Cuevas y Lagunas III

Feels funny to be writing this two weeks after the actual trip. Things just keep coming up, I suppose. Or something. Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, arriving in Lanquin. Much of the road from Coban to Lanquin is a not really well maintained dirt/gravel road. I'm glad that I wasn't the one driving, to tell the truth, or at least that it wasn't my car. But we made it to the hostel just in time to grab the last cabin and catch the family style buffet dinner the hostel is apparently famous for. And it was well worth the Q45 (just a little bit more than 5 bucks). We ended up in a pretty cabin overlooking the river and slept like the dead until early the next morning.

The next morning we packed our stuff up in the car and started to walk into town with the intention of grabbing local transportation to Semuc Champey. The road from Lanquin to Semuc is an even less well maintained dirt/gravel road with the added fun of steep inclines. Fun for a pickup, but not so fun for a four door sedan. So our plan was to grab a ride in the local minvans that serve as buses to and from Semuc. Lucky for us a truck working for a hotel closer to the national park stopped and offered us a ride and we spent the half-hour or so chatting with the driver in the cab. He didn't even charge us very much, just Q20 for the pair (outrageously cheap if you were actually hiring a tourism truck to take you around and much less than what he charged the other gringo he was taking to the park). Seriously, people are ridiculously friendly here.

Here's a little bit about Sempuc Champey. It's a series of limestone pools hidden up in the mountains. Just above the pools the river dives deep into caves that run under the whole area. Just below the pools the river emerges and the water from the pools joins the river in a series of waterfalls. The water in the pools themselves comes from runoff coming down from the steep mountainsides that surround them. It really is an incredible sight. The national park is simple but well maintained. It's an incredible place to hike and to swim, and can get very busy on holidays and weekends, especially during Holy Week. There are well hidden lifeguards (I had no idea they were there until the yelled at someone for jumping into the pools from a stupid spot) and a few guides here and there to make sure no one falls into the river or off a cliff (which does apparently happen every once in a while). We didn't have a lot of time to spend in the area since we had to return to Guatemala that night (my friend had to be at work at 7:00 the next morning) so once we got to the park we headed straight for an overlook platform high above the pools. It's about a 30 to 45 minute hike up the side of one of the surrounding mountains. A fun hike, and well worth it, but we were certainly ready for a swim by the time we got back down to the pools. I took the picture above from the viewing platform. Truly an amazing sight, no?

Once we made our way down from the overlook we did a bit of exploring. We wandered around to see where the river enters the caves underneath the limestone pools, being very careful not to slip or fall. The rocks just underneath the water (the areas of the photos that are more brown than turquoise) are slick and it would be easy to loose your balance if you're not careful. I was amazed at how much a difference it made with the tiny bit of extra traction provided by a pair of well-worn havaiana flip-flops. The next photo is a picture of the river as it rushes down underground. My friend was telling me that a co-worker of hers drown here a little over a year ago because he had walked up close to the edge that you can see here on the right and slipped and fell into the water. It's hard to see in the photo, but the water is pretty fast moving and rough and it more or less plunges straight down into a hole just underneath where we were standing when I took this picture. I'm not sure if they ever found his body. We were standing behind a wooden fence when I took this photo that protects those who want a view of the river from just such a fall. But if you cross the pools at this point, as you can see from the photo there is no fence up close to the edge of the river itself. It was definitely a dizzy feeling standing there and not only seeing but also hearing and feeling the river rush underneath us.

We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the various pools. The water was pretty cold, but it felt refreshing after the climb up to and down from the overlook. There were very few other people around and it felt like we had the place to ourselves. The water in the pools is crystal clear. The turquoise color doesn't come from the rocks or from the water itself but from the depth of the pools. The deeper the pool the richer the color. But when you're actually swimming the water has no color to it at all and you can see all the way down unless you're in a particularly deep area. The little fish that live in the larger pools are fearless and will come up and nibble on your skin in order to eat (I'm assuming) the dead skin and other tasty (yucky) stuff that they can get off of you. It's a strange feeling...you can actually tell they are nibbling on you. It's not that they bite, but it definitely tickles. Sit still for even a little bit and there will be a swarm (or school?) of little fish surrounding you.

Once we finished swimming and changed back into our sweat soaked clothes (yeah, I know, yuck) we headed back out to the entrance of the park to catch a minivan/bus back to Lanquin. Much to our chagrin, however, the bus just never showed up. It passed us on the way up the mountain to the villages above Semuc Champey and never came back down. We ended up catching a ride in the back of a pickup with some guys heading to Coban. They even offered us a ride to Coban with them, but we since we had left my friend's car in Lanquin we had to decline the offer. So we spent a slightly harrowing ride (damn but they drove fast!) back to Lanquin in the bed of a pickup truck with an indigenous woman and her young son, two Guatemalan men from Lanquin and a Danish guy we met while waiting for the bus. I have to say transportation here in Guatemala is always interesting, no matter how you get somewhere. It's always an adventure to get from point A to point B. As soon as we got back to Lanquin we dove into the car and started our way back to Guatemala City. It took us about 5 hours or so and we went straight to bed, exhausted, for the third night in a row.

Cuevas y Lagunas II

So I lied....I didn't write the second installment yesterday. Sorry for the wait, those of you who were waiting with baited breath. Where was I? Ah, yes, I left off at the half-constructed hotel near Chisec. It really was a lovely place and should do well if they can get the tourists to fill it. Not sure how many get up that far away from Coban...we were the only tourists in the area as far I know.

The next morning we met the guide to the Bombil Pek and Jul Ik caves at 8 am. Bright and early. But since we had literally gone to bed around 8 pm the night before we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. While the guide took us down the path to the caves (which took us a good 45 minutes to hike) he explained a bit about the community project that runs the ecotourism attractions in the area. These caves, for example, became part of the project because of two Peace Corps volunteers that were stationed in the community. They saw the value of the caves as a tourist attraction after visiting them with some locals and started the push to make them part of a community-wide effort to take advantage of the natural attractions in the area. The caves are very impressive. Bombil Pek, which means painted rock in Q'eqchi', is home to the only cave paintings found in Guatemala. The cave is truly impressive. To get to the mouth you have to pass down into a pit 60 meters deep. I've included a photo of the ladders the community set in place to help visitors get to the entrance of the cave itself. Seriously, I had to hold my breath a few times on these ladders, wondering if it would really hold my weight. Our guide told us that before these ladders were put in place the locals would climb down into the cave using the roots of the plants that grow on the edge of the pit. The actual entrance to the cave is incredible. I was able to take the photo to the left with natural light (no flash) because of the little bit of sun that comes in from above. But I decided not to take my camera inside after the guide warned us that we would be crawling through some small holes to get to the paintings. We would have to pass through two agujeros, he said, which is the Spanish word for buttonhole. The inside of the cave was reminiscent of the caves I used to play in back at Sewanee. Some really impressive stalagtites and stalagmites. And the small holes we had to crawl through also brought back some memories. You have to get on your side to pass through, with one arm ahead of you and the other at your side. Once you get your head and shoulders through you can then get your second arm through and then the fun wiggling and squeezing and pushing to get your butt and legs through. The guide and my friend were cracking up at my difficulties getting through the second hole. It was a little easier for them, considering that I am probably at least a foot taller than the guide and maybe ten inches taller than my friend. The extra inches made it difficult to get a foothold to push myself through the holes. The guide thought it was hilarious...me with me front end stuck in the hole and my feet flailing around looking for some sort of leverage. Well, ok, I thought it was pretty funny, too. I have to admit the paintings were a bit anticlimactic, but the journey to get there was well worth the trip. The paintings are of two monkey and a tiger, but they've been worn away some-what by unauthorized visitors.

After Bombil Pek cave we trekked down to Jul Ik cave, the cave of air. It is called the "cave of air" or "cave of wind" because of the vapor that appears above the mouth of the cave during the hotter part of the day. It makes it look like the cave is breathing. To enter this cave you have to descend down into a smaller pit (without the dubious help of home-made ladders [not that I would have wanted to get down to Bombil Pek without them]). This cave had much higher ceilings that Bombil Pek and we had an easier time getting around inside. There are certain spaces in this cave where local indigenous people still hold religious ceremonies.
The most exciting thing about this cave was the stalagtites. Not only are they immensely beautiful, but when you knock on the sides they ring like a bell. Each stalagtite has a small hollow space inside were the water passes through to the tip. I'm including a video I took of us playing with the stalagtites...I think it sounds like we're playing around with a marimba.

When we finally emerged from the caves and dragged ourselves back to the trail head we were hot, tired and ridiculously dirty (but quite content). After a quick lunch of jam sandwiches and a swift dip in the river to wash ourselves off we hopped in the car and high-tailed it to Lanquin just in time to grab the last cabin and a delicious meal at a lovely hostel on the river. More on this in the next installment....

Cuevas y Lagunas

Last weekend I took the most fantastic trip up north. If you take a look at a map of Guatemala, you'll see that there is a big chunk sticking up towards Mexico and next to Belize. Most of that big chunk is the department of Peten. Just under that is, among other things, the department of Alta Verapaz, where we spent the weekend. It's a beautiful, mountainous, mostly rural area which has the distinction of being home to beautiful limestone caves and deep turquoise lagoons. A friend of mine from Guatemala City was planning on a quick jaunt to see some of these caves and lagoons and asked me if I wanted to join her. We set off early Saturday morning from Guatemala City in her little sedan (which we later realized was not the most ideal mode of transportation on the back roads in need of some serious pothole management) and made it back late Monday night, just in time to catch some zzz's before heading off to work (my friend to her job as a psychiatrist and me to my work at the National Library archives).

We headed up to Coban, the largest city in Alta Verapaz, and from there to a small town called Chisec. Just north of Chisec are a group of natural/ecological tourist areas run by a community organization funded by, among other organizations, USAID. The intention of this project, from what I understand, is to give the community a good reason to preserve the natural wonders of their area while also being able to make some money off of it and to get a little further away from subsistence living. Our first stop was the entrance to the Bombil Pek cave. Unfortunately, there was no one manning the area. There was, hoever, a handwritten phone number above the door to the cabin, and we called. Apparently all the local community guides had been at a party celebrating the end of the planting and were too tired to work that day. So we headed to the Laguna Sepalau which, thankfully, was manned by a friendly gentleman. The photo to the left is a shot of the lagoon, a beautiful and extremely deep lagoon hidden down a long, winding, and dangerously bumpy gravel/dirt road. I will admit there were a few spots where we thought we might get stranded and never make it out. It was worth the trip, though. We took a kayak ride around the lagoon, a lovely way, I must admit, to spend an afternoon.

After saying farewell to our cheerful guide, we made our way to the Candelaria Caves, about a half-hour drive from the lagoon. Once again, however, our bad luck with local guides reared its head. A few women and young girls were manning the small store adjacent to the tourist cabin. Unfortunately, none of the women spoke much Spanish (and we did not speak the local Maya language, Q'eqchi'). We thought about staying at the campsite or in the cabin they had at the tourist area, but truly we were a little sketched-out by the place. Didn't really want the whole neighborhood to know a couple of folks from the capital are sleeping in a tent by the side of the road. So we called the number from the cabin at Bombil Pek, set up a meeting for the next morning and then looked for a hotel. We drove back towards Chisec, and pulled in to a place that looked like it might be a hotel. Turns out it was a hotel in construction, and the owner kindly let us stay for no charge, since the rooms weren't completely done. We helped him move some mattresses into a room and spent a lovely, relaxing (and much safer) night in the half-constructed hotel. It's going to be a nice place once it's done.

It's getting late and I've got to be heading back to the house. But I'll fill in the rest of the trip tomorrow. Next up, the trek to Bombil Pek and a journey through Sempuc Champey.

¡Guate! ¡Guate! ¡Llega, llega, llega!

Hello once again, dear readers. On this episode we will be catching a few quick glimpses the life of a foreign graduate student in Guatemala. For the past two weeks or so I've been following a routine (more or less) that I described in the previous post, that of taking the bus to the city, siting on my bum reading newspaper articles about murder, corruption, assault, embezzlement and fraud, taking the bus back to Jocotenango and on occasion (ok, more often than I probably should) having a few beers with my friends before heading off to bed to get ready to do the same thing the next day. I say that this is more or less a routine because I will admit that I don't actually make it to the capital every single day. Sometimes I get distracted. Anyway, in this post I want to throw out some random experiences I've had in the last few weeks, taken from my mostly mundane day-to-day life here.

First of all, for those of you who don't know, I got a strep throat infection two weeks ago. Not only that, but I had an allergic reaction to the infection (yes, that is possible, apparently). Imagine my surprise when, after three days of a ridiculously sore throat and a fever which I basically pretended not to notice in hopes it would go away, I woke up on a Sunday morning covered head to toe in a splotchy red rash. Thank goodness for my housemate, who knew exactly how to get a doctor's appointment quickly. Like any good child of the age of technology and the internet, I immediately looked up my symptoms online. I had overheard a conversation the previous day between a few foreigners about how one of them had contracted scabies in her hostel, and was worried that maybe that is what had caused the rash. Scabies are tiny little mights that burrow under your skin and cause a rash that itches to the point that after a certain amount of time anyone infected can't sleep because of the itching. Thank goodness, however, my rash did not fit the symptoms of scabies, and I crossed that off my list. The only things I could find online were rashes that once in a while show up with strep throat (which also fit with the sore throat I'd been suffering before) and scarlet fever. Luckily for me it didn't turn out to be scarlet fever and five days of antibiotics and antihistamines did away with the problem.

Downer number two of the last few weeks is that sometime on Friday afternoon (this past Friday, that is), someone entered our apartment and absconded with all the cash in the house. Which, unfortunately for me happened to be my cash. I realized on Friday night after coming home that the Q600 I had stashed with my toothbrush and other toiletries was missing and that, upon further inspection, my emergency stash of US$ was also gone. Nothing else was missing, thank goodness...my passport, ipod and computer were all as I left them. But my cash...all my cash except for a few smaller bills from Brazil and Argentina....was gone. I will say this has put a little bit of a crimp in my style, so to speak. It's a creepy feeling knowing someone has picked through your stuff in your own house while you were gone. Serious bummer.

On the up side, I've been able to get a lot done at the National Library here, and have made a few more contacts with folks that work in the news, both print and radio. And I've seen a lot of interesting things just sitting on the bus or strolling around in the historic district. The other day I was sitting in the Central Park in Zone 1, near the library, waiting for a friend. Seemingly out of nowhere (although I know he must have come from somewhere), a well dressed gentlemen of indeterminate age (probably in his 60s?) sits down next to me (after, of course, placing a handkerchief on the wall I was sitting on so he didn't get his trousers dirty) and asks in relatively good English, "Do you speak English?" Wary but intrigued I told him I did. He then begins to explain to me how he is an English teacher here in Guatemala City and that whenever he meets a native English speaker he tries to ask them certain questions he has about the language. Even more intrigued, I agree to answer some questions, and he pulls out two pieces of paper folded up like origami on which he has written (back and front) a slew of English phrases he has doubts about. For some he wants to know what they mean, for others how to pronounce it. Most are either phrases from an English translation of the Bible or from old songs or movies. Things like "left holding the bag," "drop me a line," or the difference between forbid, forbids and forbade. I must say it was one of the strangest conversations I've had here so far, especially when, after he was done asking me questions, he asked me out for dinner. The men here never really stop thinking about how to get a woman to go out with them, even if they are at least 30 years older than said woman and a complete stranger. A friend of mine explained that if you give a Guatemalan man five minutes of conversation then he automatically thinks he has a chance. Oddly enough I got another proposal for dinner only ten minutes later, after another man who saw me talking to the first guy sidled over an struck up a brief conversation with me about some other foreigners he just met who were riding their bicycles from Canada to Argentina. I think maybe I shouldn't be so friendly when sitting in the park in Guatemala City.

Finally, some things I want to get off my chest, so to speak, in terms of living in Guatemala. I really enjoy it here, especially because of the wonderful people I've met here. But here are some of my pet peeves which, forever after, will go unsaid.

1. potholes in the sidewalks
2. sidewalks wide enough to allow only one person to walk at a time (anyone coming the other way has to walk in the road)
3. black smoke coming out of the back of buses as you're walking down the street
4. ubiquitous smell of stale piss every 50 ft or so on the street due to most mens' use of walls as public urinals
5. crowding on buses that make it almost impossible to get off in the right place (although this is helpful when on extra-urban buses that are taking curves too fast, since you have less chance of sliding around when you're wedged in like sardines)
6. the lurking mental reminder that yes, actually, it is somewhat dangerous to walk around/ride the bus in the capital (although I have neither been party to nor witnessed anything yet...knock wood)
7. being taller than everyone else (while this isn't really that big of a deal [haha] it is sometimes weird when someone walking in front of me turns around, wide-eyed, to see what kind of hulking behemouth is casting a shadow over them)

Ok, that's it then, I'm done. I'm heading off to do a tiny bit of site-seeing this weekend with some friends, so there should be some interesting stories and pictures of the next installment. Until then, take care....

P.S. The title of this post is what the ayudantes call out to let you know where a bus is going. If you can't figure this one out, they're basically saying, "get your butt over here and get on the bus to Guatemala City!"

Kite Festival

Oh, good, you’re still here. That is, you came back. Ok, anyway, that is to say that I’m glad that someone is still reading this, despite my appalling lack of consistency in when I write.

Since I last wrote I’ve set up my base of operations in Jocotenango, a town just at the edge of Antigua, which is about 45 minutes from the capital. I posted about Antigua earlier, back in March I think. Some friends have a house here in Jocotengano, and I’m renting a room from them. Not only is it cheaper than a hotel, but a lot more fun. It’s definitely nice to have people to talk to or have dinner with after a long day riding buses into the city and sitting all afternoon at the library. And that’s basically been the routine the last week or two….get up relatively early, catch a bus to Antigua, grab some breakfast, hop another bus to Guatemala, find my way to the Centro Histórico, where the library is, and then between three and five hours pouring through the newspaper archives. Then a quick (and fabulously cheap) lunch, another couple of bus rides, and back to Jocotenango for a quick nap before dinner and/or a beer or two with the gang. Not a bad life, really, except for the bus rides. I almost lost it at a guy on the bus on Wednesday after he tried to grind up against me in a less than respectful way while we were all crammed together during an especially crowded section of the bus route. Buses here are not for the claustrophobic.

Last Sunday a group of us made the trip to Sumpango, a small town in the same department (Guatemala is broken up in to departments and then those are broken up in to municipalities) as Antigua. Guatemala does not have the same traditions as Mexico (that most of us in the States are familiar with) for the Day of the Dead. Instead, many Guatemalans follow the indigenous/catholic practice of decorating the graves of their loved ones and flying kites over the cemetery. According to my guidebook, the kites are meant to represent the spirits of the dead. Two towns, Sumpango and Santiago Sacatepéquez, hold kite festivals on November 1st. The kites are made out of tissue paper, wood (looked like bamboo) and scotch tape, and the larger kites can reach up to 50 ft in diameter. Townspeople fly the kites smaller than twenty feet across in the afternoon (which unfortunately we missed due to some transportation arraignments). It really was an incredible sight. The bigger kites each had a theme. This year, at least in Sumpango, the themes seemed to revolve around the environment, violence against women, and indigenous heritage. The first photo is a view of the kites from across the soccer field, the second a little boy on top of a crypt in the cemetery, getting ready to fly his kite. The kites were really impressive. At first we thought they would try to fly the larger kites, but after a few conversations with some locals (who more or less laughed at us when we mentioned flying the big kites) we realized that the really giant kites were just for show. I particularly liked a kite that took a famous Dalí painting and reworked in with an image of an indigenous woman. Oh, and in case you were wondering, in Guatemala, kites are called barriletes (the word for kite in Spanish changes depending on where you are). It really is impressive, isn't it, what you can do with some tissue paper and scotch tape?

Revolución

Well hello, faithful readers! Welcome back. It's been a while, I know, but better late than never, right? So here's a quick run-down of what's been going on with me and then on to a history lesson. I know you are all dying to learn more about the history of Guatemala, so I though I would oblige.

As for how my life has fared since the last post, here's the whirlwind tour. I finished up in Rio mid July and spent a few weeks back in South Bend. Early August consisted of a fantastic visit out east to the wedding of some of my favorite people and a horrifying cross-country drive that included flash floods and a two hour tour of about 500 yds of pavement just outside the border crossing into Canada at Niagra Falls. Let's just say that while I have nothing particular against Canada, I was not feeling very sympathetic towards maple leaves or hockey players during that trip. After this happy jaunt I took a plane to Oregon and spent two lovely weeks with my Poekoelan teammates. I spent the next six weeks or so around and about, sometimes in South Bend, sometimes in Nashville. Somewhere in there I went to a U2 concert in Chicago, drove down to Nashville, made it to another U2 concert, this time in Atlanta (which was incredible, by the way), and drove back up to South Bend only to hop on a plane to New York. I spent about a week in NYC with my fabulous Poekoelan family there and then ended up in Guatemala City. Now I'm sitting in a cafe in Antigua, listening to Manu Chau on the stereo here and enjoying the mix of English, Spanish and French spoken by the patrons and staff.

Last week was the 65th anniversary of the October Revolution here in Guatemala. So I thought I would include a little bit about a revolution that until last week I knew very little about. From 1871 until 1944, Guatemala had been ruled by a series of dictators, the most notorious of which was General Jorge Ubico. He ruled from 1931 to 1944 and was once described by a the Sandinista Tomás Borge as "crazier than a half dozen opium smoking frogs" (see the wikipedia article on Ubico for this quote...ah, wikipedia, friend to those who want a quick overview). Though obstensibly an elected official, Ubico was an authoritarian dictator who sought changes in the constitution to allow him to be reelected to the presidency indefinitely (hmm, so this isn't that new, is it?). Into this context comes the October Revolutionaries, a group of students, professionals and military officers. After a wave of strikes and demonstrations by students, teachers and workers and the murder of a teacher by Army officers during a demonstration, Ubico surrendered power to his generals and stepped aside in July of 1944. The following struggles allowed to younger officers to finalize a coup against Ubico and his generals on the 20th of Octoboer, and after this coup the officers, Jacobo Arbenz and Fancisco Javier Arana, called for a general election. The period that followed is often referred to as "10 years of Spring." These years of spring, however, didn't last in part due to the power and influence of the United Fruit company, the US State Department and others who opposed the extensive land reforms carried out during this period. Funny how politics in Central America still follow a similar pattern. The actors change, sometimes even the roles reverse, but leaders are still trying to change constitutional restrictions on reelection and coup d'etats still abound (despite predictions to the contrary in come circles). Journalists and commentators here bemoan the loss of the ideals that inspired the October Revolution and despair in the face of corruption and apathy and violence. It's hard to guess in what direction the country may be headed in the future.

Rio de Janeiro

Just a quick update. I know I'm a terrible blogger....you, dear readers, can't rely on me to write with any regularity. Can I use the excuse that I'm easily distracted?

Life in Rio is nice. To give some background, which I didn't really include in the earlier post, Jenn and I got down here a couple of weeks ago for a conference. We tried to get in as many tourist attractions as possible in the first week. So here's a quick highlight tour of Rio via the written word courtesy of yours truly. When in Rio you really should visit certain sites that, while touristy, would be a shame to miss. One of these is, of course, Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Azúcar), which I believe I mentioned in my earlier post. The mountain sits next to Urca mountain at the far end of Copacabana Beach (well, not really at the end...Urca is at the end and then comes Pão de Azúcar), guarding Guanabara Bay. The photo of Sugarloaf on the left was taken from the top of Urca Mountain. Tourists can reach the top either on foot up a steep foot path or in a cable car first to Urca and then to the top of Sugarloaf. The views are amazing....we set out just before sunset to see the sun go down behind the Christ statue in the west. And of course a trip to Rio wouldn't be complete without a visit to Cristo Redentor, the massive sandstone statue of Christ the overlooks the city, gazing out towards the ocean. There's a train that takes you up Corcovado Mountain to the statue (or you can take a taxi or walk up the road), and the view is well worth the trip. Just be sure to check if the clouds are obscuring the view. When it's truly cloudy or foggy not only can you not see the city, you can't even see the statue even when standing at its feet! Jenn and I also visited the Jardim Botánico, the botanical gardens started by one of Brazil's emperors back in the 19th Century. It's full of beautiful royal palm trees and other exotic plants and flowers, as well as greenhouses for orchids, bromeliads, and carnivorous plants. I included a photo from the bromeliad greenhouse below. There's also a garden for the blind, which uses of texture, sound and scent instead of color as the basis for the aesthetics of the garden. Oddly enough the cactus garden is right beside it, a detail that I thought was a little ironic. During the first week before the conference our sightseeing also included a trip to the neighborhoods of Santa Teresa, a bohemian neighborhood that sits on top of a hill near the city center, and Lapa, where much of Rio's nightlife takes place (at least if you're interested in Samba, Forro and other Brazilian music).

So I leave for now with this little glimpse of Rio. I'll do my best to update things tomorrow as well. Or at least in the next few days. Finding a quiet spot to concentrate on writing has become more and more challenging as the hostel fills up. The hostel I'm staying in has only been open for about six weeks or so and is only now getting a reputation for being a good place to stay. When I first got here it was relatively empty but right now it is almost at capacity. While staying in Guatemala in hotels or with friends I forgot what it was like to stay in a hostel with scores of backpackers who are only in a place for a few days at a time and who want to wring every bit of experience out of their trip before moving on. I have to admit sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming to be in the middle of all that when you are not approaching the city in quite the same way. That said, I have met some very interesting and friendly people here, and if any of you are thinking of visiting Rio I would highly recommend checking this place out. Ok, then, I'm off...até logo.

A Cidade Maravilhosa

Finally, dear readers, I'm updating the blog! So hello from the Marvelous City, Rio de Janeiro! I've been here for about a week and a half, much of which was filled with attending panels at the Latin American Studies Conference that was held over the weekend. I've had a whirlwind week getting in the site before Jenn and my other friends in town for the conference headed back to the States. But it's been lots of fun. Rio is this incredible mix of urban neighborhoods and forested hills, some of which are home to favelas and others that are protected forests. The photo on the left I took from Corcovado hill, where the famous Christ the Redeemer statue overlooks the city. You can see Sugarloaf mountain in the distance, the tall hill in the upper left of the photo (it's hard to say if these are hills or mountains...the portuguese word is morro, pronounced moho, which means hill, but they are much more than hills as you can see). In addition to being one of the nicest places in the city to watch the sunset, Sugarloaf (Pão de azúcar in portuguese) is geographically fascinating. It actually has more in common with the geology of Africa that it does with the neighboring hill, called Urca. The hill is a key piece of evidence for the theory that Africa, South America, Australia, and Antarctica were all once part of one big continent back at the dawn of time.

I'm not really going to go in chronological order with my adventures here so far. My brain is too full...yeah, that's my excuse. Yesterday I wandered around the city center with a friend of my sister's she met when she studied Portuguese here two years ago. He gave me a fantastic tour of that part of the city. I probably should have read a bit more of Brazilian history before coming here, but I really had no idea about the depth of history here in Rio...pretty soon the city will be 500 years old. It was founded by Portuguese but the French also tried to get a foothold early on but were driven off. During the Napoleonic wars in Europe, the Portuguese monarchy moved their entire empire to Brazil and finally ended up settling down in Rio, making the city the imperial capital of the Portuguese Empire for about 40 years. Much of the historic buildings in the city center and other towns nearby, such as Petropolis (a town up in the mountains where the imperial family spent the summers instead of baking on the coast), are full of imperial Portuguese architecture. Think baroque, rococo, early 19th century Europe. I'll check some of my facts online, but I'm pretty sure I remember from our walk around the city that after the war with Paraguay, called the War of the Triple Alliance by most historians, slavery was abolished in the Brazilian territories and soon after that the Republicans (no, not those Republicans) kicked the monarchy out of Brazil. Also, interestingly enough, when Brazil moved the country's capital from Rio to Brasilia, the city of Rio became it's own state, Guanabara State, for a few years until the military dictatorship moved the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro from Niteroi, the city across the bay from Rio, to Rio and abolished the state of Guanabara.

Ok, so that's the extent of your history lesson for today. I'm getting distracted, so I'll write more later. Until then, then.....

Straight out of 24....

I don't know how many of you have heard of what's happening in Guatemala at the moment, but as a friend commented to me the other day, it's seems like it's been ripped out of the script of an episode of 24. Basically, a video was given to the press last week in Guatemala recorded by a lawyer who claims in the video that if anything happens to him the blame should be placed on the president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, Colom's wife, Sandra, and his private secretary. A week after the video was made the lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, was shot down in the street while riding his bicycle a week and a half ago and the video was released to the press. Mr. Rosenberg claims in the video that he was in danger of being killed because of his connection to a businessman who was murdered, along with his daughter, in March. Rosenberg was this businessman's lawyer and he suggests that this businessman was murdered because he refused an offer by President Colom to play a part in certain acts of corruption. President Colom, of course, flatly denies any involvement and claims that this is another attempt to destabilize his government.

It's interesting to read the international news coverage of this. Here's part of what CNN posted about the issue on their website:

(This comes from an article entitled "Guatemalan leader should step aside during inquiry, foe says" by Arthur Brice, published May 14, 2009...click here for the whole article)

"It's the time-honored tradition in Guatemala that if someone gets in your way, there's likely to be a violent outcome," said Donald J. Planty, the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala from 1996 to 1999. Colom took to the airwaves Monday night to vehemently deny that he, his wife or the aide had any connection to the slayings. He promised a full investigation and said he would accept international help, asking the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to become involved. A Guatemalan newspaper reported Thursday that an FBI agent had arrived in the country in connection with the investigation. But Rosenberg supporters say they don't believe the Guatemalan government can carry out an impartial and thorough investigation and want Colom out. [Otto] Perez [leader of the strongest opposition party] said Vice President Jose Rafael Espada could take over until the investigation is complete. "We are only asking that the state be strengthened," Perez said. "If he doesn't do this, we believe the situation will get worse." Colom said in an interview Tuesday night with CNN en Español that he has no intention of resigning or otherwise giving up power. He blamed the deaths on unnamed people who want to bring down his government. "It is evident that [Rosenberg's video statement] was written by someone who has been in on this plan to destabilize the government and for reasons that I don't know, because I don't know why Mr. Rosenberg mentions us in that video," Colom said. For Perez and other critics, that's not good enough. "The president has not wanted to confront this and has given evasive answers," Perez said. "Until the president confronts this, indignation will increase." Some analysts say Colom needs to get the nation under control immediately. "It's a very worrisome situation," said Planty, the former U.S. ambassador. "The country is in very serious trouble." There were rumors two to three weeks ago that the military might stage a coup, Planty said. "The security situation is out of control," he added. Heather Berkman, a Latin America analyst with the Eurasia Group consulting firm, calls it "a major political scandal." Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington policy institute, agrees with that assessment. "It's very damning for the president. Very damning," he said. Fernando Carrera Castro, a fiscal analyst and executive director of the Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales, said the upheaval could further tear apart a poverty-ridden nation trying to heal from a deadly civil war. The three recently slain Guatemalans -- Rosenberg, businessman Khalil Musa and his daughter -- came from the upper economic class. As a result, Carrera said, many wealthy Guatemalans are being "radicalized" against the government. Likewise, he said, many poor and disenfranchised Guatemalans also are becoming radicalized and are rallying behind Colom and the government. "I fear that this crisis will lead to violence and destabilization of the government," Carrera said from Guatemala City. "We all want justice. That is clear." Juan Tornoe, a Guatemalan who has lived in the United States for seven years, rejects what he says are efforts to forge a class divide. "The powers that be are trying to make it a social issue -- the wealthy against the poor," he said. "This is not a social issue. This is Guatemalans are fed up." Tornoe has personal connections with some of the key actors in the crisis. Rosenberg was his wife's law professor at La Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Tornoe said. And he said he went to high school with Gustavo Alejos, the presidential aide Rosenberg mentioned in the video. In his conversations with friends in Guatemala, Tornoe said, he sensed "a sense of desperation, of hopelessness." He believes people are fed up. "They're saying, 'OK. Let's do something. Let's not let this happen again and again and again,' " he said. Carrera, the fiscal analyst, holds out hope. The investigation, he said, will be handled by an independent attorney general who does not report to the president. And the probe will be conducted under the watchful eye of a U.N.-Guatemalan commission set up to investigate corruption and political violence. "That gives me more confidence," he said. But Perez and others note that the attorney general, Jose Amilcar Velasquez Zarate, met privately with Colom on Tuesday morning, the day after the scandal broke. The meeting was not disclosed until reporters uncovered it and questioned Velasquez on his way out. Colom's critics accuse the president of already meddling in the investigation. Colom and Velasquez said the meeting had been planned days ahead of time. "There is no interference in the investigation," Velasquez told reporters afterward. Guatemala has "a culture of corruption," said Planty, the former U.S. envoy. A just investigation is necessary, he said. "Until they fix it, they will limp along -- and that's the good scenario," he said. "They are in serious danger of becoming a failed state, if they're not already. There is complete impunity. Nobody is punished for anything." Rosenberg said the same thing in the video, bemoaning the "narcos, assassins and thieves" who have taken over the country. "Those thieves are sinking all of Guatemala," he said. "They kill people like dogs." The lawyer's niece, Mariela Rosenberg, said her uncle learned to accept his fate. "He had many threats," she told CNN en Español, "and when he saw it was inevitable, he taped a video." Radio journalist Mario David Garcia told CNN en Español that Rosenberg was supposed to detail his allegations Monday afternoon on Garcia's program, "Hablando Claro" (Speaking Clearly). Instead, his funeral was held that day.

It really is like something out of a movie. I talked to a few of my friend in Guatemala, and they are both horrified and at the same time not surprised. Politics there truly is, as the former ambassador states at the beginning of the article, violent. One friend said to me that he hoped that something would come of the investigation quickly, otherwise nothing would happen. After a few weeks the country's attention will be focused on something else and this episode will be forgotten. No justice, no truth, no nothing. And that, I think, is the most frightening part. That something like this, whether or not the president is as involved as Rosenberg claims in the video, can be swept under the rug and forgotten so quickly.

Photos

I've updated my photos on Flickr. Unfortunately I reached my limit for the month before I could upload everything, so I'll have to finish in June. But there are a bunch of new photos in the Guatemala 2009 album and I started an album for Semana Santa. Click here if you'd like to take a look.

Delayed...

Woops, sorry faithful readers! Took longer than I thought to get back to the good ol' blog. It's amazing how easily distracted I am. Or perhaps I can blame it on the difficulties of reacquainting myself with being in the States.

What to discuss today? For a quick overview, I got back to the States last Saturday and hung out in Chicago until Monday afternoon. I spent Sunday with a good friend from collage who was in Chi-town for a medical conference. We took an architectural river-boat tour of Chicago, which I highly recommend. I learned all sorts of cool stuff about the city. For example, at one point Chicago had the largest post office in the country. The building is so big that is engulfs part of a highway (the highway passes through the center of the building. But the whole place is abandoned now, completely empty, and while someone recently bought it no one (or at least the tour guide) knows what will be done with it. Also, we learned that there is this cool looking building just off the Chicago river that cools massive amounts of water and sends it to the building too old to have air conditioning as a more environmentally friendly way to cool the skyscrapers. We were instructed in how to tell the difference between art deco, modern, and post-modern buildings and the reasons behind these difference, which was pretty interesting. It's incredible who much city zoning ordinances can change architectural aesthetics. Recessed towers, for example, became the norm after the city planners decided to require them so the new buildings would not entirely block the sun from the downtown streets. Another example is the new river walk that the current mayor is intending to run along both banks of the Chicago river. Up until about thirty years ago the river was considered unattractive and was extremely polluted...there was nothing living in the water and it smelled terrible. It was so polluted that they reversed the flow of the river because the neighboring towns were complaining that it was polluting Lake Michigan. But after the beginnings of a clean-up project inspired/required by the clean water act in the 70's the river became a more desirable area of the city and the ugly industrial warehouses lining the banks were replaced or remodeled for living areas. Many of the apartment buildings lining the river were once warehouses. One in particular is pretty interesting...it was the ice storage house for the city in the 1920s and 1930s. They would cut ice from Lake Michigan in the winter and store it in this warehouse; the walls are three feet thick to keep the ice frozen during the summer. The tour guide said it took months to defrost the building before the could cut through the walls to make windows for the apartments!

I stayed in Chicago until Monday so I could turn in my application for a Brazilian tourist visa. Just in case any of you Americans who are reading this blog want to go to Brazil, they require US citizens to apply (and pay) for a tourist visa. They call it a reciprocal fee, since the US requires Brazilians to get a tourist visa to come to the States. Good for them, I say. Although the $130 for the visa will be missed. I spent the rest of the week unpacking, pining for Guatemala, and coding newspaper articles. I really miss being there, but it's good that I have a ton of work to get done before heading off to Brazil. I really do think that life is more interesting when you're continually distracted. Well, maybe not distracted, but at least busy. Which is what I am at the moment. I'm heading down to Nashville this week to see Jenn, and then one more week or so until I leave for Brazil. So stay tuned, dear readers. This blog will not end just because the first leg of my field research is done! Plus I have more to say about Guatemala and have a return trip planned for October (if all goes well). And in between then and now there's all sorts of exciting things in store. So, until later....

Can you wait?

Huh, it really is amazing how addicted I am to having internet. Not having wi-fi where I'm staying is truly making me twitch. So maybe it's a good thing....right? Not exactly cold turkey, since I have internet where I've been working this week. But it's not the same. So, dear readers, I'm writing this note to see if you can find it in your hearts to forgive me for my lack of posts of late and to kindly ask if you can wait a few more days for the continuing adventures? I will be on a flight to Chicago on Saturday afternoon and swear that I will dedicate a good part of my first few days back posting stories and other amusing items before I forget the details. It's just not in the cards at the moment, I'm afraid. I've got to sign off now so I don't miss my taxi. Until next week, then, my friends....

Bus from Antigua

So just a quick note, as I'm only taking a break from reading news articles about murder and mayhem. Thought I would relate to you, dear readers, my interesting trip to Antigua Tuesday night...

A friend of mine was heading back to England early Wednesday morning and had moved from the hotel in zone 1 in the capital where I was also staying (but am not staying anymore as I explained in the previous post) to Antigua. I wanted to hang out with her on her last night in Guatemala, so I had planned to hitch a ride with some friends to Antigua that afternoon. Unfortunately, as plans often fall apart or change rapidly, things got complicated. My original ride fell through, I didn't get out of the office until late due to a lack of keys to the house where I'm staying, and my back-up plan for bumming a lift also didn't work out. So, after changing my mind at least three times about taking a bus up to Antigua just for the night, I gathered my courage and hopped in a taxi to the nearest spot where I could swing myself on to an Antigua bound bus. Why a taxi, you ask? Ah, well, because it was rush hour and the urban buses are packed to the gills with people. So picture me, the only gringa on the bus, bouncing along on the way to Antigua with no way of telling my friend I was running late and no real plans as to where I was going to stay. Ok, I had plans but they, too, fell through oddly enough due to another set of misplaced keys.

I get to Antigua, find my friend, and have a nice quiet evening drinking a few local beers and eating what I think has to be the best bean soup in Antigua. Yum. I managed to snag a bed at the hostel where my friend was staying for half price with the argument that I wasn't staying for breakfast (which is included in the price of a bed). So no true economic hardship, really, besides the rush hour taxi. A bus to or from Antigua to Guatemala City runs about Q8 (that's $1 more or less). My friend left early that morning for the airport in a shuttle and I rose bright eyed and bushy-tailed (sort of) at 6:15 so I could catch an early bus back to the city. To my surprise there was a slightly bewildered German guy at the door of the hostel who, according to the night watchman, had missed the shuttle to the airport and had no idea how he was going to catch his 10 am flight. The poor guy didn't speak much Spanish and the guard spoke no English. The guard was trying to tell the German guy that he should take the bus to the city and then grab a taxi to the airport, but neither one of them was understanding the other. So, being the good Samaritan that I am, I basically told the German I would take him to the airport and dragged him off with me to the bus station. All this time getting to know how things work around here finally paid off. Got the German guy on a bus, got him off at the right stop in the city, caught a cab quickly and made it to the airport in time for him to catch his flight despite some really horrific traffic. And he even paid for the taxi (which I didn't refuse). That was my random act of kindness for the day. After that I headed back to the house for a shower and a change of clothes and made it to the office to do some coding by 11 am. Not bad, right?

Wi-Fi

Wow, it's really amazing how much I was taking for granted having wi-fi access. I'll have to apologize to everyone reading this blog...I've moved from my hotel in zone 1 to be closer to the office where I've been doing most of my work recently and there is no internet access where I'm staying now. So while it is not meant to be an excuse, there is a reason as to why you haven't read anything recently. My goal tomorrow will be to write something on Word so I can post it when I do have internet access (we'll see how that works out). Not much to tell, otherwise. Went to Xela this past weekend with a friend and had a relaxing two days just hanging out with friends. Nothing too terribly adventurous (well, except maybe the harrowing bus ride which may be the subject of my next post). Now I'm back in the city working on coding newspaper articles. I guess I didn't post about this, but I'm working on this great project with an NGO (that's "non-governmental organization" for those not versed in political jargon) here that fits in very nicely with my dissertation project. We're coding news articles on crime just like I am doing for my dissertation, but instead of focusing on the six months before elections we're looking at the recent security crisis here in Guatemala. I wrote about the security problem in a past post (the increase of murders of bus drivers, etc.). For this project we are interested in seeing how the different newspapers covered the murders and what kind of political discourse was published, who was quoted, who said what when, etc. It's pretty interesting (although also quite depressing). Ok, back to work...

Volcanoes (ok, volcano)

I mentioned in the last post that I forgot to tell the story of climbing the Agua volcano. So here, faithful readers, is that story. Of course, I suppose the photo at the left gives away the ending (that we eventually made it to the summit). But the fun (or pain, depending on how you look at it) is not in the destination but in the journey.

I decided to join my friends in their conquest of the Agua volcano at the last minute. I'm well aware that I'm not the fastest of hikers and was worried I would slow down their ascent. I finally got over my hesitation, however, due to the fact that I was not sure if I would ever again have the opportunity to climb a volcano with such genuinely kind people who didn't seem to care that I wasn't really all that good at climbing mountains (or volcanoes). To protect the innocent, of course, I won't be naming names, but these people are friends of friends (and now friends of mine), one who lives in Guatemala City and the other who is traveling in Guatemala but who hails from the Basque Country in Spain. I made a last minute decision to join them and we grabbed a cab to Antigua Friday night (not so bad if split three ways and much safer than a bus after dark). The Agua volcano is the most prominent of the volcanoes that can be seen from Antigua. While it is not the largest in the area (this proud designation belongs to the Acatenango that sits at 14,000 ft), the Agua volcano rises 12,325 ft and is often pictured in postcards of Antigua. You can see it looming in the background in the photo on the right, which I took during Holy Week (hence the massive crowd). Many tour groups will take a two days to climb the volcano: one day to subir (climb up) and one day to bajar (climb down) so that you can spend the night at the summit and see the sun rise. As we lacked warm clothes, we decided to do the whole thing in one day. Of course, since we were in Antigua staying with friends, we started out a little later than expected due to a bit of a late night out socializing.

So here is the rundown of our hike. It was, for all intents and purposes, an adventure. We couldn't get find a bus out to the village were the trail begins, so we acted on our Basque friend's claim that the village was only 4 km from Antigua and just started to walk towards the volcano. It could only be about a 30-45 minute walk, right? What's that for three adventurers ready to climb a mountain? 30 minutes later with no bus or town in sight, we come across an old man walking down the same road who informs us that the village is, in fact, still an hour march away up a steep road. What! An hour more and we haven't even reached the volcano yet? With that information at our disposal (and some covert dirty looks at our friendly Basque), we set our intentions on hitching a ride in a pickup. Not too much longer after that we were happily bumping along in the back of a pickup full of vegetables ready for the market in town. Thank goodness for pickup trucks! Shortly after that (the road was really steep, I'm not sure what we would have done if no trucks had driven by) we were breaking our fast (eating breakfast for those of you who aren't paying attention) in the local market: black beans, eggs, cheese, sour cream, freshly made tortillas, and ridiculously sweet coffee...my favorite. Then on to the volcano, oh brave adventurers!

So all the guidebooks suggest using a guide while climbing this volcano, mostly for reasons of safety. We, however, ignored this suggestion and carried on by ourselves. I will add here that we saw nothing to suggest that we were in any danger while climbing or descending the volcano (although I did see a man in a ski mask, all he did was say good morning and climbed down past us...not sure what was going on there). The nice part about a guide would have been that he or she could have pointed out the shorter route up the volcano. We only figured out that we had been climbing the long way 'round when we were about two hours into the hike and sitting at the first of many crosses on the path trying to catch our breath. Out of the woods comes this lovely indigenous family that we met several times later on the journey (and would end up walking with for at least the last hour or so of the descent). The looked at us, pointed at the truck path we had been climbing at and laughed bit, saying something along the lines of "Wow, you climbed up that? That adds at least an hour on to the climb. Didn't you ask were the sendero was?" Well, we had asked, but must have been steered wrong.

It took us about 4 1/2 to 5 hours to climb the mountain, mostly because I was lagging quite a bit. The thinness of the air really got to me, to tell the truth. I couldn't ever quite catch my breath. Truly, I thought I was going to die at least a few times. But my friends were patient and we dragged my ass up that damned volcano. And I will admit it was worth it. The view alone was worth it. It was the first mountain of any kind I'd climbed (I'd gone up Chicabal and Pacaya, but not the whole way on foot). And I'm proud that I made it, even though my friends made it look easy and I struggled the whole way. For what it's worth, they are experienced mountain climbers. I don't even want to discuss how painful it was going down. My legs shook the whole way and my big toe on the left foot turned black and blue. But there were some fun parts to the climb down. At the summit there is a perfectly formed crater (the volcano is inactive) that the locals have turned in to a soccer field, as well as a run-down church and a small shelter for camping. We hung out for a bit at the top and then started back down again. The descent is a lot faster than the climb, and we decided to stray from the path a bit a climb/slide down the sandy stretches between the winding parts of the path. My friend from the city took one path that looked to steep for me (my fear of heights kicked in big time) so I dragged the Basque along with me on a different, less terrifying patch of sand. Turns out this was a good call, as my other friend apparently ended up hanging from a tree over a small cliff which then led to a small drop from said tree and quite a bit of rolling down the side of the volcano. I'm really glad I only heard about it and that I didn't witness it. We had some fun sand-skiing but there was not rolling or dropping involved. We caught up with my other friend after an hour or so, and finally made it down the mountain in about 3 - 3 1/2 hours, sliding and running most of the way.

After the grueling eight hour plus hike up and down, we caught a bus back into Antigua and despite our intentions of catching the next bus back to Guatemala City, decided to stay the night (it was almost dark and we were dead tired). However, instead of resting as we probably should have we danced the night away with our Antigua compatriots and bunked down on the floor of our friend's apartment for only a few hours before trying to catch the early bus back to the city. I swear I must have had a limp for a little while after that weekend, and my legs cramped up during the night for a week afterwards. My whole body rebelled. But, thank goodness, we as humans have very little memory of pain but quite a capacity to remember beautiful vistas and good company. As they say in Spanish, vale la pena. Loosely (well, actually, literally) translated, that means it is worth the pain. And so it was.

Semana Santa

I'm finally back in the capital after a long and lovely vacation during Holy Week. What an incredible experience being in Antigua during Semana Santa! But first I'll talk about the beginning of the trip. A friend I met here in the hotel in Guatemala City and I hitched a ride with some of my friends from the capital to Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan (I've written about the lake in an earlier post) and hung out there for a few days. We chilled with my friends for a night and then headed to the village of Santa Cruz where there is an incredibly fun backpackers hostel just at the edge of the lake. It's a very tranquil kind of place run by an English woman and her American husband that serves fabulous family style meals at dinner where everyone who wants sits down at the table and shares the meal and some good conversation. There's not all that much in Santa Cruz and the last boat from Panajachel is at 7:30 at night, so most people staying at the hostel tend to stay in at night and socialize with the other backpackers. It was a bit of a shock, really, to be thrown in among all the travelers after so many weeks in zone 1 in Guatemala City (where there are hardly any foreign travelers that stay for more than a few days). There are more foreigners in some of the ritzier zones, like zone 10 where the fancy hotels and international business are, but here I hardly ever talk to or interact with other gringos (here, anyone not Guatemala or Central American is often called a gringo, even if they're not for the US).

After a few lovely days on the lake I headed in to Antigua for the rest of the week. Antigua is the place to be for Holy Week...it is world famous for it's religious processions and elaborate carpets that decorate streets. It gets particularly exciting from Holy Thursday through Saturday. I arrived on Tuesday night, just in time for a party thrown by some friends I met when I was in Antigua a few weeks earlier to climb the Agua volcano with some other friends form Guatemala City (good grief it's getting confusing talking about people without posting their names....maybe I should use aliases....no, that could get even more confusing...hell). It was crazy crowded at all the bars, and we ended up staying out well past 1:00 am, the official hour when all establishments must stop serving alcohol and kick out the customers (it's called the ley seca, the dry law). The rest of the week I spent sipping coffee in cafe's and watching processions during the day and sipping beer and chatting with friends and watching processions at night. The processions run throughout the day and night and are in full swing by midnight Friday morning. I'm posting a few of my photos here so you can get an idea of what they're like.

I've posted a bit about processions earlier, as they occur throughout Lent. But the big ones are during Holy Week. The huge wooden carvings of Christ and the Virgin Mary aren't exactly what we call floats, but I'm not sure of the English word for them. I read on a flyer that they can weigh up to 3 tons, and may of them date back to colonial times. This first photo (and the two that follow) is of a parade on Holy Thursday...you can kind of make out the huge platform and sculpture being carried by penitents dressed in purple. It's like a huge barge swaying down the street shrouded in incense smoke. The whole city smells like incense during Holy week, and if you are up at the edge of town here you can follow where the parades are by following the cloud of smoke. It can get so heavy at times your food tastes like incense.

The processions really are incredible. Not only are there the huge platforms carried by penitents, but also Roman Soldiers, Pharisees, and other assorted Biblical figures. There are even chariots drawn by horses in some processions! Oh, and brass bands playing funeral marches. It's like nothing I've ever seen before (or will likely see anywhere else). The next photo is of the same parade, but more detailed. The man in front dictates the speed of the platform (I wish I could remember what those things are called) and is in charge of getting the timing of the steps correct. With some many people carrying that heavy, heavy platform, it must be hard to get the timing right. The band that follows behind helps, sort of like a drummer on a ship with oars, I suppose. But the band is not always playing, and the man in front pushes on the poles and basically shoves the platform back and forth so that the rest can follow the rhythm. You barely see some children under the float walking next to their fathers (I'm assuming). There's also a Roman soldier in the bottom right corner.

The procession in the picture is just about to walk over one of the many carpets made by the faithful during the night. Families stay up all night making carpets out of sawdust, flowers, and pine needles for the processions to pass over. The city is very efficient about clean up afterwards, which surprised me. Usually the processions consist of some kind of thematic portion, like Roman soldiers proclaiming Jesus' sentence or people acting out sections of the Passion. There are lots and lots of penitents in robes (purple robes until the afternoon of Good Friday, then black until Easter Sunday). There is the big float carried by men depicting some aspect of Christ or some part of the Bible concerning his life followed by a brass band and then a float with some aspect of the Virgin Mary carried by women dressed in black with either black or white veils (not sure the significance of one or the other color). The Virgin is also followed by a brass band that also plays either a funeral march or the Ave Maria. Then, finally, men with brooms follow along behind to sweep up the debris from the carpets which get picked up by a front end loader and plunked down in a dump truck. I really was amazed at the efficiency.

This last photo I love because of the expression on the face of the man in the middle. Some of the penitents were laughing and joking, smiling, wearing sunglasses, and talking to friends in the crowd. Others were quite serious, although whether this was due to the sheer weight of the platform or from religious dedication I'm not sure.

On a final note, I want to apologize to everyone who has been checking in to see new posts and has been disappointed to find nothing new this last week. I didn't take my computer with me on this last trip. But I promise I'll update things more regularly now that I'm back in the capital. Thank goodness for wireless! I have a feeling I'll need to go back and see which of my many adventures I have posted and which I've passed over. I'm getting forgetful in my old age! Anyway, until later, dear readers....

Huelga de Dolores

Just a quick note I will expand upon later. I'm heading off on my Semana Santa (Holy Week) vacation (everything closes down here for Holy Week, absolutely everything) and don't want to leave you all hanging for too long. So here is a brief jot about the Huelga de Dolores, a 111 year old tradition at the University of San Carlos, one of the oldest public universities in Latin America. Starting with the huge party for the declaration of the huelga (which means strike, as in a strike put on by workers against an employer) and ending with the desfile de bufo (the buffoon parade) on the viernes de dolores (Painful Friday? probably more like Friday of Sorrows) the last Friday before Palm Sunday, the whole thing lasts about a week. I have no idea what goes on between these two events, but I did get to go to the declaration party, which was wicked fun, and spent most of yesterday afternoon watching the parade. I'll post some pictures from the parade when I get back from my mini-vacation.

So here's what I know about the tradition of the Huelga de Todos los Dolores. It started 111 years ago, as I mentioned earlier, by the students at USAC (Universidad de San Carlos) as a way to protest against the government without the fear of reprisal. The students wear hoods (capuches) to hide their identity and are called encapuchados (the hooded ones). The also wear masks and costumes. At some points in Guatemala history, these hooded students were the only ones who could safely protest, as no one knows who they are (supposedly). Each department (facultad) elects a rey feo (ugly king) as does the Honorable Committee for the Strike of All the Sorrows. Once the buffoon parade reaches the presidential palace in the historic center of the city, each king makes crude jokes and curses out the president. The students carry signs and push floats with lewd representations of politicians and scathing criticisms of the political situation. Let's just say I learned a few new curse words listening the the rey feo skewer the president. I will say, all in all, it's very entertaining.

There is also a darker side to the huelga, in that in many years past it has been associated with vandalism. Some say it's the students, others say that it's criminals taking advantage of a day where everyone goes around in masks and hoods (probably a bit of both), but there has been a seedier tradition of extortion, where encapuchados tell store owners they have to donate to the huelga or their store will be looted/vandalized. This does not stop hundreds of people filling the central park to see the parade...they even erect grandstands for people to sit and watch the rey feo insult the president. I think it's really too bad we don't have a tradition like this in the States. Apparently Guatemala is the only place in the world that does this.

Interesting Times

Some interesting things have been going on here in Guatemala recently, much of which does not really get reported in the US news. I've been told that in part this has to do with the fact that the New York Times closed down its Central American office. Interesting how the business of running a newspaper or television station can change what we know about the world, right? Anyway, I'll give you guys a brief overview of what's happening in Guatemala so you can sound knowledgeable at parties or show off your broad grasp of current international events to your colleagues.

Early last week there were three seemingly coordinated attacks against bus drivers in Guatemala City that seriously blocked up public transportation in the city (a serious problem when 80% of the work force in the capital use public transportation). The attacks left 3 people dead and 7 in the hospital, which, while it may sound outrageously horrible, is not all that uncommon. There have been over 33 bus drivers killed here in since January (there were a few more killed later in the week, and two this morning, so I'm not sure where the count is now). 85 bus drivers were killed last year, a huge leap from the 37 that were murdered in 2007. The city was panic stricken...a local radio station that reported on the incident largely exaggerated the number of deaths (it claimed that 10 people had died) and claimed that the government had placed the city under a state of siege or state of exception. Schools were closed, children sent home, the presidential palace and other political buildings sent their employees home, and there was a rumor of a complete shut-down of public transportation. I first heard about all this when one of the librarians at the newspaper archives told me they were closing early because of a bus strike and the violence earlier that morning. Anyway, the president announced via radio and tv that there was not in fact a state of siege and urged the city to remain calm (yeah, right). He claimed the attacks were attempts by organized crime (which is never defined by anyone who talks about it...what do they mean by organized crime?) aimed at destabilizing his government due to a recent crack-down on drug traffickers. Rumors ran rampant as to what was really going on. No one in the media bought the government's story that this was in retaliation for a crack-down on crime. Nor does any of the Guatemalans I've talked to. Some say it's drug dealers trying to divert attention away from their other, more lucrative, pursuits. Others say it the maras, the tattooed youth gangs that dominate many marginalized neighborhoods, who extort the bus drivers, demanding Q100 or more daily for the privilege of not being killed. Others say it's a political ploy by the Partido Patriota, (Patriot Party in English) to destabilize the government. The PP candidate for president in the last election came in second with a campaign slogan of "urge mano dura" or urge the iron fist, a slogan aimed at promoting hard handed, punitive crime control (among other things). The leader of the PP has already made numerous statements and placed ads in the newspapers criticizing the current president and calling for drastic measures against rising crime rates. The whole city is a-buzz with these rumors, and everyone has an opinion. Most people are sick of being afraid of leaving the house or wondering if they will make it home from work safe and sound. Which, of course, leaves me with the worry that vigilante justice will take a firmer hold here in the capital. Lynchings (or attempted lynchings), which consist of angry mobs capturing suspected criminals and burning them alive, are not an uncommon occurrence in the departments (Guatemala is made up of departments, not states or provinces, since it is a unitary and not federal country). I don't think this will start happening in the capital, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Last week, in the northernmost edge of the zone that I'm living in at the moment, a group of neighbors caught a man who had robbed a pedestrian and left him tied up, naked and beaten, at the side of the road for the police to pick up. Online comments to editorials in newspapers have included many calls for widespread arrests of maras, some going to the point of calling for "social cleansing," adding the slogan "marero visto, marero muerto" which basically means that any ganster (marero) found should be killed. Obviously this is a pretty extreme reaction, but not a completely unpopular one. Anyway, things have calmed down a bit in terms of the level of fear in among the city's inhabitants, but violence continues to disturb things. As I mentioned earlier, two more bus drivers died this morning...official statistics put the number of murders in the country as a whole at an average of 17 per day.

Of course for me it's not helping that I spend much of my time in the library reading about crime in years past. I've finally been able to start on the papers before the 2007 election, and I have to admit it's getting to me. I can only take so much death and blood and tragedy. For one thing, many of the people killed are young. I was reading today about a police detective killed while trying to stop a robbery in March of 2007. He was driving by with some co-workers and stopped his car to see if they could help the victim of the assault. This police detective was only 25 years old and was shot as he stepped out of the car by two men with guns. That same day there were reports of a couple shot outside a restaurant by unknown attackers, a woman murdered inside a hotel by hired assassins, a young boy shot 4 times while leaving a store, a man shot to death by armed men while he was driving his truck, two brothers dead after being attacked by unknown assailants, two people murdered with machetes in separate incidents, and a man murdered by another customer in a cafe, who got up out of his seat and shot the victim without saying a word. These reports all come from a newspaper called Nuestro Diario, the most circulated paper in Central America. It's kind of a tabloid, full of pictures of blood, dead bodies, grieving families, soccer stars, and girls in bikinis. I'm including a photo I took of the front page of one issue from 2007 as well as a two page article on a shoot-out between mara gangsters and police. It's really quite horrifying, particularly for those of us from the States who are never really exposed to this kind of graphic photojournalism (if it can really be called photojournalism). The headline on the cover of the first paper reads "They Killed 3 Prisoners!" and goes on to say "Mareros Riot in Hell's Prison; 8 Wounded." The pictures, which are hard to see in such a small photo, are of policemen surrounding a gunshot victim, police surrounding a wounded police agent, and various shots of police subduing prisoners. I am particularly disturbed by the shot of the marero in the bottom right who is looking at the camera straight on with blood coming out of his noose. The other photo I've included is one from a shoot-out between police and mareros, also from 2007. The headline reads "Deadly Shoot-Out: Gunfight Between Gangsters and Police Leave 6 Dead and 3 Wounded." It includes photos of police entering the home where the mareros took refuge, a wounded little girl being taken to the hospital, a dead marero with an AK-47 and a woman crying over her the body of her husband, who was caught in the crossfire. Reading about all this death is kind of catching up to me. It's pretty grim, and I can see why people claim that Guatemalans have become immune to reports of violence, that life doesn't seem to have much value when faced with all this death. I love it here in Guatemala, but it really is overwhelming to read the newspaper every day.

Getting Busy

Believe it or not, there’s a lot to tell this time. Things kind of picked up since the last post. It’s been a busy week. First, I got some good interviews in and a good amount of work done. But that’s the boring part. So I’ll skip to the good stuff.

Last Tuesday night a friend of a friend called me (we’d been trying to get in touch with each other for a week) and invited me out for some dinner. I’d already eaten but decided to head out anyway so I could meet some people in the city. Not only did I get to meet some fun people (not only this friend of a friend but also one of his friends) but I ended up joining them at the Carlos Santana concert at the national soccer stadium. He and his friends had tickets already, but we were able to buy one for me outside the stadium from some scalpers (and for Q200 less than what he and his friends paid!). The concert was amazing! Plus I made some great contacts with this group of people who are all members of couchsurfing.com, an online network for travelers. Wednesday I went out for coffee with another couchsurfer, which was wicked fun. I want to thank whoever thought of setting up that network.

Last Thursday I went to one of the private universities here to talk to an economics class another friend of a friend (and now friend of mine) teaches there. The professor (my friend….is this confusing yet?) asked me to come in and talk about my project with his students. It was a great class. The students were really excited about the topic and it started a big debate over what role the media should play in society, why civil society in Guatemala is so disorganized and what role the students can play in politics. It wasn’t so much a discussion of political ideology but of political action in terms of wanting to make a difference in society, to take an interest in what is going on in Guatemala. By the end of the class the students were planning to meet later in the week to discuss how they could make a difference in their university and how they could get the students there to be more active in wanting to make a difference in their country. I’m not sure if anything will come of it, but it was exciting to see the students want to do something about the issues we were discussing.

On Friday I took a chicken bus to Xela (in K’iche the city is called Xelaju; officially it’s name is Quetzaltenango) with a gal I met at the Santana concert (the friend of the friend of the friend). It was a crazy ride, kind of like being in a video game you can’t control. Those drivers are crazy and the roads were really bad. Not only were the roads curvy and steep, but they were also being repaired (if you call it repair) so much of the route was turned in to a two lane highway were people were constantly trying to pass on blind curves. It was kind of scary, really, and I tried to stop paying attention after the first hour or so. It’s about a three to four hour ride to Xela from the capital, so I had lots of time to get jostled and bounced around. But it was totally worth the trip! Xela is an incredible city. We stayed with another guy from the couchsurfing network that my new friend had stayed with before. We had a great time exploring the city, got a ride in the bed of a pickup truck (here they call them “picop”) to the hot springs in the mountains, and climbed up to a beautiful lake in the crater of a dormant volcano. The guy we were staying with works for the equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency here and got us a ride to the volcano with a group of TV reporters from one of the news channels…we might even be in the report they will air on Saturday about the lake, which is a sacred site for the local Maya populations. The plan was to do a two-day hike up the highest peak in Central America, Tajumulco, but we didn’t have the right clothes for the cold weather. Xela itself sits at 8,000 ft, and the volcano we were going to climb goes up to over 12,000 (not sure of exact altitude on that one, will have to check), so even in the warmest months the weather can be chilly. We got back to the city on Monday morning after leaving Xela at the crack of dawn.

Hey, gotta run but will write more later. Chau….

La Capital

Perhaps, dear readers, you may feel that I have abandoned you, as I have not written in some days (can you tell I’ve been reading a 19th Century British novel?). But never fear, I come again to the computer to send out into the universe another comment on what I’ve been doing this past week. Which basically consists of hours in the library. Not much to tell, really, except that after a while I start to get sloppy with my notes and realize I need a break so I don’t have to come back the next day and code the same news articles again. But I’ve finally gotten some interviews, or at least the start of some interesting things, so at least I’m making some headway. As of right now I’m sitting in my hotel room (I think the people at the hotel don’t know what to make of me because I haven’t given them a timeline and am just paying by the day…the hotel isn’t busy so that don’t have anyone waiting for the room, I just keep telling them one more day, one more day). Thank god there’s a TV with some movie channels, because that’s all I do at night. I don’t really like to be out by myself after dark, so it’s an hour or three of working on the computer and then a movie or something before bed. Also thank god for wi-fi otherwise I’d be going mad. How did anyone make it through doing fieldwork before technology pulled us out of the Stone Age? (Don’t answer that please)

Every Sunday during Lent in Guatemala there are these religious parades throughout the city, both in the capital and in other places around the country. It’s a pretty incredible thing to see…I’ve never seen anything like it. There are men in purple robes, men in black robes and hoods (slightly resembling the klan except, well, the robes are black), men in black suits and white gloves, and women in black skirts and black lace veils that look like they are in mourning. The men in black suits, or sometimes the men in purple or even the women (in high heels) carry these huge wooden floats, some of which are very old. The floats weigh hundreds (lots of hundreds) of pounds and are carried by thirty or forty people. They sway with the steps of those who carry them, back and forth with each stride, a little like a boat on choppy water. A marching band follows the floats and plays music that I think is particular to the parades. I’m not sure, I’ll have to look up some of the history and post it here. Over all of this lays a heavy layer of smoke from the incense they swing in front of the floats. Even if you don’t see the crowds or hear the music you can find a parade by following your nose.

I went to sit in the big park in front of the cathedral here in Guatemala City (if you remember I’m staying in the historic center, zone 1) on Sunday, but the place had turned in to an open-air market. Those who don’t head out of town for the weekend seem to end up in the city center, I guess. Perhaps it was also because of the parades. There were so many people I couldn’t find a place to sit down (which is pretty amazing considering how big the park is). The park is not what you would think a park would look like. I read in a guide book that this is because they dug much of it up to put in a parking garage underneath the park. On one end lies the cathedral, opposite to that is another small park and the National Library. To the right of the Cathedral is the Presidential Palace, a big green building that no one actually lives in. To the left is a strip of offices and shops. The interview I had today was in an office in one of those buildings…it had a nice view of the palace. There’s a huge fountain in the center of the park, and what seems to be a permanently staged protest by former citizen patrol members who had not been paid for their service during the civil war. Around the park you can find everything from newspapers sellers and food vendors to men claiming to tell your fortune with a cage of parakeets (I have no idea how this works) and fifty kids willing to shine your shoes.

Zone 1 is not considered to be one of the safest neighborhoods in the city, but neither is it one of the most dangerous. You just have to be on the lookout for pickpockets, mostly. I haven’t had any trouble, nor felt unsafe. The sixth avenue (two streets down from where I’m staying) is famous for its black market street vendors. The avenue, know in Spanish as sexta avenida (literally 6th avenue), is lined with make-shift stalls selling clothes, shoes, bags, pirated CDs and DVDs, jewelry, and anything else you could image. It’s an interesting walk, that’s for sure, but worth at least one stroll. I’m glad I took a gander, otherwise I would have never found the local movie theater! The fanciest places to eat are mostly all in zone 10, where the biggest and fanciest hotels are, but there are lots of little comedores that serve $2 and $3 lunches and dinners. What with the $12 hotel and paying not much more than $3 for any meal, it isn’t all that terribly expensive to float along here as long don’t do anything but eat and sleep. Although that’s not a terrible life, I suppose.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I won’t suffer you to have to read much more in one post. So, until later, then…