I could also be tired because there's a flock of little birds that taps around on the corrugated metal roof above my room as soon as the sun comes up, and an attendant cat that occasionally chases them. My room is really nice actually, but man it's been cold here at night. My floor is concrete with tile over it, and in the morning it's like an iceberg on your feet, in a room that's already 45 degrees to start with. I don't shower much, first because there's so many people (9) sharing one bathroom, and also because it's no fun showering in near-freezing weather. The hot water is a pretty standard on-demand electric unit, which has a hot-cold-warm setting, which I find laughable - not only because it's so cold in the bathroom to start with that you would never want anything BUT hot water, but because the 'hot' water isn't all that hot anyways.
Another thing I noticed in my bathroom is that the toilet water seems to leave streams of dirt behind. My family has a big water filter hooked to the sink that they use even before they boil water for cooking. The water cuts in and out here; apparently there's plenty of water in Xela but not very sound infrastructure. I wonder if that's salt in the wound for students at the engineering school here. 'This is how it WOULD be done - i.e. no dirt in the water - and then this is what happens here in Guatemala.'
I'm probably going to modify my plan to stay in Xela for 4 weeks. I don't think I want to hang out here that long; I'm not in love with the city enough to stay and just live (even though I prefer long stays to short stays), and I think I'll be able to check out the things I want to check out in a couple more weeks, as day trips around Spanish lessons. Also, my original plan to volunteer isn't really working out. I have classes from 8-1, and I don't get done with lunch until nearly 3. And then the city shuts down around 6. Not everything, but it's amazing to me how much stuff closes once it gets dark. So I don't really feel like I have time in the day, plus most places expect (and deserve) at least a one month commitment, which I don't think I can make. So I feel like it's a case for moving on sooner rather than later (I do have time to be someplace for a month, so if something works out volunteer-wise, I'm definitely open to that - but I don't think it will be in Xela). I might head to a mountainous area called the Ixil Triangle next, where the lifestyle is very traditional and Mayan; it's also one of the areas where some of the worst massacres occurred during the 30-year civil war (maybe I'll get around to telling you all about that someday, but there's also Wikipedia and the rest of The Internets if you're interested, and it really is interesting. Not to mention shameful for those of us from the United States; once again we installed a real bastard series of military dictators who killed a bunch of people, and we did it because the military was anti-communist). The Ixil Triangle is also supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the country, with good trekking. From there I think I'll go to Lago de Atitlan, and maybe take another week of Spanish lessons there (everyone, tourists and Guatemalans alike, love Lake Atitlan). And probably a stop in Antigua, the old colonial capital cum gringo capital, if for no other reason than to take money out. For the first time in all of my travels, I'm having a lot of trouble finding Mastercard ATMs. So I'll probably have to take out a shit-ton of Quetzales in Xela and in Antigua, budget carefully, and hope I don't get robbed.
OK, I'm going to do one of the things that I complained about in my last post, but I hope my sticker-shock is understandable. But let me weave a backstory first: Burgundy, 1944. No, wait. That's my Great American Novel I'm writing while I travel abroad to Find Myself. Portland international airport, 2009. I'm passing through security. They think something is in my bag. I think nothing of it. They don't see anything, but the scanner saw something, so they run the bag through again. Ah, there it is: a big bottle of explosive sunscreen. I thought I had been so careful. I bought bulk Dr. Bronner's to bring, and had a 4 oz. bottle, so was careful to fill it only 3/4 of the way, so I wouldn't break the 3 oz. or less liquid rule (if you haven't flown in the past 8 years, you can't bring liquids on an airplane in more than 3 oz. containers. Strangely, I could have broken my sunscreen into several small bottles and been OK. I'm pretty much convinced airport security is a bunch of bullshit to make white people feel safe and show how easy it is for The Man to intrude in our lives). I even left toothpaste at home, so it wouldn't get taken (yes, you can buy toothpaste, even in the savage wilds of Guatemala. And bulk tofu). Somehow I didn't think about the sunscreen. So the jerks took my sunscreen. I'm going to need sunscreen - this is, after all, "Surf and Spanish in Central America." I'm going to be on the beach, a lot. I knew I could probably get sunscreen in Central America, but I was nervous because in Brazil, the locals don't use sunscreen, only rich tourists do. So sunscreen in Brazil costs $15 for a 2 oz. bottle, and gets MORE EXPENSIVE as the SPF goes up (and if you haven't seen me lately, I'm pretty much as translucent as I've always been). Anyways, I bought a bottle on my layover in Miami (wow, for once I think to myself, "Florida rocks"), but since I'm not sure how long it will last (Alaskans aren't good at gauging those things, I don't think), I decided to see if I could buy some in Xela (do I overuse comments in parentheses?). It is the second biggest city in the country, after all. So I looked around. Anyone want to guess on a price before I tell you? Ok, ready? $23 for a 3.5 oz. bottle. Ouch. If things look tight for sunscreen in Sipacate, I'm wiring money home and having some sent, I'll have enough left over to rent a surf board for a week.
So there's this thing here called Xela Who, it's a zine run by expats or temporary foreign residents or whatever, and it has stuff in it about Xela and what's going on here, where to eat, how to be the best gringo you can be. And I was flipping through it, and in the back there's some brief staff bio stuff (and boy are they a wacky, fun luvin bunch). Anyways, I was hit with a strange feeling, something approaching revulsion. Not because I think moving to a poor foreign country and starting a low-rent magazine that's mostly adds and is about where the best Indian food is or where to get drunk on a Tuesday is an asinine thing to do, but because of the lifestyle choice I saw, and the path I might even see myself on: being an expat seems like the most miserable, awful thing ever. I have spent a large chunk of my adult life traveling, and I think it's a great way to gain perspective on yourself and on the world. But fuck man, moving someplace permanently? That sounds like a desperate plea for help to me. I was thinking earlier today how insanely hard it is to master a language. I'm really happy with my Spanish, I'm understanding more (although having more trouble spitting words out than before, in South America), and have beat my expectations (even though, and let me be clear, my Spanish is pretty sucky. I regularly confuse verb conjugations, words, I even confused left and right earlier today). I doubt I will ever be fluent. I think to really be fluent, you have to study a language from a young age, continue to study it in university, including lots of reading and writing, and spend a whole shit-ton of time living in a place where they speak that language. And language is only one part of a culture, albeit an important one. So even if someone can master Spanish, a white kid from suburban Seattle who is hell-bent on educating poor kids on the CA isthmus (or hell-bent on living in Xela and hanging out with other gringos who have made the same decision) will never really be Guatemalan. I mean, if there's one thing I take away from traveling in other cultures, it's that I_am_a_guest_here. That's not to say that cultural boundaries can't be overcome, and it's not to say that people shouldn't travel. And I know that national boundaries are sociological creations, and someone could make this same argument about traveling to the next town, instead of the next country. And that's also not to say that for some people, expatriating might be a great option. But for me, I would always feel foreign, even in a place like Xela, on an island surrounded by The Other. There's nothing wrong with The Other, but it does sound lonely to me, and unfulfilling. It's basically what I felt living in Bolivia. The racial, cultural, and economic differences just seem too great to overcome in a single lifetime, and that's all the time I have (as far as I know. C'mon, theory of rebirth!). I still remember my year in South America, and how strangely weird it was when at the end of my trip, in Brazil, I hung out with a group of Americans for the first time (and West coasters, at that). I dunno, it was just so strangely comfortable, the ease of communication, the understanding of innuendo and boundaries. It was like comfort culture, instead of comfort food. I have too many close friends, and family, and places I love that are Home, in the United States (traveling makes me strangely patriotic). Maybe severe cultural barriers are just one reason change comes so slowly. And maybe this is part of my whiteness, and what I'm expressing is how, for example, black people feel all the time in the United States. But even if that is the case, and I have some special privilege, it's not something I want to give up. Would you?
By the way, trying to brush your teeth with Dr. Bronner's is about the stupidest thing you could do. Just sayin.
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