demasiado

I don't know if I can get this all down in one sitting. It's cold out here! There were clouds all morning and afternoon, and finally around 7 the downpour started. I hate that yoga class always starts in the middle of the rainy time of day. So I didn't go, even though I really wanted to.

So here's the week where I left off. Suuuunday.

We went to the cemetery first off after breakfast. Hugh went there before and I've been wanting to get out there for a couple weeks now. Why, you ask, is the cemetery so interesting? Well. I say. Because of the colors.

Sorry. I think it's been while since I've written and I've forgotten how to translate between my ridiculous internal ramblings and coherency. Let me try this again.

Central America (I think it's safe to say in General, not just in this small part of the world) decorates their graves in vivid colors. All of the cement and granite is painted teal and hot pink and green and yellow. The living people in a funeral wear dark sad colors, because it is a great pain for the living to lose a friend, but it is a great joy for the dead to move on to better life, so the people are somber and the graves are celebrations. They're also very well cared for, any sunday you go out there you will see dozens of family members with hoes and buckets of water pulling weeds and watering flowers and cleaning and repainting their ancestors' resting places. It's a busy part of town. It's also friggin HUGE. Miles and miles and miles! The front section, the prime real estate, is full of giant mausoleums and marble statues and mini-cathedrals that are hundreds of years old. There's a rather large section where every mausoleum has a huge statue of an angel or of christ, but some vagrants over the years have knocked off and stolen every single one of the heads and lots of the hands. It's quite disconcerting. I headless angel looming over the throne of a headless Jesus with a headless Mary seemingly watching from the neighboring grave. It's not somewhere I want to be at night. That's kind of the only creepy part though. Otherwise it's just a happy place. The only place in Guatemala where there aren't piles of plastic bags laying all over the ground and the grass is green and there aren't a bunch of pregnant stray dogs.

After that, Hilda invited us to her dad's birthday dinner, so we decided to make some salsa to take to try to be hospitable. This is what Americans do when they’re invited to parties, right? So we made a huge batch of it, thinking it would be enough for like 10 or 15 people to have a little each. We were thinking... Hilda has maybe 2 siblings but we're not sure, and she's got 3 kids, and then there are her parents, and then us... so maybe 10 or 15 at the most? Wellll, she send out her sister and a guy in a van to pick Hugh, Vlad, and I up and we head back out to Cantel. We stop in front of her house, and i figure this is where we get out, but Hilda and her family get in, and we go down the road some more, stop in front of a dirt drive, and walk down that road till we get to a very large house with DOZENS of people sitting in plastic chairs in a huge courtyard. And of course, everyone turns around and looks at us, well we're with Hilda, who is his kid, after all. (and I would expect one of the most successful.) So there's maybe 100 people here? maybe 75? We sit in the back, and people are up front giving little orations about her dad, and we're sitting with Hilda and her brother and sister, and it occurs to me that I've been to Hilda's house before, and she lives with her 3 kids and her mom... not with her dad. There's her dad.. he's still alive.. where does he live? Who does he live with? I ask her how many siblings she has, and she counts in sections of 4, and 4 here, and 3 there... she has 12 SIBLINGS in something like 4 different families. I do not know how this works. And they're allllll here. and he's the oldest of something like 15 kids, so they're all here too, with their kids. Which explains the massive amount of people. None the less. I just can't imagine how it's acceptable to have a couple different families and they all gather occasionally to honor the patriarch together. It's weird to me, especially since I know that they are mostly very Christian. Who's the wife? Certainly it would be neither acceptable to marry multiple women nor divorce. So how? I might never know. Carlos has mentioned before that he has lots of half-sisters. His dad did the same thing, and now Carlos and his brothers live with their mom and his dad lives in the U.S. Well anyway. The speeches go on for a while, and Hilda tells us that this is the time for us to go up and say some things about ourselves and her dad, which hey, we're here, we gotta do what we gotta do. Meanwhile. We've got this big tub of salsa and bags of chips that are incredibly out of place and in the way and we're seriously regretting bringing them. So we shove that stuff under our chairs and head up to the front, and Hugh says a couple words about how we're all from richmond, we're really happy to be here, Hilda is our friend, thanks again, blah blah. and Hilda talks, and we sit back down. Also, there are guys coming around with plastic trays covered in plastic cups of 7-up and this particular kind of liquor named Quetzalteco because it's made in Quetzaltenango. It's quite tasty as far as liquor goes (I'm not a huge fan) but wow. Strong. Then the speeches stop and it's time for everyone in the crowd to form a line and congratulate the birthday boy (63) as well as pay respect to his wife (I think?) and the eldest matron of the family, I think his aunt. I'm assuming most of this, I never found out for certain who all these people were, just that there was Hilda's dad, a lady near his age, and a much older lady standing up there that I had to try to say a word or two to. Not easy. I shook Senor's hand and told him happy birthday in spanish, and then, very brashly and awkwardly, did what I saw everyone else in the line do, and hugged the two women, one and then the other. It was probably not what either of us wanted.. But I didn't even know who they were! What was I supposed to say! So I took a deep breath, hugged both of them (I'm just not so touchy feely. this was a big thing for me) and walked away. What I figure is, I'm kind of glad I did it, I think it was a warm gesture towards my hosts, and a hand shake I think would have been too masculine and harsh a gesture for me towards these very traditional women. And if I embarrassed them, well, we weren't the first people in the line of hundreds, or the last, and they looked pretty sick of hugging everyone, much less some incoherent gringo, so I'm fairly confident they didn't even remember. After that commenced the games. Oh party games, they are the same everywhere. The similarities between our two countries make themselves apparent in very strange ways. Of course they needed volunteers in couples, but after my pinata trauma at La Fonda del Che Cafe, NO. NO MORE. So I kept my little white head DOWN. They did some dancing games, that were very funny, but pretty lax on rules, in which at some point Hilda, Vlad, and Hugh managed to take part in. Thank you headless angels for not having anyone pull me in. It was pretty adorable. 6'2" Slovakian Vladimir dancing with 5'1" traditional Hilda. Then the same guys came out with the same plastic trays covered in big pieces of cake that everyone grabbed with a napkin and ate like cookies. There was blue icing eeeverywhere. On chairs, chins, elbows and shoulders. Hilda, knowing that it's part of our "culture" as she put it, to bring some sort of offering to a party to which we are invited, put the sad and hopefully forgotten dip in a central place, opened the bags of chips, and did a "HEY GUYS. THERE'S SALSA OVER HERE!" at which point a stampede of Guatemalans headed right for us. It started out with hungry kids trying to get a nacho without their mom's seeing them eat before dinner, and more and more people came, HIlda's dad, and then there was a line on both sides of us, with people leaving with their hands full of one or two nachos and enough dip to fill up both their cupped hands. Avocado green joined the pastel blue on people's elbows. I must say it was a bit of a hit. I ended up being very glad we brought it because it allowed us to quit being "those gringos Hilda brought" and start being "Those gringos that brought the good dip." It was an improvement. Every once in a while little girls would come over to Hugh and I and look like the desperately wanted to tell us a secret, and then when I would acknowledge them they'd run away. Little girls are so much shyer than boys here. I think, honestly, that they were enthralled and appalled by Hugh's beard. Real natives do not have any hair except what's on their head, so Hugh gets special treatment from children sometimes. Vlad was approached by a very cute what looked like around 19 year old girl and her mom, and after some talking, he said he was possibly proposed to. Everybody's always trying to marry off a gringo around here! (juuuust kidding.) Vlad is Vlad, though, and rather than being weirded out by it, continued to talk to her until dinner was served, fueling all kinds of jokes and gossip I'm sure throughout the party. Then dinner, which was outstanding in every way I could hope to convey. We ate with Hilda and her brother, sister, and friend Clara, all of whom I believe were a little buzzed on Quetzalteco and absolutely hilarious. Hilda's brother, Romeo, and Clara knew a little bit of English, and we had a ball making puns between their 3 languages. At some point the table almost died laughing because Romeo was trying to describe to us a woman he knew, and he said in English, with a bad accent "She is cook." (like she is a cook) and it sounded to Hilda and Clara as "es skook" which apparently means in Quiche "she is a flea." We also, very interestingly, found out that Hugh's name in Mam means hello.. which explains a huuuuge amount. Every time Hugh introduces himself in Espumpuja the women or children start laughing, and we just kind of figured that it was because Hugh is a rare and awkward name in Spanish. Really, if you speak Mam, though, you say "Hyuuuuu!" for hola or hi. We also put all of our leftovers in the empty salsa bucket for Hilda to take home for leftover, and Clara wrapped hers up in her bag, which she guarded like it was gold for the rest of the night. We left eventually, like "pink panthers" according to Clara, sneaking out so they wouldn't try to convince us to stay and dance.. Which doesn't sound like such a bad idea right now.


Other than that little outing I spent the whole weekend holed up making a new materials list for my earrings. I’ve made two new designs and thrown out 3, in the hopes that I can narrow the designs into what seems to be popular at alternatives, as well as make the Guatemalans self sufficient in the future. I’m eliminating the premade silver pieces (which I felt pressured into using and now regret) and buying straight wire so the women can make interesting silver shapes themselves. We can get wire anywhere, we can only get this premade silver piece from this premade silver piece manufacturer in the U.S. If we can avoid buying things from the U.S. we should. Plus it saves us something like $3 per earring, which is more impressive than it sounds. Then I also changed the types of beads I’m using. Less gemstones and more earthstones. Guatemala is not a gemstone kind of place. It’s rough and colorful, mottled and everything at once. It’s not amethyst, it’s agate. If you know your gemology, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Plus, the quality of beads that is in our pricerange for gemstones is super shitty. Half the beads I got in my last order either had holes that weren’t drilled straight and therefore couldn’t accommodate the wire, or friggin broke. Earthstones are cheaper in general, being for the most part opaque and the opposite of rare, so we can afford higher quality. Plus I think they have more personality.

I was still refining the list on Monday, after probably 20 or more hours searching that website looking for the just right of everything. It’s like the first time you go through it (all thousands of pages) you find what you’re looking for and think everything’s alright to order. Then you go through it again, looking for one thing in particular, and end up changing everything you originally thought you needed for beads similar but prettier.. Then you go through it one more time, or 4 more times, getting more of this one that you can use on more than one design, or getting the bulk amount of that to save money, or getting rid of this type of bead and using the saved money to get more wire. And then while your at it, well, this bead’s really pretty, can I make a brand new design to accommodate it? Augh! It never stops! But when it’s done, it’s done. This is it. And I called Lupe and left her a message asking her to call me back when she ordered the materials. And then, of course, I email her EVERY DAY to tell her to order it, and 3 days later I FINALLY get an email saying she’s going to do it. Aaah! That woman needs a secretary!

I don’t have any more of the old materials for Cantel to work with, so I taught them the new techniques for the new styles of earrings I decided to make. Of course, I sent pictures to Lupe to see what she thought, and of course, I never got a reply back, so I just went ahead and did it. This is my project now. It’s going better than it’s ever gone in the past, I have confidence in my abilities and in my students’ abilities and the earrings, as Lupe says, are selling well in AlterNatives. So that’s my approval. Lupe and Ben are entirely too flaky to be telling me how to design my projects. I’ll get to that more later. Trust me, there’s a lot more on that.

Soooo. I went to Cantel all by myself on Tuesday, which is an interesting psychological experience. The physical experience I’ve described and survived enough to just not be fazed by it. When I’m with Hilda I feel a little bit like a child. Completely supported and safe, but pretty dumb. Then when it’s just Hugh and I I feel more independent, and by myself I feel fairly proud and independent and grown up. And nervous, but that’s the way of it. I’m always afraid of getting on the wrong bus. It’s not so bad now that I speak and understand enough Spanish that I think I could ask my way out of any problem, but still.

Wednesday my class in Xela brought back their fabric earrings, like the ones in the last post, to show me. They all did a really good job, and I was encouraged by the improvement between the first pair they made and the last pair. There wasn’t a lot of glue everywhere and the embroidery is all fairly even for all the girls. It was heartening. This week I’m going to buy a couple little bottles of glue and make a pattern for the shapes and just send Sylvia home with the materials for the girls that live in her house. So no class in Xela next week unless someone really decides they want to work here. Otherwise, they’’ll be making jewelry all tin the comfort of their own homes. One of my goals.

Thursday, yesterday, we didn’t go to Xeavaj, there’s still problems coordinating getting the car fixed and painted, plus I didn’t have anything for them to do, so we didn’t go. That night though we went with the school to see a concert of The Buena Vista Social Club- an old, amazing, super popular salsa group from Cuba. I think all the members have died except one, which still plays with the support of other musicians. Claudia came with us, too. Luie and Yanessi are on their mid-year breaks, so they both went to Tehutla and Claudia has a free week to have a mom-break. After hours and hours and HOURS of salsa dancing to some crazy great live music, we caught a cab and came home. Claudia was not lying, she is a talented and passionate salsa dancer. I’m hoping to peer pressure her and Carlos to become partners so they can compete.

AAAAnnnnd. Today, Hugh and I went grocery shopping, which I can never assert quite forcefully enough how completely different it is here. It involved no less than 5 different buildings, and one sidewalk. First we went to the Menonite bakery. (I may not have mentioned this before, but there’s a group of American Mennonites that live in Guatemala, and they run a store called Bake Shop where they sell breads, dairy products, cookies, donuts, all that good comfort food kind of stuff. It’s only open on Tuesdays and Fridays, and you have to go early or else they run out of your favorite cinnamon granola, or goats milk yogurt, in Hugh’s case.) So we went there for granola, yogurt, banana bread, and a donut, then a 20 minute walk from there to the Dispensa Familia, the equivolent of a grocery store where we can actually take a basket and walk down aisles to pick out what we want, though that privilege comes with an armed guard. That’s where we get our basics- oil, pasta, pancake mix. They don’t sell very many (or good) vegetables or meat. Then to the market for vegetables, where prices seem to be going up (It’s not just in America, and it’s not just because I’m a stupid gringo they can take advantage of.) Then the sidewalk outside for fruit, then Xelac for butter and cheese, home to drop it all off, and I went to Xelapan for sandwich bread, muffins, rolls, and cookies. I feel like it wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t involve so much walking through car exhaust. It’s bad enough that grocery shopping takes something like 2 or more hours, if you do all of it at once, and that you have to walk a couple miles if you want to visit the Mennonites (it’s worth it) but by the time you get home, you feel like you need to take a shower with steel wool to scrub all the tar out of your skin. Not to mention the physical effects of breathing all of that in. It’s pretty awful. We’re going to need to go on a serious detox when we get back.