Thanks for tuning in to my blog Volcanoes and Beans on all things chapín (Guatemalan) and juanero (pertaining to San Juan La Laguna). It’s been an amazing experience. As the local people here would say, calidad! I want to thank my family and friends who suported me both financially and with moral support. I’d like to thank in particular, my parents, my sister (though I don’t know if she reads this blog), my Aunt Anne, other relatives and friends who have donated money to helping me make this transition, Paola, Tommy B (I miss you man), Gonzalo Corts an amazing life coach, Scott Garrison of Buena Onda, my coworkers at ODIM and the warm and welcoming community here in San Juan.
I’m grateful for many things in life. Perhaps most importantly, I’m grateful for life itself. One of the things that people talk about here a lot is waking up in the morning and thanking God for another day of life. The experience of being alive is so easily taken for granted, yet so unfathomably rich. One of the things that inspired me to come to Guatemala was the realization that I wouldn’t live forever. I’d been living in a society that felt cold and detached to me, though I’d found community and known beautiful friendships in Somerville. Ben Orenstein comes to mind. I had faith that there was something else beyond the horizon, or to quote Bhante Sujiva, a faith in the beyond. Admittedly, I’d fallen in love with Somerville and had a hard time letting go. I miss all those people. I miss cracking up laughing with Ryan Mccracken, telling him all the stuff I was thinking that you can’t say out loud in a city like Boston. Countless other people I miss. But ultimately, although there were many internal voices telling me I was a fool to come to Guatemala, I found here what I was looking for, though it’s hard to put into words exactly what that is.
I’m grateful for life, as I was saying. I’m grateful for health, for medicine, for possibility. I’m grateful for family and friends. I’m grateful for the opportunity to keep the heart open, to stay soft and centered, and to invite happiness in. I’m grateful for the ability to listen and learn from inner disturbances, the opportunity to make friends with all those darker aspects of myself.
How does a man find his calling?
Gonzalo Corts once told me, “You can’t think your way into a calling. You have to do something. And that something has to give you chills.”
Here’s what James Taylor had to say:
In the mid-Sixties I basically came off the rails and was institutionalized. I ended up so low, so rudderless, that I just totally gave up thinking about the future. I had no expectations, and that set me free to pursue being a musician. It only happened because everything else collapsed. It was a rough passage, but surviving that was liberating. Anyone’s expectations of me were unplugged. I really had an officially stamped pass.
Sometimes the must brilliant stuff emerges out of the deepest recesses of darkness. When things feel hopeless, it’s important to have faith that the sun will shine on you again. They say that even when the sky is heavily overcast, the sun hasn’t disappeared. It’s still there on the othe side of the clouds.
I have many decisions to make in the coming weeks about where I’ll be living and what I’ll be doing. Tuning in to intuition is key. There are many forces that can influence one’s decisions. Fear is one of them. Logic (not necessarily a bad thing) is another. Defensiveness (ie I can’t do this because it shows that I’m weak) is another.
I want to share with you a new blog that I’ve started called What my heart desires. In Tz’utujil, that’s Naq nyaarij nuk’u’x. The blog is all about learning the Tz’utujil language and the things I discover along the way. Please tune in, especially if you consider yourself to be, like me, a lover of languages.
I’ll keep my faith alive
Cause this is paradise for parasites
I can’t believe this sight
Streets full of blank faces and junky eyes
The streets won’t sleep tonight
A lullaby for the half alive
The city swings and whines
To the double crime of drugs and hard times
Lion city’s sirens sing the night away, night away
Lion city’s begun to rot
It’s a matter of time until the roaring stops
The scene from the ground up
From the painted walls to the rooftops
Lion city’s closed and locked
While the pop of feet crack on sidewalks
The haves and the have nots
Fade to backdrops of drums and gunshots
The city seems like it’s trapped,
Between its future and its past
~Less Than Jake, Does the Lion City Still Roar?
I had been in León for almost a full day before it occurred to me that the name of the city in Spanish means “lion.” One thing that helped was that there were statues of lions everywhere. A large red banner read, “Jesus Christ is the Lord of León.” In many ways, lion is an appropriate name for this city, capital of the 1979 Sandinista revolution. There is a certain ferocity about it. My first impression of the city is that the people deliberately present themselves as too cool to care about anything, but beneath this veneer they’re the opposite. In comparison with Guatemala, it’s like night and day. The people here seem to be split between shunning foreigners on the one hand, and embracing them on the other as the country evolves to further develop its tourist-based economy. One interesting point: when I tell people here I live in Guatemala, they say — oh, wow, really? It’s so dangerous there! And Guatemalans say the same thing about Nicaragua. Nobody thinks their own country is dangerous.
Today, I traveled from 7am to 7pm from León to San Carlos, a small town located at the southeastern base of Lake Nicaragua, just 5 kilometers from the border with Costa Rica. Unfortunately, I had to change buses in Managua which involved taking a taxi across town from one bus station to another. This was frightening for me as bad things have been known to happen in taxies in this capital city. Managua felt distinctly unsafe, like a massive sprawling playground for criminals. I am looking for alternate routes home. However, the bus ride from Managua to San Carlos, 267km, was surprisingly fast and smooth. Where I am staying tonight, though very safe, the Latin American “machismo” is felt quite strongly. As a guy, it bothers me quite a bit. I have many thoughts in my head that say, “you’re not enough of man.” But you don’t have to believe everything you think.
On the bus to Managua, I started talking to a girl next to me about the upcoming elections. She said it’s not really a choice. Everybody has to vote for Daniel Ortega and his wife, the soon-to-be vice president. I asked her (her name was Marlui, Marvin + Luisa) if Ortega was popular. She said yes. The Sandinista party has always been popular since overthrowing the dictatorship in 1979. She told me a bit about the wars in Nicaragua, before and after the revolution, though she was born much later. In 1956, four students succeeded in assassinating the country’s leader, though his son took power and became an even more vicious dictator. Her mother had been a student in the years prior to the revolution, when the government would open fire on students on university campuses to intimidate them (many students opposed the dictatorship). After the revolution, the US funded and delivered arms to counterrevolutionaries (contras) to fight against the Sandinistas throughout the eighties. In the mid twentieth century, there were strong left-leaning movements in Latin America that threatened US business interests and prompted US meddling in foreign affairs. All of this feels far enough in the past that for the most part you don’t sense any animosity about the fact that you’re an American here. You tell people you’re an American and they just say — oh, I love the Red Sox! I love the Celtics! I love the Patriots! That said, there’s not so many of us here, due possibly to the US State Department reports which some say are excessively negative.
Anyway, I’ll leave you there for the night. This blog may be coming to an end soon, to be replaced by a new and more focused, though closely related blog. Stay tuned!
After 17 hours in a crowded van, 3 border crossings and $15 in bribes, I arrived safely in León, Nicaragua last night. Posing here with a Sandinista veteran in front of a mural of FSLN revolutionaries.
Does the Lion City still roar? This city feels like it’s trapped, between its future and its past.There he is with his wife. Marlui says everyone knows she is the brains behind the operation, the president behind the president.
Here in San Juan LL, I eventually became accustomed to having various insects crawl all over me at night, but in the interest of preventing poisonous spider bites and mosquito-transmitted viral illnesses, and for the sake of sleep quality, I finally set up a mosquito net.
The kindness of the San Juaneros is remarkable, and the relationship between foreigners and locals is positive. Very few other towns on the lake could claim the same. It’s a privilege to be here, and I remind myself not to take it for granted.
I spent several hours today studying Tz’utujil, plowing through a textbook for elementary school kids. It’s fascinating to study a language while you hear people speak it all around you. As Elliott Smith said in I Better Be Quiet Now, I’ve got a long way to go. But I’m actually getting closer, not further away.
I voted for Stein. Probably would have voted Clinton in a swing state. Wanna see democrats flip the house and the senate.
I want to dedicate my life to learning, documenting and helping to revitalize indigenous languages. While the globalized world barrels enthusiastically down the highway to God knows where, I believe indigenous languages hold the secret to sanity.
Why do people here eat so many carbohydrates? No one here is Paleo. The diet is 80% carb, including mine. My main sources of fat are peanuts, avocados and, I hate to say it, vegetable oil. As a nutritionist, I can’t recommend vegetable oil, but it is an economic way to cook vegetables. I tend to errr on the side of overcooking. Protein sources: eggs, pescaditos (little fish — you must cook them thoroughly) and kinaq’ (beans). Meat, only once in a while. The tamal is a perfect representation of the local diet: 90% masa (corn), 3% chicken, 7% hot peppers.
Once you know the real cost of food here, the prices in restaurants begin to look rather ridiculous. I stole that line from a blog post about Nicaragua, but the same applies here. For example, a generous portion of beans and tortillas costs 2 quetzales (28 cents). The quetzal in San Juan LL has essentially the same purchasing power as the dollar in Boston. In some respects, it goes farther.
That’s all I have to say. Thanks for tuning in. Large numbers of people (my Aunt Anne) have requested videos of me speaking Tz’utijil, so I’ll be getting those up.
Have an amazing evening!
Typical vegetable stir-fry. Just add beans and tortillas.
The secret to learning a foreign language is also the secret to life. Have fun, make mistakes and never give up. I’ve started teaching English classes at the Clinica Chuitinamiit in San Pablo, and I’ve never had so much fun. Last week, we looked at the lyrics to the song Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men. Until taking a closer look at them, I never had a clue what the song was about. My interpretation now is that the narrator is a widow who is communicating with her deceased husband. Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and her male counterpart alternate lines throughout the song in a kind of imaginary dialogue between the living and the dead.
I don’t like walking around this old and empty house
So hold my hand I’ll walk with you my dear
The stairs creak as you sleep it’s keeping me awake
It’s the house telling you to close your eyes
The vocabulary level is perfect for beginner-level English, perhaps because the authors are non-native speakers themselves. I believe they’re from Iceland. I briefly saw them perform live in Boston on the Esplanade, though the police wouldn’t allow us to cross into the secured area closest to the stage when we arrived. It was still the Boston Strong post-marathon bombing era.
I think that song lyrics are a largely-undiscovered shortcut to learning languages. They condense a lot of grammatical structures and day-to-day vocabulary, including vernacular language, into a condensed space. And they’re easy to remember.
Let me tell you an interesting story. The first foreign language I ever learned was French, and I learned to speak French from a Senegalese man named Claude M’Barali whom I never met. You may or may not know him as MC Solaar. One of his more famous tracks entitled La Belle et Le Badboy (Beauty and the Badboy) found its way onto an episode of Sex in the City, or so I’m told. Claude’s cool and rhythmic delivery of poetic street French over violin-infused instrumentals inspired me to memorize the lyrics to his songs and find out what all the words meant. As I was falling in love with the French language, I was also falling in love with hip hop.
The concept of yin and yang is essential in traditional Chinese medicine, yin being the more feminine passive nature of things, and yang being the more masculine active nature. In fact, yin and yang are not separate; they are two sides of the same coin. As it is in nature, so it is in hip hop. The beat is yin; the vocals are yang. I think this is the real reason why I love rap and hip hop so much. The vocalist is making love to the instrumental. If you’re so inclined, have a listen to La Belle et Le Badboy, and listen for this dynamic. I’m fascinated by producers like 9th Wonder, Black Milk and Andre Young (aka Dr. Dre) who have mastered the art of sampling and tailoring beats to specific artists. They pull from an incredibly diverse selection of music, especially Young. Listen to Grant Green’s Maybe Tomorrow, and then listen to Still D.R.E. You won’t believe that the latter was a sampling of the former. In human nutrition, the body digests food into tiny pieces, absorbs them and builds news proteins out of them. This is exactly what these guys do when they makes beats. Sometime when you’re bored, watch an episode of Rhythm Roulette on YouTube.
But that’s a topic for another day. Today’s post is about learning foreign languages. For the success that I had in learning French in high school, I have to extend my gratitude to Michael Martin who inspired me from day one. Public schools in the US are not supposed to offer top-of-the-line language instruction, but Champlain Valley Union High School is the exception. The foreign language teachers are on another level. Mike’s energy and enthusiasm were a gift to the classroom. I never once felt bored, not even for a split second, during his classes. I was quite literally in a state of ecstasy. He taught French through the lens of social and political commentary and various forms of creative artistic expression. Nothing could be more compelling, in my opinion. Thanks, Mike, for introducing me to MC Solaar, Cheb Khaled, Edith Piaf, Jean-Luc Godard and countless others. I intend to engage my English students in the same way.
Tz’utujil is still a mystery to me. I go to the local k’ayib’al way (literally tortilla market) three times a day to buy hot tortillas for my meals. I’ve become something of a tortilla addict. What do they put in the tortillas? They say that the white powder used in the process of torteando (making tortillas) is limestone, but I’m not so sure. By the way, this stuff is called cal, and it’s one of the most important calcium sources for the population. Four tortillas cost 1 quetzal (12 cents). Every time I go to the k’ayib’al way, they talk to me in Tz’utujil. The first time I stepped in there and started speaking Tz’utujil, they began to laugh hysterically, and every time since. When you’re first learning a language, at times you may feel foolish. But don’t worry about that. Just relax, smile and keep going.
Naq xatbiij? = What did you say?
Naq ti’biil tziij _____? = What does _____ mean?
Naq nb’i’x che _____? = How do you say _____?
Jutiij chik? = Again?
Naq aab’ii? = What’s your name?
In aaXtewan = I’m Stephen.
K’ayib’al way = Tortillera (place where they make tortillas)
Jar aachi = the man
Jar ixoq = the woman
Pa tok’al juyu’ xink’eje’ = I was in San Pablo
Ixiim = corn
Uleep = land
Ixiim uleep = Guatemala/Wisconsin
K’atan = Hot
Teep = Cold
La k’atan nana’? = Are you hot?
Ma ni’ = No
Ji iiin = Yes
NOTE: I tried to google San Pablo La Laguna to verify that its name in Tz’utujil is Tok’al Juyu’ (I think it means something like: hill going up into the woods). But Google knows nothing of this place. Wikipedia knows only one sentence. San Pablo LL is one town over from me, slightly unwelcoming to outsiders and a wellspring of pure, unadulterated Tz’utijil. The only thing that came up on Google for San Pablo was this rap video. Hip hop is a universal language. Here they’re freestyling in Spanish about the lake and being 100% chapín (Guatemalan). I’m on a mission to hear these kids rhyming in Tz’utujil.
Reality is not in the past, present or future. It’s beyond. It’s timeless. But before you get into the timeless, you throw away the past and the future first. When you try to go into the present, the present isn’t there. And then you get into it.
~Bhante Sujiva
In 2013, two friends of mine purchased a lifeless old dilapidated structure in Burlington, Vermont’s Old North End and spent the next three years slowly transforming it into a beautiful home. When I first visited the place in 2014, their unique energy had permeated throughout the living space. The care that they had put into every stroke of paint, support beam and ceramic tile was evident. Vibrant colors reflected sunlight from the windows. Countless plants breathed oxygen into the common spaces. The aromas of garlic, olive oil, rosemary and fresh compost topped with coffee grounds left a subtle sense of inspiration lingering in the air. A guitar rested securely in a stand near the wall. If you’d had a cup of coffee, you couldn’t resist picking it up. Only a few neglected nooks and crannies remained haunted, relics from a darker past. They felt strangely out of place.
Sometimes therapists ask you to visualize yourself in a place where you feel calm and peaceful, and I always forget to come here. Instead, I usually go to the Mystic Lakes. That’s also not bad. In the summer of 2013, when I could barely get any sleep, I used to go down to the these lakes and just lie peacefully in the water until dusk. One of the techniques I used at that time to help me fall asleep was to visualize different scenes like this before bed: the Mystic lakes at sunset, snowflakes descending over the city at night and umbrellas in the rain in San Sebastian, Spain.
The things that are on your mind before you fall asleep influence your dreams, especially the images that are in your head. Dreaming is a really important aspect of life. Pablo Picasso once said, “Everything you can imagine is real.” How do you feel good when you feel bad? You pretend to feel good. You think about what it would feel like to feel good. When we dream at night, we see pictures and stories unfold before us, just as in waking life. Truth be told, whether we are awake or asleep we experience the whole world inside our own minds. Though we tend to think that happiness is brought about by external circumstances, happiness is already inside of us. Michael Abrams’ father once remarked to me after Michael passed away that one of the greatest features of being human is the capacity to imagine. What happens to us when we let ourselves dream our wildest dreams?
Across from the sofa in the Old North End apartment, there stands a wooden bookshelf filled with brilliant works of mostly non-fiction. I don’t tend to read that much, except when I come here. One of the books that sits on the shelf is a crimson paperback entitled The Lost Language of Plants, which is hard for me to resist picking up. It turns out the book is about pharmaceutical drugs and how they affect natural ecosystems. The premise of the book is that plants communicate among themselves and within their environment via organic molecules, and that pharmaceutic waste introduces meaningless noise into these very nuanced communication systems. It’s written quite poetically. One of the chapters is all about television. It describes television as a modern form of dreaming, the more traditional form being storytelling. It seems so obvious, and yet it had never occurred to me. I thought of all my favorite TV shows and movies: Mad Men, Borat, Good Will Hunting, Breaking Bad. These productions immerse you in a world that feels entirely real, and yet it’s entirely fabricated. There’s an interesting concept in Bhuddism called samsara that refers to the material world, the world around us that we see and touch and interact with. Look around you right now. Is any of it real? If it isn’t real, it’s pretty convincing at least.
Most of my closest friends, I couldn’t tell you the first time I met them. Too much time has passed. But I remember when I first met Nate Taylor. It was a little over a year ago. We were both signing up to perform at Bloc 11 and I had just made a commitment to myself to be more open and friendly with everyone, regardless of their age and appearance, and regardless of my preconceived notions about them. So I went up to this guy and said hello. At seven foot four, Nate towers over other people like a massive skyscraper. When he’s hanging out with his friends, he’s like the Prudential Center. With his long hair, full beard, and warm smile, one cannot help but think of Jesus. Not the authentic Jesus of Nazareth, but some kind of Fox News version. Nate projects a gentle and profound confidence, both onstage and off. It is a pleasure to hear him play guitar live. I found myself dropping into his shows and performances whenever I could. Though he thinks of himself as a dark writer, in many ways his songs radiate light. The first song I ever heard Nate play was From the Morning by Nick Drake. Interestingly, when I first arrived in Guatemala, all these Nick Drake songs started popping into my head out of the blue. It was very mysterious.
Skip this paragraph if you want to get to the point. Have you heard of Nick Drake? He has an interesting story. First, you should hear his music, because it might blow you away. I’d recommend you start with one of these things first. No, that’s the name of the song — One Of These Things First. Anyway, Nick was a kind of shy and reserved guy from England who knew little fame or success while he was alive. He rarely played live and mostly just recorded records in solitude. He wrote a song about himself called Man in a Shed, if that gives you an idea. Beautiful song, by the way. I think he passed away in the sixties or seventies. Years later, his music was discovered and found its way into the movie Garden State. Vivian Maier has kind of a parallel story. Maier was a fulltime nanny and amateur photographer whose photos are now celebrated around the globe for their depictions of daily life in segregated Chicago in the 1960’s and 1970’s. She took thousands of photos and never showed them to anyone. Years after her death, her photographs were discovered by an architect who purchased them at an auction and people began to see what extraordinary talent she had. Both she and Drake were extraordinary artists in their time who were virtually unknown until after they died. You could put Vingent Van Gogh in the same category with them.
Basically, this blog post is an advertisement for Nate Taylor. The real reason I’m bringing him up here is because this is a post about dreaming, and dreaming is a central theme in his music. I’ve been inspired by Nate’s lyrics, his voice, his music and his courage to dream and envision. Without analyzing too much, I want to leave you some of his lyrics:
From “On the road”
As the smokey sunlight takes a breath I find my body running from home
With the heat behind, unknown ahead, it seems the only thing is to roam
To feel the breeze creep under my skin, recall the scent of morning
So much of life’s been stuck in my head, there’s no more time for warnings
With this breath so deep, my demons weep, I feel the grip of winter slip, it’s through
They call it brave to make this change, but it takes no nerve when there’s nothing else to do
No longer can I stay in that fray, there must something waiting
I’ll take the road for day after day, at least it’s always changing
On the road is my soul
Only solace is knowing there’s somewhere else to go
I was born just to roam
But where did the rest of my herd go?
From “In dreams”
In my dreams, I am loved by you
You take my hand and make me whole
And if my dreams were reality
I think that I could save the world
Oh, in my dreams
In my dreams, we’re so happy
We’re smiling even as we fight
And when I pull your body close to mine
I feel electric deep inside
Oh, in my dreams
In my dreams, I’m down on my knee;
And in your eyes I see my life
The words we share.. . oh what beauty
I can’t believe you’ll be my wife
Oh, in my dreams
In my dreams, we’re old and wrinkled
But deep inside we’re still so young
We’ve crossed a million miles together
Oh damn we’ve had such fun
Oh, in my dreams
In my dreams, I am loved by you
You take my heart and me whole
And if my dreams were reality
There’d be such peace down in my soul
Training the ODIM health promoters on hyper- and hypoglycemia this afternoon. It’s hard to get them to stop laughing. Though I haven’t written much on this blog about my experiences with ODIM, I intend to. Contributing to these clinics as a nutrition consultant, in addition to being a privilege and an honor, has been a blast. I’m blessed and feel very grateful to have the opportunity to be here.
Marlin and I arrived here at 11pm in a taxi from Ocosingo about 2 hours away, the last leg on a 15 hour journey from Flores, Guatemala. There’s something romantic about seeing a city for the first time at night, especially San Cristóbal de Las Casas whose mystical charm comes into even clearer focus after sunset. San Cristóbal de las Casas (or Sancris as it’s simetimes called) gives the impression of being the type of place where taboo stuff is considered cool. Independent movie theaters, crisp cool air, graffiti and radical ideas could be considered the defining features. Shopping perhaps as well. The streets contains a mix of stylishly dressed city folk, indigenous Maya a solid, but not overwhelming, cohort of tourists. Paola told me to come here, and I’m glad I did. Beautiful, beautiful place. A spirit of rebellion is in the air. The symbols of anarchy have been spray painted on the walls. One tag reads Ni leyes ni policía ni novios (Neither laws nor police nor boyfriends and girlfriends). Other tagged sentences have the O’s and A’s of masculine and feminine words replaced with X’s, presumably in protest of the sexism that is built into the Spanish language. Shane Runquist could tell you about the Zapatistas. I’ll just leave a few photos for you.
Sancris at night, facing westCentral parkFacing west in daylightRadiant morning light floods down the steps and into the cityMarlin, clean laundry in handWhen our hostel filled up and we went looking for another, we passed this dog.Incredible street art, one exampleSpontaneous photo shoot on someone’s VW. Luckily they didn’t come after us with a machete. We took the long way to the botanical gardens.Botannical gardens. I love flowers. Marlin’s not too excited.After arriving in San Juan Camula on horseback, we decide not to go into the church to see chickens being sacrified. Instead, we chat with a young girl outside selling bracelets.En route to San Juan ChamulaSan Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, MexicoThe streets at 6am
As I write this blog post, someone next door is playing Paul Simon’s Sounds of Silence on the flute. Although Paul Simon has been accused of lifting material from the indigenous Inca of Peru, I’m reminded of one of my favorite BB King quotes. “I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.” Ultimately, everything comes from something else. This is especially true in the world of music. It’s also true in the domain of human cultures. In Tikal, a guide by the name of Ruben Elias took us around the ruins of a civilization which came to its pinnacle around 900 AD. By 1300 AD, he said, deforestation had led to a draught which resulted in the dispersion of the Maya people. The five major Mayan languages spoken at that time branched out into dozens of dialects as people spread to the surrounding areas, including Lake Atitlan. I’m not a historian, so I couldn’t verify the accuracy of his statements. He claimed that the Inca of South America are descendents of the Maya, just as the Maya descended from indigenous groups further north such as the Navajo Indians. “We’re all one people,” he said, speaking of the indigenous populations of the Americas in general. His theory was that all the indigenous folks of America were descendents of Mongolians who crossed over the Bering straight into Alaska, citing as evidence the fact that his son had a Mongolian spot on his back.
I promised to write a post about my experience hiking into the Peten jungle to visit an ancient archeological site called El Mirador. This site is much older, and slightly larger than Tikal, and due to its remote location, rarely visited by tourists. In fact, at the time we visited we were the only tourists in the park. From the top of a structure termed La Danta, one can look out 360 degrees to see nothing but jungle in all directions. The site of El Mirador (Spanish for the lookout) dates back to 800 BC, 1400 years before the construction of The Great Jaguar Temple at Tikal. Complete with planetariums, palaces and ball courts and controlling the surrounding regions, it was perhaps the Maya equivalent of Hartford, Connecticut.
Estoy bromeando.
Even older than El Mirador is the nearby site (to which we did not venture) of Nakbe (which means the white road) dating back to 1000 BC. First Nakbe (from 800-200 BC) functioned as the primary seat of political power, and then El Mirador (from 200BC – 250AD) took on this role. In its time, the dynasty was called the Kan Kingdom (Kingdom of the Serpent) and even back then, the people were eating tons of corn and making tortillas with limewater. A post on this topic will be coming soon. I don’t know what they sprinkle in those tortillas, but I’ve become an addict.
Throughout the journey (5 days and 4 nights), we saw a great degree of biodiversity including a poisonous snake, an uncountable number of Spider Monkeys who tried to shit on us and finally, from the Temple of the Tiger we were able to see, and not just hear, the great howler monkeys. Thier menacing howl, which apparently had provided the inspiration for the roar of the T-rex in the movie Jurassic Park, kept us up at night. Additionally, we encountered a wide and interesting variety of spiders, wasps, fire-ants, mosquitos and other mysterious and unfamiliar insects. Indeed, there were mules carrying our bags (I wasn’t making that up) and they did collapse under the conditions due to exhaustion. The path at many points was nearly impassable due to flooding and mud.
Pictured below (assuming the images uploaded), you can see the bus to El Carmelita, our point of departure located about three and half hours (but not really that far) from the tourist town of Flores, Guatemala. They don’t speak any language other than Spanish in El Carmelita or the surrounding towns. On the bus, I sat next to an elderly woman who looked like she just dug herself out of her grave, she was so emaciated. She looked at me and the bag of animal crackers I was holding, so I offered her some. She held out her hands in the form of a bowl and I poured a bunch of the Tiger-shaped partially hydrogenated galletas into them. “Thanks,” she said. “I haven’t eaten breakfast.” We started talking for a while; I can’t remember what about. Her Spanish was hard to understand. She told me about a gringa who used to spend time in El Carmelita and who was well-known by everyone in the town. She asked me where I was from and how long it took me to get to Flores.
Bus to El Carmelita
“I came on a plane,” I said. “It took a day.”
As soon as you say airplane, people can’t believe it.
“Oh my God, an airplane. How much did it cost?”
I didn’t want to tell her 2,000 quetzales.
“I don’t remember.”
We get to El Carmelita and they drop us at the Cooperativa Carmelita, pretty much the sole source of employment for the entire town. Five hundred people live in the town and 300 of them are socios (partners) of the cooperative running the expeditions into the jungle. Some work as cooks, others as guides and assistants. The other 200 are children. Pictured below in blue (I hope you can see) is our guide Manuel. We head over to a nearby restaurant to have breakfast. It’s just somebody’s house. Best breakfast I ever had in Guatemala.
Inside the Carmelita Cooperative… Manuel pictured in blueOutside the cooperative in El Carmelita before we head out… From left to right: myself, some guy, Mary, Jordan. Not pictured here, Rachelle.El Carmelita — Population 500; Preferred Beer: Gallo; Preferred Cigarettes: ModernosThe best breakfast of my life. The day I fell in love with instant coffee.Les presento a José, el interprete de la excursión
Pictured above: me and José. José is the interpreter for the expedition. He’s 19 years old, lives in El Remate and studies archeology in Santa Elena. In the first hour of our journey, José and Jordan are stung repeatedly by vicious wasps (not pictured here).
First hour of the expedition
As we trudge through deep swamps and thick mud, Mary and Rachelle struggle to keep up, Mary for lack of will and Rochelle because her shoes have split in half. This greatly annoys Manuel. We arrive at camp after dark, hungry and slightly discouraged. The team transporting our food and supplies will not arrive for another two and a half hours. When they do arrive and finally have supper prepared, it’s 11PM. I go to Jordan’s tent to wake him. For three hours, he has literally been dreaming about food. Sometimes dreams do come true.
The next day is easier, and we get to the first area of El Mirador, called La Muerta, by 1pm.
Entrance to El Mirador
La Muerta, you may know, is Spanish for the dead woman. When we arrive, Mary and Rachelle collapse onto some rocks. In their condition, they might have to rename the site Las Muertas. Luckily, our cook arrives within a half an hour carrying delicious tunafish sandwiches on white bread. Best tunafish sandwich I ever had. Manuel begins to tell us about the history of La Muerta, which consists of two pyramide-like structures with many additions and renovations made over the ancient years. Every new ruler had the structures revamped and renovated. Manuel talks about the large steps that run up all the structures of El Mirador.
Manuel explains the ancient history of La Muerta
“There are two theories regarding these steps,” he says. “One is that the ancient Maya were very tall; the other is that they were very short.” Manuel believes that they were short and placed smaller steps in between the larger steps to ascend the pyramids non-linearly. To ascend the steps directly would be offensive to the king, he says.
It’s still another 45 minutes to our campsite where there is something like an actual shower. At the previous site Tintal, there was only a Guatemalan shower, which is to say a bucket of water. All our clothes are soaking wet. As I lent Jordan my spare pair of pants, I hang up my only pair of pants to dry on a clothesline and walk around in my underwear, spraying my legs with 98% DEET. There’s no one around except the folks who maintain the archeological sites and our crew.
The next day, we walk 30 minutes to La Danta, the highest structure of El Mirador with 360 degree panoramic views of pure jungle in all directions. I know, it’s redundant to say all that. Once ancient kings reigned over the land from here. “All our past kings were fat and out of shape,” says Jordan, an Englishman. “They never would have made it up here.” In my mind, I picture Jimmy Morales, Guatemala’s newly elected and notoriously unpopular president, ruling Guatemala from up here. In fact, Manuel tells me, he’s been here recently with the president of El Salvador, though they arrived by helicopter. The previous president of Guatemala, who was recently jailed on charges of corruption due in large part to non-violent protests which took place in the capital last year, wanted to build a train system to El Mirador to further open it up to tourism. I estimated, based on no evidence, that within forty years El Mirador would be a major tourist attraction in Guatemala. Manuel thought it would be sooner, maybe within twenty or thirty years. I go down to the base of La Danta, pick a flower and give it to Rachelle. She accepts it awkwardly. Manuel starts laughing hysterically.
What else can I say about this voyage? I guess I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
Peace!At La Muerta, José checks out a large spiderWet, sore and sleep-deprived, I pose for a photo at La Muerta.Manuel, explaining the layout of La DantaPreparing to ascend La DantaRachelle, at the base of La DantaJordan, on top of the worldCheck me out!Sitting on the roof of the worldFrom the top of La Danta, with RochelleManuel and Jordan, from the Temple of the TigerExploring the temple with JoséSunrise from the Temple of the Tiger #1Sunrise from the Temple of the Tiger #2Taking in Tikal (the day after returning from El Mirador)
Last week, during the heart of the Guatemalan rainy season, I trekked 25 miles into the jungle with three fellow hikers, a guide and an interpreter to an ancient Mayan archeological site called El Mirador, then came back the same way. A post on this trip with photos coming soon! It took five days and four nights in total of trudging through waist deep swamps, rediculous mud and dense clouds of hungry mosquitos. The mules carrying our bags collapsed under the conditions. Any sane person would wait until the dry season to attempt such a trek. The will to run these expeditions at this time of year can be summed up by phrase used by so many Guatemalans: nos toca trabajar.
Anybody who’s studied Spanish knows that there’s a certain passivity built into the language. For example, the way to say I dropped my pencil is to say se me cayó mi lápiz. Literally, that means: my pencil dropped itself just to piss me off. My friend Dave calls it “deferment of responsibility onto an inanimate object.” In Spanish, it’s unheard of to say that you forgot something. People only say se me olvidó which means something was forgotten and it happened to me. Similarly, the use of the verb tocar to mean to have to indicates a certain sense of things being out of your control, because tocar means to touch. Me toca trabajar, though it would be correctly translated as I have to work literally means working touches me. It’s not a choice; it’s an obligation. The mindset is that if there is any money to be made, you have to make it. If any idiot wants to trek through the jungle in the middle of rainy season, it’s your obligation to take them. You have to do it, because if you don’t work, you don’t eat. They call this struggle la lucha.
There are few to no social services in Guatemala, no welfare checks, no public hospitals and no social security. It’s unheard of to go to the hospital or the doctor unless you are seriously ill. This includes well checks for children and pregnant women. The poorest of the poor may earn as little as 20 quetzales per day. In Mexico, it may be about 60 pesos. Both amount to about 3 USD. Some undoubtedly live on less. While a wellness check could run anywhere from 25 to 200 quetzales, for some this amounts to a week’s wages. Similarly, although health insurance is available, it’s not in the mentality of the people to purchase it and virtually no one has it, even those who could afford it.
On one of the Tuk-Tuks coming from San Pablo to San Juan, I overhead a passenger say, “Es mentira que no hay dinero en Guatemala.” (It’s a lie that Guatemala doesn’t have any money.) I asked him what he meant by that, and he responded that plenty of people have money in Guatemala, but the money doesn’t go to the people. He spoke of the corruption in the capital, and the tendency of people with money to hoard it in foreign bank accounts. “Just look at this road,” he said as the dented Tuk-Tuk jerked and danced around potholes at a pace of about 1 mile per hour. “What kind of a road is this?” He wasn’t the first person I met in Guatemala to call for a violent revolution. The economic inequality in Guatemala is real.
You can’t go two minutes in this country without somebody trying to sell you something. When I hear megaphones on the street, I expect to see the police with an important safety message. “Stay in your homes and do not come outside. I repeat, stay in your homes.” Instead, it’s some guy selling plantains. “Ripe plantains, three for five dollars. Delicious plaintains ready to eat. I repeat, ripe plantains.” From a young age, boys learn to be hustlers. Before any tourist van even rolls to a complete stop, a dozen ten year olds have already opened the door, popped their heads inside and started selling you stuff. “Hostal amigo?? Precio especial para tí. Mejor precio te doy amigo.” Whenever anybody is trying to sell you something, they use the word amigo, but that’s the only time I’ve ever heard the word used. Nobody calls you amigo if they’re actually your friend.
When I first arrived in Antigua, Violeta, with whom I stayed for a week along with several other visiting volunteers, had a small shop selling chips, sodas and newspapers outside her house. “I work Monday through Monday,” she told me. “It’s not like in the US where you only have to work a day or two every week.” In her mind, everyone in the US was drowning in dollar bills. Like most Guatemalans, she was very opportunistic about making money. In addition to her tienda, she had made her kitchen into a diner, her home into a hotel and her washing machine into a laundromat. Most people will not turn down opportunities to work and will jump on any available job whether it’s painting houses, driving you to the airport, fixing a toilet or selling potato chips.
It’s interesting to compare this mentality with the work mentality in the United States… Follow your dream. Do what you love. Work hard, and climb the latter to success. In Guatemala, work is more about basic survival. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. Both cultures have a strong work ethic. In Guatemala, in my experience, work is more integrated into daily life. It is life. It’s not some place you go to and come home from. With that being said, some of the really negative aspects of work life seen in the states are missing in Guatemala, most notably the kind of miserable anxiety that can only be experienced through an office job. It’s not uncommon to see Guatemalans smiling and enjoying themselves while they work. Many Guatemalans work for themselves or in cooperatives. Two examples are the coffee cooperative in San Juan called La Voz and the Cooperativa Carmelita in El Carmelita that runs the expeditions to El Mirador. These cooperatives, from what I can tell, are cool in that they give the worker a great deal of autonomy while providing decent wages.
My style is hot like jerk chicken
I should rob you
But with that cheap shit
You ain’t worth stickin’
~Lamont Coleman (aka Big L)
As I write this I am, to my knowledge, the tallest living man in Guatemala. I’m constantly hitting my head when I walk through doorways and reaching down a foot and a half at sinks to wash my hands. Malnutrition is a significant factor in Guatemalans not reaching their full height potential. It is often said that height is largely genetic, but genes are not set in stone. Their expression is determined by a wide variety of factors, one of the most important of which is nutrition. Height is one of the many things that makes you stand out as a foreigner here. Also, being able to play basketball. Another sure giveaway is when you say Buenos días in the afternoon or Buenas tardes after the sun has set. Not only does it let people know you’re a foreigner, but it really upsets them. By making a statement like that, you’re proclaiming a kind of reality. And when you tell people good afternoon when it’s actually nighttime, it turns their world upside down. It would be like if a Guatemalan came up to you in the states and said, “Hi, I’m from Mars.” You’d say “No, you’re not. You’re from Mexico.” From my point of view, since I’ve been here, there’s less of a concern about objective reality and more of an emphasis on not disturbing peoples’ inner realities, which means whatever people say, you just agree with them. The easiest way to do this is to respond to everything they say with “Correcto.” Any yes or no question you ask, people will make every effort to answer it affirmatively, even at the cost of objective truth. I’ve had a lot of conversations like this:
Do you know what time the bus arrives in Guatemala City?
Yes.
What time does it arrive?
Yes.
I’ve become sidetracked, but the way you use language can make you stand out. So can the material wealth you exhibit. People often tell you not to flaunt wealth or say that you have money while you’re here, and that’s good advice. Luckily, that comes naturally to me. More than a few people have told me that I dress like I have no money. Mike Abrams put it to me the most bluntly. “The only thing that’s holding you back is your wardrobe. The clothes do not match the man.” In some sense, he was right. Looking cheap was never my intention. Even while I’m here in Guatemala, I don’t wear flashy stuff, but I always want to look my best.
The turquoise waters of Semuc Champey are beautiful. The relationship between locals and tourists in these towns is not so beautiful. There’s a sense that visitors are just there to consume the beauty, eat a huge plate of barbecued chicken, get smashed and move on to the next place, leaving trails of empty beer cans and casually throwing stuff in the trash that’s worth more than what people make in a year. That’s how tourists are perceived and how they’re treated by locals. I walked into the town of Lanquin one morning and was met with suspicious looks. I said hello to everyone, and about half of them, after a brief pause and a puzzled look, said hello back, some warmly, others reluctantly. Still friendlier than Boston.
But I had a breakthrough in Lanquin. They say there are 22 Mayan tongues spoken in Guatemala which are not dialects but separate languages. I was curious about what they spoke in Lanquin and whether it had any recognizable relationship with Tz’utujil. I’ve always been intrigued by the words that different languages have for the moon. I figured if anything would be the same across the Mayan languages, it would be the sun and the moon. In Tz’utujil, the word for the moon is iik’ which also means month. In Lanquin, I discovered, they speak a language called Q’eqchi. It’s taught in schools nowadays. After decades of repressing indigenous people and indigenous culture, the government is now spearheading projects to revive what they almost completely destroyed. It would be like if British Petroleum spilled a million barrels of oil into the gulf of Mexico and then converted itself into an international conservation agency to preserve marine biodiversity. So how do you say the moon in Q’uekchi?
Poo (poh)
There goes my theory. It’s nothing like iik’. Disappointed, I thanked Sofía, who was telling me this stuff, and told her I enjoyed hearing what her language sounded like. She responded by saying Bantiosh. Wow! That sounds like Tz’utujil. Keep in mind that Lanquin is a ten and a half hour car ride from the three pueblos where Tz’utujil is spoken. In Tz’utujil, thank you is Maltiox (pronounced mal-tee-osh). I had to find out more, but unfortunately Sofía didn’t speak much Q’eqchi so she called the Q’eqchi expert Minche. From him, I discovered the following similarities between Tz’utujil (T) and Q’uekchi (Q).
Bantiosh (Q) Maltiox (T) = Thank you
Sak (Q) Saq (T) = White
Ja’ (Q) Ya’ (T) = Water
Chee’ (Q) Chee’ (T) = Tree
Julaj chik (Q) Chu’ak chik (T) = See you tomorrow
Ooj (Q) Ooj (T) = Avocado
Barkwan (Q) Barkii (T) = Where
Uus (Q) Utz (T) = Good
The relationships among these languages are perhaps not as distant as I had believed based on what I’d heard.
On the road to Flores, we came to a security checkpoint where armed guards in uniform checked our van for any fresh fruit. Then they brought out the papaya-sniffing canines. Petén has very high standards for produce. A woman named Luz who sat next to me in the van smuggled an apple across the border. Back on the road, she proudly removed it from her purse and gave it to me as a gift.
And as heartbeats bring percussion
Fallen trees bring repercussions
Cities play upon our souls like broken drums
Redrum the essence of creation from city slums
But city slums mute our drums and our drums become humdrum
‘Cause city slums have never been where our drums are from
Just the place where our daughters and sons become
offbeat heartbeats
~Saul Williams
No trip to Guatemala would be complete without a stop in the nation’s grimy, perilous, criminal-infested capital city. Actually it was pretty nice. I stayed in Zone 10, the least menacing and greenest of all the neighborhoods. Though my plans to get together with my friend Alejandra fell through (my fault, Alejandra), I still wanted to give the city a chance.
Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in your favorite armchair watching late-night TV infomercials. Why you decided to stay up this late is a question you have to answer for yourself. Now picture all the clowns on TV selling exercise bicycles, growth supplements, snuggies, Phil Collins anthologies and all kinds of other crap. Now imagine they all have thick Spanish accents and are actually stepping out of the TV into your living room and handing you products. That’s what riding the chicken bus to Guatemala City is like. Salespeople literally just jump onto the moving bus, through either the back door or the front (remember, this is an old US school bus), and just dive into a sales pitch. Riding on a chicken bus is a lot like flying on an airplane if the airplane were made out of a recycled US school bus. The pilot knows what he’s doing, but he’s also a complete maniac. The ride is turbulent and you pray to God that you reach your destination.
In my case, that destination is Miraflores, a bus stop near the airport. For those of you who are non-Spanish speakers, Miraflores means “Look, flowers!” It’s not exactly the name I would give to the place… Anyway, as we enter Guatemala city limits there’s an indescribable energy in the air. It’s buzzing with people and awash with bright colors, strange vehicles and huge billboards. An enormous advertisement for yogurt lingers over us. It’s 10,000 times larger than an actual container of yogurt. We pass under green pedestrian overpasses that connect either side of the highway. Off to the side of the road, three macho-appearing dudes have pulled over and are standing next to one another side by side as they proudly take a communal piss onto a nearby barbed-wire fence. Sorry I didn’t catch a photo of that for you.
Just within city limits
In Guatemala City, you’re advised not to take taxis, ride public transportation or walk to your destination on foot. The only mode of transportation that can be considered 100% secure is telekinesis. Needless to say, I did take a taxi or two. When I got in cabs, the drivers told me to always check the front, back and sides of the cab for identification numbers. There are about a thousand non-registered taxis circulating around the city.
Interestingly, I had plans to meet up with a guy named Todd who I had met in San Juan at a place called Cafe Atitlan. He invited me to meet him and his girlfriend that night in Zone 4. I also had plans to meet up with Scott Garrison, my volunteer coordinator whom I have previously mentioned on this blog, on Sunday morning. Anyway, on Saturday evening I get to the spot in Zone 4 around eight o’clock to meet Todd. Neither I nor the taxi driver has ever been there, but I know roughly where it is in relation to my hotel. Luckily, we find it without too much trouble but Todd later gives me a ride back to the hotel and advises me not to take cabs after dark. Zone 4 has been described as the Jamaica Plain of Guatemala City. It’s really just one block of bars and restaurants in the midst of more questionable surroundings. I suppose it does have a bit of a JP feel, especially if you’ve been living in Guatemala for some time.
There’s extreme poverty in Guatemala, I have to admit, and extreme inequality. It’s impossible for me to deny my privilege here, as hard as I try to. This morning I traveled to a small town about 30 minutes away called Santa Clara. It’s up in the mountains. Removed from the lake, there is no tourism industry to speak of. I arrive on a chicken bus with two other staff members from the clinic and we give a charla (interactive talk) to a group of diabetics inside the home of a local resident. Afterwards, we go to visit a man in an aldea (suburb) of Santa Clara called Santa Maria. He lives in a small cinderblock home with his wife and three young daughters. As we walk up the dirt path to the house, his youngest daughter comes out to see who we are. “Is your mom home?” one of the health promotors asks her. “No, but my dad’s home,” the girl answers. She lets us inside and we sit down on a couple of stools. It’s dark inside, and there are flies everywhere. Most of the space in the home is occupied by two beds where presumably everyone sleeps. In front of us is an empty wheelchair. Juan, the gentleman who we came to see, is using the toilet out back. His daughters tell us he’ll be in shortly. A few minutes later, the two girls (about 8 and 10 years old) are carrying him back inside. He’s too weak to walk. This gentleman is in desperate need of medical attention, but his state of health, along with a lack of economic resources, prevents him from seeking it. He’s had bloody diarrhea for the past twenty days and has lost so much weight that skin just hangs off of his bones. His ribs are showing. His blood sugar is so high that the glucomoter can’t read it. All we know is that it’s at least 600mg/dL. We give him some nutritional advice and make a plan for him to come to the Clinica Sanjuanerita. He’s suffering terribly, and it’s not clear whether he’ll survive.
The place where I’m meeting Todd in Zone 4 is not too far away geographically from Zone 5. In Guatemala City, Zone 5 is home to the largest section of slums (called asentamientos, settlements) in all of North or South America with the exception of Rio de Janeiro. The place is called, and you’re gonna scratch your head when you hear this, Lemonaid (La Limonada). The area has more or less come into existence in the past twenty to thirty years. It’s inhabited by folks who came to the city from rural areas during Guatemala’s civil war, essentially as refugees. The history of this conflict is a discussion for another day, but the US played an undeniable role in its beginnings. La Limonada, as far as I can tell, is a kind of hell on earth. Houses are perched percariously upon cliffs and hillsides, poverty is extreme, electricity and running water are scarce, streets are patrolled by gangs and all the worst kinds of things you can imagine happen there. Even in such a dark place, some say that they can smell hope. You may be interested in checking out the documentary Lemonade International
One thing you’ll notice about Guatemala City, and Guatemala in general, is that most people are either of Spanish or indigenous descent. You don’t see so much of a mix like you would see in other Latin American countries. Alejandra would disagree with me. This is to say, generally speaking when you’re in the capital, the people there look Spanish. You almost feel like you’re in Spain. La Limonada would be the exception.
When I get to L’apero Pizza in Zone 4, Todd is there with his girlfriend and one other guy. The other guy looks familiar. Within a few seconds, I recognize him. He’s Scott Garrisson! It turns out Scott and Todd are good friends. Apparently, it’s a small world for English-speakers in Guatemala.
Anyway, the next morning I meet up with Scott at a local cafe in Zone 10 and we talk about a lot of stuff over coffee (see photo below).
I’ve gotta put some good press out there for Scott’s NGO Buena Onda, through which I found my volunteer placement that later turned into a paid temporary position. Buena Onda is based out of Antigua, Guatemala although Scott now lives in Guatemala City with his girlfriend. In Guatemala, one way to ask “What’s up?” is to say “What wave?” and one way to answer the question, if things are going alright, is to say “good wave” as in, I caught a good wave. In Spanish, that’s buena onda. Buenda Onda is also the name of a taco place in Philadelphia below my sister’s apartment. Sharon and Jake, if you’re reading this, I miss you and I love you. The purpose of Buena Onda, the NGO not the taco place, is to connect volunteers with placements that are right for them. Scott noticed volunteers often ended up in placements that didn’t quite align with their passions and skills. His connections with a wide range of organizations in Antigua and along Lake Atitlan enable him to place volunteers in the positions where they will be the happiest. He was always there as a resource when I was planning my travels, answering questions of all kinds from the political landscape to food safety concerns. He helped me to set up housing and arrange transportation. The first thing he said to me on the phone six months before I arrived in Guatemala: “Tell me what your ideal experience in Guatemala would look like, and we’ll take it from there.” Great job, Scott! If you want volunteer in Guatemala, think about giving him a call or checking out the Buena Onda website.
When I got home to San Juan La Laguna on Sunday night, I was so exhausted from the two chicken bus rides and the hypervigilance of being in Guatemala City that I promptly passed out at 9pm. Grateful to be back home in beautiful San Juan La Laguna, I never slept so soundly.
Lightning over Guatemala CityThousands of years ago, the ancient Maya used to drink spiked fruit punch from giant bowls such as this one.The Maya God of DeathMuseo Popol Vuh
Volcanoes and Beans 