La Muela

One of Xela’s greatest perks is its location up in the highlands, surrounded by mountains. Last Saturday we took the opportunity to hike up into one of the smaller ones, called here La Muela. The trip began with a short bus ride to the trailhead, which just so happened to be my first chickenbus experience. Chickenbuses are, more or less, American school buses, stripped of their golden glow and reborn with a new paint job worthy of “Pimp My Ride.” Here in Guatemala they are the public transportation staple, although they don’t quite live up to their name, as I have yet to actually see any chickens inside. The hike began along a country road with a moderate incline as we wound through the first farms on the fringes of the city. Every few minutes, a pickup truck passed by, its bed filled to capacity with indigenous mountain-dwellers heading into the city for the day’s work. I can only imagine what a sight we must have been, judging by the mixed stares and chuckles we received, a bunch of gringos, slightly winded, climbing for fun up a hill through which even they preferred to drive.

About half-way up, we came across a very strange sight: a housing development. Posted near the entrance were billboards boasting the quality of life to be found within, alongside pictures smiling, extremely white couples standing in front of their new houses (complete with fountains). Only, when we walked passed the entrance, a little further up the path, the fence blocking our view abruptly ended and we could see into the supposed development. It was, decidedly, undeveloped. Nothing more than an empty field; the land hadn’t even been partitioned. No fountains, no smiling couples, not even a model home. And why should there be? Who could afford it? Such are the outcomes of these anthropolically-minded investments, when a third world country tries to become a first world country without stopping at second base. You see it all the time here; people with cell phones but without a clean change of clothes. And even though you hate it, know it to be a lie, a false sign of progress, a shred of you desperately wants to be fooled.

Eventually we came across a signpost marking the beginning of the climb up to the summit. It warned of rocks and steep ledges, and threatened a 200 Quetzales (Guatemalan currency: $1 = 7.5Q) fine to anyone who did not comply with the outlined rules. Although, as the sign was rusted over, it’s difficult to say exactly what those rules were. Typical Guatemalan Catch-22.

At this point the trail got a lot more interesting, half path, half rock-climbing. Scaling our way up to the top, we were granted breathtaking views of the city below, obscured now and then by clouds drifting alongside us. Finally, up above the smog and decay, I could take in the city without the lingering reminders of desolation, of squalor. I could breathe. As we sat on the crags overlooking Xela, we were caught by the sound of singing, of ceremony, coming from just behind the next ledge. We stumbled up to find the source. The first thing I saw was an indigenous family, a mother, father, and two daughters. I smiled, stupidly. Then I saw the coffin, not more than four feet long. I tightened, turned away, and quickly stumbled on ahead with the others to a nearby pinnacle, embarrassed by the intimacy I had unknowingly invaded.

From our new post we could take in the funeral without the guilt of voyeurism. Observing Mayan rituals is a rare privilege; they are an extremely closed society. Still, it wasn’t just the novelty that held us in. Staring down at the city, something about the music just resonated, permeated, drenched us. And we just sat there. Eventually, ten or fifteen minutes later, one of the other students broke the silence. “Do you think belief in an afterlife diminishes one’s value of life?” she asked. I looked over at the family, clearly religious one way or another, now sobbing as they sang. “Doesn’t seem to,” I replied. “What about suicide bombing?” she said. Walked right into that one. Psychology vs. Natural Selection 101. It goes both ways I guess. As I contemplated the reality of father’s sending their sons to do “God’s work” with dynamite strapped to their chest, I flashed back to a similar thought I’d had the other day walking through the market: what about poverty? Did that diminish one’s value of life? No where else in the city does the poverty feel more real than in the market, watching seven year old boys shine shoes, covered in polish and god knows what else, so their families can earn the extra dollar a day they need to survive. It’s harsh, utterly unforgiving, the reality of that poverty. Still, that very reality somehow makes life without poverty equally real. The fact that that life exists somehow reinforces the notion that it doesn’t have to.

My vision of the market dissipated and I was back to the mountains, the funeral. El fuego está cayendo, el fuego está cayendo (the fire is falling, the fire is falling), sang the mother. Whether this was an apocalyptic theme of some Christian-Mayan fusion, or simply the folk music product of hundreds of years spent nestled in the cradle of active volcanoes, I’ll never know. But it seems to put into words a lot of my sentiments about life here. English has a very nice translation. The shit has hit the fan.

Yet somehow, up in the mountains, breathing the pristine air and watching the clouds float by, obscuring the city and all of its problems, I felt anchored, at ease. Perhaps it’s fitting then that La Muela, a prominent sight southeast of the city, is the landmark I rely on to guide myself home each night.

Mi Familia

Let me introduce my family. I’m living just around the corner from our language school, in Zone 1 of the city, with the wonderful Maldonado family. There are three full-time residents, Floridalma, the mother of the house, and her two grown daughters, Lucy and Rosana. Floridalma works days in a salon just down the street. She’s also a wonderful cook, and seems to be enjoying my large appetite. Lucy is twenty, and in college here in Xela studying restaurant and hotel management. She's also the greatest salsa dancer in the entire world. Rosana is in her mid thirties, and works as a psychologist with an NGO outside the city. Floridalma's mother also lives with us, for the most part. She's a very sweet old lady but I cannot understand a word that comes out of her mouth. It might not be me though, because there a several signs of senility. Most notable is that fact that she can't seem to remember my name. Each morning she cycles through a few and eventually settles on one for the day. Yesterday I was Hakim. There’s also plenty of extended family to go around, dropping in from time to time. I’m still working on names, but I think I recognize most of the faces now. They’ve all been very welcoming and friendly and I feel extremely lucky with my placement. I really couldn’t have asked for a better atmosphere to get to know life here.

I should probably add, for those curious, that my family falls in the upper-middle class here (Yes, they actually have a middle class in Xela!). Their house is extremely spacious and in excellent repair by Guatemalan standards. They have a kitchen, dining room, living room (with a TV) and four bedrooms. They also have two mid-range cars, which is very unusual. But they are also university educated, a privilege granted to only 1% of the population here, which speaks volumes about their status, and their means.

Xela

Welcome to Xela. Altitude: 7,000 ft. Population: 120,000.
Xela is the microcosm for Guatemala’s strange, paradoxical existence. It is a city where four-star hotels lay opposite abandoned lots. A city with open-air markets and a chain of mega-grocery stores. A city of travelers and tourists, and natives that can’t get passports. A place where Mayan converts alternate between Christian gospel and traditional folk songs in their native languages. A land of natural beauty and suffocating pollution. It is a city where both kindness and crime are each the law of the land. Welcome to my schizophrenic city.

This unnerving dichotomy is made complete by Xela’s werewolf-like transformation. By day, Xela passes as a livable, occasionally even charming city (where exactly Xela lies on that spectrum depends entirely on perspective). It has restaurants, internet cafes, and even a small piazza-like city center called “Parque Central.” But come sundown, Xela transforms in a decidedly less friendly direction. All of a sudden all the pedestrians disappear. And those quaint little side-streets turn into dark, eerily quiet alleyways. It doesn’t help much that Guatemalans are early-to-bed early-to-rise types, so late-night company can be hard to come by. Nor does it help that the sun goes down around 6:30 or 7:00, just about year round. Fortunately, there are plenty of taxis, and because I’m here with a group, I rarely have to travel alone.

Despite its faults, Xela is one of the best things Guatemala has going on right now. And so the people cling to it, and we along with them. It has pockets of life, pockets of growth. Pockets of middle class life, of happiness. I didn’t see it at first, but it’s seeping in, slowly. It’s a strange process of adjusting/adapting/ignoring. A rebirth of sorts, allowing your vision to reprogram itself to see something it never needed to before. The real world.

Ebony and Ivory

Guatemala is a world of double vision; a land of paradox. It is two countries and two cultures, the Spanish and Mayan, rolled up into one. The result is a place where, walking down the street, you see men and women in Western garb alongside those in traditional, colorful, Mayan traje attire. And although they mix about as well as oil and water, they have somehow managed to strike a strange balance. Perhaps balance is the wrong word—heirarchy is probably more accurate. Even better would be “food chain.” At the top (and naturally the fewest in number) are the pure-bred Spanish, untainted by any indigenous blood. Next in line are the mestizos (or ladinos) who are a mix of European and Central American ancestry. At the bottom, and occupying about 70% of the human biomass here, are the Mayans, or indigenous Guatemalans. But this unlikely coexistence is only but one manifestation of Guatemala’s paradoxical nature, a nature which seems to seep into every crevice of life. More on this bizarre balancing act to come.

The Little Engine that Could

We made our ascent into Quetzaltenango (more commonly called Xela—pronounced “Shey-la”), my dwelling place for the next six months, that evening. All fifteen of us, twelve students and three directors, crammed into a “microbus,” which essentially is a regular sized van with a few extra seats. The trip itself was about four and a half hours, and given our cozy accommodations, we were thrust into a situation I like to call “power-bonding”—it’s getting to know your neighbors, very, very closely. All of our luggage, all twelve suitcases, were placed on the roof and tied down (expertly, I might add) by our driver. Quite a sight we were—I’ll have to let the pictures do the talking here. Given the weight of our persons and our luggage, I can’t even imagine the strain on that poor microbus’s engine as we climbed the several thousand feet up into Xela. We probably turned that old thing into the first ever low-rider van. And all the while all I could think was “I think I can, I think I can.”

Bienvenidos

The descent into Guatemala City is breathtaking. Until you get close. Imagine discovering paradise, a land of green mountains projecting into the sky like fingers to grab you and pull you into its lush embrace. Now imagine taking three billion crumbling tons of concrete, rusty aluminum, cinder block, corrugated steel, faded pastel paint, and some barbed wire, and dumping it aimlessly out of the sky, letting it slide down the mountainsides and eventually settle into its current configuration. Now add two parts Mayan, one part Spanish, and stir thoroughly. That, in a nutshell, is Guatemala City, or Guate, as it’s affectionately called here. What a strange combination, the Garden of Eden, and the Ninth Circle of Hell, living “happily” together.

I met a few of the other students at the airport (which, by the way, is only half-completed, although the architectural photos posted along the terminal walls show promise of modernity). On the upside, there was live music, including the largest Xylophone (I think that’s the wood one but I can never remember) I’ve ever seen. Nonetheless the mix of pleasant, slightly tropical music and construction only served to heighten the aforementioned juxtaposition of Eden and Dante. We had made arrangements to stay the night at a nearby hostel, Hostel Volcán, which came highly recommended from our directors. The owner had all of our flight information, and was already waiting for us with the van by the time we had collected our luggage. The hostel turned out to be a diamond in the rough, clean, colorful, and extremely reasonable in price. The owner, too, was quite amiable. Unfortunately, as we soon discovered, our diamond in the rough was, by necessity, located amid less inviting surroundings. Clearly not a place to be out after dark, we gave ourselves a small self-guided tour while the sun was at its zenith.

As for a few more first impressions, I was taken aback to notice that all the stores are guarded top to bottom by metal bars. As a result you can’t actually go inside, but need to ask someone at the counter to bring you whatever you need. Not to mention the fact that ever bank, gas station, and even the occasional fast food restaurant is guarded by a shotgun slinging companero. Whether or not there’s a guy with a gun is really one of the best ways to tell which buildings represent legitimate businesses and which have long ago been abandoned. Otherwise they all kind of blend together. The word dilapidated does a lot of justice to the cityscape here. Additionally, for public transportation, Guatemala relies almost exclusively on recycled American school buses. But they don’t just recycle them, they “pimp” them, giving them chrome detailing and bright, fiery decals deserving of their bat out of hell driving mentality. In fact, many of the vehicles here, not just the buses, seem to be past their prime. And as Guatemala hardly possesses the infrastructure to implement any clean air standards, the result is a thick smog of exhaust that permeates most of the city. All in all, a fine collection of industrial vomit.

But back to our itinerary. For dinner we dined at a small “commedor” (rough translation: cheap, sketchy restaurant) called “Gourmet Eddy’s” across the street from the hostel. Not the best way, perhaps, to ease my stomach into its new habitation (and inhabitants) but I guess you mine as well pull the band-aid off quickly. On the wall inside the commedor were some pin-ups from a provocative swimsuit magazine. Eddy (I presume it was Eddy) gladly pointed out his favorite, explaining his preference, “because you can see her boobs.”

The next day we took a walk to the Guatemala Zoo, which to everyone’s amazement, was an organized, well-funded, comprehensive public institute. We saw some animals there that I’ve never in my life even heard of. It’s very strange to see something walking around that you’re totally unfamiliar with, like seeing an alien. After an hour or so of roaming where the wild things grow, we returned to “civilization.” The other students had just arrived, and we were treated to a pizza lunch full of ice-breakers and “do you know so-and-so”s. It was fun to meet them though, to see who I’ll be spending the next six months with. So far everyone seems very nice and very down to earth, which I guess, fortunately, is to be expected for this type of program. My guidebook lists the top five things to do in Guatemala City, of which number five is simply, “Leave.” Taking the advice, we made our departure shortly after lunch.

Getting Cold Feet About Getting My Feet Wet

Bang.

So every good adventure begins. It's that unmistakable flush of adrenaline and cold sweat that comes from realizing you've slept through your alarm(s)--two in my case. Or it (they) didn't go off. I'm not sure which one actually happened, but I am quite certain that at 4:00 AM on the morning of July 6th, the intended time of waking from aforementioned alarm(s), I was sound asleep. At 5:00 I snapped to, nearly threw my alarm against the wall (not the first time I've contemplated it) and ran to wake up my parents. Conveniently enough, my third alarm clock, the shuttle that was supposed to come pick me up and drive me at that ungodly hour, hadn't shown up. Well, after 10 minutes of frantic dressing interspersed with profanities, I had gotten myself and my luggage into my dad's car and we were blazing a trail for the airport. Now, at this point the chance of me actually making my flight was extremely slim, being optimistic, but nonetheless we tore rubber all the way there. It helped that there isn't much traffic that time of day, but we made it to the airport in a unprecedented 28 minutes flat, a record that may never be broken.

I ran up to the check-in desk, baggage trail trailing, with movie-worthy desperation. But, as expected, I was too late to make the flight. My heart sank. More profanities. Feigned sympathy from desk lady. Reluctantly, I asked the one question that might close off my last hope for an on-time arrival: Anything available on another airline? Unbelievably, there was a Delta flight scheduled to leave just 45 minutes after mine! Victory!.....Sort of. "That flight is $450 dollars sir." I sputtered out a few comments about my driver, his being a huge asshole, and my noble aspirations to save Guatemala, and all of Central America. No feigned sympathy from desk lady. I handed her my credit card with a cold glare.

Ah well, I hopped on the plane, and put my mind to ease. Or did I. Having been in such a rush I hadn't really had a chance to consider that I was about to walk into the third world for six months. I now had plenty of time to think about it. The jets on the airplane started to roar. Well, here we go.