Salsa Dances aboard Chicken Buses

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Quetzeltenango

I've spent most of this week, including my time in Xela, with my new friend Emily, an inspiring and intelligent girl my age from Minneapolis, who I met at Santa Anita La Union coffee finca last week (it wasn't hard to find her, the only other volunteer and only other extranjera on the entire finca). Emily has observed with me that when you travel alone, if you really allow yourself to be alone, you lose all of your old comforts in an equally difficult and positive way. When you are feeling most fragile, lonely or rejected, you are also confronted with the necessity to figure out the source of your personal difficulties and to give yourself the space and time to work through it. It can be intense and liberating at the same time. And that was my Xela experience.

I've climbed volcanos and taken in spectacular views, rested in hot springs, steamed in eucalyptus thermal baths, danced in too many salsa clubs, had innumerable meaningful conversations with exciting people from around the world, eaten artesianal chocolate on an almost daily basis, seen the most dolled-up and gorgeous drag queens Quatemala has to offer the early morning streets, experienced latin attitude and machismo at its most comical, had the same political conversations with an anarchist activist and a coffee farm-owning libertarian who share the same beliefs, although they have never met and wouldn't admit the mutual political stances if they did, laughed my way through a week of spanish class and danced salsa with my teacher, shared my fears and my confident character, and have been asked repeatedly to stay for just one more week, just a few more days, and all the while I've confronted an abundance of self-doubt and needy tendencies. The joy and sadness have come one after the other and often at the same time.

I've met so many amazing people that I've taken to very quickly.

After just two weeks here, with one week in between spent at the finca, I can walk around and wave to friends, acquaintences, business owners, salsa teachers...and yet it's here that I've found myself exploring some serious self-doubts. The kind of doubts that everyone carries around somewhere under the surface, and here they've had repeated excuse to come right to the surface for
full confrontation. They've popped up as multiple opportunities for rejection have presented themselves (and it's been well-worth the effort to stick around the city and confront it all).

A group of friends and I began one evening with a cake for a friend's birthday displayed on the hostel dining room table, surrounded by coffee and candles, we sung happy birthday together, shared amazing dessert, and went to the super chivas soccer game, where fans lit an unimaginable number of fireworks, played marching band drums and trumpets, and where we purchased the best food in Guatemala for just 5 Quetzales. Afterwards we danced and traveled around the city together in a group, hit our favorite spots, although tension was in the air over who wanted to do what and who was going to make concessions for the others, and by the end of the night it was just the birthday cake friend and I eating street food, arguing about the evenings happenings. I walked away from him sharply and dramatically without explanation and sprinted back
to my hostel, crying my way home simply over how innapropriately and inadequately I had communicated myself to him and the others. After four days of good conversations and walks around the city, our short friendship ended over lunch the next day as he thoughtfully outlined all of my worst personal weaknesses (while asking me to continue to be great friends), and these days we two exchange only awkward smiles and hellos in the same favorite night spots. What an intense four days, hmm? Events change quickly. How can people who have hardly known each other cause so much hurt or so much happiness?

Although I assumed the opposite would be true, there are many new social rules when traveling alone, when meeting folks who have stories, who share and take care of one another, and who leave
so soon.

Emily and I have been sharing meals for almost a week now, our sarcastic personalities are hitting perfect sync. We think we are much funnier than we really are and we laugh way too loud way too often, and I leave tomorrow, and who knows when Ill go to Minneapolis?
And that's just the way it is.

But let's stop with the personal crap and talk about a few specifics:

"Disfrute Guatemala, Ayuda Ninos."

Xela's got a lot of causes, everywhere you go you find them. It's the perfect destination for anyone sitting in America thinking "Wow I should really do something productive, like...join a cause." Especially if you want to do it in someone else's country. You can work with ninos, work in gardens, take part in the evolving local food movement, or you can support the countless
cooperative de mujeres, because all over, in all sectors, be it textiles, coffee, chocolate or body products, cooperatives of women have some sort of awesome system established to bring high quality products to the city while somehow benefitting efforts to help pueblos recuperate from the civil war. Trama textiles is a perfect example - women from 17 different areas came together after the war to put together a spanish and traditional weaving school, along with an affordable tienda. This is where I bought most of my presents, because the giant mercados that people pay 30 Q to ride 3 hours in a bus to so they can pay
the cheapest amount possible for time-consuming products are like guatemalan wal-marts.
It was at the Trama Textile Benefit party that I won two, TWO!, prizes in a raffle. I won an 8 hour trek up Santa Maria volcano and a hookah session at the new middle-eastern restaurant. Awesome! Their total value outweighed how much I spent at their tienda the day before. And all for a good cause.

Volcanic Hot Springs

I went camping at the Fuentes Georginas volcanic hot springs with friends I met on the bus to Lago de Atitlan and friends from school, a pretty great group altogether. It was the product of a divergence of brilliant ideas ("Hey Kati, we're going to the hot springs this weekend." "Hey John, I'm going to, let's camp." "Yeah! Rad!") The boys brought meat and cups, the girls made reservations and remembered towels. After jumping out of the chicken bus, we caught the most awesome pickup truck ride imaginable, all of us standing in the back as we flew uphill through windy turns, past abundant farmland and a massive waterfall, up into the mist and chill of the cloudforest, balancing with one hand as we took pictures of one another and ducked hanging vines. We sat for hours in the springs, moving from hot pool to hotter to hot to cooler and back again, until we got hungry, started up the bbq (by we, I mean the girls) with candles and toilet paper, and grilled all sorts of delicious, sanitarily-questionable vegetables (luxury items when we are all in homestays: bell peppers! onions!), hamburgers, and carry (the other ex-vegetarian) and I poked chicken, trying to figure out how to make it work...neither of us ever having grilled chicken in our lives (and we didn't get sick!-a real victory these days).


We went back out to the hot springs with all lights gone and the stars out, some of us floating quietly and others daring each other to touch the really really hot spots (the water comes from scalding hot waterfalls, originating way up in the elephant ears and jungle noises, so the really really hot spot in the waterfall water). Some time later, some time that qualifies as morning, we wondered back to the cabana, although Carry fell and scraped herself up pretty bad along the way, and I got to feel like a mom, bandaging her up and putting on her socks for bed. We pushed two beds together and slept like six cuddlebugs in sleeping bags, all of us, except Billy, freezing through the night. At dawn, I woke up Billy and the two of us had the springs to ourselves for an hour, even before the cleaning man showed up, prayed to the small Virgin Mary shrine and started sweeping around our feet.

We all met again to have Nescafe, the preferred coffee of Guatemala, a nation full of fincas, and some platanos. We hit the trail for the Mirador, straight up the stairs carved out of the earth, stopping every fifty feet or so for a breath, even though we said it was to take in the view.
We were cut short at the very top by a forest fire that was eery and beautiful as it appeared on the surrounding mountains. It felt good to have my heart beating hard again, bouncing around my chest, reminding me it's around and strong. After a group photo, we caught a pickup back, which was also pretty fun, but really the most notable part of the ride was when a big white woman got out of the comfort of the front seat because she wanted to walk the four blocks back. And as soon as she got out
she walked to the side of the road where an older man was carrying some 55 pieces of wood on hid back, with a strap around his forehead, hands gripping the rope holding it all together and a machete on his hip belt....and stuck her some thousand u.s. dollar camera in his face for a photo opp (without saying a word to him about the matter), and continued on her way.

This, by the way, is a really bad idea here in Guatemala, especially if youre snapping photos of Mayan folks with permission.

Spanish schools!

Xela is full, really full, of Spanish schools offering all sorts of political and social activities for self-revelations and personal growth and affordable prices (who doesn't want to buy personal growth?). My school, promised all of these things, but really for me it was a place that housed my one-on-one sessions with my teacher. I learned an incredible amount of Spanish in a week and I'm feeling really confident at this point.
My teacher was the same age as me with similar interests, so I got to pick up a lot of useful terminology on top of necessary grammar. I'm feeling really confident about the language, and can pull it up on a dime to talk with all sorts of people. I'm missing a few pieces and need to speak to more people more often to fill in the vocabulary, because street conversations beat flashcards all days of the week. My (non-profit children-benefitting all-woman-run) school was Juan Sisay, and if nothing else, it's full of good teachers.
Also, I made my first real stencil with an exacto knife and transparency paper of Juan Sisay's portrait, and it's really great.

I can't wait to throw it on a shirt and show my school.

El Volcan, Santa Maria

So about that Volcano Trek I won: From 5:30 a.m. in the morning until 1 p.m. in the afternon, I spoke nothing but Spanish (except to have a short chat with two Americans who didn't speak Spanish), and a lot of it, with my guide, people on top of the volcano, and impressive Mayan women carrying babies, food and refreshments, and blankets, etcetera on their backs up the steep, three-point-five hour climb
straight up the volcano (no flat spots mind you, none).

The night before my climb was my last friday in Xela and a graduation night at Juan Sisay. Although I wasn't a student this past week, I was invited to come over and hear some speeches and dances to Danish hip-hop. After, even though I told myself repeatedly I was on my way home, I was somehow convinced to go to the salsa club, and it was hoppin'. The point is, I didn't really sleep and when four a.m. rolled around in my room, I really really didn't want to climb a volcano. I forgot to bring water, had no access to coffee (which I've readdicted myself to after the coffee finca), and packed only peanuts, raisins and a peanut butter, raisin sandwich. The only thing I had going for me was that I ate street food at 2 a.m. at my favorite stand.

After an hour walking alone with my guide in the morning dew-ice, my old knee injuries starting clammering, and I threw on my braces. Ten minutes later I was trying to think of really good excuses why I couldn't go on (other than I'm exhausted and lazy). Picking up on my condition, the guide stopped me
and asked if I'd prefer to take the easy route, the one that wasn't steep and only an hour away, with a view of one other nearby volcanoes. But, he told me, if I continued on for another 2 and a half or three hours, I would see the tops of volcanos along a ridge from Xela to Antigua, an unforgettable sight. Wow, but I was really tired. So we flipped a coin, and it told me to continue up the hard way, so I flipped it back to the easy way and started back down. At that moment, four Mayan children, with huge items strapped to
their backs passed me on the trail...("Los ninos estan mas fuerte que yo...") Then the Americans caught up to pass us....("Los Americanos estan mas fuerte que yo...") I felt really pathetic, but I was realllly tired. So I just looked at the guide for awhile with a confused, sad look, and he grabbed my hand, pulled
me back up the trail ("Si Puedes! Vamos!"). So began the three hours of torture. I can't remember the last time I pushed myself that hard,my legs began to burn halfway up from dehydration. I tried to explain this to my guide and it came out as "Tengo fuego en mis piernas"..I have fire in my legs.
Im not sure how innapropriate that was. Probably not as innappropriate as when I asked him to carry me, but "to carry" has the double meaning of "to wear." Then I asked him how you say dehydrated by asking what it means to say you are without hydration and his smirked, replying that the correct term
was "sin condician fisica"...without physical condition...Thanks man! And I pushed myself just a half kilometer more with burning pain.

I made my way up the volcano slowly and painfully, and when I got to the top, finding myself in line with the family of impressive Mayan women and a three-month old baby girl, Roxanne, on her mom's seventeen year-old back, I took in an amazing sight. I ate my peanut butter and raisin sandwich, took in the little bit of air available, and leaned back on a rock and immediately passed out in siesta. When I woke up, I honestly didn't think I could get up, couldn't imagine walking, or hiking back down, and again Ruhi grabbed my hand and pulled me and pushed me up by my backpack, "Vamos Kati!" and somehow we started off again. And then we ran, and slipped and fell, and ran again, and I twisted my ankle four times,
and ran more. On the trail I found my friends, John and Aaron, heading up the mountain to camp, tons of gear on their back, in the afternoon heat. Crazy guys. Crazy. At the bottom we bought the best, coldest, most spectacular bottles of water for which I've ever had the honor of paying 3 Quetzales. We tossed the bottles back and reviewed what we'd taught each other, the different terms for "cool" in English and German for him, the different terms for "cool" in Guatemalteco Spanish and Quiche for me. Then we ran for the chicken bus.

Almost robbed...or maybe kidnapped...Quien sabe?

Oh wait, we're still in Guatemala.

One last note to end this post with a touch of a different kind of reality. This is the story that will freak out my father, but I'm writing about it anyway because it's still resonating with me today.

Last night,at 2:30 a.m. I was at the local Americano hangout, the place that doesn't close when all other shut down a half hour or so after midnight. In the middle of
my sentence, explaining to two new friends from Spain that they should walk Emily home because I was going to head out with just one another
girl to walk the two miles home, when all of the lights went out...
in the entire city.

We headed outside to see if the moon would be sufficient and when we saw the stars and the black street, we knew we were in a
pretty dangerous situation. But the bar owner told us this happens a lot in the rainy season and it's fine, just fine, in a big group...
even if that group is 4 freaked out girls and a guy trying to look intimidating by carrying a cement block broken off of a sidewalk stairway.
The owner even offered us a candle to take, which would have been almost as bad as a couple girls talking loudly in English to each other as we walked in the
center of the street (Oliver: "Hey, you're from the United States, right?...Please stop acting like it.")

We walked arm in arm shivering from cold and fear, hearing things moving in the shadows behind us in the street. When a headlight came by,
we stodd close against the wall hiding our faces. We walked a new friend home, an American girl who said she lived just three
blocks away from my hostel, three blocks that turned into a half mile. I am really glad I didn't walk her home alone.


And if all of this seemed like overprecaution, please read the next part.
We walked back to our hostel, our very large hostel, the largest in the city, filled with extranjeros, and
as we got closer, we notest more and more cars. The two extra walked Emily and I to our door, and we rang the bell.

A car pulled up to the intersection to our left and flipped on its bright headlights, remaining at the stop sign.
We rang the bell again, and again no one answered.
A second car pulled up to our right and flipped on its brights.
We rang the bell again and pounded on the door.
Oliver, our cement block carrying friend, stared straight into the headlights of the first car, trying to look intimidating.
The car started to creep towards us as the second car flippped its lights dim and bright, dim and bright.
We rang the bell twice and pounded on the door repeatedly. we heard a door open inside.
The car continued to creep towards us, as the woman inside opened the window as greeted us, making sure we were residents.
The cars continued to come towards us, the hostel door opened and Emily and I flew inside, offering the other two to do the same.
Oliver picked up three more rocks in his free hand, and said they were fine, just had to walk four houses down, back towards
the first car.

We wished them care and closed the door, the hostel owner peered through ("Dos carros estan esperando para nosotros.")
the barred window with us, and as we watched, with the first car staying still, the second car rolled towards our two
friends, slowing down when they reached us, window down, and a car full of men looked straight through the bars at us,
pausing to make sure we saw them, and then continued towards our friends. We heard the rocks drop...and we just took it as
a sign that they got in fine...I mean, we would have heard something if anything went wrong..right?

Thanking our hostel owner repeatedly, we rushed upstairs and watched from the dorm window as the two matching Rav-4s
continued to make a couple rounds on the block, stopping to flash their headlights, making a disorienting
light scene on the sidewalk. A police truck came by and dispersed the cars, and Emily and I agreed that we were
very happy to be sitting on her bed instead of in the back of a Rav-4. I was really glad I didn't decide to walk the
new American amiga home alone. I ran across the open-air courtyards of the hostel to my room, with police lights flashing all over the city,
and when I heard sirens nearby and noises on the tin roof, through my knife under my
pillow and fell asleep.

Today there was a lot of broken glass in the street, but other than that and an incredibly strong sun, everything apeared
quite normal. We're not going to be out very late tonight.

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Photos

luce de canada
trying her hand

la iglesia en salcaja
the oldest church in latin america ..it has lions and fruit on the front instead of saints...the first time ive seen that on this trip.

marios confederate flag
"do you think he knows what it means??"
"....No."

random castle gated community
just outside the pueblo of salcaja

volcanic hot springs
set in a tropical cloudforest

my amigos y yo
camping at the fuentes georginas

P1020660
yo y mi cebollinas para nuestro bbq

P1020667
starting a bbq qith a candle

Comments

[El hombre de la playa]

Photo # 36
Eres bonita