Pictures from Guatemala

Hey everyone! So I realize I have not shared much from my time spent in Guatemala, and I´m sorry, but it is hard to keep up with the blog when there is so much else going on. For this blog I just put up some pictures I liked, because I think they speak more than my words anyway, and now I will just write a little about them.

I just experienced one of the most beautiful sunsets ever over the Lago de Atitlan which truley is a magical place. I just got here, but I am amazed at the beauty of it all. The sun sets right behind the volcanoes and then the colors that come out are like a dream. Guatemala is turning out to be full of surprises! Oh yeah, I have to add, also I love how the local Mayans go down to the lake to hang out. In this one spot where I sit above on the rocks I can look down amidst all the plants and flowers and watch whats going on (people watching is great here). The women and girls are on one side and the men and boys on the other. The women go into the water with all of their clothes then wash themselves then wash their clothes. They also do all of their laundry there. The men are usually diving off the rocks and swimming around, some are fishing for crabs and other small fish. Everyone looks happy and they are living the natural life. Probably most of them have never left the lake before. It´s a very different way of life.

Colin and I just came from Chichicastenango, which has the biggest and most colorful market in Guatmela on Sundays and Thursdays. We figured it was worth it to check it out because we both wanted to upgrade our clothes. The streets of this town totally transform on market days and people come from all over toting their heavy loads to sell. They carry up tall poles and rythmically construct their stands (as you can tell they have done over and over again) and then they hang their goods all over to display them and it turns the town into a giant mosaic of colors and crafts. It is amazing how they carry huge loads on top of their heads or by using straps that go around their foreheads- it hurts my neck to watch. And I should point out that this town is in the highlands on a hill, and I got winded walking up to the market from our hotel without anything on my back. That shows the determination they have. For lots of these people selling goods is their only hope to make some money, and that money goes directly to food and water and shelter. Some of the nicer clothes take the women a few months to make and then they will sell them for around $10, and the prices are always negotiable. One sale, even if small, can maybe feed the family for one more day. The market is enjoyable in its madness, but it´s also hard to see as well.

We heard you get the best prices at the end of the market (even though at all times the prices are negotiable) because the people would rather sell their items for about anything than have to carry them back. I found this to be true... at the end of the market I came across these really cool pants that were hand embroidered and made out of the same fabric as the local womens skirts. I liked them a lot and they guy told me he would sell them to me for 125 quetzales. I thought about it and I told him I thought they would be too hot becuase soon I would be in the tropics. He said okay 100 quetzales, I hmmmd, then he said 80. I also thought they were kind of heavy and I might not want to carry them around, I told him the price wasn´t the issue. He told me they were heavy because they were totally hand embroided and it was a lot of work, then he was like okay 70 quetzales, then 60 quetzales. Then Colin was like you can´t let him go lower than that because the pants are worth at least 60 (which is $7.50). I was really hesitant and then I told the man I didn´t want the pants, he offered 50 and then I left. A block away he came running up to me and was like okay you can have them for 45. I couldn´t believe how low he was going on the price, and it wasn´t even the price that was holding me back. Finally that got me though and I went back and bought them for 50- I had to raise the price a little for once. Now I´m wearing my crazy pants and I really like them. I guess I could have paid him even more, but it´s hard to know what to do becuase I get used to looking for the deals since people often try to rip off the gringos, but at the same time I know that I am rich compared to them.

Colin was totally enthralled by all of the colors in the market, he was like a little kid in a candy store. Colin was ready to get rid of everything he owned and trade it in for more colorful clothes, and he just about did. I thought he was crazy, and I was like don´t you want your clothes to cordinate at all? But that was not a concern of his, the more colorful and crazy the clothing was, the more he liked it. And he wears it with pride too, I´ll admit it is pretty great, that´s why I like him. I´m just happy he didn´t get the rainbow striped overalls becuase that was a close one, and I don´t know if I could have handled those.

Another fun thing I did in Chichi was I got my first shoe shine. I had to get rid of my tennis shoes because they were not holding up too well and I bought myself a pair of boots in the market in Xela to replace them (which was a whole other crazy adventure). The boots I found are great and I was all excited that now I can get them shined too. There are always little boys and men in every town we go that are shining peoples shoes. So I sat on the park bench, ate some piña, and got my boots all fixed up for 5 quetzales by a little boy who was quite the entreprenuer. He was asking me why I didn´t buy clothes in bulk from the market and then sell them in the US, and he had all sorts of other ideas on how to make money. The kids here are all about making money and they will try and get money from you for anything they can (you don´t want to buy this tamale, then let me take you on a tour, or teach you about a Mayan tradition, or how about you take my picture for a quetzal, or better yet how about you just give me a quetzal). Anyway I thought it was fun that now I can support some of the boys sometimes and get my boots shined, but I have found out it is a mixed blessing. They are after me all the time wanting to shine my shoes- when I´m sitting by the lake, eating in a restaurant, walking down the street- they don´t give up! Now I have to shoe off little boys from my legs all the time, haha. Oh well, I know it´s their situation that makes them be like that, so I don´t blame them for it. The kids are really special and I often have great conversations with them if I can get them distracted from trying to sell me something.

Eating in the market is also always a fun experience. In the food sections there are stalls upon stalls with women standing around cooking up the food in their giant pots. As you walk along everyone encourages you to eat at their place. Some are definitely more sketchy than others, but as you walk through piles of trash and dirt and water on the ground, and flies in your face, you realize that none of them are really clean and so you just have to choose one. It´s worth it sometimes for the experience. No matter what Colin and I do, we usually come off as being awkward and funny, and everyone stares and laughs at us wondering what we are going to do next. I don´t think gringos eat in the market too often. Everything from what and how we order (trying to figure out what some of the food is can be tricky) to how we eat is often great entertainment to the local people. The women in my foto found us to be particularly amusing, and at first we were like what else are we going to do next that´s going to be strange (without trying to be), but then we made friends with them, and it turned out to be a great meal.

Lets see, what else... here´s a fun one I don´t have a picture for, but I can now kind of say that Colin and I were held hostage in Guatemala. On Friday nights was group dinner night for the spanish school in Xela. The school was in a big building that also had bars and restaurants in it. So one Friday, we were all sitting there eating and then next thing we knew the building was filling up with men in green suits bearing machine guns. Which at first actually wasn´t too strange because there are men with machine guns all over Guatemala-- I´ve seen them even guarding bakeries. So anyway, one guy left to go buy a beer and he got stopped at the door and found out no was allowed to leave or enter the building. We were trapped! I wasn´t too scared so it was kind of exciting. We kept eating our dinner and were joking that we were being taken hostage in Guatemala. After a while the guns left and we were free again, no harm done. I think what it turned out to be was that they were searching all of the people in the bars for drugs, but I´m still not totally sure.

Here´s a little about Todos Santos because it was a really cool indigenous town. This town is in the middle of the mountains and you have to take a super sketchy bus for 3 hours to get there. It winds around all these sharp curves with no shoulder rising higher and higher. Along the way you can see wreckages of cars that didn´t make it, which doesn´t help the nerves. Luckily we survived and we spent a great 3 days in the town. My favorite part of Todos Santos was the clothes. There is a unique Todos Santos outfit that everyone wears, with a style for men and a style for women. Then each person kind of adds their own personal touches so they still seem kind of individualized. Todos Santos was hit hard during the civil war in Guatemala and lots of people were murdered and houses looted and burned. But now things are better and the Todos Santians have come back and fixed up their town. They have a lot of town pride there it seems, and they are now thankful for whatever they can get because they have been through hell. I found the people to be extremely down to earth and friendly and hospitable. It is crazy though for me to think that the 30 year war in Guatemala was not that long ago, and even people around my age have seen some crazy shit. I feel so lucky and grateful for how my life has been. Life in Todos Santos is still hard and lots of the kids can´t even go to school because they have to work. Little boys that can´t be more than 5 are already doing hard labor in the field and little girls are weaving and working all day on their looms. It´s a hand to mouth life, but the people amaze me at how warm they can remain.

I have to write a little more about the bus rides. The buses in Guatemala are crazy. They are old school buses from the US that have been painted up and decked out. They almost always have giant painted sayings about Jesus- Jesus is everywhere here. Jesus is guiding me, or Jesus is my savior, or Jesus Lives... it really doesn´t stop. So anyway, they pack these buses so full, when you think no one else could possibly fit, they squeeze on like 5 more people, then the bus can go. Back in Elementary School we used to sit 2 to a seat (as tiny people), here it´s more like 3 adults to a seat with maybe 4 more little kids on your lap. Then the aisles are packed as well-- every one is so smooshed in you can hardly even move. Then there is the guy who runs the bus, collecting money and storing peoples goods. When people show up with their giant bundles he climbs up and throws them on the roof, then he is hanging off the back as the bus is zooming down the road, then somehow he´s back in the front again-- it´s like a circus act or something. The buses are called chicken buses because often times they are also carrying chickens, clucking down the road. Then there are also the people who frequently board the bus to sell you food or drinks, they sometimes have baskets full of chicken and tortillas, or ice cream cones, or hambergers in a bag, you name it. Or they are trying to sell you a newspaper, or some new magical drug that cures all your pains seems to be a popular one. The other day a man boarded the bus to talk about Christ and then I swear he performed an exorcism on a man in the back. In Guatemala, you don´t have to worry about finding things yourself, because if you just wait long enough they will come to you, whatever it is you may want. The buses are quite an experience, and every time Colin and I think we can´t have a more incomfortable ride, we are proved wrong. Last time I boarded the bus with all of my stuff and even the aisle was full and I was squeezing through with my backpack, stepping on people and probably knocking them in the face with my bags, and someone was nice enough to put my bag on their lap, and then I barely found a place where I could put my feet and stand there for an hour and a half while we twisted around and I held on tight.

Well I think that´s all for now. I have had a lot of fun adventures in Guatemala, but I can´t write about them all. I hope you enjoyed these. By the way, Colin just put up a bunch of great pictures from our adventures in Guatemala, so you should definitely check those out!

Tess

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