This turned into a rant

School ended yesterday. But is was a busy couple of days leading up to yesterday. Elisa got in late on Wednesday night. Then on Thursday, Elisa, Robert, Carrie, Desiree (other students), me, Alma and 2 of her kids went to Fuentes Georginas. Today, during school, Carrie, Desiree, me and our teachers (we all have 1-on-1 instruction) all went to the Mennonite bakery. Today, Elisa and I went to San Francisco El Alto which was a bust. Tonight we're going to the Vagina Monologues (I wish I remember how to write it in Spanish).


Fuentes Georginas was the shit! The whole experience was great. Took a bus to Zunil, 20-25min away. Got off at the bridge into town over one of the most disgusting rivers here. I'll get to this in a minute, let me tell you about FG first. From the bridge you can also see some local farmers irrigating their crops from canals between the plots by scooping water from the canals with buckets or large plastic bowls. One woman was tossing water as fast as she could, all bent over. Talk about back breaking. Much respect for what people are willing to endure and what the body can endure. Come to Guatemala, you'll be shocked.

From there we took a pick-up up to FG. Five gringos in the back standing up getting soaked by the rain, while Alma and her 2 kids were inside the truck with the driver.


The ride was beautiful. We went twisting and turning through hillsides covered in every vegetable imaginable. It's easy to comprehend how this area generates so much agriculture for the country. The fruits and vegetables in Puerto Barrios were from here.


We climbed higher and higher into the mist as the rain continued. By the time we were at FG (about 20min ride) we were pretty cold and wet. Didn't matter because the spas were really hot. FG is beautiful. The backdrop is a hillside that looks like a tropical forest and at the bottom is the first pool which I think is the hottest. We stayed in the water until we were plenty pruney then went back to Xela. Round it off with homemade hot chocolate at Cafe La Luna and it was really great excursion.


The Mennonite bakery is only open 2-3 days a week and you have to get there early as they only make a limited amount of stuff. Carbs are a plenty here in Xela and, well, all of Gutemala, and I could tell they were using lots of real butter. I bought Carmen a bunch of stuff as thank you gifts there.


San Francisco El Alto. Supposed to be a great market town for buying garments. Very authentic. Well, not on a Saturday. Saturday it's very sleepy and deserted. On the bus rides up here was where it really sank in that I was experiencing discrimination in this country. We'd ask people on the bus how much it would cost to get to SFEA. They'd say Q2.5/person. Ayudante´came around. Handed him Q5/para dos. 'No. It's Q6 for 2. But other people said it'2 Q2.5/person. No. It's Q3. Everyone pays Q3. Yeah, but they don't.' Our Spanish skills aren't good enough to argue. It's only a difference of about $0.07 but still. It's the principle. Why should it be different because I'm white? This is the case everywhere in Guatemala. Want to buy a t-shirt at the market? Starting price for gringos is Q100-110. After 10-15min of negotiations, hopefully you've gotten it down to Q50 which would probably be the starting point for a Guate. Ok. Ok. We're probably not talking hatred or name calling or sit in the back because your skin is a different color but still the feeling is awful. It just pissed me off and made me angry. Compound this with the stares because of my height, and the frustration mounts. How many of you, my friends, lived through this in your lives I don't know. Maybe if that's all you know then it's different somehow to deal with. I wonder how the white world would respond if everything was all of a sudden flipped on it's ear and we were no longer the most privileged race on the planet. I think anarchy and chaos would be just the tip of the burg.


I'm almost done with this ranting. I have to cover plastic and trash and then I'm done.... People here just throw all their trash into rivers (they're filled with trash, absolutely filled. These are the same waterways used for irrigating crops, washing clothes, bathing, and possibly drinking), on the ground, out the window, wherever. Finished with your plastic bag of water (Right. Plastic-it's everywhere. Worse than in the states. Plastic shopping bags are common place, but without any way to recycle them. The water, and sometimes juice and coke comes in plastic bags. It's really strange to see the professional futbol players drinking water from these bags during game breaks too. Any variety of cold drink para llevar is served in a plastic bag with a straw. At the futbol game, people were carrying bags of soda back to their seats. This is everywhere here. It finally dawned on me much later why the plastic bags get used for drinks to go. There's a deposit for the glass bottles. If a drink comes in a glass bottle, you don't get the bottle. The vendor keeps the bottle to recoup the deposit, hence the plastic bags of coke), throw it on the ground. Done with your bottle of orange soda on the bus? Throw it on the floor or, better yet out the window. Fuck an A it's gross. What's even nastier is how they get rid of trash. They burn it wherever it's piled up. An entire hillside was smoking with burning trash when we got to Zunil on Thursday.

....You know, now that I've written this, it would be interesting to see how different our waste management principles are in the states. Yeah, we recycle in the states, but we also incinerate trash and bury it and send it to other countries like Guatemala. Maybe we're just better at hiding the byproducts of our consumption. But when I see the trash here, it makes me wonder what kind of hope there is at all for mankind. Cancer of the world.


That's all for today. I feel a bit cleansed. Elisa and I are leaving tomorrow for Chichicastenango (aka ChiChi) to see one of the largest markets in Central America. Thursdays and Sundays are market days. From there, it's back to Antigua then Santa Barbara for ella and the Pacific beaches in El Salvador para mi.