I spent a good part of the last two months in Guatemala, writing and doing background research. Which any good field researcher will tell you is not what you're supposed to do while in the field. But hell, that's what I did. I'm not proud, necessarily, but I don't deny it, either. I'm starting to think of Guatemala as a sort of pleasant quicksand (for me at least). It partially has to do with the fact that I lost my way a bit when I found out that I had been denied a grant that I was really hoping for (let that be a warning to anyone relying on a grant proposal to get something important in their project completed....what do I do now?). And of course some of my inertia had to do with the aforementioned telenovela that had taken over my life. Sometimes that stuff gets in the way. Anyway, lets just say that I spent a lot of time writing and looking things up online and listening to podcasts and reading novels and drinking with my friends. There was a rather productive four days spent at a conference in New Orleans (ok, three days, since the first day was Mardi Gras). And I finally got my butt down to El Salvador this week. So it's not like things are completely stagnant. Nor were they. But hindsight, you know...
What interesting things did I do in these long months? Well, I can tell you the story of the Nativity Party. Apparently there is a tradition in Guatemala (I have no idea if this goes the same for other Latin American countries) that if someone steals your Baby Jesus from your nativity scene during the Christmas season, that person can ask for a ransom. Traditionally this means that the person whose Jesus was stolen has to throw a huge party for which the thief will eventually pay (from how I understood things, the victim of the theft can spend whatever he or she likes and the thief has to reimburse him or her....but you take a risk thinking that every thief will pay!). I took me a while to get this all straight, since almost everyone explaining it to me had had something to drink. Plus there was the added bonus that one of the uncles at the party that I attended (at a friend's house) kept comparing me to the huge painting of Jesus on the wall (he had blue eyes like mine). The nativity party happened to coincide with a rather strange parade through town, full of kids and adults dressed as cartoon characters that did silly coreographed dances to reggaeton music. It was a bit surreal, all told.
I also took a trip to the famous Sunday market in Chichicastenango with some friends. We piled in to my friend's car early Sunday morning (after a late Saturday night I might add, which belongs in the soap opera category and will not be discussed here) and drove the 2.5 hours or so to the Chichi market. We didn't even get lost on the way there! It's not that much different than other markets I've been to in Guatemala in terms of what kind of stuff is sold. But it's just so much bigger! You could definitely get lost. One of the friends I hitched along with is a photographer and he had a field day taking pictures of anything and everything. If you ever find yourself in Chichicastenango, don't forget to make a stop in the church. The church is particularly interesting (I think) because of the stone altars running down the center aisle where Mayan shamans conduct syncretistic rituals pulled from traditional Mayan and Catholic cultures dating back to the conquest. Lots of flowers and candles and incense.
Hmm, what else can I tell you about the last few months? I started running three times a week with a fellow norteamericana. Before I started running in Antigua I thought the cobblestones were a small pain in the butt. Now I am convinced that they have a grudge against me. Running on the sidewalks and roads around Antigua are kind of like trail running in the woods around Sewanee with the added bonus of buses and pick ups trying to run you down or drowning you in black exhaust smoke. And all at altitude! But to tell the truth it was fun to get up at 5:45 am, run for 30-45 min., take a shower and crawl back into bed. Such a tough life, right? I'm attaching some photos of the sidewalks so you can
see what I mean about the footing. The first photo is, granted, the most narrow area on the walk/run between Jocotenango, where my house is, and Antigua, where my running partner lives. We usually start running towards each other and when we meet up we decide where to go next. The second photo is also of the road between Jocotenango and Antigua. The bummer is that one of us has to run in the ditch (and if someone is coming the other way, both of us end up there). You definitely want to keep your eyes on the road!Stay tuned tomorrow or the next day and I'll update you on my trip to El Salvador and my impressions of San Salvador. Granted I've mostly been in the basement of the library, so I haven't seen too much of the city. Well, unless you count getting lost while trying to walk to the library from the hostel where I'm staying. But I pretend that didn't happened.
