Tony’s Guatemala

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So, I woke up early this morning and headed down to the lake since the sun was out and everything was night and bright and cheery. I took a few good photos and enjoyed sitting by the water.

The boat guys weren’t too rude, and after being told that I didn’t need a boat, mostly left me alone.

Lots of tour groups running around today.

After catching a few minutes of peace and quiet, or as close as you can get here, down by the lake, I thought I’d take the bus up to Solola, which is higher up the mountain, and far less touristy.

I climbed on the bus, and after a little bit, we where off. I paid my fare of $0.38 and got a little change. I had decided to head up to Solola because today was one of the twice weekly markets, and it was nice and sunny.

Normally I wouldn’t recommend running around very many places in Guatemala with big and expensive (looking) camera equipment, but I’ve taken that bus ride a number of times, and generally don’t worry too much around the indigenous cultures unless the place I’m going is kind of deserted. It was market day, so deserted was gonna be the last thing Solola was.

After arriving in town, I walked through the square, and towards the market. Unlike Pana, Solola doesn’t have a dedicated market building, and instead twice a week (Friday and Sunday for the curious among you) they clsoe down the streets around the town square, and vendors from all around carry in their goods.

I normally try to respect peoples desires not to be photographed, especially away from tourist areas like Pana and Antigua, and simply planned to walk through the market taking photos of the colors. It seems that many things here are more colorful, the fruits and vegies, the clothing, the buildings, you name it, it’s likely to be colorful.

So far so good, everyone that I asked had been more than happy to let me take photos of their wares, and I think they appreciated me asking (many gringos fail to respect them enough to ask even before taking photos of the people) and I saw a pile of chickens feet. I asked, and the lady said it was fine to take a photo, so I did. After taking the photo, she demanded that I pay her 5 Quetzales for the photo. I was dumbstruck. It’s not uncommon for people to ask to be paid if you want a photo of them, but I’ve never had anyone try to charge me money for taking a photo of their goods. I played stupid and said a lot of things in very poor spanish that didn’t string together very well. She was unhappy, but not as much as I was. In the end, I didn’t pay her anything for taking the photo, but it did cut my day in the market short.

Here’s the photo by the way:

I’m sure that 5 Quetzales means more to her than it does to me, I think it was the way she went about trying to get it that bothered me. If she had said it would be 5 Quetzales to take the photo, I would have walked away, but she said it was fine, and then put a price on it.

Well, Guatemala has a tendency to cause all kinds of electronics to function sporadically or inconsistently, or just stop functioning altogether. Whether it’s a computer, phone, camera, electric razor, pretty much everything is effected. I think the combination of dust, humidity and altitude just wreak havoc on the circuitry and mechanics of things.

My camera gear has been no different. My battery charger still functions, but no longer recognizes that there isn’t a battery plugged into it, and continues to try charging after the fully charged battery has been removed. My flash ceased functioning within 3 days of getting here, and now occasionally works, but the LCD screen doesn’t always, even when the rest of the flash is, and I’ve lost most of the controls on the control panel. thankfully, some of the time, it still communicates properly with the camera and TTL works, but that’s only some of the time. My nice tele-zoom has pretty much locked up in the fully zoomed position, and refuses to budge to zoom back to it’s shorter focal lengths.

But probably the oddest thing that’s happened has been the fact that my my 60mm AF micro Nikkor lense has suddenly started to work properly. I’ve always used it as a manual focus lens, it was that way when I bought it 5 years ago, and it never worked in Auto Focus mode. Now the Auto focus works. go figure. Not that I’m complaining mind you, when I bought the lens I got an amazing deal on it because the AF didn’t work, I picked it up in a box of stuff along with a sunpak 622 pro, an AIS 55mm Micro nikkor, and a bunch of other stuff that a company that was switching to digital didn’t think they could use anymore. I paid the whopping sum of $25 for the whole box. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of the sunpak, though I did buy a IR head for it to go with my D1R Infrared camera, and have used it pretty much exclusively with that. And I’ve used the Micro-nikkors for several projects as well. That’s the kind of deal I’d love to stumble into once a year, sadly I haven’t found anything close in quite a while, though I did pick up a nikkor 55 mm F1.8 AF-D lens at a thrift shop for $10 the day before leaving to come down here. Sadly it stopped working upon my arrival here as well…

I went into Antigua for the final portion of the dental work that was absolutely mandatory last week, and did a little bit of traveling from there. When I was stopped at one of the bus stops along the way, I met Manny, or Manuel, or whatever… Manny seemed really nice, spoke some English, and was actually talking to me rather than one of the women on the bus.

Manny is from Mexico, his dad’s Mexican, and his mom Guatemalan. Manny lived in the states for a little while, and even claimed to have a US Social security number. I’m not sure if I believe the last part, since as he was naming off the states he was a “resident” of, he included Florida, Miami, and Orlando, each as separate states.

This was when things in the conversation began to get kinda weird. Manny lifted his shirt to show me the tattoo he had, which read “MEXXXICO” and perfectly framed his beer gut. After that he proceeded to tell me that the reason he left the states was because he had killed three people. “@$%)*^’s needed to die” was his explanation. Afterward, Manny proceeded to curse at and make rude gestures to a group of Nun’s that walked by, and then ran after them, calling them names and opening the fly of his pants.

Sadly, such occurrences aren’t that terribly uncommon here. I’m just glad Manny doesn’t live in Pana, I have enough “friends” that act pretty similarly here.

Still having about an hour a day of water here… oh well, at least I can flush my toilet once a day.

I’m continuously impressed by the ingenuity of the people living here. Both Guatemalans and Gringos alike. If you walk around town, there are several places that you can see pieces of railroad rail being used as telephone and electrical line poles. Most of the funnels that I’ve seen here come from cutting the top off of 600ml plastic soda bottles. Plastic grocery bags are useful for everything from carrying groceries to rain bonnets to serving as makeshift galoshes.

But the things that really struck me and made me start thinking about it were twofold today. First when I was walking by the lake, I saw two young men rowing around in a funny looking canoe. I immediately recognized that this was no ordinary canoe, but rather, it was a gutted jet-ski.

Back in the states, this thing would have been relegated to the scrap pile, here, plug the holes, grab some oars, and we’re good to go fishin.

Later on, I was given a pair of earrings to give Rachel that had been made in a local village. The interesting thing about the earrings was the origin of the materials used to make them. They are quite colorful, and they’re made of the aluminized mylar packages from potato chips. This is the ultimate recycling, if you ask me. Potato chips cost 2-3 Q for a small bag, eat the chips, and have the material to make at least 5 pair of earrings that sell for 20 Q each. And everybody who saw them loved them and wanted some (the women for themselves and the men for their wives). Man, I’m in the wrong busines.

Every time I make a trip back to the states, I have a list of things I need to bring back with me upon my return. sometimes the things on that list might surprise you. maybe more surprising would be the things not on the list.

Things you can get easily in Guatemala:
Prescription medicine, not everything, but antibitiotics, etc, are easy to get, and cheap.
Cellular internet, cheap and fairly reliable
Tortilla’s
Fruit nectar and juice
Eyeglasses
Dental work
Non-specific batteries (AA’s AAA’s D’s etc.)
Cellphones (starting at about $15 with $12 service included free)
Amoeba’s
Horses and cows
Umbrella’s
tuk-tuk’s
Steak
Clothing (Paca’s have a lot of american clothing, though not frequently in my size)
Chickens
Fresh Fruit
Dynamite
Incarcerated
Drink coasters
Sushi rice
Amazing coffee
Cheap lodging

Things that are either hard to find, or ridiculously expensive:
Clothing (other than T-shirts, in my size)
Clean water
shampoo (available, but not cheap, and it all makes my hair fall out)
butane gas
Fresh fish (available, but not safe to eat)
Real Ketchup (the stuff here is more sugar than Tomato)
Steak sauce
Gringo’s that aren’t crazy (not a cost comparison, but very hard to find)
Sturdy silverware
Anvils
Specific batteries (for camera’s, phones etc.)
Good roads
Raspberry or maple syrup
Canned Tuna (hardly ever found for less than $2 a can for the cheap stuff in oil- and it’s in smaller cans!)
Milk in a carton (it mostly comes in bags that don’t need refrigeration)
A decent mattress

All in all, it makes life interesting. I bring back what I think I’ll need, and invariably forget something, or discover that I need something not available locally, and add it to my list for the next return trip. Last time I brought a mattress pad with me rolled up and stuffed tightly into an old military duffel bag, along with gun-magazines (the reading type, not the holding ammo type) and fire starter flint thingies, along with my normal clothing, laptop, camera’s etc.

Well, I’m here again, but at two different places that previously had been unrelated…

Less than a year ago, I lost my dad, and I’m still coping with that loss…

I’m in New Orleans, Rachel and I drove here on Saturday after hearing that her grandmother was very ill. we arrived Saturday evening, and went directly to the hospital. We spent a little time with The family members that were there, and then went and checked into the hotel. Rachel’s sister was at the hotel already, and helped us get checked in… 4 people, 4 hotel rooms. but apparently there was a surplus of rooms open in the hotel, so it was no bother.

Sunday I couldn’t handle going back to the hospital, as it brought up too much memory of my dad’s passing. I spent the day in quiet reflection, as I was trying to just be at peace. The girls had  good day spending time with Gan, and I ended up grabbing some coffee, and a little food.

Monday morning came the knock at my door that seemed inevitable… Gan had passed away. Rachel’s dad was on his way to town a few ours later, but since he had a 13-14 hour drive, we knew it would be the next morning before he arrived.

Tuesday was Rachel’s birthday, it was also Gan’s. Rachel and I went and had a quiet lunch in the quarter, and then we all went to dinner with 2 uncles, and their wives/ girlfriends. It was surreal. Rachel’s Grandmother would have been 79 that day. We had dinner at a restaurant that you could see from Gan’s bedroom window. No-one knew how to act, that to say, or what to do. We celebrated life the best way we knew how, in the midst of death.

The funeral is tomorrow, and I better get some sleep between now and then…

Well, I’m getting ready to make another road trip.

Rachel’s Grandmother Gan is in the hospital in New Orleans, and the prognosis isn’t good. We’re getting ready to hit the road to go see her.

Gas prices are scary right now, with a rise from $3.65 a gallon to as high as $5.49 a gallon on my trip from Quincy to Tallahassee. I hope we can find gas along the way. The unknown is kinda scary.

The hurricane, Ivan I think his name is, is bearing down on the refineries in Texas, and they’ve shut some down. The panic is the only reason for the sudden jump in prices.

I saw a sign today that said “Hurricane season is only 2 days away, are You ready?” I thought that was funny.

Well, I never found all the missing posts, not sure exactly what happened to them. kinda frustrating, but alas, more posts are on their way!

I turned another year older over the weekend, and oddly enough, I’m now the same age as my grandmother’s been for years.

Yup, I’m 29.

Got some Bad news from Rachel’s family on my birthday, and if you could be praying for them that would be much appreciated.

Well, hurricane season is officially here I guess, and we got hit with the tail end of one running through.

3 trees down across the driveway, 20+ inches of rain, and all kinds of delays on things.

I made it through unscathed, but I need to fix my mom’s roof some!