On Tourism
1. Enganar(me) - the act of being swindled...
I dont so much mind paying 6 dollars a night at my hotel with luke warm water and the MOST amazing view of the lake from the balcony and a comfortable bed, except that i think everyone else is paying about 3 dollars night... Leaving Money in Guatemala feels like a good thing, i just wish I had the chance to tell them I know you are ripping me off and I am trying my hardest not to mind.
(There is a passage in the book Pray Eat Love regarding the tourist in Bali... 50% of the tourists dont realize they are being swindled and think the Balinese are so very kind and enjoy their time... while the other half start to get angry and bitter at the balinese for constantly swindling them.
I also think of Bafa bafa (http://www.stsintl.com/business/bafa.html) and I remember being both in alpha and beta culture. I remember using the unknowing betians for thier resources. Man, I wanted that ice cream. I am being used and its starting to hurt my heart. Breath deep and let go. its just money and in terms of the hotel its just 9 extra dollars...
but then there was the boat ride to santiago, and the earrings... and the 100Q that somehow disappeared from my pocket, and there was the...100Q I found in the street one day).
2. Màs Dinero
I saw this perhaps guatemalan or mexican tourist girl barter for a pair of earrings. She was brilliant. I tried to take mental notes. the pair she wanted were 40Q... she grimaced... how much do you want them for he asked... she said 15Q... he said 35... no 15 maximo! 30! no 15! and she started to walk away... 20, 20 he called out after her... she went back and got them for 20 half the price!... I dont have the cultural upbringing to do this... however, i might try to lower a price by 5 quetzales next time...
3. Living vs. touring
In Xela, I felt like i was living there... albeit for four weeks. It was a chance to make friends, plans, get some what of a rhythm... after my first 6 week trip in the philippines i said, i am never doing another short term mission... its too hard to get to know people and leave knowing you are probably never going to see them again. i think my heart starts to harden out of protectivenss. I think the next time I travel for serious purposes, i want it to be for a year. A year in the same place. I dont want to just climb mountains and see ruins, I want make friends and leave pieces of my heart. I think traveling is great, dont get me wrong. It is teaching me to hold things and people lightly, and the only thing dependable in the world is God and licaudos.. (yummy licuados).
4. Disclaimer: I would probably find this poem offensive if i were in an cross cultural relationship... However, I want to put it here, because I have been doing some thinking on the many gringas I see making out with guatemalan guys... Please Note this is not about cross cultural couples who are actually dating and trying to love eachother with sincerity.. this is about the one night stands kind of things...Also note: if you are a spanish speaker and you find errors in my spanish, i am pretty sure they are there.. could you let me know fo them.
La Gringa
Soy la gringa de Xela
con el pelo y las piernas desarreglados
Te besaré, bailarémos en las calles
Como si fueras tu pais
tu piel, la tierra
tus palabras, el aire
y tu me besarás, bailarémos en las diskotecas
como yo si fuera un boleto, el 25 de diciembre
una canción por la radio
He leído Marx. Mi cuerpo es tuyo.
5. In San Pedro (also known as hippie heaven, according to me) for 6 Q you can get freshly baked pan de coco... its delicious.
6. Tatuaje
·sometime between 2001 and 2004 I was crossing a bridge to science hill at ucsc and i saw a beautiful leaf fall from the sky and I said, i want that that as a tattoo. Let´s see if I still want it in a couple of years.
·in june 2007, I went on a road trip with my sister that was started with an Ani Concert. The two weeks and the concert made me decide i wanted to get a leaf tattoo on my right shoulder. ¿but what leaf?
·today, 19 de febrero 2008. i have finally found the leaf that i to get tattooed. I was walking trying to find this internet place and i saw it and I said this is it.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Random Thoughts from Guatemala
1. Cuando Canto Mi Cancion por Ozomatli.... is so beautiful to me. Please go listen to it.
2. Guatemala has a history of 36 years of war. People dying... people being killed during the night. 12 villages completly massacred. This is in the collective conciousness of the people of Guate my maestra (teacher) today was telling me. She told me the story of her friend who hid under the bed while the soldiers came and killed his mom, and sisters. He has grown up had a family of his own and by age 30 something drank himself to death with sorrow. Now his kids are teens. What hope can we have for them, my teacher asked me. this is why we have such violence in Guatemala. People have not recovered from the war. There needs to be therapy. ¿How does a country recover from war?
3. Rios Montt... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rios_Montt was presidente of Guate during the bloodiest most violent years of the war. When the most indigenas were massacred. (with arms provided by our very own CIA). He is now in Congress and therefore immune from anyone putting him to trial. ¿How do you feel about this?
4. yeah, i am so hard core. I rode a crappy rented bike for 80Queztales from Xela to Champurrico. A beach that is 110 KM away or a 6 hour bike ride. well almost. I couldnt take the heat the last 10km and so i threw my bike on a chicken bus and bussed it for the last 10 km. It was sooo hot. The adventure and the beach were fabulous... I will put the pictures up on picasa soon.
5. Its dark. must pick up my laundry.
Responses from friends... i hope they dont mind...
When I was studying truth and reconciliation commissions after periods of gross human rights abuse I focused some on Guatemala and it's scorched earth wars. The road to healing and reconciliation is long an painful and involves a collective acknowledgement of the gross injustice that has happened. People need to be given a voice to share their pain and stories. I think the way to true and deep healing is through Christ and the power of the kingdom coming, but there are good things that can be done to help the process, like document abuses that happened, counseling, memorials and exhibits, art, etc.
Immunity for people who were in power during periods of gross abuse is not ok by me. I think there needs to be public accountability, I understand that immunity is sometimes the bargaining chip for a transition from military rule to democratic rule, but I think high up leaders do need to go to trial and be challenged about what role they played in the abuse.
You are amazingly hard core and the fact that you pulled your bike onto a chicken bus is also amazing,
....
i often wonder how any country survives war - i know that people rebuild, repopulate, and then ... i guess you just shove it in history books and make yourself believe that it doesn't reflect on you, it was the best thing for your country, or that you didn't know the extent of the atrocities.... i wonder if that's how Rios Mott sleeps at night. i wonder if that's how any of us (including us americans whose blankets probably come from the hands of sweatshop labor) sleep at night. you also know what sucks about war - those political leaders can find therapists and such to ease their conscious but the people that lived through it ... they get stuck with the war eating into their brains, their hearts, still tearing their lives apart.
....
I will respond briefly... It's heartbreaking to hear what you're learning. It's so hard to sit up here in my North American office in air conditioned comfort with my cup of coffee, money in my account, healthy... It's hard, but at the same time, it's so deceptively EASY. You know? Ugh!
2. Guatemala has a history of 36 years of war. People dying... people being killed during the night. 12 villages completly massacred. This is in the collective conciousness of the people of Guate my maestra (teacher) today was telling me. She told me the story of her friend who hid under the bed while the soldiers came and killed his mom, and sisters. He has grown up had a family of his own and by age 30 something drank himself to death with sorrow. Now his kids are teens. What hope can we have for them, my teacher asked me. this is why we have such violence in Guatemala. People have not recovered from the war. There needs to be therapy. ¿How does a country recover from war?
3. Rios Montt... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rios_Montt was presidente of Guate during the bloodiest most violent years of the war. When the most indigenas were massacred. (with arms provided by our very own CIA). He is now in Congress and therefore immune from anyone putting him to trial. ¿How do you feel about this?
4. yeah, i am so hard core. I rode a crappy rented bike for 80Queztales from Xela to Champurrico. A beach that is 110 KM away or a 6 hour bike ride. well almost. I couldnt take the heat the last 10km and so i threw my bike on a chicken bus and bussed it for the last 10 km. It was sooo hot. The adventure and the beach were fabulous... I will put the pictures up on picasa soon.
5. Its dark. must pick up my laundry.
Responses from friends... i hope they dont mind...
When I was studying truth and reconciliation commissions after periods of gross human rights abuse I focused some on Guatemala and it's scorched earth wars. The road to healing and reconciliation is long an painful and involves a collective acknowledgement of the gross injustice that has happened. People need to be given a voice to share their pain and stories. I think the way to true and deep healing is through Christ and the power of the kingdom coming, but there are good things that can be done to help the process, like document abuses that happened, counseling, memorials and exhibits, art, etc.
Immunity for people who were in power during periods of gross abuse is not ok by me. I think there needs to be public accountability, I understand that immunity is sometimes the bargaining chip for a transition from military rule to democratic rule, but I think high up leaders do need to go to trial and be challenged about what role they played in the abuse.
You are amazingly hard core and the fact that you pulled your bike onto a chicken bus is also amazing,
....
i often wonder how any country survives war - i know that people rebuild, repopulate, and then ... i guess you just shove it in history books and make yourself believe that it doesn't reflect on you, it was the best thing for your country, or that you didn't know the extent of the atrocities.... i wonder if that's how Rios Mott sleeps at night. i wonder if that's how any of us (including us americans whose blankets probably come from the hands of sweatshop labor) sleep at night. you also know what sucks about war - those political leaders can find therapists and such to ease their conscious but the people that lived through it ... they get stuck with the war eating into their brains, their hearts, still tearing their lives apart.
....
I will respond briefly... It's heartbreaking to hear what you're learning. It's so hard to sit up here in my North American office in air conditioned comfort with my cup of coffee, money in my account, healthy... It's hard, but at the same time, it's so deceptively EASY. You know? Ugh!
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