this time, I’m not exactly a fan of the parade but the street food was good so I put up with it. Then, the next day the wonderful and lovely Jessica boarded her plane and left. I went with my backpack and duffel of goodies back to Santa Maria Chiquimula and here I am, writing on my new computer, drinking a new flavor of tea, and excited to finish this up and kick some zombie ass.

Inappropriate Wedding Songs

2010-08-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: Read the post below this one first)

So I wrote that bit below about list-making in a notebook in my room last night and then copied it onto the internet a few minutes ago only to log onto the Facebook network and see the my sister Maureen’s status to say: “random survey: please nominate your song choices for "songs not to be played at a wedding"... just curious what you can come up with... i'm pretty disappointed by the lists i'm finding online but i KNOW there are some terrible songs out there :)” Although I question her use of the smiley face thing (both in this case and always) and I’m assuming by “terrible” she means “terribly inappropriate for the occasion,” not just bad songs, I like the idea and it lends itself perfectly to my list-making fascination. Here’s what I came up with:

BOB DYLAN: Positively 4th Street, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, It Ain’t Me Babe, Like A Rolling Stone, Idiot Wind, or anything off of his Christmas album or Self Portrait.

NEIL YOUNG: F##kin’ Up

OUTKAST: Roses

PEARL JAM: Jeremy

ROLLING STONES: Satisfaction, Can’t Always Get What You Want

U2: With or Without You, Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, One

Anything by Biggie Smalls, Eminem, Lil’ Wayne, Elliott Smith, and especially the Wu-Tang Clan

Listing

2010-08-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

I like to make lists. They are simple, concise and follow a theme. I make lists all the time, in fact, I carry in my back left pocket at all times a small notebook and pen that I fill with random reminders, email addresses, thoughts/ideas, quotes, and perhaps most importantly, lists. I’ve been carrying these things around for years and the lists can vary from “To Do” lists, “People to Call/Email” lists to “Things to Buy” lists. They also tend to include lists of random things I think about that can be put into list format. Just the other day when I was cleaning some stuff out of my room I found a list I made when I first arrived in Xebe titled, “Things I might be able to do in the seemingly copious amount of free time I am about to have.” There were 14 items listed, three of which were, “Write (make lists),” “Wittle,” and “Sharpen knives for wittling.”

Despite my affinity for list-making, I was thinking the other day that there are a number of lists I haven’t made that I would be fascinated to see but it is too late to make them because I lost track of what I wanted to list. Then I started to think of all these other lists that are not too late to make and maybe someday I will elaborate on them and even turn them into blog posts, although that is pretty unlikely. So, without further ado, a list of lists that never were or someday will be:

1. List of how many “Chicken Buses” I’ve been on and for how many hours/days total.
2. List of all of the books I’ve read.
3. List of all of the movies I’ve seen. (On my lap top, of course, because the list of movies I’ve seen in the theaters would be a list of one: Inception. Which was mind blowing, by the way.)
4. List of reasons why it’s a bad idea to eat a chicaron papusa—corn tortilla with bits of pig skin stuffed inside and (probably unwashed) cabbage on top—from a lady selling them out of a dirty food cart on the side of the road.
5. List of what happens to your body when you eat said chicaron papusa.
6. List of medieval tortures I would voluntarily subject myself to instead of having #5 happen to me again.
7. List of pies that I miss and list of socially and morally reprehensible things I would do to obtain one, especially Granny’s Life Altering Strawberry Rhubarb Miracle Pie (yes, it deserves to be capitalized and copy written) which she had been perfecting for about 90 years now.
8. List of reasons why it is a bad idea to volunteer to ref a Guatemalan girls’ basketball game, or as I like to call it, Dr. James Naismith’s worst nightmare.
9. List of reasons why Peace Corps should allow us to own/drive/ride motorcycles and other rule changes that would make my life so much easier.
10. List of the effects of 500 years of oppression, racism, and gender discrimination.
11. List of the effects of 500 years of not having ever produced even a semblance of a counter-culture.
12. List of excuses for not blogging more often.
13. List of ways I’ve rationalized how often I bathe, or rather, don’t bathe.

One Year and Counting

2010-08-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

As you probably haven't been noticing, it has been a while since I've written anything here. I have a whole slew of excuses and I even once thought of writing an entire post of excuses for why I haven't written anything for months. Since I still have over a year left here, that is still a likely possibility.

However, I do have one legitimate excuse. Usually I write out what I want to put up here on my computer so I can start it and come back to it and also so I don’t have to pay to write it at the internet café. But, a couple months ago my computer stopped turning on and it doesn’t look like it ever will again. Then when my parents came they brought me an old laptop that they weren’t using but it doesn’t seem to accept my memory drive so all of the stuff I have written on it I can’t get off.

The thing is, I have written all kinds of stuff to put up here on that computer but I have no way of posting it. As I said, my parents came and I wrote up something about their trip that sort of just turned into a list of reasons why I think I was adopted, I wrote a five page diatribe about all of my problems with soccer during the World Cup complete with footnotes and references (honestly, I really did), and my cousin Conor also came to visit me recently and I wrote about that trip as well. Alas, none of it is here. Instead you have to read this, sorry. (SIDENOTE: For all of the problems I have with soccer and soccer fans, the World Cup was awesome. Just thought that needed to be said.)

Anyways, I just wanted to stop in and say that I am still alive and doing well. Actually, I just remembered as I was typing this that yesterday was my one year anniversary in Guatemala which just happened to coincide with me eating my first ever bull testicle. I could elaborate on that but I don’t think I will; let’s just leave it at that. Also, I wanted to post the article that my dad wrote about his trip here for The Oregonian. I posted it on Facebook and all of my friends have been telling me how awesome they thought it was and one girl even wrote, ‘Yo dad is da bomb! Awesome article!’ I’m sure he will be glad to hear that since I’m positive being described as ‘da bomb’ is on my father’s bucket list. So, you can cross that one off, Dad. Next up: bull testicle.

Here's the link:
http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2010/08/guatemala_some_parents_had_the.html

Guatemala in Paperback

2010-04-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about writing my own Guatemalan/Totonicapán/Santa María Chiquimula/Xebe travelers guide book. Something like, A Dummies Guide to Guatemala. However, the only part I have so far are the bullet points that will be on the back cover that are always followed by exclamation points(!) As a lame attempt to inspire people to come visit me, some of these won’t be understood unless you have been here to learn them for yourself. Tempting, huh? Here’s what I’ve got so far:

• Learn what it’s like to be a tall person in a short person’s country! Also, the best remedies for leg cramps and head bumps!
• Learn how to eat using a corn tortilla as your only utensil!
• Pay 1/8 of a dollar for a bus ride that would cost a $100 entrance fee at an amusement park in the U.S.!
• Get “Fijese qued!”
• Learn first hand how depressing life is without basketball!
• See awesome T-shirts worn by tough- guy Guatemalans oblivious to their English message that say things like, “Softball: A Game Invented by Man, Perfected By Woman!”
• Learn how to cover up for your bad cooking by smothering your food in hot sauce!
• Learn how to ride in the back of a pickup truck on a bumpy rode without getting ass bruise!
• Learn how to ask questions you already know the answer to just to keep the conversation going and avoid awkward moments!
• Learn what traje goggles are!
• Learn deep breathing relaxation techniques for when the same song that you passionately hate comes on the fifth time in a one hour bus ride!
• Learn why I giggle every time I hear the plural of the word “chapin” and why Guatemalans don’t get it!
• Learn how to act like nothing is out of the ordinary when a 45 year- old woman is nursing a 6 year- old kid and having a conversation with you at the same time!

Also, I will title this book, The Times They Aren’t A-Changin.’

Feeling Lost In Translation

2010-02-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been so long since I’ve done anything here, I tried to cheat and put up a video (a lot easier than writing something out) but it didn’t work. Things are slowly picking up around here; I started working at a school close to me doing a garden and compost project and I am going to start soon at another school, maybe two. I am also teaching an hour of English at one of the schools which I have mixed feelings about (I’m sure they have other things they could be learning that are more important) but whatever, the teachers kept bothering me about it so I guess they really want it.

My task of making these kids trilingual is accompanied by my own quest to become quad lingual (English, Spanish, K’iche’ and Basketball). I am taking K’iche’ classes twice a week for two hours from a guy in town named Rafael, who is a teacher in one of the communities. Slowly, I am catching on and learning how to make the q’ sound and differentiate it from the q, k, and k' sounds. Sometimes I wish I were filming these classes so in 10 years I could watch them and laugh my ass off seeing myself trying to pronounce q’oxom (pain) or kaqak’ayij (we sell). Sometimes after my tenth failed attempt at trying to pronounce a word, there will be a second of silence, Rafael will give me a look that can only be described as, “nope,” and then we will both start cracking up laughing. This happens often. I am making progress, however. It is not as if I don’t have anyone to practice it with. Sometimes I will try to impress people with a Tarzan-like sentence like, “Stephen see tree” or “Stephen happy.” Mostly the people here love it and eat it up like I’m a two year old saying my first words. (“Did you hear what the white kid just said? He said, ‘He see tree!’ We’re so proud of you! Do you know any other tricks?”) I now greet people in K’iche’ when I pass them, especially the older women who usually don’t speak Spanish, which nine times out of ten gets a stunned reaction best described as, “what the hell did that idiot white guy just say to me?”

The other day I was thinking about when I was in Mexico and occasionally someone—like a waiter or bank teller—would speak English and it was awesome and made my life so much easier. I remember walking in to somewhere and thinking, “Please God, let this person speak English, I have no idea how to do bank transactions in Spanish.” Now, this has changed to “Please God, let this person speak Spanish, I’m not in the mood for trying to sign language, ‘How much does this cost.’” Although my Spanish is doing alright these days, I think it just seems alright because they don’t speak the best or most fluent Spanish here. Sometimes when I go to a bigger city or watch TV or something I have a hard time understanding and it throws me off because I do just fine here in my site. Not only does the simple Spanish benefit me in that I can understand people, but people also think that I speak much better than I actually do. I was talking to an old man for a while and he asked me if I was from Spain. I couldn’t believe it, Spain? Really? I sound like Joe Namath talking to Suzy Kolber on the sideline of a Jets MNF game. Spain? After talking to another guy for a couple minutes he asked me if I was Guatemalan. I thought he was joking and started laughing. I looked back at him and immediately realized he wasn’t joking at all. This led to a very awkward moment. When I went to work at the school for the first time the teacher introduced me by saying, “This is Esteban, he’s not Guatemalan but he is going to be working with us.” Once again thinking this was a joke about how I am clearly not Guatemalan, I chuckled a little bit. He stopped talking and the whole class went silent wondering what I was laughing about. I fake coughed. That only made it worse.

My theory on this has nothing to do with my Spanish improving, because, it is still at times quite suspect. I think because the people here speak basic Spanish they hear me talk and don’t think, “This guy sounds like an idiot, I wonder what he thinks he’s saying” but rather they hear me speak and think, “Huh, this guy talks kinda funny. Judging by that and the fact that he is two feet taller than me, he must not be from these parts.”

The ironic thing about all of this is that there is not a word in Spanish for “awkward.” It’s really unfortunate because that would describe about 78% of the conversations I have here with people when we are both speaking in our second language and have nothing in common. The closest thing they have is incòmodo, which means uncomfortable. If you could see these conversations I am referring to, you would agree, “uncomfortable” isn’t coming close to doing it justice.

One of my favorite things that people do here in terms of our language barrier is when I am talking to someone and then after I respond, two people, usually women or kids, will whisper something to each other in K’iche’ so I can’t hear. Ummm, news flash: I DON”T SPEAK K’ICHE’! You could yell it into a bullhorn two inches from my face and I still would have no idea what the hell you’re saying. It baffles me every time.

About a week ago I was walking home and I ran into a nice older lady whom Don Juan and I once visited and who gave us coffee and bread when we got to her house. Maybe she was confused from that day when I thanked her and said goodbye in K’iche’ because when I saw her she stopped me and started speaking to me in K’iche.’ At first I wasn’t sure if she was just having some fun with me but it soon became clear that she was actually trying to have a conversation with me and as far as I could tell didn’t speak a word of Spanish. The conversation went something like this:

Lady: K’iche’ K’iche’ K’iche’ K’iche’ K’iche’ (Looks at me waiting for my response)
Me: Ummmmmm. (Pause) Ummmmm. (Pause) Qué?
Lady: K’iche’ K’iche’ K’iche’ K’iche’ K’iche’
Me: (with a look on my face like, well, like someone is speaking to me in K’iche’) Ummmmmm. Ooooook.

Then, I understood that she said something about ADESMA, the organization that I am partnered with here. In Spanish I said yes, I do indeed work for ADESMA. She looked at me with what I imagine was the same face I was just making. I then remembered that I kind of maybe might know how to say, “I work for ADESMA” in K’iche.’ I was sure even if I could get it out, this would not further the conversation in the slightest, but what the hell, I decided to go for it. I could picture the page in my notebook that had the verb “to work” and it conjugated in the first person. I said something, not knowing if it was even close to correct. The lady looked at me pleased and I thought, “Wow, that must have been it, she looks like she really understood that.” After wrapping up the strangest “conversation” I’ve ever had, I got home and looked in my notebook to see if I had said it right. Not even close. I have no idea what I said, if it was anything but nonsense I’d be amazed. Looking back on it, the weirdest part was the lady’s reaction. I swear, she looked at me like she knew exactly what I said. The next day I asked Rafael how to say, “I don’t speak K’iche’”: Kinch’awtaj pacha’bal. Great, just great.

Pictures That Are Better Than Mine

2010-01-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

In December my beautiful and wonderful girlfriend Jessica made the long and arduous trip down here to visit me. Perhaps just to show off and prove how bad I am at putting things up online about my Guatemalan life, she immediately put up all of her pictures on picassa and it puts what I have posted on my picassa in the last five months to shame. Anyways, she asked me to share the link with whoever I thought would like it and I figured posting it here would be easier than making a mailing list and then accidentally leaving a bunch of people out. So if you are interested in looking at some pictures that are better and more plentiful than anything I’ve shown you, go for it.

As for her visit, we both had a great time, despite a couple missteps such as lost luggage and (magically?) stolen wallets. Since I am still in the first three months of my actual service, Peace Corps doesn’t allow me to take vacation days, even though the organization I work for is on vacation and I have nothing to do. I’ll leave it at that. So, we stuck around Xebe and Santa Maria Chiquimula during the week and took off the two weekends she was here. In addition to her company, she also brought me delicious food that I have been missing greatly (BEEF JERKY!!!), some Christmas presents, and a duffel bag of books. I sent my mom and email asking for about five books that I was interested in reading down here and what I got was about half of Powell’s inventory. Maybe I’ll turn this blog into a series of book reviews since I’m clearly not using it for anything else.

Also, congratulations to Maureen and Tony on their engagement... even if he is from Texas. My thoughts on this as they have developed over the last couple weeks:

… Although I disapprove of a Longhorns themed wedding, just don’t make me wear a tux.
…I’m bringing my machete with me to the wedding and perhaps a Guatemalan boy to carry it. No ifs, ands, or buts.
…You’re both probably getting ponchos, fake mustaches, and two bottles of tequila for your wedding gift. Tony, your welcome; Maureen, deal with it.
…I think your first dance should be to all 11 minutes and 20 seconds of “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Come on, it’d be hilarious.
…I’m excited for Tony to join the family mostly for his vote for watching football over “It’s A Wonderful Life” on Thanksgiving. It’s good having you in the winning corner.
…Is there any way that I can have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever in this wedding and its execution? Thanks, that’d be great.

One last thing, remember back before youtube when people would just send funny chain email jokes instead of funny video links? Once I got this one that ended with this joke and it was funny at the time but it is now much more applicable to my current situation, so I thought I’d share it:

At every family wedding, my aunts and older relatives always used to come up to me and pinch my cheeks and cheerfully tell me, “You’re next!” However, they stopped when I started doing the same to them at funerals.

…Moral of the story: please refrain from the whole, “You’re next” or “You’re the last one left” joke. I assure you, it’s not funny.

For Nanny:

2009-12-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

This last Wednesday I was in my room getting ready for bed and Don David, the guy I’m living with, and his family had not yet gotten back from their Wednesday church service. If you read what I wrote about going to this service, then you know it wasn’t much of a surprise. Just as I was about to go to bed he called me to tell me that his niece had gotten sick and died and he and the family were staying the night at his brother-in-law’s house with the family. Until the next day when I talked to his dad, Don Juan, that was all I knew. Don Juan told me that she was only 19 years old, got sick and died Wednesday afternoon. No one I asked knew what she had, they just said she got sick. I guess they didn’t think it was that serious.

On Thursday I was invited to go to the service, which I felt a little uncomfortable about but figured if they invited me then it was OK and that I probably should go if invited. It was in the house of the family and about half the town, it seemed, packed themselves in for the approximately three hours. The casket laid in the middle of a small adobe room with the family, church leaders, neighbors, and close friends all crowded in. I was outside with Don Juan looking in and throughout the service he would lean over and ask me a question about the funeral ceremonies in the States, like if we use caskets and bury the dead as well, if there is a song that they play at every funeral, or if the family stays with the body all night between the funeral and the burial the next day, as is the custom here.

After it ended Don Juan asked me if I wanted to go into the room with him and sit there for a while. I felt even more uncomfortable about this but nonetheless obliged. The casket had a half door with glass window underneath and inside was the body covered in full length by a sheet. We sat for a while greeted some people and then left. The two of us walked home that night in the dark (which no one does here) and Don Juan started telling me about when his dad died and how he had to take care of his younger siblings and how he remembers feeling like the dad of the girl that we saw crying over the casket that night.

On Friday, Don Juan, who I work with a lot and visit the communities with most days, and I needed to go visit the women’s group that is the furthest away and the pickups only run on some days. Friday is not one of them. We woke up early and left at six for what would be a two-hour walk one way. Along the way we chatted some more about the differences between funerals in America and funerals in Guatemala and I explained to the idea of cremation to him. I think it settled better with him than it did with his son the next day who looked absolutely disgusted when I explained how some people have their dead bodies burned and then the families can either keep them in a jug in their houses (I didn’t know the word for urn in Spanish if there was one, however, just looked it up: “urna”). I also asked Don Juan along the way if he thinks I am the first white person to ever walk this trail between Xebe and Chuacorral II. He thought about it and said yes. I felt pretty good about that.

When we got there we hung out for a while and waited for the group to get there. I originally thought we were going to do something with them but it turns out all we needed was a signature from the woman in charge of the group and then we were ready to head back. Having plenty of time, we decided to take it slow on the way back. We got to a point where the road forks with the trail that we take to get back and Don Juan started telling me about how every time he gets to this spot he thinks about the day his dad died. He had briefly told me about it the night before, but he started telling me all about how he was 23 years old and working in Chuacorral II and asked permission to leave early to visit his dad on his deathbed. The whole way back all he was thinking about was his dad and how he needed to get back to see him before he died and hoping that his siblings were already there. He was so preoccupied with getting home that it didn’t register with him until later that he seen two perfectly white cows grazing at the fork in the road. It later occurred to him that he had seen them, but never had there ever been cows there before and never again after (and having been there I can say, no one has cows there, it isn’t exactly grazing terrain). He got back in time but none of his brothers or sisters made it. He sat at his dad’s side and talked to him until he passed away. He believed the cows to be some sort of image or message from God and said he truly believed that they were there. It was a very profound story that I really had no response to. He then started telling me the story of his mother’s death, which was a couple years before his father’s and then about how he too had a daughter that got sick and died when she was only five and sometimes he thinks about if she were still alive and seeing the father cry over his daughter's casket the night before was something he related to all to well. Once again, I was at a loss for words but I could tell he wasn’t expecting me to say much or anything at all. We then got to the little creek at the bottom of the valley that means we had gone all the way down and now needed to cross it and climb back up the other side. Don Juan brought a small packet of soap with him and we rested on the bank and washed our hair in the creek. We climbed back up towards Xebe in time to get to the lunch and then burial of the girl. They put the casket in the back of a pickup with the family and the rest of us crammed into one of the 10 pickups following behind and left Xebe and headed to the cemetery in Santa Maria.

Having thought enough about death in the past couple days to last me a year or two, I then talked with my parents on Saturday and they told me that Evie Masterson, better known simply as “Nanny,” had passed away on Friday. Anyone that knows me even a little knows how much 10th Avenue means to me and everyone that has been a part of it, and Nanny was a big part of that. She was the Grandma of 10th, and always will be. After personally seeing a Guatemalan funeral and burial, answering so many questions about what those ceremonies are like in America, I’ve had plenty of time to think about all of the different shapes that death takes: whether it be a 19 year old Guatemalan girl who was healthy just a couple days ago, the five year old daughter of Don Juan or his dad who almost died alone, or an 89 year-old Irish woman in Portland, Oregon. Of course, the not so profound and inevitable conclusion that I came to after my week of thinking about this stuff and that anyone who thinks about death will usually comes to, was not to think about the shapes that death takes but the shapes that life take. This is, I assume, how Don Juan could talk so openly with me about his parents and daughter, as sad and crushing as their deaths were, their lives mattered more. I know this is nothing new, but maybe sometimes it feels like it is.

Although I didn’t have a strange vision or a profound story to tell about Nanny’s passing and unfortunately will not be at her funeral, there are many things I do have. I will never forget going over to Nanny and Papa’s house and hearing the word “lad” used more times in one sentence then I ever thought was possible. I will always remember throwing back Tic-Tacs with Nanny and pretending they were prescription medicine so we could get “silly” together. Or the JFK picture that hung on her wall, or the talking pet monkeys she bought off the infomercial that secretly creeped most everyone out, or coming home from college for Christmas break and going to the Lebwhol’s finding Nanny in her chair already having a Christmas present for me. It is these things that will make her absence that much harder, but all of these things that made her presence so important. You will be missed Nanny.

How Do You Say “Chuck Norris” In K´iché?

2009-11-22T11:54:00.000-08:00

I suppose now is the time that you can just about start expecting less and less posts as the days go by. (If you haven´t already noticed). I have settled in to my home here in Xebe and I imagine now the banality of ordinary life will take over and if I force myself to write it will be stuff like: “6:45: Woke up, ate breakfast. Had tortillas and eggs. 12:45: Ate lunch. Had tortillas and rice. 6:00: Ate dinner. Had tortillas and beans.” Or gems such as “Today I learned the word in K’iché for table. I can’t pronounce it.” Speaking of the language K’iché, (1) here are some phrases I found in the back my Guatemala guidebook for anyone looking for a crash course in K’iché:

Good morning: Xsaqarik
Good afternoon: Xe’q’ij
Good evening/night: Xokaq’ab’
Where is the bathroom: Jawi’ k’o le b’anib’alchulaj?
I’m from…: Ch’qap ja’kin pewi…

My spell check just had a heart attack. As badly as I’m sure I’m butchering it, I can’t tell whether or not my pronunciation of K’iché words is more off than their pronunciation of the Englsh words I have been teaching them. The words they don’t seem to have a problem with are (I swear I’m being serious here): Chuck Norris, John Cena, and the F-word. (2) That’s about it. I’ve been asked who the president of the United States is and if there are people living on the moon (once again, not making this up), but never if Chuck Norris can kick some serious ass. (3) I also watched the first half (4) of the first “Chucky” (until the disc started skipping) in a room of people among whom about eight were indigenous women in traditional garb. They liked it most when Chucky killed people. They kept looking at me when this happened to judge my reaction; I would describe it as “baffled.” I decided to take absolutely nothing away from this experience since I was confused for about two days afterwards. Some things shouldn’t be read into I decided. (5)

When not answering questions about if John Cena is a real person or not, I actually have been doing some work. Mostly just going around to the communities and meeting people and checking out what their situations are like. I’m hoping soon we can start on some projects with the groups, but from talking to other volunteers, actually doing concrete work takes some time down here so I’m trying to be patient. So, if I stop writing for a little while, it likely means that I haven’t been doing much worth writing about or that I got sucked into watching “Chucky II.”

1. I recently was told that “Quiché” is spelled with a q when referring to the people and the region and is spelled “K’iché” when referring to the language. Pronunciation the same.
2. They mostly don’t know what it means though, the F-word that is.
3. I watched a Chuck Norris movie one of the first days I was here and they fast-forwarded all of the talking scenes and completely failed to see the same humor in the action scenes that I did. They were confused why I was laughing when Ol’ Chuck’s motorcycle shot rockets out of it to give the coup de grâce to the main bad guy. Afterwards I was asked if this was just a movie or a true story. I’ve never felt like lying more in my life. I think the saddest part of it all, however, was that I’m pretty sure I had seen this particular Chuck Norris flick before.
4. Minus the talking parts
5. Despite the undeniable fact that I have written most of what is here about watching movies, I promise these are the only two I have seen here, in Xebe that is. Actually, they are the only two operating TVs I have seen here.

Finding Out What "Rustico" Means

2009-10-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

I started writing something about the visit to my new site and how it went and what everything was like and all that stuff but then I realized the vague details were incredibly boring and even my umpteenth machete joke couldn’t resurrect it. So instead I will give you a short overview (and pictures!) of everything and a long description of one thing.

Short Overview (and pictures!) of Everything:
As I said last time, my new site is in a place called Xebé (Chay-bay) and it is just outside of Santa Maria Chiquimula (Chick-e-mula). To get to Xebé I need to ride in the back of a pick-up truck with about 20 other people the about eight kilometers from Santa Maria. The truck drops me off for roughly a ¾ mile walk to my house past mud-brick houses, barking dogs, and very confused indigenous people.

The family I will be living with is the family of Don David Chacoj who works for the same organization, ADESMA, for which I will be working. He has three kids and a wife, a brother and his family living about 20 feet up the hill, his mom and dad living another 20 feet up, and sister completing the circle just off to the north, all within shouting distance. He and the whole family are really excited to have me there and watch my every moment to make sure I’m comfortable. The whole town, and pretty much the entire department, speaks Quiché, especially in their houses among family. So, for the most part they kindly spoke in Spanish when I was around as much as they could and I taught them how to say things in English and they laughed at me when I tried to say things in Quiché. It’s ok though; I’m going to have to get used it.

My work will be going around to different communities and helping them (mostly the women as the men usually go off and work in the countryside) with their family gardening projects, composting, and organic solutions to some of the problems they’re having so they don’t have to buy expensive and unhealthy chemical pesticides or fertilizers. A number of secondary project ideas came up throughout the few days I was there so I should be able to stay busy.

The area itself is a pine tree, mountainous region with houses and towns speckled all over. The people are all really kind and it seems to be a very safe place where everyone has known everyone their whole lives. Check out the pictures! for what my room and house are like. Sal, the guy in charge of the agriculture program and in charge of placing people, described my site and dwelling as “rustico.” I’ll let you label it what you want.

Long Description of One Thing:
On Wednesday Don David invited me to go to church with the family. The family and the majority of the town is Evangelical. Although I had not yet been to an Evangelical service here I have heard plenty of them walking down the streets or just hearing them going late into the night from my bedroom. The first time the church by my house had one Don Raul and Doña Olivia told me that I wasn’t going to sleep that night. They were right. One of the volunteers we visited during training said that living next to an Evangelical church has been her biggest challenge over the last two years. Basically, what I’m getting at is that they are loud, very loud.

When I showed up to the church the reaction was eerily similar to when the gang from “Animal House” showed up at the roadside bar to see Otis Day and the Nights. The moment I walked in was probably the quietest it got all night. Everyone wanted to see the white guy that was a foot taller than the next tallest person so much that kids were running from the far end of the church and standing on pews to stare at me. One little girl exactly in the dead center of the church stood up on her pew and pointed at me for a good ten seconds with her head cocked and a very confused look on her face. On the stage (it was more of a stage than an altar), was a band and on both sides were two sets of GIANT speakers blasting the music. On one side behind the speakers was a guy playing bass but I could only see the neck of his instrument and therefore he couldn’t see me either. Not to worry, as I was taking my seat another little girl ran up to him, tugged violently on his pant leg and pulled him out behind the speakers so he could see me and give me the same baffled look everyone else was giving me. The first hour or so was about like what I would imagine a Bruce Springsteen concert being like. Actually, I think the best way describe the guy leading the music would be the Guatemalan Bruce Springsteen. (That’s right, he exists.) They played a couple songs that everyone was getting into and then after one of them, everyone, without cue, left their pews to go and stand at the base of the stage/altar. Apparently we needed to get even closer to the giant blaring speakers. We went up there for a song that would have put Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gatta-Da-Vida” on repeat five times to shame. (During this marathon song I was contemplating what would inspire someone to write a song as long as this or “In-A-Gatta-Da-Vita.” I came up with only two theories: god and LSD).

As the song hit its 17th and final outro, people started moaning really loudly, some fell to their knees and held back tears and others yelled out in things Quiché (I have no idea what they were saying). Meanwhile, as chaos was breaking out all around me, I very awkwardly stood there and clapped with the beat. (The song was so long that I actually got a hand cramp from clapping the whole time. Since everyone was watching my every movement I tried not to let it show.) After the things had calmed down a little, we went back to our seats and the aforementioned bass player got up to the microphone and started speaking in Quiché. Next thing I know the entire congregation is laughing and staring at me. I still don’t know what he said about me but I hope it was that I did a great job keeping the beat for the past hour. Next, the preacher went into a sermon that was somehow, unbelievably even louder than the music. The majority was in Quiché so I couldn’t understand it but he did start it out in Spanish by personally welcoming me to the community. After that he yelled for about an hour and a half. I really needed subtitles. This was followed by another really long song where we once again gathered around the speakers, clapped and wailed and then went back to our seats. Finally, Don David got up there to give the final announcements and I was once again welcomed into the community. At least I think so, at this point I think my ears were bleeding a little and I felt like I had spent the last five hours in the front row of a Metalica concert. We got to the church around five thirty and left at eight thirty. All in a day’s work.

Totonicapan

2009-10-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone. On Thursday we finally found out our sites for the next two years and then I wrote something to put up here but never did and now I don't have my thumb drive. So this will have to be short because I am about to go visit the site from today until Sunday. I will have more to say when I get back.

Anyways, my site is in the department of Totonicapan and I am outside of the town Santa Maria Chiquimula in a place called Xebe. It is an Indigenous community of the Quiche ethnicity and 75% speak the Quiche language and 25% speak Spanish. I think it is safe to assume that 0% speak English. It all sounds really good so far and yesterday two women from my counterpart agency came to Santa Lucia and I got to meet them and ask them all kinds of questions. It sounds like they are excited to have me and I'm exicted to go. In a couple hours the three of us are heading off by bus to Totonicapan. I'll fill you all in on how it goes.

New Photos

2009-10-01T17:26:00.001-07:00

Hey, I scraped that last photo sharing page and started a new one. Check it out if you want. http://picasaweb.google.com/stephenjcoliver/Guatemala#

Hip Hip Parade

2009-09-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

I write the following not to demean an aspect of Guatemalan, American or really any other culture, rather, I write this because I don’t like parades. I’ll explain. September 15th is Independence Day here in Guatemala, which I was excited to be here for. Everyday since we have been here we have been welcomed to the sound of drumming and other marching band type music, usually coming from schools, and it was explained to us that they are practicing for the 15th. Apparently they start practicing about two months ahead of time for this one day for hours on end. (1) So this morning I ventured down from my fortress on the hill and into town to watch the Independence Day parade that snaked around in a loop through San Bartolome’s approximately 12 streets. There were students from different schools in the area, some of them played music, some were in costumes, and some just walked. There were a few people on horses or in carriages, a couple of hoodlums riding bikes, and the mayor and some of her staff. It took about 45 minutes for the parade to repeat itself at which time I decided that once was plenty for me and headed to the plaza for snacks and to meet up with friends. During the time I was watching what seemed like all 7,000 occupants of San Bartolome, I began contemplating the idea of a parade. I get the idea, it’s just the execution I have a problem with. In theory, all of these kids get to walk around town and have their families wave at them as they pass and maybe give them a drink or take a picture if they have a camera. I’m sure they enjoy that. I also get the idea of civic pride, and in this case, national pride; I think such activities are a sign of a healthy culture and citizenry. Don’t get me wrong, these things are great, but I can’t help but think that we can come up with something better than the parade.

Many people may find this blasphemous seeing as I come from Portland and grew up less than a mile from the Rose Festival Parade route. But this is just something I’ve been holding inside for too long: I have never liked the Rose Festival Parade. Another girl in my group named Erin is from Beaverton and today we were talking about the Rose Festival Parade and she said that she remembers going but mostly just drawing with sidewalk chalk and buying worthless trinkets from the venders but she doesn’t really remember the parade. EXACTLY! The parade itself was the least exciting part of it all! I remember these things too. I also remember that everyone talked about it for two months ahead of time, it was always in the newspaper and on the news, the local high schools had their annual popularity contest, and, how did all of this culminate? We had to stand behind four rows of people and try to see old men wearing funny suits and wielding swords that they inexplicably never used, 30 high school bands all playing “Louie Louie,” and psychedelic, oversized cars erroneously called “floats” driving by at 2mph. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, (pun absolutely intended) but I just never got the human fascination with parades. I mean, I didn’t even like them when I was a kid when I was their target audience.

Today as I watched the same banners go around in circles I couldn’t help but think that we can come up with something better than this. I feel like parades are like health care in America, it’s clearly a broken system but we’ve been going with it for so long and it is such a staple in or society that any thought of change is met with a slew of criticism. Can we please have a healthy debate about rethinking the parade? Of course, my solution is to just avoid them, but I would love to have some form of civic pride that I was actually proud of. If instead of the Rose Festival Parade we had the Rose Festival Air Guitar Competition I would absolutely go. How about the Rose Festival Voodoo Doughnuts Eating Competition? (2) I dare you to put your hand on the Bible and say that you wouldn’t go to the Rose Festival Running of the Elk and tell me what wouldn’t work about the Rose Festival Throw Rotten Vegetables At Hipsters. These are just a few of my stellar alternative ideas, I have more but I don’t think we would be able to come up with enough parachutes or chimpanzees.

Maybe I’m alone on this one, maybe I’m completely off base here. Maybe everyone else loves parades and my suggesting otherwise is kicking out their entire livelihood from underneath them. If that is the case, then I apologize. But, if I’m not alone, if there are others out there who have heard the all brass version of “Louie Louie” a few too many times, then join me. Speak out, let the world know: we put a man on the moon, we’ve been to the bottom of the ocean and the top of Everest, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel and Bob Dylan recorded “Bringing it All Back Home,” for god’s sake we should be able come up with something better than the parade.

1. I’m sure this won’t be the last you will question the merits of the Guatemalan school system while reading this blog.
2. Might not work after the first couple people die of heart attacks, but I’m just trying to get the ball rolling here.

List #1

2009-09-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: I just posted two posts at the same time so read the one below this one first. Also, I couln´t figure out how to make the footnotes work on the first one so I had to improvise. Enjoy.)

The following is a list of things I am allowed to do and/or complain about when I get back. I have feeling this is going to turn into running segment.

1. In two years when I get back no one can say anything when I spend all day Saturday and all day Sunday watching football. I’m about to miss my second consecutive football season which will be followed by the third and fourth while I’m down here. I’m just warning everyone right now, when I’m back, I’m busy on Saturdays and Sundays from September through January. No exceptions.

2. Nobody can say anything when I get back and can’t speak English. In the little time I have here to speak English with friends, I have noticed what can only be described as a late onset speech impediment from lack of English speaking. This is perfect, because now I can’t speak either language. So if I sound like Emmitt Smith when I get back, cut me a little slack.

3. Basketball. I’m going to watch a lot of basketball when I get back. NBA, NCAA, And-1 mix tapes, YouTube clips; hell, I might even dabble in a little WNBA if it still exists and I feel the overwhelming urge to watch missed layups.

4. I have promised myself that I will not come back with a beard and a pony-tail complaining about the lack of American values and culture while being on a constant soap-box about why Latin America is superior to the Western world, how capitalism is the root of all evil, how much English sucks as a language, claiming soccer is the best sport invented because it is the most “international,” while wearing woven ponchos and pants with sandals. The world has enough of that guy already. So, when I get back I’m allowed to talk about how much that guy sucks.

5. I’m allowed to not trust the police even less than I already do since yesterday the former director of the Guatemalan national police was arrested for stealing US$300 million while the rest of the country lives on a dollar a day and few people seemed to be even slightly surprised or perturbed.

6. All of my nieces and nephews need to pretend they’re two years younger than they are when I get back. At least for a couple weeks while I adjust to them speaking better English than me. One caveat, Elizabeth is allowed to not poop herself every time I hold her, I’ll still be able to get the idea.

7. I’m allowed to carry a machete with me to what would be, by American standards, “a socially unacceptable place to be carrying a machete.” My machete will also have a name and no one is allowed to call it anything but that name. (Ok, I’ll allow “Your Highness” or “El Niño.”)

Stay posted, I´ll think of more.

Hello Again

2009-09-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Hello from Guatemala! For all of you that have been checking this site daily for the past eight months in hopes of new updates or for those of you who have this as your homepage, your persistence has finally paid off. I’ve moved Southward one country from my last soirée in Mexico which is all part of my master plan to one day have complete and total world domination; I’m imagining it being about as fun and challenging as a game of Risk. Once I have the throngs of Latin Americans (soon to be Latin Vespuchians) chanting my name in the streets there is no telling where I could go from there.(1)

After about a week of being down here I wrote something to put up here on the blog but never did for a couple of reasons. One was that a significant portion of it had to do with the lyrics of “Ice, Ice Baby” that I’m not sure would be funny for anyone other than yours truly, and a couple mildly profane jokes about bowel movements that I eventually opted out of.(2) So, I decided to copy and paste a little and come up with something slightly different while still being too lazy to completely re-write the whole thing. I apologize for any stray Vanilla Ice reference that didn’t make it’s way to the cutting room floor.

Now, getting to the stuff you actually want to know… After a couple fun, action packed days with my Mom, my cousin Conor, and my Uncle Liam in Washington D.C., I took off for Guatemala and arrived here on Wednesday. For the first three nights I stayed with two other volunteers at a family’s house in Santa Lucia Milpas Altas. They had two boys, ages 13 and 6, and we had a great time teaching them card games, playing basketball in the park, and eating their mother’s delicious food. They were all especially kind and they invited us back to stay any time we want, which I am likely to take them up on.(3)

After that we were split up into groups of four or five depending on what projects we are working in and our Spanish level and sent off to different towns surrounding Santa Lucia. I ended up in the town of San Bartolome with three other girls also working in agriculture even though I’m pretty sure they all speak better Spanish than I do. So that’s where I am now, in the house of Don Raul and Doña Olivia on a hill above San Bartolome. They live on a plot of land with about four houses all occupied by one or another member of Doña Olivia’s family. It is a really awesome place that the pictures I took will do more justice than how I can describe it here.(4) They have all kinds of animals: chickens, roosters, pigs, bulls, rabbits, ducks; and all kinds of plants: corn, a ton of avocado trees, lime trees, roses, oregano, other spices I can’t remember, and a bunch of other stuff. It is also surrounded by mountains so the view is awesome too. The family has two daughters named Carmen and Carla, ages six and one and a half, respectively. Carla cannot yet talk but has yet to stop starring at me (5) and Carmen invited me to watch “El Libro de la Selva” with her followed by “Edad de Hielo III ” which gladly I did.(6)

One thing I immediately noticed and should mention to clear up any confusion people might have since this is the same space I used to describe my time in Mexico: Guatemala is VERY different from Mexico. It hasn’t taken me long to figure out that one of the only things they have in common is their language and the way they look at me when I try to explain something in that language. First, there is the issue of how Mexicans and Guatemalans, umm, how shall I put this… they don’t really like each other.(7) Also, and perhaps more importantly: their tortillas are different. I think this may be the source of their problems and how I plan on uniting Latin America the same way Bagheera and Baloo put aside their pervasive differences and united to lead Mowgli out of the Jungle and into civilization in “El Libro de Selva.” If they can’t agree on tortillas, what chances do they have with anything else? I know this isn’t exactly in my job description but then again, neither is world domination, so, ya know, I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, and one final thing. According to page 65 of the Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook: “Any website maintained by a volunteer during his or her Peace Corps service must reflect that it is neither an official publication of the Peace Corps nor of the U.S. government. The site must prominently display an appropriate disclaimer such as: ‘The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.’” I am not entirely sure who among my five readers would mistake inane references to “The Jungle Book” and Vanilla Ice as an official publication of the U.S. government, but you’ve been forewarned: Stephen Oliver speaks for Stephen Oliver and Stephen Oliver only.(8)

(I just re-read what I wrote above. The first draft with bowel movement jokes was much funnier. Sorry.)

1 Most likely the International Criminal Court
2 Those, however, would have been funny for about five people.
3 Did I mention the delicious food?
4 I’m working on putting up a photo sharing website, www.dropshots.com/sjcoliver, but I haven’t had a whole lot of success yet. (You’ll see what I mean if you check it right now) Keep checking back if you’re interested.
5 Tall white men don’t come by these parts very often apparently.
6 For those non-Spanish speakers, that is “The Jungle Book” and “Ice Age III”
7 Some people like to call it “racism”
8 I also speak for America.

8a Seeing as I don’t want to get fired from volunteering, just kidding.

Update (again)

2008-12-11T16:38:00.000-08:00

Our classes just ended last week and a I went to Cancun for a few days with some friends. It was a great time and I have plenty to say about it just not right now, check back a little later. Right now I am at the computer lab in Queretaro about to board a bus to Tijuana where I will then cross the border and meet my sister somewhere down there and stay with her and her family for a while. It is a 38 hour bus ride so hopefully I will come out of this alive and sane, although I wouldn´t count on it. I wrote that bit below about Lolita about a week ago and am just now getting around to putting it up. Hope all is well with everyone and I will check back once I am back in the U.S. of A.

A Farewell to Lolita

2008-12-11T16:33:00.001-08:00

As the end of the program gets nearer and my departure from Queretaro becomes imminent and inevitable, there are a lot of mixed emotions going around from everyone, including Lolita. She tells me everyday—sometimes a couple times a day—that I don’t have to leave and that I am welcome to stay with her as long as I want. The crazy thing is, I know she is absolutely telling the truth; I could stay with her for the next 10 years and she would never ask why I was still there or when I would be leaving. I’m serious. Today, in attempt to talking me out of leaving, she claimed that Oregon and everywhere else are colder than Queretaro and only partially joking asked I why would I want to go back to that. She followed that up with a story about some animals that change colors in the winter but if it isn’t cold enough they can’t change colors and get eaten. I’m not exactly sure what she was getting at, we’ve had our share of equivocal conversations since I’ve been here, but I hope I don’t get eaten.

The whole señora-student relationship has fascinated me since before I even got here. The two of us are two completely different people, in two completely different places in our lives, heading in two completely different directions. She is a 50-something Mexican divorcee who lives alone and likes soap operas and I am an American college student who turned 22 under her roof and is just out for a good time in Mexico. She has kids and grandkids. I have guy friends and girlfriends. I take classes weekdays for university credit in hopes of someday getting a job. She takes painting classes twice a week just because she enjoys them so much. For the last two years I lived in a house with four other buddies, a beer pong table and enough garbage and clutter that Pixar used it as the basis for “Wall-E.” And, I had grown quite accustomed to that lifestyle. I did what I wanted when I wanted, I never worried about what time I got home or woke up, and I could park myself on the couch, drink beer and watch sports without anyone raising an eyebrow. I probably made my bed about as often as I watched “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” (never) and usually only cleaned my room only at the end of each term. So, you can imagine that someone moving into a house with only one other lady in a foreign country who literally doesn’t speak the same language as you has to be somewhat of a learning experience. There were certainly times when things were wearing on me and I was not in the mood to go home and have to speak and listen in another language to a women who was sometimes lonely from living alone when all I really wanted to do was park myself on the couch with a game on and a beer without anyone raising an eyebrow. She also has an uncanny knack for carrying on long conversations on mornings when I have a test or am already late or both. For whatever reason or reasons, however, the two of us have gotten along great over the past four months and I could not be more thankful. She has done so much more than just welcome me into her home and give me a room to sleep in. It’s really not like that at all. I wake her up with a knock on her door every weekday to the response, “Ya voy,” followed by her making me breakfast and telling me all about whatever the hell she wants to talk about. She shows me her drawings from class and asks what I think of them. She makes me a massive lunch everyday and we do more talking about what ever a 22-year-old male college student with less than two years of college Spanish and a Mexican grandma could possible talk about. It certainly hasn’t always been easy, but putting forth the effort has paid dividends.

I do not mean for this to be in any way taken as concieted, but I do wonder how she is going to do with out me around. I know that I mean a lot to her and she has been clearly emotional the past couple days. I know it will be hard for her to not have anyone come home for comida everyday, tell her about their weekend trip, or wake her up in the mornings. She has her kids and grandkids that I know she loves very much, but the two of us have a different relationship. She tells me about almost everything: her divorce and her ex-husband, her children and their spouses, her friends and their drama, her father who died a few years ago, and much more. I even came home one night to her going through a box of pictures followed by her making me sit with her while pointing out every person in every picture and where and why they were there. I can now tell you more than you would ever need to know about Lolita’s family. It’s this kind of stuff that I was in a unique position to be a part of—these aren’t things she talks of or can talk of with her kids or grandkids. She knew all along that due to the language barrier and the fact that we are two completely different people, that I couldn’t offer her much feedback when she would delve into these issues, but that there was someone there at all was what mattered. I don’t mean to make her out to be a depressed lonely hermit, because that would be very far from the truth. She has lived in Queretaro her whole life and has plenty of friends and family here and is usually always very outgoing and quite sanguine, but like I said, partially due to timing (I am the first student she has had in a while because of her divorce) and partially due to god knows what, the two of us became very close and we will both have a void to fill in the absence of each others company.

Now that I am heading back I am starting to reflect more on my time here. For reasons I can’t exactly remember I named this blog after a line in the Bob Dylan song “Visions of Johanna.” The last line is, “and these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.” I wonder what halcyon memories of Mexico will remain when I get back and am telling people about my experience. What about five years from now? Ten? Twenty? etc. I know I am going to walk away from this with some great stories that I will probably tell a million times, friends I plan on knowing for many years to come, and memories that aren’t likely to fade anytime soon. I also know that living with a wonderfully crazy Mexican lady named Lolita in Queretaro, Mexico for four months will not be something I will soon forget.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

2008-12-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

GO DUCKS!

Update

2008-11-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, I’m back. Sorry it has been so long, I didn’t die or get kidnapped by pirates or get beheaded or anything, I’m sure you were worried. With so much drama in the LBC…er, rather the QRO, classes coming to an end, lots of homework, my parents visiting, and my recent and unhealthy obsession with the David Foster Wallace, I haven’t written anything in a while. I apologize to all four of you for my absence. That being said, I still don’t have much to write or much time to write it. So, a few things on my parents being in town. First, in the seven days that they were here, my dad pronounced the word “Querétaro” a total of 4,732 different ways, many of which sounded more like some sort of Asian dialect (Japanese maybe?) than anything resembling Spanish. You probably think I’m making fun of him, but really, it was quite impressive. I don’t know how he did it; it was different every time. Kudos. To my surprise, my mom knew more Spanish than I expected although conjugated less verbs than Emmitt Smith. (Really, I’m in no position to criticize anyone’s Spanish, and like I said, she actually spoke quite well, but I thought of that joke and how no one reading this would get it and how happy that would make me being the only one to understand my jokes. I’m sorry, I had to.) It was a good time, they got to see Querétaro and meet Lolita, we went to Guanajuato for the weekend, and they spent a night on their own in Bernal. Good times were had by all and I’m glad they came.

Because of a couple of scheduling issues, we are going to be having Thanksgiving (or “Dia de Gracias”) dinner on Friday instead of Thursday. None of us are too happy about that, but there isn’t anything we can do and better late than never, right? We are still going to eat turkey and stuffing and pie and hang out and be thankful for stuff. So it should be fun. (Please God, I know it’s going to be Friday, but grant me the miracle of football on TV. Seriously, I don’t ask for much. Just this one thing and I won’t ask for anything for a long time and I’ll go to confession for all the bad words I used to describe John McCain and Sarah Palin in the last two months. Ok, thanks. Amen.) Well, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and go Ducks!

Dia de los Muertos

2008-11-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

I like to think that I am a pretty observant guy. I usually notice little things about people and places that others miss and generally I am fairly aware of my surroundings. At least I used to think that. I’ll explain. Here in Mexico November 1st and 2nd are big holidays that happened to land on Saturday and Sunday this year. The first is All Saints day and the second is Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. If you throw in Halloween which is apparently becoming more and more popular here, that’s three solid days of fiestas. Hell yeah. Anyways, a while back I asked Lolita what she did for the holiday and she said something about a street festival thing and that she opens up her carport area and has a little fiesta type thing. The days leading up to the party she cooked and cleaned up the carport and I was excited to see what kind of thing she was throwing. On Saturday I inexplicably woke up around seven o’clock (my sleep pattern, or lack of, sucks horribly) and decided to go for a run. As I was leaving my house I saw my street blocked off a block up (my house is on the corner so basically the block just across the side street) and people setting up tents and getting ready for what looked like the aforementioned street festival. I had no idea it was going to be so close to my house, and I wondered why they would pick this random street to block off and have a party in. Whatever, I thought, very little makes sense in Mexico. That’s about as far as I took it and then went for my run. I got back ate breakfast and listened to Lolita, her sister, and their friend loudly have a conversation in which they all talked at the same time never pausing for a response from another person. I’m not sure if or how any information was exchanged; it was unbelievable. Later when I went out to check what was going on in the carport I realized that it wasn’t as much of a party she was having but rather a garage sale/ taco stand for people walking past going to the festival. (I had to have eaten a dangerously unhealthy amount of tacos this weekend; I am starting to think that Mexicans genuinely don’t understand the concept of fullness. Not that I’m complaining, they were delicious.) Still a bit perplexed as to why our random street would be a center of celebration for Dia de Los Muertos, I wandered over to the street fair where on one side people were selling food and on the other flowers. After walking about 100 feet I saw people walking towards and entrance in the walls that went along the street and are kiddy-corner to my house. I decided to check it out and when I got about closer I realized the whole thing was a cemetery. Actually, it’s a massive cemetery, the only one in the city, and it’s 30 feet from my house. This whole time I have been living a stones throw from a giant graveyard for the past three months and had no idea it was there. Really Stephen, you didn’t notice the giant cemetery 30 feet from where you sleep every night. I’m an idiot. Granted, you can’t see inside from my house because of the walls and I don’t really have a reason to walk that way, but still, how did I not know this? What am I going to find out next, that there’s an airplane hangar around the corner? I told Lolita I didn’t know about it and she thought it was funny and jokingly announced it to everyone within earshot. Things started to add up pretty quickly: the now logical location of the street festival, the fact that there are four flower shops within a block of me, why a ghost named Chucho has been visiting me in the night every other Tuesday. It also hit me that the name of the neighborhood I live in is called “Cimatario.” I had to ask to make sure that didn’t translate to “cemetery” in English or else I would be really pissed at myself for not piecing this all together. It doesn’t. (I don’t have any hard data to support this, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that my finger and toe nails grow faster here than in the States. I’m serious, it’s weird. I wonder if this is because I live kiddy-corner to a graveyard and I’m picking up some weird supernatural finger and toenail growing vibe. I’ll have to ask Chuco.) Anyways, I wandered around the cemetery for a while until I didn’t want to think about death any more so I left, later called some friends to come over and we wandered around and talked about death for too long and decided we needed to leave. The whole festival is really cool and interesting. On Saturday it was a bit more somber than I expected since I heard it was more of a celebration than a memorial day type thing; I even walked past an actual burial with a woman, the widow or mother I presumed, crying uncontrollably to the point that she couldn’t stand and needed to be sat down on another gravestone. Later on and on Sunday however, it was much more laid back. The cemetery itself was infinitely cooler than any of our cemeteries. (I suppose the argument could be made that cemeteries aren’t supposed to be “cool,” but whatever, I think they should be.) The grave stones aren’t just plaques in the ground, oh no, they are huge and many of them have marble statues of Jesus or the Virgin of Guadalupe (she’s big here) or a glass case with a picture and objects of the person. I have a feeling that if a Mexican went to one of our cemeteries they would find the monotony of it horribly depressing. On Sunday it was so crowded at times you almost had to push to get in and out of the one entrance. A lot of people worked in the morning cleaning the grave sites, repainting the lettering, trimming the plants, and decorating the graves with marigolds—the traditional flower of the holiday dating back to its indigenous origins before it was converted into a Christian holiday by the Spanish—and then they later kicked back with their families around the grave, ate, drank, and hung out. It really wasn’t depressing or anything, it actually seemed quite laid back and relaxing. They were also a bunch or guys playing music that people paid to play at the graves of their loved ones. Some were mariachis but others were more indigenous sounding and one was a big brass band with trumpets, a tuba, and a dude playing a snare drum among others that reminded me of the funeral music for Vito’s brother in “Godfather II” or a more somber sounding version of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” theme song. I spent most of my weekend either wandering around the cemetery or the festival outside turning down people trying to sell me flowers and eating tacos in the carport. When it was all over I asked Lolita if she made much money from her garage sale/ taco business and without even a hint of disappointment at all she said that she didn’t make all that much. She said she didn’t care, that her goal was never really to make money; it’s just something she has been doing for years. All three of her kids and all seven of her grandkids were there, I think that was enough for her. The whole weekend was very Mexican: family, eating, relaxing (all in a public place of course), not caring how much money you spend/make, flowers, and religion mixed with tradition. I think this is the most Mexican thing I have done here since (I had a good joke to throw in here except I can’t write it because my parents make up roughly half of my readership, sorry everyone else) ummm… since…getting diarrhea from street food in Mexico city… since almost dying every time I cross the street…since getting my full back tattoo of the Virgin of Guadalupe…ummm… since…

Fun in the Sun

2008-10-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

Last week our Friday classes got switched to Thursday for uninteresting reasons. This meant two things: international bar and three-day weekend! The international bar is a bar we found out about here in town that on Thursdays has free drinks for foreigners with ID. I’m not sure how this is legal, but it is, and it’s awesome. (If I had a nickel for every time I’ve thought that exact sentence in the last two months…) For the three-day weekend there were a couple different groups splitting up. Some were going to spend a day in Guanajuato, others back to the Sierra Gorda at a house of one of our Mexican friends, some staying in town and one girl in our group meeting up with a friend in Morelia and then going to the coast. Still undecided on Thursday night after international bar (I neither know nor care what it’s really called) the few of us on the fence, in true procrastinators style, decided we’d talk the next day and figure it out. The next day we figured we were too late to catch a ride to Sierra Gorda, didn’t want to go to Guanajuato for only a day, and didn’t want to stick around town all weekend. Through a series of convoluted and later blatantly erroneous text messages from our friends Jessica and Emily (the beach going duo who had already left), my buddies Chris and Eric and I decided that the coast it is and we boarded the 3:30 bus to Morelia hoping to catch a connection to the coast at seven in attempt to save both time and money on the direct bus which didn’t leave until midnight. Both the text I got that said the bus from Queretaro to Morelia only took “two hours-ish” and that there was a connection at seven turned out to what later in the trip were referred to as “Emily facts.” Neither were even close to being true; the bus took four hours, (although we did get stuck behind a train that I am pretty sure had a drunk conductor, ask about that story sometime) and there was not a bus at seven (we wouldn’t have made it anyways as a result of the first lie) but rather one at midnight. (The first bus wouldn’t have been as bad if we hadn’t been forced to watch two of the worst attempts at movies in the history of cinema: the second half of “High School Musical II” and a phenomenally bad movie about a Mormon who goes on his mission in the South Pacific. Thank god it ended before I pulled off the rarely seen Oedipus-van Gogh combo of gouging out both of my eyes and cutting off my ears. That still would have been less painful. I’m sure of it.) All of this left us with a wonderful four hour layover in Morelia where we went to a shopping mall area, ate, sat around and then I went into my first ever Wall Mart—didn’t really leave much of an impression on me. We did a lot more sitting and then wandering to a new spot to sit and decide where we wanted to wander to next. Eric and Chris had about a half hour conversation about dragons from some book I had never heard of, we wandered around Home Depot in search of ratchets for a gizmo we wanted to build, and then took off. It wasn’t so bad, we all agreed, small price to pay for how much fun we were planning on having at the beach. We had no idea. Possibly through divine intervention (or the fact that it was the cheapest bus we could get) there was no movie on the five-plus hour ride to Zihuatanejo and a short taxi ride to the hotel in Ixtapa got us to our destination a little after five in the morning. (Zihuatanejo is where Andy Dufresne escapes to meet up with Red in “Shawshank Redemption.” We saw neither Tim Robbins nor Morgan Freeman; that’s not to say we weren’t looking.) We met up with the girls and walked to the beach to watch the sunrise. None of us were tired, it was way too cool. This started off our weekend of awesomeness and confusing questions about astronomy—both remained motifs throughout. Over the next two days these are a select few of the most uttered phrases or questions: “Wait, we’ve been in Mexico for how long and why haven’t we done this already?” “Everyone who didn’t come is going to have to hear about how awesome this was for a week.” “Do you think there is a study abroad program in Cabo?” “How sunburned is my back?” “Who got to decide the constellations? Best job ever.” “Is that true or is that an Emily Fact?” “Uno mas cerveza por favor.” The sand was perfect, the water was perfect, the weather was perfect, the mood was perfect; I guess you could say Saturday and Sunday were pretty much perfect. I can’t describe everything we did because neither you nor I have time, however, one anecdote that I’m sure will really deliver the punch happened on Saturday. Eric and Chris took off in search of Gatorades (preferably pink) to keep hydrated and wash the salt water out of our mouths. After well over an hour without coming back, we started wondering and getting a little worried about where they were. Finally they showed up with two bags of water (yeah, bags, as in plastic) and they could hardly speak to get the words out of where they had been. Eventually we deciphered what they trying to say: they found some tents down the beach a ways where for 50 pesos you can get a half hour massage. I don’t think they stopped smiling for the rest of the trip. Later that night, we went back and I got a massage on a beautiful Mexican beach at dawn that I am convinced took me to another dimension of both time and space. I don’t think I stopped smiling the rest of the trip. We got back into the Queretaro bus station this morning a little after 6AM, just enough time to make 9AM classes and to explain to everyone our tans (or burns), uncontrollable grins, and our plans for the next three-day weekend.

Mexico City

2008-10-15T16:52:00.001-07:00

I guess you could say this weekend didn’t quite go as planned. Actually, even before it started it wasn’t going as planned. Gabi, our fearless leader, had been telling us for a while that her mother had been sick but in the past week it got worse and she passed away here in Queretaro midweek. A couple of us went the funeral and we later got an email stating the obvious which was that Gabi would not be going with us to Mexico City over the weekend. So we went on with just Alejandro, one of our Spanish professors. I asked him when he got there if Gabi had told him anything about my bag that was stolen in the Sierra Gorda, since the original plan was to try and get it when we were there. He said he hadn’t heard anything but said he would call Gabi. Because of the whole situation, I figured it was probably a lost cause but he said he’d do it anyways. The first day we stopped at some old Aztec ruins outside of Mexico City where we got to climb ancient pyramids, take pictures, and be harassed by countless people trying to sell trinkets. It was really cool and I liked it a lot, but would have enjoyed much more if I hadn’t woken up that day with a headache, stomachache and the accompanying bowel movements. Nonetheless, I was able to make the most of it and slept on the bus as much as I could. The next day we went sightseeing around Mexico City. We started off by going to the Zócalo, the main plaza in Mexico City with the National Palace, which was just a few blocks from where we were staying at the Hotel Canada. When I went to Mexico a couple winters ago, we ate at the Hotel California in the town of Todos Santos where Don Henley supposedly wrote the song “Hotel California.” I liked the Hotel California better, I’ll explain later. In the National Palace there is perhaps Diego Rivera’s most famous mural depicting the history of Mexico. It is a spectacular work of art and one of the most impressive things I have seen in person. There were also a bunch of other murals of his there that we looked at before leaving for the Anthropology Museum, which is a huge museum of artifacts from the ancient civilizations of Mexico. Thanks to liberal usage of Pepto Bismol, I felt a little better and was able to spend more time in the museum than the bathroom, but once again, I could have enjoyed it a little more. I’m kind of a nerd about some of that stuff so I still really enjoyed it. Afterward we went up to a huge castle that overlooks the city and that some day when I am a gazillionare I am going to buy and my friends and I will have a “Real World: Queretaro” there. Except there won’t be any cameras and it won’t be on TV. Other than that, pretty much the same. Once we made it back to the hotel we were all ready to crash for a bit and then head out for food and a night on the town. But, like I said, things didn’t exactly go as planned. When we got back to our room I was missing all of the money (about $250) I left in my backpack and my friend Chris was missing some from his backpack and my friend Jessica in a different room on a different floor. Our rooms had been cleaned and it was clear since our rooms were locked that the maid did a little extra cleaning. I told you, I liked the Hotel California better. We got Alejandro and went to complain to the front desk, they seemed surprised and said that they haven’t had any complaints like this before. They looked to see who had cleaned the rooms and of course it was someone who usually doesn’t work for them that was just filling in. Also of course, when called, the maid didn’t answer, and also of course, the hotel said they have a contract of sorts that says they can’t be held responsible, and also of course the next day when talked to by the hotel manager the maid claimed no responsibly. There’s a possibility that we could get it back, Alejandro has the phone number of the place and although she wasn’t answering her phone over the weekend, when Gabi is back I’m sure she will at least try to help us out. In all, it’s quite depressing and I don’t even like rehashing it. When my bag was stolen it was annoying and frustrating but at least the whole thing had a “live and learn” motif to it since it was my fault I left it sitting there. This is different, this is just annoying, it’s not even a good story, at least the bag story had the silver lining of being interesting, this story sucks; you should know, you’re reading about it. We ended up not going out after all, however, those of us that weren’t tired had a great night hanging out in our room into the wee hours of the morning making sure to leave plenty of work for the maid in the morning. The next morning we had the option of going to a ballet but I passed since I wasn’t in the mood and barely had any money left. (I had some money on me that wasn’t in my backpack. I figured money was safer locked in my hotel room than in my pocket as I walked the streets of Mexico City. Clearly, I was wrong.) I got up somewhat early and since everyone that didn’t go was still asleep I lugubriously (I just learned that word today, I was excited to use it) walked around the centro. I basically just wandered around, went into gigantic churches, bought some cookies for breakfast at a Seven-Eleven, and then when others woke up, I finished up breakfast with some French fries and strawberry water. (There was an awesome juice shop next the hotel that had delicious and really cheap juice, or “water with flavor” as it is sometimes called here.) I even thought about having my spirit cleansed by a dude dressed up as an Aztec priest with a bowl of incense that he used to dance circles around paying customers. I decided I’d save my money but I’m still regretting it, it probably only cost like $0.04. Later on in the day we went to more museums and more ruins and then headed back to Queretaro. Although it didn’t go quite as some of us would have hoped, I really did enjoy Mexico City. I’m actually over the money at this point because Mexico City was so awesome; it’s not an easy city to mope around in. It’s is by far the hugest place I have ever been (it’s one of the hugest places in the world, it might even be number one in hugeness) and pretty much everything about it fascinated me. Well that’s about it from my end, sorry this was so long, slightly depressing and not all that interesting, but hey, now that you’re done you can get back to yearbookyourself.com (see below).

Time Wasters

2008-10-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

I found this link on the blog of one of my favorite columnists, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times—one of the roughly 154,392 newspapers that Sara Palin couldn’t name. (Zing! Stick with me all political season for relentless Sara Palin burns... there are just so many to chose from.) I’m not asking anyone to give money or anything, I’m not even sure what charity this is for, but I found it interesting and thought I would pass it on. Now a link to take it in a completely different direction, I found this jewel a while ago and became more than slightly addicted. Anyone who enjoys having fun, laughing, and wasting copious amounts of time is sure to enjoy this. In other news, we’re going to Mexico City this weekend which should be a good time. I will be back with news, hopefully of the recovery my bag from The Wicked Witch of the South, and other such information when I return. Adios.

A few things

2008-09-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, I want to say congratulations to my sister Erin and the entire Campbell family and welcome Justin Michael Campbell into the clan. I look forward to being an important part of corrupting his youth, er...rather, being an important part of his growth. Congrats Campbell's! Second, and much less important, I have been trying to post stuff for a while but two things have stopped me. First, my little brain only has so many asinine observations (that I can put into words) about Mexico. The other is that this is the worst website since yourethemannowdog.com. So, sorry about the delay and if anyone is thinking of starting a blog, do NOT use this website, I think it has taken about 5 years off my life.

Wilfredo & Friends

2008-09-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

There is this show here called “La Academia” and it is basically a mix of “American Idol” and “Big Brother.” They select the people who are going to be in “the academy” on a selection show, which was beyond hilarious. A couple weeks back they had this season premiere and Lolita and I watched it as the contestants were called forward out of a group where the “director” of the academy talked to them for a while as the contestant cried uncontrollably. Seriously, they were ALL crying, some of them so much they were hyperventilating with mascara running down their faces and leaning on each other for support. Not only that, but by looking at the group I was sure that each of them has probably spent a combined year of their life looking at their reflection in the mirror. There was enough hair gel on that stage to supply an entire city of sixth graders. So after they were called up, the director would talk about their strengths and weaknesses for a while followed by a long dramatic silence and the director would say, “Estas en La Academia,” (“You are in the academy”) to which about 92% of the people collapsed to the floor as if they had just been sniped. I’m not making this up, I think all but two of them didn’t fall weeping to the floor when they were selected, you’d think they got a bonus from the network for how fast they could make their legs go out from under themselves and how many times they could pound the floor with their fists. After the first couple went down faster than John Edwards political career, Lolita and I were laughing hysterically and I tried to think of a joke about it to share with her but it I wasn’t sure exactly what to say or how to say it so it came out as, “They like the floor.” That made both of us laugh even more and I am sure she liked that more than any witty comment I might have been able to interject. Actually, I did too. It started to get ridiculous as you count down how long until they fell to the floor and after a while I wasn’t sure if I was watching a reality show or an old tape of try-outs for the opening scene “Saving Private Ryan.” So, after they selected the most emotionally instable 20-something people in all of Mexico, guess what they do with them…make them all live in the same house! Oh, and film every minute of it, naturally. That’s about where the show is now, these people are all living in a house together and on Sundays they have a live show where they sing and get voted off. The Sunday show is live and the other days when they are in the house together air the day after they happen. I realized why I like this show and I will explain. Like I said, it is a combination of “American Idol” and “Big Brother.” I have never liked “American Idol” because I figure I don’t want to watch people sing songs, that usually aren’t very good, worse than the original version. Honestly, I’m not sure why anyone does, but it’s a popular show so who knows. In “La Academia,” that problem is solved; I don’t know any of the songs or their original versions, so everything is new to me and it doesn’t really matter how good or bad they are. Also, seeing as I have never wasted my time watching “Big Brother” I’m not sure if I would like it or not, but I assume that I wouldn’t because I simply don’t care about other people’s problems. (“Big Brother” is a show where they put a bunch of people in a house that they can’t leave and make them live together and do tasks while drama ensues and then they get voted off, based on what, I don’t know. I know it seems strange that I know so much about a show I have never seen, but just because I have never seen it doesn’t mean I haven’t seen countless promos during CBS sporting events. Hey, Greg Gumble, it’s been about 7 years now and I have yet to watch an episode, please, no more.) “La Academia” remedies this for me by being in rapid Spanish which is hard to understand, having crazy activities like a dude wearing a mask while crying (I was watching that episode at a restaurant with no sound which I decided made it even better; I had NO idea what was going on) as well as having a jewel of a person named Wilfredo. One of my favorite parts is that on the weekday shows in the house all the participants have to wear a single colored shirt with their name written in black caps across the chest. I’m thinking about getting a green STEPHEN shirt soon. Anyways, Wilfredo’s shirt says, “WILFREDO” on it and he is a decent singer, but somehow apparently went through his entire life never having talked to anyone of the opposite sex before. He is especially awkward and has this hilarious, high pitched, nervous laugh that he brings out whenever a girl says something and which they showed a montage of once that almost floored me. On today’s show after he sang, they had a bit on his sick grandpa that was so overly dramatic even Bob Costas would be proud. At the end of it, they had his grandpa say that he was OK and wished him good luck. It went back to Wilfredo who was crying uncontrollably (whenever someone on the show starts getting watery eyed, Lolita starts yelling “No Llorando! No Llorando!”—[No crying! No crying!] at the TV) and then the director asked him if he had anything he wanted to say to his grandpa if he is watching. After a little silence, with tears in his eyes Wilfredo yells (seriously, he yelled) “LE AMO ABUELO!... LE AMO ABUELO!” (“I love you grandpa”). Immediately Lolita yelled even louder out of shock and embarrassment for him and I don’t think the two of us have laughed harder since I’ve been here. (She later referred back to it as the “Explocion de sentimiento” –“Explosion of feeling”) The director holding the microphone and the entire audience had absolutely no idea how to react (remember, Sundays are live) so there was an awkward silence with Wilfredo left looking straight at the camera; you could see it all—him coming down from his high and realizing what he had just done and realizing he was the cause of the awkward silence that we were all so painfully in the middle of. The initial shock wore off and the audience picked their jaws up off the ground and started clapping and cheering for him. He didn’t get voted off, actually, I’m not sure who did; I left after Wilfredo made his exit telling Lolita I needed to do my homework. Instead, I wrote this. You’re welcome.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It...

2008-09-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the middle of very interesting, funny, irritating, and unbelievable saga. I’ll try to explain, but first some background information is needed. In the mornings we have classes at the Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro or UAQ (pronounced more ore less like “walk”) and in the afternoons we have classes at a school called IUSI (I used to know what that stood for) which is referred to by everyone as “la escuela de Gabi.” Gabi is the resident director of our program and she also runs the IUSI. She is in charge of setting up where we live, making sure everyone is alright, planning our weekend trips and countless other logistics. The other day after morning classes at the UAQ, Gabi was there and I thought, “Huh, I wonder why Gabi is here” because she is usually at her school not the UAQ. Everyone was hanging out talking when she pulled me aside and told me she needed to talk to me. She told me that the director (dean maybe?) of the Faculdad de Lengus y Letras or FLL (the department of the UAQ that we go to) wanted to talk to her and me in her office. She also said that she never hears from her about her students and that she sounded very serious. Gabi asked her if it was about my bag that had been stolen in Sierra Gorda and the FLL lady said she didn’t want to discuss it on the phone and that it was best if she brought me into her office. Gabi then asked me if there was anything that she should know. Even though Gabi is more of a director and organizer than a disciplinarian, she still heads up the one-women committee that decides if your ass gets sent back to the states if you do something wrong. After I cleaned the pee out of my pants I told her no, I couldn’t think of anything. I could tell she believed me and wasn’t trying to accuse me or trap me or anything, but still I was a bit nervous. Tiffany—our student assistant leader person who was in the program a couple years ago—Gabi and I walked over to the office. I felt like I was walking to the gallows, and, to hide my nervousness I said to Tiffany, “I feel like I’m going to the principle’s office in 7th grade all over again.” After I said it I realized that wasn’t even a joke, that’s exactly how I felt, I was completely expecting Mr. Shea and Ms. Gritzmacher to walk out of that office and say, “Ok, we’re ready for you now, Stephen.” I’m not kidding, I would have bet on it. Well, that didn’t happen, actually, for a long time nothing at all happened. We stood outside of this lady’s office for about an hour while she was in there with someone else. This certainly didn’t calm our nerves. Tiffany and Gabi were both nervous because they didn’t know what was going on and didn’t want me to be in trouble and I was nervous because I was going over everyday in my mind that I have been here trying to think of what I might have done wrong. I spent (no joke) about a minute and a half to two minutes trying to figure out whether or not I had accidentally killed an endangered species. (“I don’t think I did, did I? I killed that cockroach the other day in my bathroom but that’s not an endangered species or anything, it was just a cockroach. Maybe it was a special kind of cockroach that I’ve never heard of and is facing extinction… Oh, no…Crap!… But wait, how would she know about that? There’s no way, right? Who did I tell about that?…”) Finally, we get called into her office. At this point it is just Gabi and I because Tiffany had to take off midway through the arduous wait. I shake the lady’s hand and smile and was reminded of an anecdote that my professor of Italian Renaissance art told us once in class about how the last thing someone did before being executed during the Renaissance in Italy was to tip the executioner. That’s what I felt like I was doing when I smiled and shook her hand, but she seemed nice enough so I figured she would at least make it quick and that hopefully she wasn’t a cockroach preservationist. Well, in turns out that I didn’t do anything wrong (that they know of) and in fact it was good news—kind of. Phew. The FLL lady said that she got a call from a woman named Margarita who had news of my missing bag from the Sierra Gorda. Margarita was in a group of retired women from Mexico City that took a trip to the Sierra Gorda and was there the same time as us (Gabi said she saw them). Another lady, I believe named Rosa, saw my bag and thinking it was Margarita’s because she is a photographer, showed it to her. Margarita, being the saint that she is, looked through it saw my wallet with my UAQ I.D. card and told Rosa that it wasn’t hers. Well, Rosa didn’t seem to care—she took it anyways. Margarita, being the saint that she is, went online, looked up the UAQ, called around until she found the FLL lady who called Gabi and then there we were, the four of us on a conference call in the principle’s office. The three of them did the talking, as it is nearly impossible not only to understand three Mexican women speaking rapidly in Spanish into a speakerphone but also finding a millisecond to interject; I couldn’t have said anything even if I wanted to or knew how. After the call was over, Gabi translated it into Stephen for me (neither English nor Spanish nor Spanglish, basically really slow Spanish with simple words, hand gestures, and clarification that I understand after every third sentence.) This is what happened: Margarita, being the saint that she is, saw on the bus that Rosa, being the old hag that she is, had taken my bag and she asked her for it so she could give it back since she saw my ID and would find a way to get it to me. Rosa refused and, get this, told her that she wants a reward for it! What!?! A reward? It’s not like she found it and was a Good Samaritan and deserves something for her effort (that role goes to St. Margarita), she stole it! That’s not a reward, that’s ransom! I want proof of life! Gabi, the FLL lady, and I thought the whole thing was kind of funny and Gabi half jokingly smiled and uttered, “Bienvenido a Mexico” (Welcome to Mexico). Since that day Gabi has talked to St. Margarita again who got Rosa’s phone number and address. Gabi called her on Friday and left a message and that’s the last I’ve heard. I’m fairly optimistic about the whole thing having both Margarita and Gabi on my side; I heard some people in our group say the other day that they think Gabi could solve the Israel-Palestine conflict. I told Lolita about it and she got a kick out of it laughing loudly at the idea of the whole thing and then essentially sent bad karma Rosa’s way. (I’m not exactly sure what she was trying to do but it was hilarious). So that’s where it all stands right now: my bag is in Mexico City with some old retired lady who wants me to pay her a sum of money to get it back. I’m picturing my bag being guarded by two armed guards with rifles in a dark warehouse while a clock ticks down like on “24” and the screen splits between me and Rosa, and the bag, and Margarita. Rosa better be careful or I’m going to have to tap into my inner Jack Bauer.

Surrealism

2008-09-18T15:56:00.003-07:00

(Hey, I’m back. I’ve been somewhat busy recently and haven’t put anything up in a while. Here are three things that I have written in the past few weeks that I didn’t post partially because I didn’t have the internet when I wrote them or I didn’t have my computer when I had the internet and partially because I don’t think they’re very good or all that interesting. Oh well, here they are. I suggest reading them in the order they were posted [bottom to top]. Enjoy.)

We went to the Sierra Gorda this weekend which ended up being a strangely bittersweet experience. First of all, we were told it was really hot there as it was the jungles region of Mexico and to expect in the upper 90’s or above. Well that never happened, actually it rained most of the time. The first day not so much, but the others definitely. The first day and night we stayed in Jalpan which was a cool little town but not much different from others we had passed through. We enjoyed ourselves nonetheless in part because of a karaoke bar we found, invaded, and conquered (Two words: Air Supply). The next day we traveled around the area and went to a mission and a waterfall that we “swam” in. By swam, I mean we stood next to it or underneath it and got reamed by it. It was a pretty nice little spot. That night we went to Xilitla and checked into an awesome hotel that was built into the jungle and owned by the nicest old couple and their dog Chucho. Even though he kind of smelled bad, he was an awesome dog. On Monday we went to a surrealist garden made by the British artist, Edward James. I guess he was this rich British guy who went to Mexico to build a crazy garden and smoke a lot of peyote. It showed. A guy who had been on the program before described it as “walking around in a Salvador Dali painting.” That was about right, although I thought I was more in a Dr. Seuss book than anywhere else. It was a ridiculous place with stairs that lead to nowhere, nonsensical buildings, waterfalls, and not a single handrail. (You would think safety would be a priority for someone who was constantly so high, but apparently Mr. James felt handrails and other safety devices didn’t fit into the aesthetics of his surrealist garden.) Throughout the day I took about 13,4726 pictures, (it was impossible not to) only to have my camera bag equipped with my wallet and iPod stolen when I went swimming in the river and waterfalls. Yeah, so that sucked. I didn’t know this when I was swimming so I was able to enjoy that to the fullest, especially when a friend of mine looked at me with the look of confusion turned to epiphany—like he just figured out a difficult math problem—and said, “Dude, we’re jumping off of waterfalls in a surrealist garden in the Mexican jungle!” Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated for the reality to set in. Certainly afterwards the camera bag/wallet/iPod disaster was weighing on mind, but I kept reminding myself that I got to jump off of waterfalls in a surrealist garden in the Mexican jungle in order to keep my spirits up. For the most part, it worked. The reason we were able to take such a long trip this weekend is because it was the Mexican Independence Day. In every town square in Mexico at 11PM there is the “Grito.” Literally, it means “Yell” and comes from when Miguel Hidalgo yelled “Viva Mexico!” in Guanajuato signifying the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. After a while of contemplating whether we wanted to go to the Xilitla grito in the pouring rain or watch the Mexico City one with the president on TV, my friend Jessica and I decided to go and meet up with the few people of our group who had already left. (We were late because there was football on TV and not only football but American football, and not only American football but Monday Night Football, and not only Monday Night Football but two good teams—the Eagles and Cowboys—and a great game, and not only that but we were getting the English telecast. Oh, how I have missed you football; life just isn’t the same without you. I spent a significant portion of the night making hypothetical bets—since my money was all stolen—with the husband of one of my professors. I think I lost all of them.) Anyways, we walked through this monsoon not dressed for rain (since we packed for 90-100 degree heat) and right as we got there as the grito was beginning the rain stopped. The grito lasted about ten minutes, people yelled “Viva Mexico!” really loudly, they rang a ton of bells, and then just as the final word was being spoken the rain (“rain” isn’t the right word, this was more like a “dumping” of water) started up again. It was crazy, it took one ten-minute break the entire evening and happened to be for the entirety of the grito and that was it. Surreal was the word of the weekend. After taking refuge under an awning we were all discussing how we couldn’t believe the break in the climate and trying to figure out what to do when the aforementioned Jessica got a phone call from someone and judging from her end of it, it wasn’t good news. She told us that it was her roommate from Oregon who is studying abroad through the University in Moreila, a town about two or three hours west of Queretaro and a place we are visiting in November, and that a bomb went off during the fireworks after the grito. She was apparently just fifty or so feet away from the explosion and saw some pretty horrible things. Once again, it seemed surreal to go from a feeling of disbelief in the weather to one of disbelief that our friend’s friend just witnessed a bombing in a town which is not much different than or very far from the one we were in or have been living in for the past month. I quickly forgot about my camera bag. Strangely, there was nothing about it on any of the news channels (they cover the grito like it’s the New Year with cameras in every major city in Mexico) and we wondered if it was a fireworks malfunction or what had really happened. The next morning I got the internet to work in the hotel lobby and read that they think two grenades went off and that three were dead and fifty or more injured. As I write this, the last I heard the death toll was up to nine. I’m telling you, it was a surreal weekend.

Schmorgusboard

2008-09-18T15:56:00.002-07:00

Things I spend in inordinate amount of time thinking about as I Frogger the streets of Queretaro:

The movie “The Fugitive” with Harrison Ford is the EXACT opposite of the O.J. Simpson saga. Go over that movie in your head with that in mind. You will laugh, I promise. (I know what your thinking, could I have more dated references than the O.J. Simpson trial and a movie with Harrison Ford from the early 90’s? Actually, yes. If you think about it, between Luis Pasteur and Amerigo Vespucci this is by far the most topical issue I have covered).

I miss football. Badly. Yeah, of course I miss my family and friends and Taco Bell (I’ll let you pick the order) but I really miss football. Prediction: In a month or two I will use this space to write: “I miss basketball. Badly.”

Does Stephen Hawking slur his speech when he’s drunk? It’s an interesting discussion to have with yourself, trust me. After much deliberation on this topic (about a day and a half) I decided that Stephen Hawking is much to smart to let himself become as stupid as a drunk. Still, you (I) have to wonder what he would be like…

I saw a music video at a restaurant with Justin Timberlake and Snoop Dogg and all I could think about was, who has a better life, Snoop Dogg or Justin Timberlake? There’s way too much here to even elaborate. I could write a book on this. Right now, it’s a tie.

It was Michael Jackson’s 50th birthday the other day. I wonder if he went to Chuck-E-Cheese’s or Bullwinkle’s.

On another note, we are going to Sierra Gorda this weekend, which is supposedly this really cool place in the jungle area where this British surrealist artist, Edward James, built a Surrealist garden. I have only heard good things about it and one guy from the last group described it as “walking around in a Salvador Dali painting.” Needless to say, I’m excited.

Guanajuato

2008-09-18T15:56:00.001-07:00

This weekend we went to Guanajuato, which is one of my favorite places that I have been to. It is about a two and half/ three hour bus ride from Queretaro and I am not sure that I can describe the amazingness of it in words so I will just try to describe a one really cool thing that happened. (Microsoft Word is telling me that “amazingness” isn’t a word. I don’t care, I’m sticking with it.) We stayed in a nice hostel that was really close to the main plaza and all the cool happenings. And, after a long day of going to the house that Diego Rivera was born in which is now a museum of his stuff, taking a tram to the top of the hill over looking the city, and watching Mexico beat Jamaica 3-0 in a World Cup Qualifier match, we went on the roof of our hostel and watched the sunset and drank some beers. After a while a few of us decided to head out for some food only to find thousands of people walking the streets of this relatively small city center. It wasn’t a holiday or a parade or anything, that’s just what it’s like there on a Saturday night: people hanging out at restaurants, or on balconies, or people hanging out in the plaza, people slowly walking the streets, etc. The streets were packed with people; it was great. Anyways, on our way to food, we got distracted by a band of minstrels playing music for people on the steps of this really sweet Neo-classical theater they have there. (I guess in October they have a Cervantes festival that’s really popular. There are statues and paintings of Cervantes, Don Quixote, and Sancho sprinkled throughout the town. It’s like Ashland’s Shakespeare Festival except in Spanish not English, and in Guanajuato, Mexico not Ashland, Oregon and it’s Cervantes not Shakespeare. Yeah, so except for those minor details it’s just like Ashland’s Shakespeare Festival.) So these minstrels are playing for all these people on the steps and they are dressed in full 16th century garb looking like extras from a Mexican rendition of a Robin Hood movie and we are only there for about half a song until…they became wandering minstrels! They addressed the audience after a song and told us to follow, which of course we did. It was great; we wandered the streets of Guanajuato in a big pack of people following a bunch of guys wearing tights as they played “De Colores.” Having heard us speak English, a guy in the pack asks us where we are from and I tell him and then I ask him the same. (It’s weird, some people here will hear us speaking English and want to practice their English with us but we want to practice our Spanish with them and feel that it is polite to speak to someone in Spanish if you can. So this gentleman asked me questions in English and I responded and asked him questions in Spanish. Even though we were both insulting each other’s languages mightily, it was quite an interesting conversation linguistically.) He told me he was from there in Guanajuato and to that I asked him where these traveling minstrels might be going, assuming he would know. At the time we were on these steps that lead to a road that goes to a spot to over look the city. The man looked at me slightly confused and said, “I don’t know. Up.” The point of all this is that not even the locals knew where they were going. (And it was mostly locals, or at least Mexicans in the group, despite there being quite a few Americans in the town during the day.) People just followed them around for the hell of it, never really knowing where they were going. I loved it. I heard later that you’re supposed to give them $10 and they give you drinks and you can follow them around to different restaurants in the town. I suppose these guys worked for the restaurants and people were supposed to drop off the pack and go to eat along the way as new people join. We didn’t know this so eventually our hunger got the best of us and we left behind our traveling minstrels in pursuit of food and free restrooms—we only accomplished half of those goals and returned to the hostel for the other. In all it was a great time, how dare Microsoft Word tell me “amazingness” isn’t a word!

What?

2008-09-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

http://view.break.com/567077 - Watch more free videos

Hey, I'm all for saving the trees and the environment and everything, but seriously? Who are these people? Where do they come from?

AmeriGO!

2008-09-05T12:08:00.001-07:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about Amerigo Vespucci recently. Even more so than usual, because, believe it or not, I think about Amerigo Vespucci quite a bit. Actually, since about fourth grade. I’m sure it’s not healthy. I don’t remember exactly what grade it was (I think it was fourth), but I remember the textbook and I can picture the page of the book from whatever grade it was that has been the catalyst for my fascination with Amerigo. (We’re on a first name basis). Anyways, a day or two after I wrote my bit about Luis Pasteur I couldn’t sleep after realizing the biggest exception to everything I had written: Amerigo Vespucci! This guy has two of the seven continents named after him, no one else has any, and no one knows who the hell he was! I think about this all the time: this guy needed Christopher Columbus’ PR guy. The textbook I referred to had multiple pages on Christopher Columbus, claiming he was the first person to ever think the world was round (suuuuure), and one sentence on poor ol’ Amerigo. Something like, “Italian Amerigo Vespucci was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean and the new continents took on his name.” That’s it! I’m not making this up; he has two continents and one sentence! How is this fair? I bet poor ol’ Amerigo does 360s in his grave every time they close government buildings and refuse to deliver mail for the schmuk Christopher Columbus. The worst thing about it is that he was the first one smart enough to realize that these new continents weren’t Asia. Not only did that Columbus fool think he was in India or something, he wasn’t even the first European to land in the Americas, Leif Ericson was. In reality, all Christopher Columbus did was spread a bunch of diseases to the natives. Jerk. I can honestly remember learning about Amerigo and other stuff that you don’t really need to know unless you’re trying to sound smarter than you actually are at a dinner party (or on your blog). (Why is it that I can remember not only who Amerigo Vespucci, Vasco da Gama, and Bartholomew Diaz were but also their nautical achievements and what countries they sailed for from fourth grade yet I continue to mix up the names of two guys in my group who I have seen everyday for the last three weeks?) (I know, I know, I know, I use WAY too many parentheses). Anyways, back to the action, you would think someone that has two continents named after him would at least get some recognition, I mean, if Luis Pasteur can have a street in Mexico named after him (and I’m sure other places, that guy was a god among men) then why can’t Amerigo get a little love. Has their ever been a parade in the name of Amerigo Vespucci? I doubt it. I don’t really like parades so I probably wouldn’t go if there were one, but still, billions of people fall under the banner of “Americans” from the North and South and our textbooks and parade committees don’t even care. I smell a conspiracy theory. This guy gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. The other thing that fascinates me about Amerigo is that he named the continents after his first name. I have spent an unhealthy amount of time wondering why. How much different would all of our lives be if poor ol’ Amerigo named them after his last name? What if we were the United States of Vespucci? Would that make us Vespuccans? Would people still hate Canadians? Would NAFTA be NVFTA? That doesn’t work at all, it looks like Roman Numerals. U-S-V! U-S-V! It’s kind of like how Eugene Skinner named Eugene, Oregon after his first name except TIMES A BILLION! All of this has me questioning my previous statements of the popularity I would have gained from naming the microwave or deodorant after myself. No invention will ever surpass having two continents named after you (except if someone invented something that could make continents. That would be so cool). Well, I’m not exactly sure how to wrap this up seeing as I haven’t really made a significant point. How do you wrap something up in which you made no point? Honestly, I’m surprised you’re still reading. Oh, I guess my point is that how come some people gain cult like status for doing something of relatively little significance, (see: Guevara, Che) and others get one sentence in a fourth grade history book? (That’s not a point, that’s a question. Oh, well). Nothing is sacred. I’m afraid that when I invent a backpack that doesn’t leave your back and shoulders soaking with sweat after walking home from class in the Mexican sun (and name it an “Oliver” of course) that for some reason beyond my control people won’t remember who I was and I will be no better than the microwave guy or deodorant dude or poor ol’ Amerigo. I might be the first person in the history of the world to lose sleep over Amerigo Vespucci. I don’t know what to think anymore.

Birthday

2008-09-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hey, thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. I had a good one. I told Lolita about it about a week ago but she didn't remember in the morning and I didn't want to tell her because I didn't want her to have to bake me a cake or something. I told her in the afternoon and she told me I should have told her in the morning and then proceeded to bake me a cake. Then I realized how stupid I had been, why would I not want someone to bake me a cake? It's cake. What was I thinking? It especially hit home when she told me she used to work in a cake shop and even more so when I tasted it. It was a good one, well, thanks again!

Spice Rack

2008-09-04T17:32:00.001-07:00

I don't care what spice this actually is, what that translates to, or how it is spelled, I hope none of it ever makes it into my food.

Backstabbing, Shotguns, Hot Blind Girls, and So Much More!

2008-09-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Everyday everyone goes home from morning classes for “la comida” which is basically a late (and large) lunch that the host mothers cook. Everyone seems to have different stories and different experiences from their comida—some good some not so much. One thing that seems consistent across the group is that the senoras all want to keep giving you more and more food whether you like it or not. Usually Lolita and I just talk during comida (when I say “we” talk I mean she talks and I listen and agree) and I try to eat the food she prepared that is enough to feed each member of the Von Trapp family, a pride of lions, and Oprah Winfrey’s entire studio audience. However, sometimes during comida we watch TV and if there is one thing that has been the most consistent here (it’s certainly not the bus system or the likelihood that a restroom will have toilet paper) it has been that there are always soap operas on TV. And, I must say, I love it. I can’t remember the name but today we were watching one and although I can’t consistently follow the dialogue, Lolita keeps me informed on who is good and who is bad—that is, if I can’t tell from the music or the look on their faces. I realized about half way through today that this is really the only time here that I will be able to ask questions like, “Why does that guy have a shotgun?” or “Was he trying to poison her or was that meant for the other lady?” or “Is he the father of the hot blind girl’s kids too?” (Apparently my friend Chris watches it with his host mom as well and he said he kept wondering how the hot blind girl put on her makeup. I was mad I didn’t think of that.) And in return Lolita gives me hints like why one guy had to hide when the other one showed up—I didn’t understand, why was the guy with the shotgun hiding? In any difference of opinion, shotgun always beats no shotgun—and she gets to tell me stuff like, “She wants him back because he is hotter than her new husband” and “That’s his sister but he doesn’t know it.” There’s nothing like brushing up on my backstabbing, convoluted family tree vocab. You never know when that will come in handy. They also seemingly live in one giant house which conveniently lends itself to at least five conversations an episode that are overheard from an adjacent hallway by a passerby who wasn’t supposed to here them. Also, no one ever shuts any doors. Quite convenient, indeed. It’s strange how these people are cunning enough to go behind the backs and lie to the people they know best but lack the common sense to shut the freaking door. Idiots. Even though it will be difficult to see the TV behind the mound of food on the plate in front of me, I’m thinking that in tomorrow’s episode shotgun might beat out no shotgun.

Bernal

2008-08-29T10:00:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we took a day trip to Bernal, which is about 45 minutes away from Queretaro. Both the town and the giant monolith with the same name were awesome. It is something like the second largest monolith in the world. We hiked up it as far as you can go with out actually rock climbing with ropes and harnesses and whatnot. There were a few people that were rock climbing it and it looked both exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. The hike, although not necessarily very far, was quite hard as it is all rock and very steep—there were two dogs that once they got to the top immediately hit the ground and fell asleep panting uncontrollably. Those of us that made it all the way up had lunch up there, took pictures, climbed around some more and then went back into the town. (It was a bit eerie that I had Ben Kweller’s “Falling” stuck in my head as we gingerly made our way down the steep, slick rock… “just say hello to the ground/ do you feel like your falling down?”) The town was really cool as well; there was a church in the town square that was yellow and orange (but not hideous like) and across the street there was a “Museo de Mascaras” or “Mask Museum.” I am not sure “museum” is the right word to describe a building that used to be a prison with no one in it and one room with a bunch of frightening masks on the walls, but once you get past the initially creepiness of it, it was really sweet. Another store had a bunch of colorful ponchos hanging up around the door outside and when you go in you can walk past the counter into the back and they have a bunch of huge looms and massive amounts of yarn and thread where they make all their own stuff. There were also parrots and other birds back there, walls of colorfully woven pillows and blankets, as well as a little puppy that I visited about five times before I left. Except for the ridiculous tank top shaped sunburn I got (without a shirt I look like I’m wearing a wife-beater with nipples), the whole day was great and if anyone is ever in central Mexico I strongly suggest spending a day in Bernal.

(Before this weekend I had taken only four pictures: two of trees that grow in streets, one of a stretch slug bug and one of some goats that live in a parking lot by my school. Above are two from Bernal. You’re welcome.)

Why Luis Pasteur Was A Genius...

2008-08-24T17:18:00.001-07:00

(NOTE: We went to Bernal today and it was awesome, I will have more on that and other relevant topics relating to Mexico and my time here, however, this is not one of them.)

The first time I went driving around with Lolita I noticed they have a street here called “Pasteur” and I thought “Oh, like Luis Pasteur.” It turns out it’s exactly like Luis Pasteur as the whole name of the street is “Calle Luis Pasteur” and not only that but there is a clinic of sorts near my house named after him too—and it’s not even on Calle Pasteur. My ten minutes of wikipedia research found no connection between the Frenchman that pasteurized milk and Queretaro, Mexico. Regardless, I got to thinking as I was walking to the park to read today what a genius this guy was. Not only did he pasteurize milk but he also named it after himself. Now, as long as there is milk people will know who Luis Pasteur was. Conversely, inventors that don’t do this must be idiots. For whatever reason, the two products/inventions that I was thinking about were the microwave and deodorant. No one knows who invented either of those. No one even cares. It seems incomprehensible to me that someone would be smart enough to invent the microwave—the greatest kitchen appliance since the oven, and if you’re a college student the greatest kitchen appliance ever—and still be stupid enough to not name it after him or herself. If I invented the microwave I simply would have called it an Oliver; people would call it an Ollie for short. There would be an Oliver in 98% of American homes and an “Olliable Food” aisle in every grocery store in America. College students everywhere would love me and they would say stuff like, “Dude, Ollie those hot dogs for a couple more seconds” or “Hey, we should Oliver our clothes instead of paying for the dryers at the laundromat.” It would be awesome for all parties involved. The same is true for deodorant. We get it, it deodorizes, thanks for helping us out. Whoever invented deodorant could have had their name be synonymous with keeping people from perspiring and smelling like crap throughout their days worldwide. Instead no one knows who invented it because they were too stupid to put their name on it. Once again, if I invented deodorant it would be called “Oliver” and I would be loved by people with overactive sweat glands around the world. People would have their favorite kind of Oliver and there would be commercials with famous athletes endorsing a brand of Oliver. My kids would get into Harvard and someone might even write an uninteresting book about me that I could sign and pass off as birthday and Christmas presents every year. It has occurred to me that I may be wrong and somewhere there is a James Microwave or a Thomas Deodorant sitting around their mansion counting their billions, but I find that hard to believe. I was going to look up the microwave and deodorant on wikipedia as to avoid any factual errors that I might be making and to see who actually invented them (if anyone even knows) but I decided I didn’t care enough to read about some guy who didn’t realize the full potential of his invention. If microwaves were called “Smiths” I would be interested and have looked it up but instead I looked up “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and laughed my ass off. I wonder if the inventor of the microwave thinks about all this every night before he goes to bed (not “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” the other stuff I’ve been talking about) and what a mistake he made or if his wife brings it up in arguments (“You could have named the microwave after us you idiot!” …she has a valid point). I bet Luis Pasteur never regretted anything and went to bed every night with a happy wife and a smile on his face knowing that he will be forever immortalized on milk cartons and street signs worldwide. And would I also bet that the deodorant dude and the microwave guy are quite jealous.

Los Arboles

2008-08-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of one of my favorite things here in Queretaro. There are trees in the streets and sidewalks that instead of cutting down to make way for said streets and sidewalks they simply just paved around. I could be wrong and these are just crazy Mexican trees that can grow in concrete, but I’m highly skeptical of that theory. This tree is just a few blocks from my house and every time I pass it I ponder the ridiculousness of its existence. All they did was paint the bottom white! This is the kind of tree preservation that would make even Tre Arrow proud—although the approximately 4.2 million cars I have seen here compared to the exactly four bikes might not make him so happy. (I actually feel really bad for the cyclists here because each time I see one I am convinced that they haven’t got more than five minutes left to live.) Anyways, I was thinking about this on my way to class yesterday and wondering if there is a Mexican version on Tre Arrow. I highly, highly doubt it. Throughout the course of my half an hour walk I concluded that Tre Arrow as an idea and a person has to be a purely American invention—I couldn’t think of another place in the world where he could possibly exist. As soon as I came to this conclusion I realized that I had spent the last 30 minutes thinking about an eco-terrorist and his possible Mexican counterpart while obliviously walking through this really cool town with all this really cool stuff to see and not really taking any of it in. I wouldn’t say this depressed me, although I certainly wasn’t proud of myself.

(My favorite part of Tre Arrow’s wikipedia article that I linked above is that he used incense as the fuse to blow stuff up. Seriously? Talk about leaving behind your calling card. He might as well have just handcuffed himself and waited for the cops to get there.)

Dance Class

2008-08-20T14:23:00.001-07:00

Last night after dinner Lolita asked me if I wanted to go with her to her gym for her dance class. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do there or how long we’d be there or if I was just going to walk with her but I couldn’t say no and she has been telling me about her gym and all of her activities since I have been here. And, after all, at least this time I knew where I was going. When we got there the class had already started and there were about 15-20 people participating. Lolita, wearing workout pants with a blue washcloth tucked into the waistband, walked right up to the back and seamlessly joined the synchronization. (No one wears shorts here I have noticed. Even most of the guys lifting weights in the gym were wearing pants.) It was really quite amazing how all these people knew the dance moves and everything, I don’t know where or how they know them, but they did. I have seen aerobics in the States before and it is not really like this, this was more like Mexican dancing aerobics. Leading the class was a young, fit, attractive, short Mexican lady who yelled out instructions. Since we haven’t gotten to the dance aerobics vocabulary in any of my Spanish classes yet I wasn’t really sure what she was yelling but somehow, despite the fact that the music was blaring, this tiny little lady’s voice carried over all of it. Lolita was good at it (whatever its called) and she really got into it. I could tell she was glad that I came and she even introduced me to some of her gym friends who gave me sweaty kisses on the cheek and one told her that there was a girl from the states in the next class that I should meet. She said they can tell really easily when someone isn’t from here which just confirmed what I already knew. I thought it was really cool that everyone knew the dance steps and it did not take long here to figure out that Mexicans love to dance. I have already “danced” in one of my classes and I think we are going to in another tomorrow. It makes me jealous as an American that I never learned dances called “tango” or “salsa” but rather “grind” and “drunk.” There’s no art or beauty in either or those, especially when combined. Meanwhile, as I am thinking all of this, Lolita and her classmates dance away and I contemplate whether I should take a picture of this spectacle. I decide that I am sticking out enough as the gringo standing in the corner wearing shorts and a backpack watching a Mexican aerobics class without flashing off a picture in a mirrored room. Needless to say, I decided a mental image would have to do.

¡Hola!

2008-08-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, greetings from Queretaro. I figured I would set up this blog to give updates and pictures and what not along my way. (I haven´t taken any pictures yet so only this boring tidbit for now.) I have no idea how often I will do this but you can check or not check it whenever you want. Today is my first time on the internet (except about five minutes yesterday for an email) making the two and a half days without it the longest I have gone without internet since its existance. Didn´t think I´d make it, but I´m OK.

I got in later than I was supposed to on Sunday and met my host mother whose name is Lolita. She has a cool house with crazy stairs--it´s hard to explain. She is really nice and she immediately showed me all of her drawings; she takes art classes and at night draws the faces from a Leonardo da Vinci book she has. She is actually really good and she gets really excited when she talks about it. Being as my Spanish can at best be described as suspect, the two of us have a bit of a difficulty with communication. So far it has all been fine--she usually just laughs at me when I say something stupid--she does most of the talking and I aggree with what she says whether I understand or not and she knows I don´t really understand. Yesterday she was trying to tell me something that I wasn´t really understanding and the next thing I know we are driving somewhere in her car. I thought maybe she was taking me to an internet cafe because I had asked her earlier about one. In her car on the way to where ever it is we were going she asked me why I have my backpack and since I don´t know how to say ¨Because I have no idea where the hell we are going¨in Spanish I responded ¨uhhh, no se.¨ (¨don´t know¨). She laughed and told me she thought it was funny that I would bring my backpack to a restaurant. Apparently we were going to a restaurant. I aggreed that it was funny that I would bring my backpack, as if I knew where we were going all along. She saw right through it. Luckly, she is very patient with me and my ignorance. It turns out we were meeting the entire group and their host mothers for ¨comida.¨ Others in the group were confused as well, so that´s good. Because I don´t always understand what Lolita is saying, I am not exactly sure about certain things about her. So,

Things I know about Lolita:
°She lives alone but has three kids and seven grandkids. I have yet to meet them.
°She has a sweet black lab that stays in the carport area next to my room.
°She has yet to stop at a stop sign when driving.
°When walking she doesn´t expect drivers to stop at stop signs, intersections, etc. for her as she briskly walks or runs across most streets.
°She likes watching the Olympics and really likes Michael Phelps. (I have heard from others in the group that their host mothers were enamored with Phelps as well.)

Things I think I know about Lolita:
°She likes George Bush and she does not like Hugo Chavez. (I must say though, I am sure of very little from this conversation and I can´t say for certain what she was trying to tell me.)
°Her black lab´s name is ¨Roc¨(?)
°She is not attracted to Chinese men.
°She used to play basketball. (Still does?)
(All of these should have an asterisk by them since I am only about 25% sure that they are true.)

Things I have learned about myself:
°The next time I don´t look both ways before crossing a street is likely to be the last mistake I ever make.