Tony’s Guatemala

“The old west with internet” is the way I described Guatemala to someone the other day when they asked me what I thought of it. (I was talking to an American who’s been living here for years.)

You can go into a hardware store and buy dynamite, you can use the dynamite at will in the street, but you can only have one person riding on a motorcycle. I’ve been told that people have each other killed for about $60 US. Anyone who can afford a gun can carry one. And most crimes go unsolved. Corruption is rampant, and goes from the lowest levels to the highest. Bribery isn’t just the fastest way to get things done, it’s really the only way.

These are the things I have to deal with when trying to get things done here. Hopefully I wont make any enemies, and hopefully I’ll be able to help the people.

This week I’ll be starting to help with a building project in one of the villages around town. I haven’t been there yet, so I don’t know what all is needed, and won’t really till I get there.

I’ve spent most of the last week getting acclimated to the altitude, and getting my apartment set up. Yesterday however, I made it out to the Eagles nest orphanage in Solala. It was my first experience on a chicken bus, and while I’m sure it wont be my last, it was interesting.

Once we made the walk to the bus stop, we got on, and fairly shortly left, making about 10 or 12 stops along the way, then got to our stop, and got out and walked the mile plus to the orphanage. Where I played with the kids, walked around the grounds with them for exercise, and helped feed them. Most of them don’t see very many men, let alone gringo men, so I was something of a novelty among the 1 1/2 year olds.

After spending several hours there interacting with the kids, it was time to head home, another mile + walk, and another chicken bus ride. Rachel gets a little worried on the chicken buses going down the mountain, since they tend togo as fast as they possibly can. (I saw that we were trvelling at least 3x the posted speed at one point.) But I wasn’t as worried about it. I might have felt differently if the berms and guard rails hadn’t been there, or if it had been at night, or worse, at night in the rain. But we made it back safely, and then made dinner together in Rachel’s apartment.

I picked up a used george forman grill at a paca. It makes cooking things, like fish, a lot simpler. I’ve been doing a lot to get my apartment in order and set up. I’ve got a difuser ring for my 3 burner gas cook top (not a real stove, more like a camp stove, no oven either.) and I’ve realized, I will not have hot water in my apartment. Nope, no hot water, except in the shower, wich has a “widowmaker” showerhead. A widowmaker, for the uninformed, is a 3500 watt heating element built into the shower head, the heating circuit is completed when water flows through it. You control the heat by adjusting the water flow, more water = less heat. I’ll post pictures sometime, you’ll be impressed by the wires running from my shower head to the electric outlet. you’d be more impressed if you watched the lights dim when I turned on the shower.

So to clean dishes, I heat water in a tea kettle on the stove, and pour it into a stopped sink, and add an appropriate amount of cold water to make it the right temperature. Shaving is the same routine.

But in spite of my lack of hot water, I have maid service included with my rent, so every 3 or 4 days, I come home and find all of my floors swept, and all of my bathroom goods re-arranged, alog with finding my bed made. I’ve never had a maid before (and probably never will again) but since the apartment costs maybe 1/3 or less than what a comparable apartment (with hot water) would cost in the US I’m not complaining. I could be living in a mud floored shack!

Well, this oficially makes 2 days in a row with me posting, something of a miracle, considering the last post prior to yesterday was 11 months before…

I stopped by ‘the porch’ today (aka Solomon’s porch, or Porch de Salomon) and ran into my old friend Dave Burns. I knew he was here, but it’s really interesting bumping into someone you know from back home when thousands of miles away from home.

I got the grand tour, and started meeting the staff over there. It’s good to start getting plugged in with the people I’ve been working with in a small way for over a year.

Yeah, it was well over a year ago now that I started helping with Solomon’s porch’s web related needs. Wow. hard to believe!

Some fun today:

I’m still working on getting my apartment set up, and have been trying to figure out the hot water situation, apparently my apartment does not come with hot water, just running water! I’ll learn to deal with it I suppose, but in my soft gringo way, I kinda whined a little bit this morning about it. it was quickly put into perspective for me though when I realized that most everyone around the area cooks and heats water over wood fires. at least I have a propane cook top!

Today I also discovered the 3Q world, where everything costs 3 Quetzals. some good deals can be had there, but not as many as you might think…

After 4 days in country, my spanish is improving to the point that I’m beginning to be able to get around, but I see some areas I need to work on right away, specifically numbers. I get some of the numbers right, but generally I just kind of shake my head until someone types it on a calculator, or writes it down… not always the best way to bargain!

Tomorrow I’m off to the porch for a while, and then to the market to try and find a towel for a decent price. the only towel I’ve seen in town thus far, cost as much as a Guatemalan minimum wage worker would make in a 10 hour shift.

But I’m finally in Guatemala now.

I’ll be updating here a bit more regularly now, and telling you about my life here in Guate’

We flew in on the 16th of August, Rachel, me, my Mom and my Sister. there were no real complications coming in, we arrived at the airport, and everyone but me was ushered right through to the exit. I was sent to customs control, where they briefly reviewed the 4 bags on my cart, and I told the guy I was moving here as a missionary, and he smiled and nodded, and  pretty much just opened the bags, poked around and sent me on my way.

The girls were waiting with the shuttle and the bags. The shuttle was a compact station wagon, but at least it had a roof rack. between us, we had 8 checked bags, and all of our carry ons! but our driver managed to get them all into the car or onto the luggage rack, smiled, and drove us directly to our hostel in Antigua.

Once we arrived in Antigua, we got checked into the hostel “El Hostal” and started exploring the city. Antigua is a small place, only 9 blocks by 9 blocks, but the architecture there is beautiful, and there is a higher concentration of churches there than most anyplace I’ve seen.

After meeting up with missionary friends over the next two days, we were picked up by our shuttle bus to Panajachel. The shuttle driver for that bus was not as good as our first driver, and did not receive any tips! He charged everyone extra for their bags, crammed 15 people into what would be a 12 passenger in the states, stopped to get his brakes done while we all hung out by the side of the road in a place that had nothing but mechanic shops, and on top of all that, didn’t bother to tie down any of the luggage for the first 30 minutes of the trip, and refused to put a tarp over the luggage on the rack until it started raining. Thankfully the apartment building is only a block from the shuttle stop, so we left mom there with some of the bags and started moving them home.

My apartment:

I opted for what is locally a “luxury” apartment, which means that it has running water, and electricity. Mine also has a separate bedroom from the rest of the apartment. It feels good to be home! Now I just need to talk the land lady into fixing my plumbing! I have water, but no hot water! the only place I can get hot water is at the bathroom sink right now, and the only way to do that is by turning the sink faucet on (nothing comes out) and then turning the hot water on in the shower. No hot water comes out of the shower, but by doing that I get hot water at the sink. My kitchen sink has all of the hot water lines capped. Well, at least I have running water!

Internet:

My internet is limited by my bandwidth right now, but I have cellular internet on a USB dongle, it works well enough, and has decent speed, so I’ll probably keep it for the time being to be able to send emails, write my posts here and keep up with friends and family. The dongle works fine with both my mac and my PC, so I’m pretty happy about that, the mac eats less bandwidth in general, so I’m gonna be using that mostly until I can find a solution for the drain on my bandwidth the PC creates.

Today will be my first real day in Pana, so I better go out and get some things done, I need toilet paper, dishes, a water dispenser (the locals don’t even drink the water) and a few odds and ends to make my apartment home. I’ll be stopping by the porch sometime after all of that to meet people and get started there.