Guatemala is a violent country.
Thankfully (knock on wood) during my time here I have been fortunate enough to not experience that violence in a drastic way. I have not been a real victim, although I do find myself prisoner of fear, perhaps one of the more understated additional consequences of routine violence. As I move about my daily life I am aware of the horrible could have beens and the leery possible-robberies or petty thefts to-be surrounding and threatening me. There are also far more atrocious violent acts of the rape, murder, kidnap, torture, and senseless combinations of the aforementioned. These acts pass on such a routine basis that they are sometimes featured as single paragraph or line blips on the national media scene in such a manner that one could almost forget that inhumane suffering is actually transpiring in relation to individual lives.
Domestic violence isn't really even registered within this. It is like its own supreme reigning force of normality that people barely even bat an eyelash at except to pay it lip service as something vaguely "bad" when viewed as publicly necessary. Granted all of this is tied into the horribly corrupt police force and the pitiful lack of cases that are actually pursued or investigated nevertheless brought to any modicum of justice. I have been on buses before and seen out the window a man openly beating a woman, presumably his wife, on the side of the road. And the bus won't stop, the people won't cry out in protest, and even if we were to "help", the police would never do anything about it and the woman would probably get beat even more harshly as soon as the couple disappeared from the public eye. I have seen this more than once, and at least a handful of friends have witnessed similar if not nearly identical situations. It's the kind of situation that makes you want to vomit for feeling so awful.
Sometimes the insidious reality of it (the culture of violence) stares you straight in the eyes without blinking once.
Sometime in the past year one of the some 80-odd Habitat building brigades of international volunteers helped build a house for a family in Zacapa. Both the mother and the 11 year old daughter helped build their new home, which they were eager to move in to and get out of their renting situation as soon as possible. The house was completed and awaiting a few minor things like electricity and water hook ups, and the family was waiting to move from their old rented place to their new home.
Today I had to run errands for my boss, one of which was to get quotes for the printing of an 8x10 photograph, the making of its frame, and a small plaque to attach to it with the girl's name and, in Spanish, "We will remember, you and carry you in our hearts forever". It is a meager gift to be given to the girl's mother in memory of her daughter. The girl was alone in the house one day cleaning something and was raped, beaten, and then murdered by the landlord. He is a drug dealer, and from what I can understand, nothing of any consequence will happen to him for that, because he has a lot of power.
Excuse my language, but that's just plain fucked. Every aspect of it.
31 January 2008
29 January 2008
Coins here are of a pleasing weight and substantiveness as compared to those at home.
An hour long wait at a construction traffic block on the highway from Guatemala to Xela. An indigenous woman from Xela with long plaited silver hair that looks like she could be reaching the upper limits of 70s but who is probably actually in her 50s. An intricately hand woven bulky but always delicately made huipil blouse bristling with geometric patterns. Lots of black and white interlocking arrows making thin stripes circumscribing her body but always seeming to point to her husband on her left. Purples, reds, cerulean blues, and bright brocaded flowers spilling over and around the neck hole of the shirt. The visible part of the shirt ends above her bellybutton, where it is tightly tucked into an unimaginably full and pleated navy blue skirt with skinny stripes of light colors like tiny prisms running from bellybutton to ankle.
And somewhere in that woven cotton shirt is 25 centavos. In goes the hand and it does not stop its methodological and through rummaging above, below, around, behind, within, without, lift, let drop and I don't know how else within one's own shirt and breasts for an inconceivable hiding place. Finally, her hand emerges with the rather sizeable 25 centavo coin, with which she triumphantly decides not to go ahead and buy the 1 quetzal peanuts from the peddler she had just summoned. And back the coin gets plunked for safe keeping.
And somewhere in that woven cotton shirt is 25 centavos. In goes the hand and it does not stop its methodological and through rummaging above, below, around, behind, within, without, lift, let drop and I don't know how else within one's own shirt and breasts for an inconceivable hiding place. Finally, her hand emerges with the rather sizeable 25 centavo coin, with which she triumphantly decides not to go ahead and buy the 1 quetzal peanuts from the peddler she had just summoned. And back the coin gets plunked for safe keeping.
28 January 2008
Other things seen: (an previously unposted bunch of thoughts from Guatemalan observations)
=Spray painted on a warehouse across from the large market in Xela appearing shortly after election results announced: NARCOLOM (Clever, Narcotrafficker-Colom)
=Abundance of pair-less two year old girls' dress shoes (think white scuffed Mary Jane approximately 4 inches in length) accompanying middle aged or father-aged men either in hand or hung from nearby places to their heads (bus shelves).
=5 people fit snugly on one undersized hybrid bicycle (3 were children).
=Half tub (no, not tube) of hair gel used in one male's hair styling for one day.
=Forthcoming English phrase t-shirts such as "Playgirl", "Hot Chick", "Bitch", "Your boyfriend wants me" and other such imaginable gems on rather unsuspecting looking pre-preteens (maybe this just means I am not "hip").
=Bathroom signs (in a country I would put near the bottom of likely-to-make-an-issue-about-clothing-gender-stereotypes list) which depict, to clarify the which bathrooms go with which sex/gender, a woman sitting on a toilet and a man with a small penis pulled out peeing into a urinal. In case there were any sort of doubt about how the deed is done.
=Walking out of my front door: an entire funeral procession descending upon my rather small street.
=Abundance of pair-less two year old girls' dress shoes (think white scuffed Mary Jane approximately 4 inches in length) accompanying middle aged or father-aged men either in hand or hung from nearby places to their heads (bus shelves).
=5 people fit snugly on one undersized hybrid bicycle (3 were children).
=Half tub (no, not tube) of hair gel used in one male's hair styling for one day.
=Forthcoming English phrase t-shirts such as "Playgirl", "Hot Chick", "Bitch", "Your boyfriend wants me" and other such imaginable gems on rather unsuspecting looking pre-preteens (maybe this just means I am not "hip").
=Bathroom signs (in a country I would put near the bottom of likely-to-make-an-issue-about-clothing-gender-stereotypes list) which depict, to clarify the which bathrooms go with which sex/gender, a woman sitting on a toilet and a man with a small penis pulled out peeing into a urinal. In case there were any sort of doubt about how the deed is done.
=Walking out of my front door: an entire funeral procession descending upon my rather small street.
26 January 2008
Proselytizing sell(ing),
I don't really take public transportation in the States. Granted I do live in a city, Providence, where taking public buses (or driving for that matter) is often slower than riding a bike, and ultimately the span of areas that I need to reach is just not very extensive. The most convincing of reasons to not ride a bike are the following: sleet, snow, rain, cold, arriving sweaty. In that order. Additionally, kudos to RIPTA for existing, but it just isn't the best system in the world. Anyways, I grew up in a rural area where public transportation does not exist.
I say this all as (unnecessary) pretext to my proselytization observations to clarify that I have no real basis for comparison in the states, only conjecture. At any rate, among the long and ever growing list of things that never cease to me as I go about daily life in Guatemala, the aggressive yet paradoxically benign proselytizing & random product-pushing culture that runs rampant. Primary targets are buses, always. Second targets are the streets.
I am sitting in an aforementioned (see Aug 20th entry) camioneta ("chicken bus") in Salamá, the capital of the department of Baja Verapaz, waiting to take a midday bus into Guatemala City. This bus is not exactly a second-class coach bus, nor is it quite a normal camioneta. Whereas most buses have normal school bus seating, this bus had taken a classy step up by ripping out all normal school bus seating and replacing it with what I will call affectionately well worn to the threads coach bus seats, four per aisle. Additionally, each of the windows had its own some sort of red velour or crushed fake velvet type curtain strung up so as to protect one from the sun as wished. Complimenting the incongruous seating were new panels of fake granite siding running the length of the bus from floor to window.
But, I digress. I am sitting there in Salamá waiting for an unknown hour upon which we will depart (the "10 minutes" in the phrase "we leave in 10 minutes" has the incredible ability to defy our clearly naive standard conceptions of "time" and span anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 hours worth of "time"), and I am watching every person like a hawk who strolls up the front steps of this bus, half of whom are not actual passengers to be but rather people hawking their wares to all the clientel already settled in the bus: el Diario (Guatemala's trashy newspaper), La Prensa (the NY Times equivalent), aguas (soda or purified water), jugos (too-sugary juices), llaveros (key chains), dulces (penny candies) and more. I am not phased by this type of selling, it's expected and even desired on my part by now. It's just part of life. Salamá to Guate is a long bus ride, and I am trying my best to telepathically beseech a street vendor bearing chiles rellenos to enter the bus so I can bring along a modest lunch-snack. Or at least toasted fava beans.
Instead, I get an Evangelical.
It's a funny game to play, which I suppose is made easier by my being a non-too-apparent foreigner, the game of "please for goodness sake don't bother me or make me feel awkward but not too disinterested as to be perceived rude" game. We (i.e, anyone trying to get your attention for vending wares, whether they be God, help for family plight, consumibles, a cure all pill for an un-realized ailment, or a marketing mixture of any and all of the above) always start with a:
Most beautiful God blessed day to all of you, ladies and gentleman, with all due respect, I am here to ...... (and then we begin).
He whips out the worn Bible and... Although I understand perfectly what he is saying his exact words don't really stick with me, just general vagueness and indecent amount of repetition. (I guess that is the idea). God is great, God knows all, stop pretending he can't see what you do and what you think. She sins, he sins, you sin, and God knows it. Going to church is not enough, being pious is not enough, you have got to know it. (interlude with a quick actual Bible passage read that says nothing illuminative). I love my family but I love God so I had to leave them to find for themselves to spread the word. (A brief fumbling, pointed fingering, incompatible Bible passage, and dramatic pause later, we return to preaching). You can never know full well on your own how to fully comprehend your sin and the power of God, it's just not possible. Being a good Evangelical is not good enough. But I do. That's why I had to leave my family and preach. Become an Evangelical. I have to continue spreading my truth.
....(and how we always end) So, ladies and gentleman, with all due respect I will be passing individually to your seats, I appreciate your support greatly. God bless.
I'm puzzled. He actually made no coherent point, and then he ended. But a good one quarter of the people on the bus are giving him small amounts of money anyways. Some street vendors had climbed on the bus, one even bearing fava beans (!), but I felt too awkward to interrupt and to flag them down from behind the proselytizer and make them walk up the aisle toward me, so I lose my snack chance.
But why does that work? Why the (dare I say it) hell did that work? The man said nonsense for Evangelicals and nothing conversion-worthy for non-Evangelicals. He made a poor case for giving financial support to his dubious, I guess I could say...missionary? work. Is he actually a swindler? Does he really believe himself to be gifted with the word of God? Do people feel better because he mentioned God so they ought to give some sort of donation, no matter what? Are people always that easily controlled? And where did my past 15 minutes go? I can't decide if it is true dedication or true ridiculous repulsiveness.
The bus starts.
But I do know that the man and the bus driver and his helper know each other. He is a regular. In fact, the man's preaching fell upon deaf ears as far as the bus driver and his assistant were concerned, to the point that they felt no qualms about bantering in a slightly interruptive volume of voice throughout the whole process. The proselytizer gets left off in a neighborhood five minutes on the way out of the city center, presumably to catch another bus on in the way in. The three wave their respective goodbyes. This happens one out three or four times I am on a bus.
I can't imagine anyone pulling a stunt like that on public transportation in the states. Am I just that naive? I am still puzzled.
I say this all as (unnecessary) pretext to my proselytization observations to clarify that I have no real basis for comparison in the states, only conjecture. At any rate, among the long and ever growing list of things that never cease to me as I go about daily life in Guatemala, the aggressive yet paradoxically benign proselytizing & random product-pushing culture that runs rampant. Primary targets are buses, always. Second targets are the streets.
I am sitting in an aforementioned (see Aug 20th entry) camioneta ("chicken bus") in Salamá, the capital of the department of Baja Verapaz, waiting to take a midday bus into Guatemala City. This bus is not exactly a second-class coach bus, nor is it quite a normal camioneta. Whereas most buses have normal school bus seating, this bus had taken a classy step up by ripping out all normal school bus seating and replacing it with what I will call affectionately well worn to the threads coach bus seats, four per aisle. Additionally, each of the windows had its own some sort of red velour or crushed fake velvet type curtain strung up so as to protect one from the sun as wished. Complimenting the incongruous seating were new panels of fake granite siding running the length of the bus from floor to window.
But, I digress. I am sitting there in Salamá waiting for an unknown hour upon which we will depart (the "10 minutes" in the phrase "we leave in 10 minutes" has the incredible ability to defy our clearly naive standard conceptions of "time" and span anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 hours worth of "time"), and I am watching every person like a hawk who strolls up the front steps of this bus, half of whom are not actual passengers to be but rather people hawking their wares to all the clientel already settled in the bus: el Diario (Guatemala's trashy newspaper), La Prensa (the NY Times equivalent), aguas (soda or purified water), jugos (too-sugary juices), llaveros (key chains), dulces (penny candies) and more. I am not phased by this type of selling, it's expected and even desired on my part by now. It's just part of life. Salamá to Guate is a long bus ride, and I am trying my best to telepathically beseech a street vendor bearing chiles rellenos to enter the bus so I can bring along a modest lunch-snack. Or at least toasted fava beans.
Instead, I get an Evangelical.
It's a funny game to play, which I suppose is made easier by my being a non-too-apparent foreigner, the game of "please for goodness sake don't bother me or make me feel awkward but not too disinterested as to be perceived rude" game. We (i.e, anyone trying to get your attention for vending wares, whether they be God, help for family plight, consumibles, a cure all pill for an un-realized ailment, or a marketing mixture of any and all of the above) always start with a:
Most beautiful God blessed day to all of you, ladies and gentleman, with all due respect, I am here to ...... (and then we begin).
He whips out the worn Bible and... Although I understand perfectly what he is saying his exact words don't really stick with me, just general vagueness and indecent amount of repetition. (I guess that is the idea). God is great, God knows all, stop pretending he can't see what you do and what you think. She sins, he sins, you sin, and God knows it. Going to church is not enough, being pious is not enough, you have got to know it. (interlude with a quick actual Bible passage read that says nothing illuminative). I love my family but I love God so I had to leave them to find for themselves to spread the word. (A brief fumbling, pointed fingering, incompatible Bible passage, and dramatic pause later, we return to preaching). You can never know full well on your own how to fully comprehend your sin and the power of God, it's just not possible. Being a good Evangelical is not good enough. But I do. That's why I had to leave my family and preach. Become an Evangelical. I have to continue spreading my truth.
....(and how we always end) So, ladies and gentleman, with all due respect I will be passing individually to your seats, I appreciate your support greatly. God bless.
I'm puzzled. He actually made no coherent point, and then he ended. But a good one quarter of the people on the bus are giving him small amounts of money anyways. Some street vendors had climbed on the bus, one even bearing fava beans (!), but I felt too awkward to interrupt and to flag them down from behind the proselytizer and make them walk up the aisle toward me, so I lose my snack chance.
But why does that work? Why the (dare I say it) hell did that work? The man said nonsense for Evangelicals and nothing conversion-worthy for non-Evangelicals. He made a poor case for giving financial support to his dubious, I guess I could say...missionary? work. Is he actually a swindler? Does he really believe himself to be gifted with the word of God? Do people feel better because he mentioned God so they ought to give some sort of donation, no matter what? Are people always that easily controlled? And where did my past 15 minutes go? I can't decide if it is true dedication or true ridiculous repulsiveness.
The bus starts.
But I do know that the man and the bus driver and his helper know each other. He is a regular. In fact, the man's preaching fell upon deaf ears as far as the bus driver and his assistant were concerned, to the point that they felt no qualms about bantering in a slightly interruptive volume of voice throughout the whole process. The proselytizer gets left off in a neighborhood five minutes on the way out of the city center, presumably to catch another bus on in the way in. The three wave their respective goodbyes. This happens one out three or four times I am on a bus.
I can't imagine anyone pulling a stunt like that on public transportation in the states. Am I just that naive? I am still puzzled.
24 January 2008
A bit sentimental
As my times winds down here in Xela, I have become more astute to the niceties of those that I know and the particular people and situations that I will miss.
Last Tuesday there was a giant despedida (going away party) in the office for four people (including me) that are leaving their jobs in Habitat. Granted, I don't think that were it to be just me leaving, not the others, that it would be such a grand fanfare. But, regardless, it was incredibly touching. I have only been there a short five months and some change, and I travel a lot, so I am unfortunately not in the office that much.
But, I am left dumbstruck by how kind everyone has been to me in my short time here. From emails to hugs to random text messages saying May God bless you (or related other things) to teary goodbyes, it's made quite the impression on me. And I am incredibly thankful for it.
Last Tuesday there was a giant despedida (going away party) in the office for four people (including me) that are leaving their jobs in Habitat. Granted, I don't think that were it to be just me leaving, not the others, that it would be such a grand fanfare. But, regardless, it was incredibly touching. I have only been there a short five months and some change, and I travel a lot, so I am unfortunately not in the office that much.
But, I am left dumbstruck by how kind everyone has been to me in my short time here. From emails to hugs to random text messages saying May God bless you (or related other things) to teary goodbyes, it's made quite the impression on me. And I am incredibly thankful for it.
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