Personal Space

“I guess I am most surprised by the lack of respect for personal space.”

This was Julia’s response to my question, “What about Guatemala is different than you expected?”

It’s true that the buses are so crowded that passengers are expected to sit three to a two-person bench seat. Every time the bus pauses, at a corner, at a stop, at a road block or in traffic, vendors and preachers climb aboard pushing and squeezing their way through the already crowded aisle. Plump women carry dehydrated plantains, fruit or fried chicken on their heads while conducting a sing-song sales pitch in a tight nasal voice, “plataninas, jovenes, plataninas.” Boys hop on carrying nuts, candy and beverages and clean shaven men tote bibles and preach the good word, instantly converting the bus into a mobile house of worship. Julia got a taste of all of this while visiting me and quickly realized after being smacked by a basket carrying chili rellenos and a life size piñata why the window seat is the most coveted spot on the bus. Luckily, she kindly considered our bus rides cultural experiences.

Julia also got the full exposure of boom box and loud speaker presence in my town. There is not a moment of silence here. Beginning at 6:30 am
the guy across the street gets on his loud speaker and preaches to the town while sitting on his front porch with a microphone in hand. At about 8:00 my neighbors to both sides alternate playing their radios at maximum decibel levels. Lastly, the day is topped off by the broadcast of the evangelical sermon and accompanying congregational clapping and singing down the dirt path. I guess the constant blaring noise isn’t what you’d typically consider a physical encroachment on one’s personal space but it is still behavior that effects one’s ability to live without outside influences. In order to better block out the noise, Julia requested that we leave my fan on at night so the humming noise would drain out the early morning gospel and allow us to sleep at least until 7:30.

She got one more dose of lack of privacy while in my town. One day Julia and I were in my backyard eating lunch and she asked me where my neighbor’s bathroom and shower was. She was peering through the chain link fence that separates my yard from my neighbors and I turned to see what she was looking at. One of my neighbors was showering in her pila- fully clothed in a tanktop and shorts. “They have a shower and toilet under the steps but I think they just prefer to shower in the pila,” was my response. It makes perfect sense really. After washing all the clothes Saydee, my neighbor, is hot and sweaty and ready for a wash herself, so she just starts dumping water over her head, scrubs and showers right then and there in the middle of the backyard.

Thanks for visiting me Jules and letting me rediscover Guatemala through fresh eyes.

Odd Jobs

For the past two weeks every time I stop by our old tienda location where Eslin works under new ownership some rounded middle-aged woman with a long dark ponytail is behind the counter instead of Eslin. Today I decided to find out why Eslin wasn’t working and sauntered over to Brenda’s salon “Beautiful Star” to get the scoop. Brenda informed me that a week or so ago Eslin had symptoms of a miscarriage and hasn’t been working since. That’s all she said and told me I should go stop by her house to see how she is doing.

After I gave my English lesson I made my way down the main street the hundred yards or so to Eslin’s house across from the cemetery. I found her at her fence chatting with her cousin wearing a bright yellow floral top, jean miniskirt and a pair of white Steve Madden sandals that I gave her (I love it when she wears them). All appearances looked normal and I was a bit relieved. She then invited me to her stoop to chat for a bit.

There was no jovial chitchat to commence the conversation because as soon as I told her I had passed by the store a few times looking for her but only saw some random lady, the floodgates opened.

“Oh Annalisa, you won’t believe what I have been through! That lady is the owner of the store and when she came back to Casas Viejas she told me I had to give my renunciation because she was going to take over. We went through all of the accounts, I closed out all of the credits, we did an inventory and everything was as it should be. But, when I left she started telling everyone that came to the store that I had stolen Q6,000. What would I do with Q6,000, that is a lot of money! And the store was still fully stocked. If I had taken the money I would have left the store empty. The rumors that she spread upset me so much that I almost lost my baby. I was tormented and sick and started to hemorrhage. Everyone thought I would have to go to the hospital, that the baby was going to come early, but thank goodness I got better. And now she is telling everyone that I was a pig and left the tienda dirty with trash everywhere. The worst part is she is family! She is Marvin’s aunt! (Marvin is Eslin’s husband). I refuse to go to the center of town. I’ve never been so embarrassed in all of my life.”

I was shocked at what she told me, Brenda didn’t mention anything about the animosity between the new owner and Eslin. I consoled her as best as I could, telling her that gossip is horrible and that I’ll do whatever I could to dispel the rumors. I assured her that anyone that has ever been to the store knows that she kept it extremely clean and this woman is going to lose customers by spreading untruths.

As she was thanking me for my support a man pushing a bike hobbled to the gate at the front of Eslin’s house and asked permission to enter. Eslin giggled and turned to me and began to explain, “Here there is a superstition that a woman who is pregnant with her first baby can cure ailments, that is why he is here.” The man limped to the front porch carrying some sort of cream and Eslin gave him a chair, took the cream and asked him what had happened. He replied, “I twisted my foot and dislocated my toe, it hurts tremendously.” Eslin then opened the cream, put some on her fingers and began stroking and soothing his right foot and baby toe with the cream. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “Yes, it still hurts” he replied with a cringe. As she kept at the foot he loosed up a bit and after about 2 minutes of “healing” she put the cap back on the cream and said, “all done.” He asked how much it would cost and she said, “nothing.” I watched as he hobbled back to the gate and climbed on his bicycle all the while thinking to myself, “well, since she lost her job at the store, she really ought to think about charging for this service, at least for the next six months.”

Ya Queremos Pastel (We Want Cake)

Today I celebrated my Birthday. Two months late.

When I arrived at the Coop tienda for our daily closing ritual Seno Maritza whipped out a cake box. Naturally, I thought someone in town had put in an order through the new bakery whose bread we are busing in from Chiquimulilla to sell at the store. Then she opened the box and beckoned me over. That is when I saw written in pink and blue frosting: Felicidades Analiza (that's me). I was so confused. Adan explained that they have been wanting to get me a cake since September 16th when we had our road trip to Jalapa. Two months later the cake made it to Casas Viejas and they all sang me happy birthday. I love Guatemala.

p.s. a lot of people here spell my name Analiza which also happens to be the third person singular form of the verb analizar. This translates to: she analyzes. I think the name is fitting.

Thriller

A few weeks back I started up summer school English classes for the kids in town. This year I limited my class to 5th and 6th graders hoping that a smaller class would enable me to have a bigger impact. So far I think its working. Instead of my class of 30 from last year, I have about 10-15 (depending on the day). There are six boys (Jorge, David, Luis Angel, Miguel Eduardo, Hugo and Henry) and two girls (Cinthia and Andrea) that come religiously. Unlike last year, when it was like pulling teeth to get the kids to talk in class, this group proudly participates.

Today, I decided to skip the lesson plan and have a Halloween themed instruction in honor of one of my favorite holidays. I knew it would be a good day when as soon as I was turning the key to unlock the classroom door I hear the pounding of pavement and screeching of bike brakes behind me. The boys had arrived. I opened the door and they pushed past me all saying, "Good morning teacher." They rushed to their seats up front and patiently waited for me to begin writing the lesson plan on the whiteboard. Its 9:40 am. My class starts at 10 am. Nothing reassures me more that my work is worth while than the punctuality of these eager students.

I started the lesson with a review of changing words from the singular to plural form and reviewed the seasons, months and days of the week vocabulary. Most kids already know English basics; colors, days, greetings, animals, fruit etc. I was able to rush through the "boring" vocab to get to the "Halloween" vocab. Ghost, coffin, witch, pumpkin, trick or treat, candy... they loved it all. Then we reviewed some phrases: Sunday, October 31, is Halloween. Children wear costumes. Katie will dress as a witch. What will you dress as? The last question I made them all come up with a costume and announce, "I will dress as a ______. Each was rewarded with a handful of candy corn (Thank you Katie Goodhew for sending me Halloween treats!) I went student by student. There was a vampire, princess, ghost, monster... Then when I got to the last student, David, he said, "I will dress as Michael Jackson." Which serendipitously led into the final activity: the playing "Thriller," the kids favorite MJ hit. They all jumped up and cleared a little dance floor and got their Michael on. I captured a bit of it on tape for you guys to see.




p.s. Uncle Art, Tata Annie, Sylvie, Ariel, Sophie, Stan and little nena Dahlia, thank you for your lovely package! Today we used the brown construction paper that the box was wrapped in (nothing goes unused here) to make nameplates for the kids. They thank you too. As for the contents of the package, my stomach and I have decided upon other plans for those treats.

Road Trip

The words “road trip” evoke sentiments of adventure, uncertainty and camaraderie. Something about being confined to a small space with a gang of cohorts for an extended period of time always induces unexpected and memorable events, if not a good story line, like the one I'm about to unfold.

I recently had the pleasure of going on a “road trip” with four male members of my cooperative. I was one female in a car full of men- the first sign that things were going to get interesting. We had a 9am meeting in Jalapa with SAT- the IRS of Guatemala- to review proper financial reporting specific to Cooperatives. The drive to Jalapa is about 4 hours each way.

At 4:30 am Julio and the gang picked me up from my house in Don Edgar’s beat-up 1990’s maroon Mazda. Being gentlemanly, the guys gave me the front seat. I actually prefer not to take that coveted seat up front because seat belts are as common in Guatemala as side-view mirrors (read: not common) and I’d probably be the first to fly through the windshield if we got into an accident- luckily i’m still here to tell this tale. Speaking of seat belts, I caused some early morning chuckles when I took my throne up front and instinctively reached my arm back to grab the “seat belt” which of course wasn’t there. Moises, seeing this automatic reflex, gave a little giggle from the back seat and said, “You’re not going to find one of those here, hahaha.” “reeeeal funny.” I thought to myself.

And so the trip began all of us in high spirits. Julio was our chauffeur, I was manning the radio as co-pilot and Adan was sandwiched by Moises and Jamie in the back seat. Our first interesting incident occurred at about 5:30 am. We were making our way up the mountainous terrain just outside of a town called Moyuta when the car started to jerk. Immediately Julio says, “I knew I should have put gas into the car yesterday.” I look at the gas gauge and we are literally running on empty. I start to get a little worried, we had quite a bit of upward climbing left to do and there was no sign of civilization. Nevertheless, I kept my anxieties to myself. We continued our ascent, chugging along in an epileptic seizure-like motion for a good 10 minutes. It didn’t help that coming from the back seat with every jerk Adan would peep a, “whoop” and Jamie would follow with a, “Nope, not going to make it.” Miraculously, we did make it to the top of the hill just outside of Moyuta and below us I could see a gas station. “Saved!” I thought to myself. Julio pumped the gas pedal one more time and we sped down the hill towards the town. But, as we neared the gas station I noticed he wasn’t slowing down to turn into its lot, we got closer and closer and I just looked longingly at the lonely gas pumps as we whizzed by. “What are you doing!” I exclaimed “We need to stop for gas!” “Yeah but the gas station up the road is cheaper.” was Julio’s reply. After two minutes more of jerky driving we were filling up the tank.

My favorite part about Julio is that he hasn’t quite figured out yet that I understand Spanish. Instead of talking to me like a normal human being, he speaks in choppy phrases using animated hand jesters to ensure that I understand what he is saying. So instead of saying something like, “We are going to drive to Jalapa,” He’ll say, “Drive car Jalapa” while grabbing an imaginary steering wheel. So when we were nearing Jutiapa he turns to me and says, “Hungry? Coffee?” which of course means, “Are you hungry? Would you like to stop for coffee?” The consensus was yes and we pulled off at a roadside stand.

We piled out of the car and as we began walking to the muchacha with a red cap who was setting up her venta for the morning, I noticed Moises had a huge wet spot covering his entire rear-end. I brought this to his attention and he said, “The backseat is wet.” That was that and he spent the rest of the day with a soggy toosh.

We ordered our coffee and pan tostada from the woman in the red cap and I sat enjoying my breakfast as the four men, all married mind you, began flirting with the woman and her three daughters. They were playing the game “Us three are married but Jamie is single.” The small talk was nauseating, “So how many beautiful daughters do you have?”, “Is your husband going to come here and beat me up for talking with you?” Don Jamie left the stand with a napkin containing the red cap lady’s phone number.

When we arrived at the SAT office we filed into the meeting room and took our seats. The presentation was of the powerpoint variety and was quite informative although I could tell the information was in one ear and out the other for most of the audience. There is a reason my Coop hired an accountant to take care of all of their financials. At the end of the presentation we all handed in an evaluation form in exchange for a “Diploma.” There are few things more coveted by Guatemalans than a diploma. It’s hard evidence of achievement. So we all left with a piece of paper affirming that we had participated in the “tax-paying obligations of cooperatives” course.

Back in the car Jamie took the wheel for the drive home. We were all a bit worn out from the morning ride and subsequent three hour lecture. Nevertheless, every time we passed a young girl walking on the road in tight jeans Jamie would give a little honk of approval. The guys obviously unconcerned with the company of a female in their presence maintained a steady conversation about women the entire ride home. Some aspects of human nature are universal. At one point, after passing a particularly attractive young female Jamie gave his little tap of the horn and murmured, “Como dice Don Edgar, “Si es el diablo, que me lleva”” (Like Don Edgar says, If its the devil, let him take me).

Mine

Early last month Veronica brought baby Mia into the world. The name is a variant of Maria and also means "mine" in Spanish. It was one of the names I suggested during our little naming game in August that you may remember me writing about. When the bun was still in the oven I would always part with Veronica by saying, Hasta mañana, Vero" (until tomorrow, Vero (short for Veronica)), then waive to her stomach and say, "hasta mañana, Mia". When I first went to go visit the baby I asked what name Veronica had given her and she said, "We gave her the name Mia, a little remembrance of Annalisa." I was flattered.

A few weeks after Veronica gave birth to Mia, Eslin confided in me that she too was now pregnant. As has become customary prenatal chit-chat, yesterday Eslin, Brenda and I were talking names on the stoop of Eslin's tienda. I suggested Isabela. Eslin replied by saying, "Isabela, Isabela, I like it. I'm not going to tell anyone though, this name is mine."

Salinas. Take two.

The last week of September we saw six straight days of nonstop rain and, of course, Casas Viejas flooded once again. I was beginning to think we should rename the town to Casas Mojadas (wet houses) but then remarkably on Tuesday the rain stopped. Everyone in my town is convinced that "ya se fue la lluvia" (the rain has left) and summer is now upon us.

With summer comes sunshine and with sunshine comes the salt harvest season. On Friday the Cooperative had a meeting to discuss what will become of our salina this year. Since we are still paying off debts from last year's harvest, going into the meeting I was prepared to convince the socios that we need not go into another year hastily. I discussed with them the importance of planning and mentioned that if we aren't going to work the salinas we need to start investigating what we can do with the land and equipment- assets that we could rent to make back some of our investment. After my little spiel, Toribio, the secretary, did a vote to see who wanted to invest in the salinas another year. Four socios voted affirmatively.

Then to my delight Julio proposed an ingenious idea. He suggested that the Cooperative rent out the salina to the four socios who wanted to work the land. These socios would pay the Cooperative a set amount for the land, boards and nylon, a fee that the cooperative could then use to pay off the salinas debts. The socios who work the salina would be responsible for additional investments (gasoline, purchasing a new motor, etc), and supplying the labor. They would also reap any profits from sales. A huge benefit to this proposal is that the Coop would be guaranteed income. It also hands over the responsibility of the salinas to those few who actually want to work the land.

One of the biggest problems with the salinas last year was that no one wanted to work them. We lagged in prepping the land and lost weeks of harvesting time because the socios didn’t show up to help lay and mend the nylons. When the land was finally ready, we hired outside labor to harvest the salt. The point of a cooperative is to provide work for its associates. I never understood why we were paying a nonmember for labor- money that left the cooperative and benefited no socio. With this new system the four socios will be motivated to work because they will be putting their own money into the salina and will be forced to do a better job of managing the business. It puts the onus on them to make a profit. Brilliant. The four socios have until the 21st of October to decide if they are going to rent the land. If they do, I will be able to work with them on business planning, organizing, managing and finding buyers.