In Guate the pleasure of meeting Miguel Angil Garcia, the husband of Telma (Jessica´s aunt)was had. Telma was sweet enough to tell him of the previous search for a novel by Miguel Ángel Asturias, ¨Los Hombres de Maize¨. (This was primarily the novel that won the Guatemalteco the Nobel and Lenin prizes. It details the lives of traditional Mayans.) Miguel took me to the store to obtain it. On the way we got a chance to talk about many things. He talks much slower so naturally there was never a problem understanding him (thus boosting my already undeserved confidence). He's in fairly bad health and a curiosity arose as to whether he had experienced a mild stroke that causes him to talk and move slow. by the looks of him, he could not be more than 65. And during the drive he was going much slower than Telma. Worry came from under my chest and images were put voluntarily into my head of a nightmare scenerio in which he dies of a heart attack, either on the road or in the store.
Miguel treated me to coffee and went on at personal length about his two full grown children who live in the states and the beachfront hotel he recently bought subsequent to his newfound restlessness in retirement. It was so nice to have that kind of conversation in Spanish again. Un millon de gracias a mi amiga de Panama que vive en Lawrence, Duby cordoba!
Later that evening, we had a light dinner, as is the general custom with dinner in Guatemala, follwed by the last night of their traditional Catholic celebration. Pictures were taken and Maracas and wood blocks were shaken in between the mostly Mamatina led encantations. Sometimes the question is wanted to be asked: who is this jesus fellow? But there is no innocence in it. Just a desire to remind the religious of their anthropomorphic tendancies. Everyone was so kind. Telma made sure to offer their contact information in case something was needed from my quasi green person.
A wonderful 4 hr bus ride to Xela the next day brought Jessica and myself closer together after a couple nasty spats earlier in the week. Xela was more beautiful than imagined. One curiosity is that many of the regular newspapers in Guatemala also contain tabloid features. A wrinkly old women-little boy in a sparkely goun and bouffant hairdew predicting the fate of 2009 bordered on the next page by a report on the recent avalanche that killed over 35 people in the department of Verapaz.
Xela was very close to what had been imagined in my brain except that in those images the sun was always at late afternoon and the surrounding areas of interest were always to the north. We managed to find El Nahaul, my school, and met its director (his name escapes me right now). His face seemed very tired, peaceful but extremely intelligent. He was on crutches and interestingly enough our taxi driver of his recomendation, Carlos D´Leon, had also broken something.
We stayed in the Black Cat hostel. 60 quetzales (about 8 or so dollars) including free breakfast was more expensive than what we were used to. Tourists with whom instincts of warm comaraderie naturally sprung up in an instant were finally met. Two girls from Austin in particular, Andrea and Xoe cought my ears and eyes. We talked about Spanish (in English and Spanish), Marxism, George Orwell, Austin and much more. It must be said that a little aversion is felt to those who want to speak English. Xela is ideal for me because it does not rely on tourism and most all of the non Spanish speaking people there (other than perhaps a Mayan population) were there to learn Spanish. Jessica was not as at home because the kids staying there were less social and more studious. Another girl with whom my words were exchanged was an NYU grad student doing research on Central American garment cooperatives. Another was a handsome and pensive skater from Portland. He accepted our invitation to drink some of our wine, but it was obvious to me that he was more interested in reading his book (travel book about Africa by a Polish journalist). Dancing was on Our minds and we finally found the Salsa place listed in the tour guide. Strangely, you had to walk into the building to see the sign with the bar´s name. It took a lot of fighting with Jessica to get there and in the end, there were not enough people in the room to make her want to get the dancing bug out. Walking all those many blocks sufficed for the body´s exercise and we obtained good sleep.
The next morning we obtained our free breakfast and information needed to get to San Pedro for the afternoon. Traveling with someone as flighty with Jessica is difficult. A temptation was felt to stay in Xela,but it may not have been safe for her to travel alone. Moreover, my pockets would not empty as fast with Jessica. Contact information was exchanged with Andrea and Xoe (Xoe is single and cute as a Mario Bros. toadstool´s button, next to a sign that says no toads allowed). after a wonderful and candid exchange of simple words, a mental note was also made telling me to build a rapport with the Black Cat´s cleaning girl named Rosa when I returned.
Another thing that may have contributed to Jessica´s luke warm feel for xela was that we actually came across extremely rude people at this cosomopolitan restauraunt. It may be that they had a problem with Jessica´s persistent english. Also, in Xela, all of the guys whistle at cute girls. Jessica in her hipster above knee length vintage dress, stood out. By the end of our time there, we had distinguished three local sounds of the horny hombres of Xela. two of them cannot be reproduced. Is there a typographical language for whistles?
But the other one goes like: OOMPH! OOOMPH! OOOMPH!
Random and perhaps all unflattering notes about guatemala:
Roosters always crow in the morning--you know the sound.
So many locals have absolutely no interest in avoiding litter. It is very common to see a person throw a food wrapper on the ground. At the 100 busses or more station, my left over food had to be dropped by the edge of the road next to a completely trashed creek of water because the only trash can looking things were for the containment of bus fuel.
Mr. Pollo, Pollo Campero and Pollo Reye are the kings of fast food Guatemala
Public restrooms suck a tourist´s ass!
But no diarrhea yet.
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