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jan 16 -- to shit or not shit in a gerber cup, that is the question!
is not my strong suit. because life is comical on so many fronts i thought id drop a line to say hi and describe a few of the highlights in my last 36 hours in xela and the surrounding mountainside of guatemala. lets get to the subjectline right away, shall we? so, im staying with a host family there that is supper sweet but the situation is a bit, shall we say, interesting at times. por ejemplo, there are four generations of women in the house, the youngest being an adorable one month and nine day-old baby and the eldest an 80 year old lover of dance that has Alzheimer's and dementia. the house mom was left by her husband and then had a stroke so no she can only use the left side of her body...all for me is more or less peachy, there is hot water now (but there wont be water at all for four days) and a kitchen and whatnot but what comes out of that kitchen is the problem at hand....
two days ago i brought flowers to my host mother and she cried because it reminded her of her ex husband and there in lies what i think was the subconscious food poisoning on her part. that afternoon we ate soup with meat in it and despite my internal voice of ¨what the fuck do you think you are doing eating this!¨i chowed down. a few hours later there was a group out to celebrate the last night of an american woman that is about to head into the mountains in northern guat to be a human rights monitor...around one am i assumed the position to honor and worship the porcelain god -- for four hours.
now, this is nothing new and we have all been there; however, this toilet had a felt cover of santa on the top, when all the lids are down, and then when you lift the cover lid there is santa with his hands over his eyes in disgust...for four hours i was talking shit to santa and telling him ive been a good boyin spanish and conjugating verbs. on top of this, the towel rack, which was next to the toilet was made of another felt santa that had bug eyes and so i had two conversations in spanish, except for the episodes of cursing in any language i could think of, with santa. ive been scarred. yep, santa and i are no longer simpatico and im plotting practical jokes for the north pole.
so, as i write im not on a toilet and that is a MASSIVE improvement, i dont have a fever and i have some resemblance of color in my cheeks. yesterday i went to natural hot springs (i know they dehydrate you but i drank a lot of water) which was essential and i slept for 16hours last night. im on the up and up as they say.
so, this experience, which i know is not really unique, inspired me to drop a note and encourage each of you, particularly those of optimal health, to savour your ability to: breathe deeply, eat, not have needles of pain from all sides, smell the grass and wet earth in the forest, smell the top of a newborns head, drink and eat whatever you want and not only taste it but digest it in a way that will not wish you were dead, or at least in a coma until you got back to normal, walk for more than three minutes, dance and all other things that are easy to take for granted. savour that shit like mangoes on waffles, yall.
while im in a rhythm and you are already getting this ill drop a few more words and a link to a friend of mines blog that you all might know, aryeh shell, whose from san fran and is at the same school im at. she wrote up a beautiful note about our recent trip in the mountains with a former guerrilla fighter that took the time and had the patience to share some of the gruesome history of guat and particularly his own experiences during the war and his perspective of the current situation in guatemala. aryehs blog: http://aryehshell.blogspot.com/
a few other highlights other than projectile vomiting and being shocked by my body and the absolute cruelty and insensitivity of santa are, plantanos EVERYWHERE, more smiling peole than ive ever seen, visiting a church with mayan influence that transformed a regular church to a temple of color and life, being bombarded by evangelicals everywhere, morman bakeries in guatemala, crazy, argumentative yoga teachers, amazing indian food, digging my nose inot the earth and smelling the forest for the first time in months, speaking with mayan farmers about the impact of cafta and feeling guilt at everyturn for being from the states with the history and the current policies that further disrupt any real progress, speaking with folks about the hurricane down here and seeing the similarities of gross ineffectiveness and total disregard by politicians towards the poor, seeing extreme poverty closer than i have in a long time and routinely getting a shot of reality and perspective which alone continues to transform my life, falling in love wiht the spanish language after a week and loving making folks here laugh at mytotal inability to truly articulate myself but due to their patience and our collective nonverbal skills getting the points across -- or so i think, ridding in the backs of trucks through small farms during harvest season and seeing the wide range of tactics by the farmers and utilization of very limited resources, continually being amazed and baffled by the ingenuity and creativity, hating cars more than i ever have before, finding it fascinating that some stores in guat charge shoppers for bags while we dont in the states and this country has more environmental degradation and disregard than ih ave seen (emily utter will drop more on this), sitting wiht a fever and zero nutrients in a pool of hot springs and having hallucinations and talking with the water spirits (i fully embraced mynew age side when i was in the gutter with thehealth and my dark side with santa), late night dancing at gay bars because to reduce the groping and hearing ymca three times in an hour, walking the mildly mountainous cobblestone streets late at night with a full moon and not hearing a thing, literally every single morning waking up to in this order: roosters, dogs, fireworks, roosters, dogs, fireworks, fireworks, cars. seeing a pack of malnourished dogs on both friday the 13th an on the 14th with the full moon and fearing for my life, trying to negotiate a trade of pants with a four yearold that had the best yellow fleece pants with full covered feet and patches of green on the knees, watching my inital perceptions of both guatemalans and foreigners melt and being amazed by what folks say after a few minutes of the casual chat, falling in love with color likenever before, keeping the curly mustache and realizing it creates more conversation and less obvious judgement than i thought, chickenbuses yall! for those that have travelled in these parts you know what i speak is the truth, for those that have yet to have the opportunity ijust want you to take a moment nad recall riding in the yellow school bus to school and imagine that bus being transformed in a myriad of ways: to start, instead of two persons per seat, the seats now hold three across which leaves little room for manuevering in the isle, but a sound system in and blast either fast marimba or the like or some crazy shit like tony braxton singing in spanish, add colored decals everywhere with flames, multi tone words, throw in a few crosses and name the bus a saint or a woman and youve got the chicken bus of guatemala. now, before i left for guat i was told by a 50 year old woman to not sit close to chickens on teh bus because she got some weird infection and lost her eyesight in one eye...i more or less set that advice to the side UNTIL i got on one of these buses which are now my main mode of transit. so, the key here is that these buses are independently run and compete with other buses on the same routes so the speeding ahead of buses or working to snag a few passengers is fair game, also, the drivers range from 14 or so to 80, in myexperience. on the buses there is a team -- the driver, and at least one porter that will run up your huge bags of potatoes, your BOAT, GOAT or anything else to thetop of the bus while it is moving, and this same person will get the money from each passenger and has various rates for the shitton of stops along the way. though i dont love being on the chickenbus, i love the people i meet and of course the stories and visuals that are with me....almost worth the trip in itself.
lastly, this isnt the time for me to go on about politics, history and the like; but, despite what ive read and conversations ive had about the history here, to hear from people here that lived through it, from people that will take the time to discuss how their families and villages were destroyed and how theycontinue to struggle, continues to alter the fabric of my being and though i wanted to start on a funny note with the projectile vomiting episode and the like, i know that i, despite my experiences to help remind me, lose perspective and forget to embrace and celebrate life as much as i am able to and should. so, i hope this note reaches you in great health and with great ability to LIVE and celebrate with reckless abandon.
also, a good friend here has a blog in italian so those that can read it will love it and at theleast you will see some of the spots ive been and where we are at now, andreas blog: http://viaggioinguatemala
and love muffin number one, senior dan firger, has a blog for his trips in south america and if you dont know dan you would LOVE him and hes always good with words and has a camera which makes it more fun: http://www.firgs.blogspot.com/
much love and if youve read this far you deserve a prize,
christo ïf only i had a blog and normal digestion¨michael
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