Hasta mañana

Antigua, Guatemala. Still trying to catch up with myself, so here are a few more photos from this last month.

Tienda

Tienda from within

Maya women at La Merced

Fellow Spanish students

Living and the dead

Child in the ruins

Rainy season

Antigua vendadora

Perfunctory shot of El Arco and volcano

Furniture mover

Coming to the end

Rainy season is finally nearing the end and we were planning to leave for Nicaragua this morning but things got messed up. We were overcharged $60 for the bus tickets on King Quality so today the guy is back in Guatemala City redoing it. Tickets can not be purchased or upgraded via fax, phone or online. King Quality insist on someone showing up in person, with passport copies. So it goes.

Stairs to our apartment, Casa Luna

You might wonder why we are going to all the bother and expense to go executive class but it's a 17 hour trip, longer if you count the shuttles on both ends, and the seats are supposed to be more comfortable.

Roof top neighbors

We have really enjoyed our stay at Casa Luna. It's a small place, six rooms, and very quiet. We stayed in the roof top room which is up a narrow iron spiral staircase. It has its own small garden and great view which we shared with a couple of Boxers, one roof top over. Mario, the owner, is a great guy, speaks fluent English and is very helpful whenever anyone has a question or problem. I highly recommend the place.

Charles, assistant editor La Cuadra

M. Lee, Sunday walk

Our room, Casa Luna

No time rest

Sorry to break focus here but I feel compelled to pass along this email I just received from MoveOn. I hope you will pass it along as well. It just takes a minute. We can't let the bastards screw us again. There is far too much at stake.

TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

Antigua photos

Antigua, Guatemala

Roy, this one's for you....

Chicken bus in the rain

Antigua, Guatemala. Tropical Depression 16 and it's gray buckets of daily rain have pushed my travel wardrobe to the brink even though I packed for the rainy season. All in all, my backpack weighs a mere 22.6 lbs, my carry on bag maybe another 7 or 10 lbs and my purse, stuffed to capacity, perhaps another 3 or 5. That's it. But I brought two light weight, poly, long sleeved pullovers and, thank the gods for them, I am (barely) squeaking by. Yesterday in class I wore four layers, including my raincoat, for the whole session. My desk was just under the roof and right next to the giant roofless courtyard in the center of the school. Naturally, the whole school is open air because it is, after all, the tropics, so the rain was an arm's length away. And this morning? Rain. But today, no matter. I am happy anyway. Even though I only went for three weeks, it's like the first day of summer vacation, we are at a great internet cafe, with a wonderful open air courtyard garden restaurant five feet away, and with the help of M. Lee, I finally managed to access my photos.

Chicken bus, Antigua

This photo was a lucky shot because, blurred as it is, it captures the hellish reality of the "chicken buses". Granted, they are wildly colorful and dedicated to saints, mothers, daughters, and wifes, and protected by numerous dangling religious icons and filled past capacity, with many people in traditional, colorful Mayan dress, and there are chickens and baskets of aromatic, steaming, home-cooked food and shawls and headdresses full of jewelery and hand-woven cloth of many colors bound for the market and streets and you might consider the buses merely picturesque, if only a little dangerous careening around corners. Unfortunately, gangsters shake down the drivers on a regular basis and those who do not, or can not, pay their "protection fee" are murdered. A young guy, 28, was recently shot to death here in Antigua because he didn't have enough money to meet their demands, and the newspaper included a long list of other victims from this year alone. A couple of thugs were arrested but everyone knows nothing has changed. So, if you decide to ride a chicken bus for the fun of it, please do not deny the driver his tip. His life actually depends on it.

more photos to come...

Week's end

Antigua, Guatemala I just finished a third week of language class, this time in a different school, CSA, and even received a lovely, albeit cheesy, full color diploma for my efforts. I felt like an idiot when the director handed it to me but my very nice profesora signed it with such extreme flourish that I had to accept it graciously, which I did. What the hell? I can now actually string together a couple of rudimentary sentences in Spanish so yeah.

The material at CSA was presented in a much more organized fashion than the first school I attended, and my teacher had me do a lot more repetition and reading aloud in class. Very important for those of us who live, how shall I say, in the moment. I forget the verb forms a second after conjugating them. And CSA provides an endless supply of free coffee. That goes a long way with me. The downside is that they are twice the price of other schools in town. Okay for a week but not for a long run.

Now, I just have to trust that in the three short, miserable weeks I submitted to linguistic torture, a few new neural pathways managed to sprout and will find hospitable ground in one of the abandoned garden barrios of my brain, there are many, as my daughter said, "one little dendrite at a time. Poco a poco. They better. She told I can't come home until I can order her "a burrito with no lettuce, sub tofu and extra pico on a whole wheat tortilla. And make it snappy.

Anyway, it was fun and I am glad it's over. M. Lee gave me Poco Buug as a graduation gift. When I finally manage to get some photos off of my camera, I will post a photo of him along with a few from our travels to date.

In other news, it continues to rain, rain, rain. And Antigua had a minor earthquake yesterday. No big deal for the locals but it bothered me. The town is surrounded by active volcanoes, there's one at the end of main street, and it's full of ruinas from previous quakes. In fact, the town was basically abandoned for about 100 years after a particularly bad one in 1773. We were planning to go to Nicaragua in a few days but now we're not so sure. There is a tropical storm covering Centroamerica and rivers are flooding everywhere. I am so glad I'm not in the US glued to the screen slavering over the political news and firing off one blog comment after the next. Better here in las tormentas.

Language addiction

San Jose, Costa Rica. We are still in Costa Rica. Tomorrow we return to Guatemala and perhaps more school. We're just checking out Costa Rica this trip but looks like it's a must return. Some years ago Costa Rica figured out that offering eco-tourism would be a good investment and really, it's a no brainer. Who doesn't want to roast marshmallows over a volcano in view of both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans... simultaneously?! But not for us this trip. We're concentrating on Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Maybe in the spring. I can't believe it but we are both kind of yearning to go back to Antigua and do more language school. They didn't tell me that language school can be addictive, especially as I can get addicted to anything, but it's hard walking away from once you get started. It's like leaving a puzzle unfinished in the middle of the table. In any case, tomorrow it's back to Antigua and the rain. They said the damn rainy season was supposed to taper off this month. We shall see.

Ghost hotel

We are in Guatemala City for the next couple of days en route to Costa Rica, staying Hotel Casa Blanca. It's located in a concrete and razor wire ghetto near the airport. Not to worry. Razor wire is a regular design motif in Centroamerica, even in the better neighborhoods. The only other guest in the place is a fellow from India who is in the country to sell parts for textile machines to the Mayans. He cooks his own meals barefoot in the kitchen and seems distinctly disinterested in small talk. Otherwise, the place is a ghost ship manned by the two lowest ranking members of its crew, the cook and her compadre, a kid who drives the shuttle jalopy. Seems they both live here. I think he sleeps in the kitchen. Neither speak English. They are very nice but their stock answer to any question (yes, in Spanish) is "Un momento, por favor." So we waited until 10 o'clock last night for the manager/desk clerk to swing by before we could get permission to print out our boarding passes. Of course, by then the page had expired. There is no phone. They have no maps of the city and, if you want drinking water, you have to go to kitchen and ask for it, if you can find anyone around. Did I mention we will never stay here again? I don't recommend you do either.

People along the way

Antigua, Guatemala. Pepe the Rooster woke us this morning as usual followed a bit later by thousands of firecrackers and pipe bombs. At least the big blasts sound like I imagine pipe bombs sound, not as overwhelming as canons or rockets but much louder, sharper and threatening than firecrackers. And both were accompanied, as usual, by the crazy ringing of bells. The Catholics again. They have been relatively quiet since the weekend, probably because of the rain. I doubt even god knows why they do it and suspect they couldn´t give a reasonable explanation, if pressed. It´s just nuts and really annoying.

Otherwise Antigua is something of a show piece for Guatemala. I recommend it for the short list. Very tourist friendly and otherwise tranquil... as long as you stay away from the outskirts and avoid taking forest hikes unescorted as the place has a thriving sub-culture of muggers and pickpockets. One of the people staying at our hotel was mugged a couple of nights ago but then he was wandering around the public market at 2 am, drunk. He has no memory of the event. He didn´t even know it happened until he looked in the mirror the next morning and saw his bloody, bruised face. Then he discovered that his bag and money were gone. Apparently they left him with a little cash, probably because he´s so damn likable. He was pretty nonchalant about it all. Said he´d been thinking he wanted a new bag anyway so no big deal. Very flamboyant. Very rich. Reminds me of Mick Jagger, in true tatters. He is a member of the Mashantucket Pequots which is a very small tribe in Connecticut (less than 1000 members). However, in 1986 the Pequot started getting it together and today they own the largest casino in the world (4,700,000 sq ft), Foxwoods Resort Casino, along with a little miscellanea like a pharmaceutical company, a shipbuilding company, and several inns and hotels. Sadly, he´s been alone and adrift in Latin America for several years. Getting mugged is nothing new. I get the very uncomfortable feeling that if he doesn´t get clean up, he´ll die of an overdose or maybe get murdered. If I could, I´d say just the right thing and he´d be, insto presto magico, addiction free but it just doesn´t work that way. Enough people certainly tried with me. But who can really say, in the long run, how we all hold together and effect one another? One thing I do know for sure, things happen in their own time, not mine. And keeping a good thought for someone never hurts. So... good luck, Sky. You know what to do.

We have been in school now for almost two weeks and my brain is throughly mashed. I have learned a bit but by the end of each day I´m tongue tied and lost in a miasma of accents, rhythms and phrasing. Even my English sounds like a second language. And my dreams are in shipwreck Spanglish.

Los Viajeros

After a week of immersion language class here in Guatemala, vocabulary words are flying around in my head like bats at twilight. They swoop through my dreams. I find myself muttering them as I scurry through the rain but, for the most part, they escape meaning. So, I wrote a poem with some of the peskier ones. I broke one of my cardinal rules against using words that have been drained and destroyed by overuse (moon) plus my Spanish lacks rhythm, but what the hell? This is an emergency situation.

Los Viajeros

La ruta es larga.
El dia es corto.
La noche es
ruidosa y calor.
Estoy afuera
con la luna.
La ruta es angosta.
El cielo es ancho.

asha


Translation:

The Travelers

The road is long.
The day is short.
The night is
noisy and hot.
I am outside
with the moon.
The road is narrow.
The sky is wide.

Also posted on my poetry blog.

Cat school

Antigua, Guatemala. This morning before dawn, through the rain, we were greatly relieved to hear little Pepe crowing. We missed hearing him for a couple of days and feared that he might have ended up as Sunday dinner. We have bonded with him over the roof tops even though it is a bit of a drag that sometimes he crows at midnight. But, he´s not an ambitious rooster. One round or two at the most, and he´s done.

Otherwise, we started school yesterday and my brain is already looking for an escape. Immersion is just that... tossed in the deep end. Sink or swim. I have pages of notes. This morning I practiced counting to twenty. Also, I am supposed to study lists of opposites, hot/cold etc. We are doing the afternoon session and school starts in one hour. I´m console myself that we are signed up for one week only.

It is good to be away from the incessant election news. I haven´t read a Huffpo headline for over a day. It is all very far away which is an immense relief. I am thinking about it now but mostly I have been focusing on the endless rain, on how incredibly terrible our shower is and where to get another cup of coffee. I bought my first cup on my own this morning and managed to communicate with the barrister without embarrassing myself too much. Cranking up my brain to study is another thing altogether. M. Lee, of course, can simply sit down and study... silently. A+ student, doncha know. I, on the other hand, have to walk and repeat things out loud and constantly call my mind back to the point. It is, at best, like herding the proverbial herd of cats, but in my case they are very bad, very tough street cats.