Productivity, guatemalan style

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Yesterday morning, at 8:00, the teachers at the Yinhabil Na’ben school, were supposed to meet to assign class subjects and schedules. Having slept through our cell phone alarms, the three American teachers and I rushed out of the house at 8:20. Mortifying. How could we be late would be late on our first day? We rushed up to the stairs, into the dusty classroom--which was empty. Had the other teachers moved the reunion elsewhere? Had they been so angry with our tardiness that they just left? We rushed down the stairs—perhaps there would be someone who we could ask, who had seen the others walk of towards another meeting spot, and then in walked the director. “¡Hola! Bienvenidas!” he smiled at us. “Thanks for being so punctual.”

The other teachers too were punctual, arriving exactly on Guatemalan time. At 9 o clock, a herd of them strolled in through the front doors flashing first day smiles and began to hug us all and say something, which hopefully was welcoming, in Chuj. So this would be the group. These 8 Guatemalan master’s students (all shorter than I), one sassy corte-clad psychologist, and the four gringas.

We trekked upstairs, ducking under concrete slabs that boldly balance only 5 feet above the steps. I must warn you, dear friends, that should you come and visit me in this strange land, you must constantly remain vigilant of your foreheads. If not, you will smash them over and over again against the cold slabs, as I did throughout the day. Unfortunately, those collisions would not be the most numbing part of that first administrative day.

That prize was won by the 8 hours we spent in the “best classroom” of the school, which had dirt floor and at least 10 wooden slabs missing from the creaking walls. In those 8 hours, we accomplished one of the two tasks that we had intended to complete: the division of subjects between the professors. This we did in 5 ½ hours, not because we were arguing over who wanted to teach physics vs. Mayan math (yes this school has both Mayan and ‘Spanish’ math). No, the matching of each teacher with his subject took two thirds of the day (the job was split up by a 2 5 hour bean and tortilla break) because the director was using perhaps a 1952 version of Microsoft Excel. And each time he would click to copy a teacher’s name—we could inhale, exhale, take sip of water, cross our legs, scratch head, re-cross our legs, perhaps head to the bathroom and return again, and look he actually managed to paste it to the subject he would be teaching!! Such technological expertise I have witnessed in Guatemala. I think I’ll ever be able to use my computer again at home without feeling great great shame.

At around 3pm, all the classes had been assigned. Hooray we were done!? No, now we got to make the schedule! I cried. My legs were black and blue from all that crossing and re-crossing; my lungs had turned to sawdust amidst the dust tornadoes that flung themselves upon us each time anyone moved. So I finally feigned Gringa sickness and headed out for a guilty promenade up the hills, where finally I was awarded those lush mountain views I had been dreaming about each minute I stared catatonically at the spreadsheet.

At 5, when even the Guatemalans couldn’t take any more misery, the director sprung up from his self imposed stupor and announced, “Enough! Yus time!”
“Yus?” I asked my drooling neighbor.
“Yus. You know, what we mix with Kusha.” Ok, now we were talking. Kusha, this Mayan-rum like moonshine, had extolled by the ex-teachers I had met in Virginia. I had been looking for the stuff the moment I arrived in town (just kidding mom and dad?), but as I found out that afternoon, is only sold illicitly behind a couple of dingy buildings in the outskirts of the town. This, as I also found out that afternoon, is because each Kusheria always has its confederacy of sloshy drunks that hover around it, and nobody wants that anywhere near the church.

One of the teachers went to fetch the Kusha and yus (pineapple juice) and the rest of us were scattered towards the myriad of tiendas to buy dinner fixings. We would be barbequing stewed beef, the director insisted, and we would grill this beef with onions, tomatoes. Of course, though no one needed to explicate this, the barbecue must be accompanied by the standard beans, tortillas, rice and explosive chilis. “Go find some onions,” the director asked me. And when I came back an hour later after miserably bartering for a couple of bunches with an only Chuj-speaking Grandmother in the market, I found all of the teachers slathered over kitchen table, empty glasses dripping from their hands.

What I learned from the real teacher’s reunion that evening, is that A. Kusha is delicious and quite potent. And B. that I really need to learn this Chuj language if I want to be friends with anyone other than my American counterparts. In this town, there are 4 english-speakers and 15,000 people that don’t really like to speak Spanish. Last night, for example, we Americans found ourselves listening what sounded like a very funny conversation, and not being able to understand anything more than the laughter. I managed to pull one of the teachers aside though. Now, I can proudly say “how are you”, “I am good” and “goodbye” in Chuj. “Hello” I was told, does not exist in Chuj. This is because, in San Mateo Ixtatan, everything that can exist is already present, and thus the only direction in which something can move is away.

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