urban cowboys

i posted two this morning. check the other one first.

so i decided to go to san luis jilotepeque´s ferria after all this weekend. there are two pc volunteers there - mirna, my good friend, and caroline, who is also very cool. i invited sindy, the secretaria of my office, to come along with me. she´s a lot of fun and is always up for dancing. and she usually doesn´t have a problem finding partners - she´s was señorita estudiante when she was in high school. so i wait for her to get back from chiqui on saturday because she´s studying psychology at a university there on the weekends and we head to san luis around 6 or so, in plenty of time to primp and get ready for the dance. mirna, caroline, sindy and i head out, on a mission to enjoy ourselves. the baile itself wasn´t of the highest calidad in terms of the dj and couple live groups that were there, but San Luis is a smaller town so it was to be expected. overall the music was pretty good and definately good enough to get our dance on. now, i´ve been told i´m a pretty good dancer and i´d agree. and although i might not merengue with the exact right steps, i get the job done. where i really excell is with the regaeton. it´s like carribean hip-hop more or less. but when it comes to ranchara or banda, forget about it, i´m a mess. i´d really like to practice and get it down. so in the beginning the four of us girls were mostly just dancing together, which didn´t appear to be all that normal, but we didn´t really care. we are obnoxious norteamericanas who don´t follow the rules. then slowly we started getting asked to dance by mirna and caroline´s friends and strangers alike. i have a hard time dancing merengue with another person because i mentioned i just fake the steps, i don´t really know what i´m doing and i have a tendency to try to lead. anyway i danced with a few guys. and then the reggaeton started and i really got my groove on. there were actually a lot of people from ipala at the dance. josé, the guy who is in charged of the water projects at the muni was there and told me he wanted to dance. alright. so we start dancing ranchera, he´s got a beer in one hand, singing the song to me, and trying to teach me the steps. i think i got it more or less. but i was pretty self concious because a lot of guys just hang around on the outside of the dancefloor watching. i was really not that confindent in my performance. but it didn´t seem to matter because they kept asking me to dance. and then i realized that all the guys i was dancing with toward the end of the nite were all in the jarepeo (rodeo). that´s right, the bullriders were taking turns asking me to dance. do you know how hard it is to dance merengue with a guy in a cowboy hat? especially when he´s guatemalan and not that tall? i should have worn protective googles. it was later in the nite, around one maybe and things were winding down. i was pretty tired and kind of hanging off to the side with my girls. a couple guys asked me to dance but i told them ¨quiero descansarme un ratito. he estado bailando toda la noche.¨ which was the truth; i wanted a breather. then another cowboy asked me to dance and i politely turned him down, saying i was tired. but he called me out saying i was mentirosa (a liar), but here it´s a playful thing to say and he was right. and then this 80 year-old guy, totally wasted of course, starts chasing mirna around the dance floor trying to get her to dance with him. my new cowboy friend swooped in like the cabellero that he is to rescue her. i decided to reward his act of chivelrousness with a dance or two. after the dance ended we all went outside - juan josè (my friend) and other compañeros from his bullriding team. they were all really nice. and frankly i was very surprised. they all live in the capital and have other jobs and just do the jarepeo thing on the weekends. i found it really strange that a) one of my most pleasants interactions with a group of guatemalan men was with a bunch of bullriders, and b) that they all live in the capital. which in turn explains why they were so much cooler than the guys around here. they asked us if we were going to the jarepeo the next day and i said that i was not because i had to get back to ipala. of course they were all upset and tried to convince me to come. mirna and caroline were going to go. so we said goodnite around 3 in morning (i think maybe the latest i´ve been out since being in guatemala, including trips to antigua) and went back to mirna´s house. the next day sindy and i got up early to get back to ipala. but later in the afternoon i decided to go back to san luis for the rodeo. this was my second guatemala rodeo. i don´t really like them very much, and i had said as much the nite before. you know the animal abuse, the danger, the mc´s dirty jokes. but the three of us had a good time anyway. unfortunatley our boys didn´t do very well. i think juan josé lasted maybe around one second. but hey, he lives in the capital. what can you do? after the the rodeo was over, they had to take off right away to get back to guate. so we all exchanged numbers and stuff (thank god for cell phones!) and said that since we go to the capital de vez en cuando we´d try to call them up sometime. and the ipala ferria and jarepeo is just four months away. so if they are still in the business, maybe they´ll come through town. who knew i´d have to travel all the way to guatemala to find my coyboys.
ps my favorite song is called volverè by a group called k-pak or k-pac or k-paz or something like that if you want to know what´s the jam here in ipala right now. i love banda even though i can´t dance to it.

Waiting for Tatucahue

It´s been a long week. Very long. ADISO, the NGO I work for, had the oportunity to host a special cultural event here in Ipala. The Municipalidad de San Luis Jilotepeque (about 20 minutes away) invited a Balet Folklórico from Chiapas, México to present their traditional dance for the town fair. Christina, the Méxican slut I mentioned in a previous posting, is some sort of culture liason or something and was organizing the event. I´m not exactly sure who she works for. She suggested to us that we take advantage that the group was already going to be here and have them come to Ipala. We would just have to pick up the tab for hotel and food, but transporte and all that would be handled by San Luis. It sounded great. What a neat oportunity. So we solicited funds from local business for the group´s room and board, we reserved the muni gym, and hotel and sound equipment, started a publicity campaign and sold tickets in the high schools. But because this is Guatemala, and nothing is easy, there were a few imprevistas. It went something like this: We thought they were leaving Chiapas on Tuesday, but they thought they we supposed to leave on Wednesday. Okay no problem, they can still make it a tiempo. Wednesday morning we get a call, there was a problem with the bus in that it never showed up. They can´t leave until 4 pm. Okay well that´s a problem. So after massive scrambling, we decide that we can change the date to Friday. I spent the whole afternoon going to the radio station, the public announcement guy, 3 high schools, a grade school and about 10 businesses telling them of the postponement. Okay no problem. Even better in the long run to have the event Friday nite. Thursday morning, I come to the office. They´re not coming. San Luis cut them from the program and we don´t have the money to pay the transportation. Now what do we do. The food has been made to sell at the event, we´ve already spent some of the money from the pre-event sales on stuff like certificates of recognition and taxi rides. So Christina gets on the phone to La Casa de la Cultura in Chiapas to see what can be done. Appearently there´s the possibility to bring a different folk ballet company. I wonder just how many folk ballet troupes there are in Chiapas. Anyway we spend the day waiting. We had a meeting in the evening (I´ve had meetings until about 10pm every nite this week, including through rainstorms and power outtages) and decide to cancel the event, return the money we´d collected, and cut our losses. Then Christina swoops in saying that she can bring the other group, a mayor of another town will pay for the transportation and we can still come out on top. The only thing is they can´t come until Saturday. So we scramble around trying to find sound and lights and see if the gym is already reserved. The gym was reserved by the Colegio Católico because they are in their anniversary celebration week, but it didn´t look like they were actually going to need it. So we decided to go ahead with the event, changing the date to Saturday. When I got to the office Friday morning, we hit another bump in the road. Thrusday nite the colegio católico had their own velada planned. They had invited a group Porto Barillo (or something like that) to come to Ipala. I´d never heard of them before but they dance on aGuatemalan variety show called Buena Honda (Good Vibe) - think male Brasilian Fly Girls. Anyway, the big hub-bub this morning was that they never showed up. And the gente is pissed. Appearently they didn´t make the announcement until about 11pm when the crowd was already drunk and rowdy. And the tickets cost Q40 and Q60, that´s lot of money. We´re charging Q5 and Q10. Anyway the Catholic School was trying to reschedule them for the weekend, possibly Saturday nite, making our event impossible for two reasons: one, there is no other venue for holding large events, and two, which event is the gente going to go see - the Brasilian Fly Girls (for which many have already payed Q60) our our Mexican Folk Ballet? You do the math. So after much hesitation and deliberation and indecisiveness on the part of my co-workers we decide to cancel, or postpone rather with the possibility of having the ballet come in Sept. I´m not holding my breath. But everyone in the town is talking about how mentirosa the organizations are here. We had planned to give the money back, but since it´s postponed, I´m not sure what´s going to happen. So cut to about 3:00 pm in the afternoon. It seems somebody forgot to tell the marimba group that the event was cancelled and they´re en camino for Ipala. Shit. So at the last minute we decide to have a Noche de Marimba, free to the public and sell all the food and drinks we had pre-ordered for the event. It wasn´t a complete disaster. We sold about Q500 worth of food and drinks (mostly to ADISO employees and family members) and a little ADISO merchandise. The marimba group is actually really good and I don´t even like marimba. I guess about 120 people came, not so bad, the but muni gym is pretty big so it looked kind of pathetic. Anyway I was serving tostadas and panes con picado until about 11pm last nite. But the evening wrapped up nicely and the kids from the office and I spent about an hour back at ADISO bullshitting and joking after we were done. And then got a sweet ride home with Edwin on his moto; he´s the accountant that took Lesly´s place. He´s a nice guy. He wears a lot of Abercrombie and has a flashy cell phone (and did I mention has his own moto?) Unfortunately I don´t think we have a future together because a) he has a girlfriend, b) he´s evangélico, and c) most importantly, he´s Guatemalan. But he can give me lifts on his moto anytime.

it´s harvest time

So this weekend was pretty tranquilo. I didnt go anywhere or do much, in a good way. I mostly studied for the gre´s and cleaned house. I filled my pila with water for the first time since april. It feels good to have a full pila again. Except the the drain is really far down there an I kind of have to hoist myself up so i´m tettering on my stomach to reach it. I´ve got the bruise on my belly to prove it.

It´s elote (corn) time here in ipala. ¨One´s in a hurry the other takes time . . .¨ Corn is sacred here in guatemala. You can thank the mayas for that. And by sacred, i mean holy. Like really holy. Like the tortilla is the ancient mayan crucifix. So everyone´s harvesting their fields now and giving corn to friends and family members. The thing about guatemalan corn is, it´s not that great. I know this is where corn was born and everything, but i really miss sweet corn. I mean Guatemalan corn´s okay, and if you load enough salsa dulce, mayo, hot sauce, salt and mustard on your elote loco, you can´t taste the difference anyway. nevertheless i really wish the genetically selected varieties of sweet corn that you find in Indiana would make their way south. Saturday nite nidia invited me to her house for tamalitos de elote and atol de elote. Corn tamales pretty much taste like they sound – like a bland corn log. Atol de elote is like a corn chowder that you drink flavored with sugar and cinnamon. It´s actually pretty good. But imagine eating these two together as a meal. A corn log with cream on top (not even sour cream mind you) and corn chowder to drink. You wouldn´t shit for a week. luckily i have a highly potent bran and fiber cereal that helps me out. Nidia´s tamalitos and atol were okay; i´ve had better. Like the next day when my neighbor sent over a dishful of atol. I put in in the fridge and had some later on. It was like a coagulated corn pudding. Yummy. I have to say, for how sacred corn is and for how many thousands of years the mayans had to practice in the kitchen, there´s not many remarkable culinary treasures to be found in the land of eternal spring. Selma gave me about 6 ears of corn to go, so i think i´m going to make myself some elotes locos. But i´ll have to buy a bag of mayo first.

Fernando*, you just spent one month crossing through mexico and the us border ilegally with your Coyote and now you´ve finally made it to your aunt´s house in L.A., what are you going to do next? I´m going to Disneyland!!!

*True story, but the name has been to changed to protect my friend. Maybe the INS reads blogs in their spare time, who knows?

gringita bonita

on my way to the internet just now, this elderly woman who always says hi to me as i pass shouted out her usual ¨¡hola gringita bonita!¨ she´s ancient and has a walker but is usually sitting down when i see her. i stopped to talk to her for a few minutes. she asked me if i was single or married. single i answered. ¨¡le felicito!¨ (i congratulate you). it´s better that way. you can do what you want, go where you want, work where you want. good for you. thanks, i told her and was on my way. to all my single ladies and gents, ¨¡les felicito!

i wrote a blog at the office today about corn, but the stupid disc isn´t formatted right. tomorrow les traigo.

sweet river

on the way to the internet just now, a woman motioned for me to come over to her house. so i did. she works in a shoe repair shop and she and her husband always say hi to me when i walk by. she told me that she had been to the doctor but didn´t understand what the test results said because they were in english. they acutally were in spanish and i didn´t understand them either. i told her to go to the centro de salud for help. then we started chatting. she said that there had been some other people from the states in ipala. they were from, oh what´s the place, how do you say, oh yeah, germany. i explained to here that germany is actually a different country, and additionaly is found in europe. i´m not sure i convinced her.

i just got back from a weekend excursion to rio dulce, or sweet river, with my work compañeros. and the trip was in fact, sweeeet. of course we got off to a guatemalan start, leaving from ipala an hour and half late, departing a chiquimula at 6 pm saturday, just as it was starting to rain and get dark. it was a little uncomfortable with 8 people in one izuzu trooper - sindy the secretary, lesly the accountant, milo my co-educator, nidia the boss, natalie nidia´s 15-year old host sister from seattle, gerson the driver, and christy the mexican whore. we made an unexpected stop at a bar in amates at around 8 because christy wanted to meet up with a friend. i think he´s a body guard for the agua blanca mayor or something. anyway he was wasted and armed and invited us for a soda. we declined and christy then proceeded to ask him for hundreds of queztales so we could by fruit. and we were on our way. we got to rio dulce town around 9 or so and started loading stuff onto the boat in the rainy dark. unfortunatley milo couldn´t see so well and walked off the dock into the rio dulce. he wasn´t hurt nor carrying anything too delicate. except his phone which amazingly still works. so we make our way to las camelias in the dark, watching the lightening in the distance. the next day we travel by boat to visit playa blanca, an amazing beach near livingston. here are some other people´s photos of the beach. http://www.guate360.com/galeria/categories.php?cat_id=42
we spent a few hours looking for seashells, having sand wars (think snowball fight) and eating sandwhiches. the water was incredible. it was warm and cool at the same time because of its nearness to the estuary. i´d never experienced water like that before. we had gotten a late start (of course) and had to cut our time short at the beach in order to have time to visit los siete altares, a series of 7 fresh water pools and falls that empty into the ocean. again, here are other people´s fotos. http://www.xplorandoguatemala.com/viajando/1051104151544.htm
amazing. just amazing. after that, we made a big dinner and spent the evening talking and giggling in our bunk beds. today we had breakfast and packed up to come home. we had to take buses home because gerson had to leave for a meeting in guate the day before. the best part about the weekend was the cost. las camelias is run by conap, the guate park service more or less. and since adiso, my ngo, has friends in high places (or actually gerson, conap guy, has a crush on nidia and is trying to woo her)we only had to pay for the boat´s fuel and the food we brought. sweet! the trip home today was a little rocky as well because 1.) the bus blew flat, 2.) a guy selling sodas ripped off the woman sitting next to us, and 3.) we had to change buses outside of zacapa for some reason and the guy from the first bus didn´t give milo a ticket so he had to pay again on the second bus. in some ways it´s comforting to know that guatemalans rip off other guatemalans as well as my gringo friends, but it´s also really sad and upsetting at the same time.

birthday bust

so i´m back in guatemala. more about that later. first thing´s first. saturday was noel´s 25th birthday so he decided to throw himself a bowling party at the boliches of tikal futura saturday afternoon. honestly i wasn´t really all that excited about going. i had just gotten back from new york tuesday evening to find out that flavio, my boss, would be paying me an all-day visit the following day. i was exhausted and tired of traveling but hey, it´s bowling. i decided to leave friday in order to get some business down in the pc office. unfortunatley the bus i took ran out of gas on the highway. i waited in the bus 2 hours, but ultimately had to catch another bus because it still wouldn´t start after they added fuel. so i arrive to the capital late, the office is already closed and it takes me forever to get to antigua due to rush hour traffic. when we tried to go out to some of our favorite bars and resteraunts in antigua, we found them closed. strange for a friday nite in the middle of the busy season. i went to bed early that nite upset. anyway saturday morning we get up and go to breakfast. in the park noel spots karen, the crazy woman who heads hearts in motion, that horrible charity we did the hornada for last fall. we hide. then we went bowling. it was a ropa party so we all dressed in ridiculous outfits and got on the bus. bob, ryan, noel, and i were in the second to last row. then a really drunk guy got on the bus and looked like trouble. he kept spitting on ryan´s seat and was trying to start something with bob. i didn´t see what happened next, but appearently he tried to rip some lady´s bracelets off her arm, failed, and then escaped out the emergency exit, running into oncoming traffic and getting hit by a car. i only heard the brakes screech and then the guy laying on the pavement. i don´t think he was killed. of course our bus drove on. we got to the bowling alley. i think it´s under new management because there is no longer beer and donut sales. so we decide to go to the grocery store to make our own drinks. bob, noel, and dave go into the restroom to mix them. a security guard walked in and asked what they were doing. he was furious. it turns out he thought that they went into the bathroom to have sex, more of a problem in the 2nd floor bathrooms but it happens on the first floor as well. meanwhile bob is wearing a mesh shirt and noel looks equally ridiculous. the security guards were going to call the police and didn´t believe noel and bob`s denials. finally i guess they let them go. that kind of put a damper on the bowling. then we left and went back to antigua. turns out a lot of the bars and resteraunts are closed because the police are cracking down on unlicensed serving. apperently someone got shot outside a club a little while ago. so we ended up going to the karioke bar. it was fun, but when we went to leave at 1, alexa realized someone had stolen her bag with her phone, wallet, and mirna´s digital camera. so we went to the police station to file a report. they asked alexa why didnt she come back later, like monday to do it and that she couldn´t file a report anyway because she´d been drinking (even though her last drink was at the bowling alley 12 hours earlier). she insisted and finally they helped her. dave asked if they could use the bathroom. the police said it was out of service and he should pee in the street. dave asked if that wasn´t illegal. the cop said there wasn´t anyone around so it was okay. so the nite ended. sunday we went to breakfast and noel and i headed out the oriente a little later than i would have liked. he got off in catocha and i continued on to ipala. but the bus stopped in agua blanca and said i had to get off and wait for the next bus. the agua blanca terminal is not the place you want to be hanging out sunday nite 6:30. a guy started talking to me about he´d left his car in jutiapa because he drank so much he was falling down. awesome. to the bus pulled up and i finally got home around 7. then noel and i had a heated discussion on the phone and i´m not so sure we´re going to be friends anymore. it was an awesome weekend. it´s good to be back.