Letter to Home, January 3, 2003
first story I ever read before a live audience 2004
Hi everyone! A lot of people 'Back Home' have asked what life is like as a volunteer down here in the Guatemalan highlands. The following is an account of one afternoon spent traveling to my newly assigned site in Huehuetenago (pronounced "Way-way- ta-nan-go", translates roughly into "Way way the f*** out there"). Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to pass it onto others you think may be curious as well. Brandt, I know it's not as good as your stories. Sorry! I am trying, my dear. Be patient with me. It starts, of course, as every great adventure story since John Long started writing, must begin:
No s**t, there I was-
One leg hanging outside the tailgate of a pickup truck, one leg on top of the tailgate. One arm holding on for dear life to a welded metal bar above my head, the other holding up a 35 lb backpack, in a gravity defying, muscle straining maneuver that I think even my karate instructor would be have been proud of. 'This probably isn't a good idea', I am thinking to myself, and then we are moving. I start to relax, well as much as one can in this position. At last, I am finally on my way home.
'Home', of course, is a mountaintop village, a 40 minute walk uphill from the nearest road. Getting there sometimes requires quite a bit of maneuvering. As Peace Corps volunteers, we are expected to live more or less like the locals we are serving, on a very basic salary, taking care for our daily needs (cooking, laundry, etc.), and effecting change at a local level, all while remaining safe and healthy. On, essentially, $3/ day. It is my belief that these goals are often going to be at odds with one another. If nothing else, mathematics is against us.
It is the 31'st of December. I am in town to pick up groceries, pick up laundry from yesterday (I am quickly discovering that nothing here is allowed to take just a day to do. Definitely against some law or another) and to call my family and wish them all a Happy New Year, since I can't make a phone call from my site. 'Town' is a 2 hour epic journey, both ways, most of the travel on the most dangerous stretch of the Pan-American Highway, considered the 4th most dangerous road in the world.. Half a day of travel. Sunset falls at 6:30 every day. If I don't start up the mountain by 3:30. I run the serious risk of walking a treacherous stretch of No-man's herd path riddled with El Salvadoran street gangs under rapidly darkening skies. They wait at the sides of the road, rolling boulders down hill to stop trucks and buses, and to rob them of money, beer, and white female tourist looking people like myself. the fact that I don't have a single cent to my name right now probably would not be much of a deterrant.
I have cut it close today. It is just now 3:30. I had been waiting in the parque for a bus up the mountain for 45 minutes when this truck pulls up and asks me if I am going to Todos Santos. I tell them my stop is on the way, and they tell me to hop on. Needing to get up the mountain ASAP, I do. Public transportation in Guatemala is something to send suburban housewives running to their legislators. The back of pickup trucks are equipped with a wood or metal cage like structure, reinforced with metal struts. These struts double as 'oh s**t' handles, allowing people to hold on, both to the inside and outside. I have read that I other countries the US Army dubs
these pickup trucks 'Kling-on Karts', for the sheer number of people they can hold. I have seen 50. This one only had 30. Plenty of room- hop on. I try not to notice how dangerously we are listing to the side as the truck starts moving. Too late anyway.
The pickup starts rolling up the street, and I am picturing in my mind exactly how uncomfortable it is gong to be to maintain this position for the ride an hour up the mountain while negotiating blind hairpin turns. While passing otehr vehicles. With a 500' drop on the right hand side. Still, I'm thinking, "I've had more uncomfortable rides than this one"... when all of a sudden, the truck banks a sharp left, almost tips over, and starts down an alleyway blocked by market traffic. The driver reverses directions, and turns around, only to start inexplicably going the wrong way down a one way street.
A municipal worker starts yelling and running towards us, There is a truck coming the other way, fast. The driver turns sharply down another alley, this one blocked by a 3 foot high dirt mound. The driver then does what any Guatemalan male with 'huevos' would do (more on this concept later)- he floors the accelerator, and guns the truck up over the road block. We land with a crashing jolt on the other side (remember- I am still hanging off the tailgate!), and keep going.
Straight through the town center we go, barreling like a bat out of hell, as if late for a very important date. We turn, travel two blocks, and abruptly stop, exactly 1 1/3 blocks from where we had originally started. Half of the people in the truck bed get out, and everyone else changes position, apparently for lack of something better to do. Five more people got in.
The driver gets out, and looks at the baskets, backpacks, etc. that everyone has with them. There is more than plenty of room for everyone, and for everything, but he still decides to spend 15 minutes rigging up a complicated system of ropes to hang everyone's baskets and backpacks from the top rail, over the roof of the cab. He does this of course in such a manner that in order to remove one item, all of the rest would need to be taken down, too, and everything restrung.
I 'm now starting to get even more of a bad feeling about this trip, and frantically scan around for sign of a bus. There aren't any. I did not know at the time that buses stop running early on holidays. This truck really is my only chance to get home. I can only explain the driver's desire to use his ingenuity to 'subdue' the offending cargo as a manifestation of Guatemalan 'machismo', the overwhelming male desire to dominate everything here. I have seen this come out before, working in the countryside with animals. Four or five grown men will wrestle with a pig for 10 minutes to hold all four feet completely off the ground for an injection. The animal will scream and kick and bite, but the men are showing off THEIR ability. Never mind the fact that one person my size could safely, comfortably, and easily restrain the pig on the ground for the same procedure, simply by using a snare!!
This attitude has its amusing upside, too, I have found. I was working in an enclosed sheep pen with my counterpart and two other men one day. We were working in two teams to restrain the sheep and give them an injectable dewormer. Terrified sheep were charging all around us, jumping and leaping, their sharp hooves flying several feet off the ground. Not even thinking, while kneeling on the ground, I reached one hand up to grab the hind leg of a large ram as it flew past my head. I calmly wrestled it to the ground, then to an upright semi-sitting position to receive its injection. When I looked up, all three men were STARING at me, mouths open. It was priceless!!
Anyway, after the driver is done with the baskets and packs (I forbade him to lay a hand on mine), we waited yet another 5 minutes. During this time, a grown woman and her old mother get on the back of the truck. The old woman sits on my foot, and we are ready to go. By this time, I had made my way from hanging off the back tailgate, to a fairly lucrative position at the front of the bed, just behind the cab, and standing on a spare tire (where the old woman had decided to sit). Being in the front is not always a good thing either, I might add. The people in the front get to se why the 'Oh s**t!' handles are really in place!
Finally, after an eternity of waiting, we start up the damn mountain. The old woman sitting on my foot looks up at me, and starts babbling semi-coherently, something about work and angels and God. I cannot make out any more than that. The poor woman is obviously suffering from acute dementia. I just smile and nod along. She smiles back, and I notice most of her teeth are missing, like most people over age 45 here. She abruptly wraps both arms around my left leg and hugs me. It is at this point that the trip really starts taking on Monty Python'esque overtones. As if to confirm this very thought, we are forced to stop and wait while a flock of sheep come trotting down the road. I'm just really glad the 'Black Beast of AUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH' decided to stay in his cave.
We make a stop to let someone off, and the driver meticulously undoes all of the baskets to get to the passenger's backpack, and then strings everything else up again. The woman on my foot starts babbling again, and her daughter ignores her. She grabs my leg even tighter. Another stop. Another 10 minutes to rearrange luggage. I am still looking around frantically for a bus. There simply aren't any.
The old woman at my feet gets a really excited look on her face. Her eyes light up. Her body starts vibrating. Looking back on this incident, I am reminded of nothing less than a cocker spaniel who is really excited about something. Those of you who know anything about cocker spaniels will understand the reference perfectly in a minute. She grabs my hand in both of hers. She is looking adoringly into my eyes as she pees on my foot.
Nothing I have received in any of my cross cultural training has taught me anything about how to deal with a situation such as this. I do the only thing I can think of. I screw my face into my best poker expression possible (not easy for me!) and bite down on my cheek, hard, to keep from laughing. I can taste blood. The old woman leans over and says something to her daughter. To this day, I can only imagine what it is. The daughter's reaction is amazing. She starts pounding on the back window of the cab, signaling the driver to stop.Then she SMACKS her mother as hard as she can, grabs her by the arm, and hauls her unceremoniously out of the truck. As I watch them walk away, an unbidden thought surfaces, and refuses to leave. It is most likely a mortal sin to be thinking this, but sometimes you just can't help it- I am thinking that I am waiting to hear the words 'No! BAD MOM! NO BISCUIT!!!' Tears start leaking as I try not to laugh. I also think to myself that I am glad to be wearing my open sandals, as my feet will be easier to clean than my socks or a leather shoe would be. My foot is very wet and getting cold.
We are now into the part of the journey where you look over the whole valley, and can clearly see four different departments. It is a breathtaking sight, that is hard to concentrate on. From my position in the front, I can see how widely we are taking blind turns, narrowly missing other vehicles. Also passing other vehicles on blind turns. The road steepens, to become almost a 45 degree angle, and is "paved" only in the loosest sesne of the word. Abruptly, we stop again. There is steam pouring out of the engine.
The driver gets out, and lifts the hood. With a worried expression, he grabs a container out of the truck and walks to the nearest house. Five minutes later, he returns and pours water into the radiator. He does this three times, and we are ready to move again. Just before we do, we are passed by a truckload of 32 men. Ladies, let me tell you- there is NOTHING quite like being the center of attention of a truckload of Guatemalan males. Hooting and hollering, they all point at me, making the ch-ch-ch- sound I have come to absolutely loathe, and whistling as they pass. A few are even so kind as to throw out a learned English phrase or two (Hey sexy woman!). In our training, we learned some gestures, most polite, a few not polite. I am tempted to use one of those, the open hand gesture that translates into 'Give it to yo' mama!', or at least the ubiquitous one finger salute. Alas, I am in mixed company, and I defer, giving instead the steely eyed look of death. My friend Pam has seen me use this very look to shut up a windbag from across a grocery store parking lot. They pause for a moment, and then the truck disappears around a turn.
A woman sitting near me says "What do you expect? You're a gringa" As if I am not already painfully aware of this fact! She then starts asking me all of the standard Guatemala questions- where am I from, how old am I, where is my husband, etc. I start telling her about my work here, and how much I enjoy being here, when she exclaims,"'I know! You will marry my son!"
Dumbfounded, I look at her. "I don't think I've ever even MET your
son", I say slowly.
'Oh, he will love you!', she says, "Where do you live?"
'Muy lejos', I tell her. When you stop here to ask for directions, you soon find that almost everything is '10 minutes', or 'muy lejos'(very far). Ten minutes translates roughly into 40, and muy lejos is used to describe anything further than about 4 blocks. Thankfully, with my vague answer, she quits this line of conversation. This trip is feeling more and more like a journey through the suspended animation of a tragic comedy of errors. I'm not even hoping for a bus now. Now I am busy looking around, because I am sure John Cleese is hiding with a
camera somewhere.
Just when I start to think I may be in the clear, because nothing bizarre has happened for 5 minutes, the driver stops to tell me he has changed his mind. He is NOT going to Todos Santos. But, for double the usual fare (yes, I actually paid money for this trip), he will be kind enough to take me within 2 miles of my stop. Gee, thanks, I think of telling him. But, again, I defer. What else can I do at this point? The sun is rapidly sinking in the sky, and I now have 4 1/2 miles to walk home, in the thin air of 11,000', instead of just the usual 2 1/2. Maybe I can find another truck. The thought makes me shudder.
The truck stops, and I get out and pay the lout 10 Q for a 4 Q journey. I start walking. A truck passes me, and the men whistle, but don't stop. When I am in sight of my turn, after walking 35 minutes, someone asks me if I want a ride.
The walk home itself, was from there, thankfully uneventful. I get to my house with 10 minutes of daylight to spare, out of breath and exhausted from practically running in the thin air with 35 pounds on my back. Uphill. But, I was home, trying to remind myself again with every step why it is that I came here in the first place.
As I am unpacking after washing my feet, and changing into my long johns (we have no heat in our homes, and the temperature drops to near or below freezing inside the houses every night), Dona Apollonia, a neighbor, comes to invite me to church with her and her 8 kids. I finish off my New Year's Eve 2 hours later, by going to a Catholic service with her that lasts 4 hours. To ring in the New Year, they light off fireworks inside the church to the music of an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, an accordian, and a snare drum set. Nothing quite like listening to a Spanish/ Cajun 'Jingle Bells' while ducking the fireworks that are screaming through the crowd! I notice at some point in all of this that the people inside the church are mostly women and children. Where are the men, I wonder?
As we leave, I realize that the men have been drinking, and many are passed out drunk in the church lawn. The men in the western part of the country don't drink as often, but this was apparently a day to celebrate. Several of them, in fact are being lifted by kindly neighbors and placed on the backs of their own horses, and then tied into the saddle. A swat on the rear and the horse takes its master safely home. The ultimate designated driver. I wonder what happens if they put someone on the wrong horse? I also presume that the wives get to untie their husbands upon arrival?
They say that to be successful volunteers, we must fit in. I keep asking myself, where do you start????
But then tomorrow is another day in this life as a volunteer.
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