Bienvenidos a Xelaju!

Technically, the town is called Quetzaltenango, the place of quetzals (it's a bird, the national bird of Guatemala), but everyone calls it Xelaju, or just Xela, the old Mayan name. It's just easier. Just how everyone calls Huehuetenango just, 'Huehue,' and Chichicastenango 'Chichi.' It's the second largest city in the country, but has only about 125,000 people (Guatemala City has about 3.5 million, up from 2 million just 5 years ago; the country alltogether has 13.5 million people). Like all large towns here, Xela is divided into zones - I think there are 11here, compared to 20-some in Guatemala City. I'm in zone 1, the center, aka 'gringo zone.' It's, well, like lots of other touristy Latin American cities I've been to, with micros (little Japanese vans which function as city buses) constantly combing the streets for passangers (at least they seem to use their lights at night, unlike in La Paz, Bolivia), chaotic traffic, gringos walking about clutching their Lonely Planets. There's a McDonalds on the main plaza, complete with McInternet (no, seriously. Buy a burger and get a half hour free). There seems to be a lot of money here; Bentleys, no, but Beemers, definitely (is Beemer a proper noun?). It's actually not that touristy on the scale of things, and most of the stuff I just mentioned has a lot more Guatemalans buying than foreigners. Day-tripping wealthy Guatemaltecos come on the weekends to do cocaine and party with tourists. Of course, leave the center and most of this changes. But where I live, you can take yoga or tai chi lessons, buy tofu by the pound, and eat European food 3 meals a day, if you were so inclined. Xela is actually kind of a cool place, because the extranjeros (outsiders) here often come to volunteer, or at least have that spirit. Many of the businesses that cater to tourists operate from volunteer labor, and donate most or all of their proceeds to various causes. Quetzal Trekkers, for example, funds a free school for poor children.




It's my fourth day in Xela, and despite what you might take away from what I just wrote, I think it's pretty nice. The city is at about 7,000 feet, and it's actually been brutally cold at night - it's the coldest part of the year I guess, and it was about 25 degrees the past couple nights (this is brutally cold when you packed for the beach and haven't seen a heater since you got here). It's supposed to start getting warmer, but it's tough right now because 2 of my 3 months are planned to be in the tropics and on the beach. This means I packed light (I didn't even check a bag), and now my rash guard is functioning as a base layer. For once I'm really grateful that my hoody actually has a hood. It's fine during the day, and in fact is probably 70 or 75 degrees in the sun, but it's rough getting up in the morning (I should mention that the only countries I have ever been in where heating or cooling is common are the US and Canada. There are probably a couple more, but the vast majority of places are at the whim of the weather. My house has no form of heat other than the oven, making the kitchen the place to be in the mornings. Pus, there's that aweful instant coffee to keep you warm. You in the US, thanks for buying all the good beans). But hey, the way I look at it is if I get by during the coldest parts of my trip having to wear all my clothes, then I packed just the right amount.



I started Spanish lessons last Friday, and moved in with my host family that afternoon. I had a whole list of schools researched, but visited two schools, and just settled on the second one. I figure the teacher is more important than the school anyways, and it's hard to know who that will be until you start. That, and I decided I didn't want to burn two whole days just trekking about visiting schools. That's acutally usually how I do things, very deliberately (Jesse, are you going to tell me this is the Libra in me? :-D), but not this time. I've had two days of classes, and with two different teachers. That was lame, because half of today was rehashing my first day (where did you learn Spanish? What do you want to cover? Let's chat so I can learn how much you know and we can get to know each other). I thought both seemed like good teachers, although my teacher today (Carlos) was younger, and while he seemed more thourough than my first teacher (Rosa), he seemed really distracted for the last half-hour or so. But like I said, he was really thorough with his explanations, was a bit of a hard-ass with me, and gave me a bunch of tarea (homework). So we'll see how it goes by Thursday (when it's time to fork over cash for a new week).



I think I got a really great host family. They are super nice, and we interact a lot, which was my main complaint with the two families I had in Cusco - I'll actually get to practice my Spanish a lot. One of my host brothers is also a teacher at my school, which means he'll correct my Spanish. I like that, because normally it doesn't happen, and it can get easy to ingrain bad habits. Anyways, I have a host mom, Esperanza, who is super nice and seems to want to make sure we're eating the types of food we want to eat, but she's pretty subtle about it ("which salsa is your favorite?"). We eat pretty tipico comida; tortillas (smaller and thicker than in Mexico or at home) or chichitos (small bits of corn dough, sometimes with meat inside) accompany every meal. Frijoles (beans) are another staple, and the salsas are hot, fresh, and varied (tomatillo or tomate con cilantro are common ones). Along with Esperanza is her mother, whose name I forget because we just call her abuelita ("little grandma," it's a term of endearment), who sits at the end of the table in silence, until she sees an opening to crack a sarcastic, yet friendly, joke at one of our expenses. Geraldo, my host dad, is also really nice, although he works 12 hour days 5 days a week, and 6 hours on Saturday, as an electronics repairman (at "Electronics Repair Isreal." Because we all know Jews are whizzes with electronics? Seriously, throw a rock in Latin America and you'll hit a business with a funny name). I already mentioned Jason, 22, my host brother who works at my school and also studies civil engineering, and then there's Roni, 18, my other host brother, who just got into the public university (more competative than Jason's private one, apparently) to be a doctor. There are two other extranjero (foreigner) students in the house; Roberto (not his real name, he's from Korea but studied abroad in Mexico, and Roberto is his Spanish name) is a little better than me at the language, which makes sense since he studies 8 hours a day 6 days a week! He's a pretty quiet guy, and only speaks Spanish unless we need to explain something in English about the Spanish, so that's good practice. There's also Eileen, who is getting ready to go run a Christian missionary thing in Peru in two months and is learning Spanish. 

One thing that's really weird about my home stay, and exactly the same as my other two home stays: I have no idea what most of the house is like. I wasn't given a tour or anything, and like many Latin American houses, mine is set around a courtyard. What's behind all those doors? Maybe a two-headed rabbit or something, only a mutant one that only has one head. Who knows? Anyways, even though I don't feel like a stranger at all, I have little sense of what the house is really like or how my family lives. I've never eaten with Esperanza or Abuelita. I mean, they own two cars and have a big house with two kids in university, so they're definitely middle class (although it's still not safe to be on their street after midnight), but that's about all I can say.




I probably gave the impression that I wasn't very excited when I got to Guatemala, and that's the truth. I guess I was bummed about leaving a place I like and people I love - again. I also wasn't sure what this trip was going to be like, because I haven't done a trip like this since my 4 months in Asia when I was 18 (that is, a trip not for school). Only nowI have a totally different perspective on traveling, not all of it positive. During my brief periods as a tourist around South America (i.e. inbetween research projects), I always found it really hard to connect with backpackers. I felt like it was the same stupid conversation over and over and over - where are you from? How long are you here? What have you seen? What are you going to see? What's the cheapest way to do it? Let me tell you about the time I got ripped off. Let me tell you about how not to get ripped off. Let me complain about the prices for X, then regale in how cheap Y is. Let me use a ticket to a poor country as a cheap way to party, and use the services only the local elite can afford, and get no perspective on what a place is really like. And of course, I see myself at least partially in at least some of these things, and that just makes it that much more bitter of a pill to swallow. I mean, living in Bolivia doing research for school, I would go out and party - and it was cheap, and that was rad, and it was fun. I HATE fussing around with taxi drivers because they always try and pull one over on you, even if it's for two or three dollars. If I'm taking a 20 hour bus ride, I go primera clase. But at the same time, I have learned a lot about myself traveling, and how to be a responsible traveler (I like to think). Bargaining is always a game, and should be fun, not life-or-death. I'm actually not big on souveneirs, and buy most stuff at places with prices on them - just because very commonly street vendors will triple a price because they can tell you have money based on your skin color, and I don't like having to bargain when I just want to buy some soap or something. And the whole thing about all of this shit with money is that "we" have it and "they" don't, and that's just not a super comfortable situation. Should I be really rich compared to 4/5 of the world? Am I somehow at fault that a lot of people are poor? It's the same as how people in the US can get really irate when the homeless ask for money - no one wants to think that they are in any way responsible for someone elses misfortune, but in the back of their minds exists that nagging doubt. So we all have to weave some sort of story to make ourselves comfortable; maybe it's close to the truth, maybe not. I don't think there is ANY clear-cut answer to these issues; like most important stuff, it's something intelligent people can disagree on, but it's definitely a friction that can be felt when traveling to most places in the world. I actually think the Xela crowd is a pretty interesting one, it's mostly young people here to live, work, and volunteer. A lot of them seem to like to travel the way I do, in a way that connects you to the place and the people around you, and is about more than just snapping pictures. So far, the people I've met have been pretty interesting.



Anyways, I've gotten off track a bit. I wanted to write that after getting settled in, I'm having a great time. I really like learning Spanish, and I'm a lot better than I thought I was going to be, even though I still suck. It's hard for me to follow long conversations, although I at least get the jist in the shorter ones - usually. Guatemala has a pretty slow, neutral way of speaking, from what I've seen so far. I'm actually just fine being in the gringo zone, because the loneliness of not interacting with those of the same culture really became a drag in Bolivia, and it's not something I want to revisit. I'm still eating typical food, speaking primarily in Spanish, and I plan on being in some fairly remote places later on. I'm definitely in a middle-class Guatemalan house, but you know, I've seen a shit-ton of poverty in the world. I know it's there, I know it's unjust, and unless I plan on seriously living on $2 a day over here, like most of the world does, I don't think I have a lot more to gain from gawking at poor people.


This post reminded me of this quote:
"Even the milk from our own animals does not belong to us. We must give to those who need it, for a poor man shames us all" -- An elder of the Gabra, a pastoral tribe of nomads in Kenya