Fronted By Love

So, 2010, I’m trying not to ponder life so linearly, and here you are challenging me to think chronologically. Well, the world is not chronological. Yes, we all “see” chronology on a clock, but there are still the billions of perceptions of time that affect even the linear perception! Anyhow, whatever 2010. I love you. You’re a big deal to me. Especially since you shared with me:

• The death of my mother in February. The most profound sense of loss I’ve ever felt. But, the silver lining is all of her light being released to the Universe. She lives in you, she lives in me.
• Quitting teaching, a profession I’ve had a love/hate relationship with for nearly 20 years. Who needs hate in their life? Time for something different.
• Living in Guatemala for nine weeks. Simply, one of the best learning experiences of my life. I will always look upon that time and the people I met there with incredible nostalgia.
• Establishing a relationship with God/Goddess/The Universe/InsertNameHere. As a lifelong agnostic/atheist, this is rather significant. This has been clearly marked by the death of my mother and I continue to learn what it means to me. Still, in spite of being unemployed and without health insurance and unsure what 2011 holds, I have an inner peace that’s always been missing from my life. I’m not claiming to know much on a higher power and I’m still wary of the motives of organized religion, but I’m wholly convinced that God = Love. No room for judgment or fear. Just a simple mantra to approach everything in life from the side of love, and it’ll make the world/my world a better place. Whether to believe in the external power of prayer or not, the conscious act of sending love out makes me feel better. So I’m trying to be more conscious of it and more regular in my actions. Here are my hot prayer topics for 2011:
• Clean water for everyone--check out water.org
• Women’s rights, gay rights, animal rights--the more respect we have for our fellow earthlings, the less fear there will be
• Finding sustainable, clean energy to power us all
• Peace on earth--there’s a lot to be said for making love and not war and we have to believe it’s possible

There you go, 2011. I have faith in your possibilities.

That’s where we’re going

That’s what we’re doing

That’s how we’re feeling

Fronted by love

I'm Home...Now What?

I guess I'm not quite done here. I like writing about my life occasionally, so I'll probably keep this up. Thanks to everyone who kept up with my Guatemalan adventure. It was really good for my soul and I feel like it's given me some great perspective. I'm not done with adventures!
I'm a list maker, so here's today's "Pepe's Transition" list:

• One of the first things I did when I got home was take a shower. A nice, long, hot, shower. I think the world would be a perfect place if everyone on the planet could afford this luxury.
• I went and played some basketball today, or at least some shooting around and running up and down the court. I really love that sport and had missed it. I haven't done anything aerobic in months, so it was fantastic to be out in the sun and to sweat. When I got home, I took a cold shower. It sure is great to have alternatives.
• I really need to stop converting prices here into Quetzals or I'll go crazy thinking about how expensive everything is.
• I've been loving my milk and cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day. But I am actually starting to miss beans. Not to worry--I'm going to a Mexican restaurant tonight with friends.
• I feel like I'm losing my Spanish already. So I've been keeping the Spanish-language channels on in the background, hoping for some osmosis at least. MUST KEEP WORKING ON IT!
• I now find US money to be boring. The bills are all the same colors and the coins are tiny. I don't have the other Quetzal bills with me, but they're different colors and the Quetzal coin is nice and big and lets you know where it is when you need it. The other coins are fairly worthless, but so is the penny.

That's today's "Pepe's Transition" list. If I may jump on my soapbox though, I'll jump to a "Pepe's Hopes for the Planet" list. These aren't breakthrough ideas, but my time in Guatemala has made these thoughts stronger for me:

• Water for everyone. Like I said before, a planet where everyone can enjoy a hot shower would be ideal. For now, let's just try to get free, clean drinking water to places that don't have it. The privatization of water is a bad idea, allowing for corporate greed to control something that everyone should have access to. Watch the documentary Blue Gold for more perspective. And ease up on bottled water--enjoy your tap water while you've got it!
• We need to stop producing so many humans. Hey, I'm gay so I'm doing my part! But overpopulation contributes greatly to poverty. There's a guy in Thailand, known a Mr. Condom, who has helped reduce birth rates in that country dramatically. Also, we need to get religions on board with this idea if it's really going to work, because of its influence in this world.
• Close the gap between the rich and the poor. I'm convinced that people try to make the best of the life they're given. Our actual needs are small--food, water, shelter. After that, it's the little things, ya know? So I would never say that rich=happy and poor=sad. But when there are such huge discrepancies in countries, when a hard day's work means a mansion for one person and barely a meal for another, the idea of fairness should start kicking in. Another documentary recommendation for you: The End of Poverty? Greed is a strong human emotion. We need corporations with a conscious. At some point, we have to realize that maximizing profits ultimately only helps the people at the top and sacrifices people at the bottom.
• Get off oil. We're going to have to harness the power of the Sun. Somehow, some way. As places like Guatemala become more developed, energy becomes even more important. Oil isn't going to cut it for much longer.
• Free education for all. There are too many kids in the world that don't go to school at all. There are too many kids that don't get to have much of a childhood because they do nothing but work, particularly girls. Education is the best equalizer around.
• Women's/gay/human rights. There are still a lot of the places in the world where being a straight male automatically gives you power. We're only as good as how we treat other people.

Okay, I'm off my soap box. Did I mention that I'm looking for a job? I need to find one just so I can take a break from watching depressing documentaries. But it's important to know the world!

The Home Stretch

Things have been pretty tranquilo the last couple of weeks. It’s my last week in Guatemala and it’s funny, because I wish I had a stronger sense of sadness about it. But the truth is, I can’t wait to get home. In a poorly timed twist of fate, Scott gets on a plane for Switzerland at the same time I get on my plane back to LA. In spite of missing him for two extra weeks, I look forward to the small things: a bowl of cereal (oh how I miss milk and real ice cream), my couch (I’m sure it’s missed me too), my television (though I am vowing to spend half of my television watching time on the Spanish-language channels), my car (I grew up in Michigan; cars are an integral part of my existence!) I’m also starting to get preoccupied with my future existence. I came to Guatemala to work on my Spanish and to experience another culture. Check and check. But it’s also felt a lot like a long vacation and it’s time to get back to work. Of course, I need to find a job and also figure out if I’m going back to grad school.

I’ve also started to reflect on my time here and a question I’ve been asking folks here is: Is Guatemala a “Third World” country? I guess that’s not really the correct term though. I think nowadays, it’s more appropriate to label it a developing country. It certainly has a lot of developing to do. Last week, I got to see one of the public middle schools here, and it’s in a pretty sad state.
My friend Mike volunteered to teach English at the school for a month. You can’t see it in this picture, but the room is pretty decrepit. There’s graffiti all over the walls and desks, the lights barely work, the students don’t have books, and it’s generally pretty dirty.
The kids were very amable, but the school seems to be pretty loose with its rules and regulations. There were 35 kids on the roll for this class, but only about 20 were actually in the room. My teacher tells me that the private schools are much better, but frankly not very many people can afford them.

I’m going to do one more “reflections” post when I get home next week, but this is all I’ve got for now. This is my last day in Xela, so tonight is going to be a big fiesta with my amigos. Tomorrow morning I head to Guatemala City to check that out a bit, then I fly to my Home, Sweet Home Saturday night. Count your blessings, y’all!

Drag Completes Me

It was a relatively quiet week after the all the Independence day celebrations and the travel to Lago Atitlan last weekend. Until last night. It was a chill Friday night, but when we saw the flyer for the Miss Gay National pageant at the gay bar in Xela, our Saturday night plans were set. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t really a national event, since most gay life in Guatemala is in the capital 200 miles away. There were only three girls competing in front of a crowd of maybe 40 people, and our group was 12 of those. I’ve seen a lot of drag in my life and I can be pretty cynical about it, so my expectations were low. But I have to say, those girls brought it. Their outfits were crazy fun, their dancing was fab, and they had great props.
 
Sorry for the poor quality, but here’s one of the queens being brought into the bar on a motorcycle. They each performed to a couple of different songs and finally last year’s winner crowned the new one. Afterwards, around 1:30 am, the police came knocking on the door because bars are supposed to close at one here. Everyone in the bar had to be quiet for about 10 minutes and apparently the police went away. The party resumed and we were assured that this was normal. Hopefully that’s as close to getting arrested that I’ll encounter in Guatemala.

Some more pictures:
 
The light reading I’m doing here. It’s challenging vocabulary, so I keep the dictionary close by at all times, but I’m pretty happy with my reading comprehension in general.
My maestra Lily and me sitting on the roof of the school with Santa Maria in the background. She’s awesome and a really great teacher. When you spend four hours a day with someone, you really get to know them. We share a very similar world view and she’s taught me a lot about the culture here too. Of the locals, I’ll miss her the most.
This is the longest set of firecrackers I’ve ever seen and it took about five minutes to finish, filling the entire street with smoke. Fiestas never really end here, so there was yet another celebration at Parque Central that we checked out. Some religious day that again brought out a parade of bands, and of course, firecrackers. This country is obsessed with firecrackers. It’s not unusual for them to go off outside of my bedroom window at six in the morning. Apparently, before that would be rude.
I’m drinking some $.50 freshly-squeezed orange juice. There’s a woman that cleans the school and her kids help out too. Her son Miguel, who is 15 and very sweet, spends most of his day in front of the school making orange juice, so I buy some from him almost every day. He works there in the morning, then takes classes in the afternoon.

I have two weeks left of classes and I’m pretty ready to go home. The rain has started back up and it’s relentless. Still, I can already tell that I’ll treasure this experience, so I’m going to soak up (sorry, bad pun) as much I can for these last two weeks.

17,000 and some words

The weather’s actually been gorgeous here for the past week. I’m not gonna spend too much time here writing, so here are some pictures and captions of my last week. (Of course, as I'm about to post this, the rain begins...sigh...)


Tuesday night, streets of Xela. The festivities were in full swing for Guatemala’s Independence Day on Wednesday the 15th. Bands were in the streets most of the night.


Tuesday night, Parque Central. The festivities continue. People were everywhere. I left around 1:30 am, being the old guy I am. Reports say the streets didn’t start clearing until 4 am.


I like my name, but I didn’t buy any.


There was a pretty good fireworks show at midnight.


The spirit of my boyfriend was here too.


Wednesday afternoon. No classes and most places were closed, so we cooked out and hung out on the roof of the school all day.


Tuesday afternoon. People are lining up for the parade. They love love love parades here. There were about five of them leading up to Independence Day. They also love beauty pageants and Maria de Xela spent hours watching them on TV.


Thursday night. Finally, the fair! It was miles of vendors selling everything under the sun, cheap games, and tons of food, of course. The rides were pretty much the same as any fair. They didn’t have any livestock or biggest pumpkin contests, but that stuff’s not hard to find.


I still like my name, but I didn’t play.


The Ferris Wheel of Death. Usually, ferris wheels aren’t thrill rides. This is a picture of the ferris wheel in motion. The lack of focus isn’t my camera’s fault this time. Powered by a car engine, this is the fastest ferris wheel I’ve ever seen. It goes forwards and backwards at a ridiculous speed. Of course I had to ride it.


Kristyn and I after riding the ferris wheel. Wary, but grateful to be alive.


Naked pictures of women advertising the ride. Gotta love Guatemala.


Friday til Sunday. Lago Atitlan, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s a lake at an altitude of 5,000 feet, surrounded by mountains over 10,000 feet. We stayed at this awesome place, Mikaso Hotel, owned by some young French-Canadiens. If you visit Guatemala, go there.


You can sorta see the rainbow in the middle of this picture.


Another view from the terrace of the hotel.


Annie and I rented motorcycles Friday afternoon and drove for 2.5 hours around the lake to the hotel instead of taking the 30 minute boat shuttle. We drove through mountains and had to deal with impending darkness, fog with light rain, and horrible roads. We made it safely there. Unfortunately, on the way back, I had some trouble with a road made of loose rocks and laid my bike down. I was fine and the bike was mostly fine, except a big dent in the gas tank that would cost me $350. That supersucked, but it was still worth it.


So, as I mentioned, the roads are awful. Here’s a mudslide we had to traverse. Traffic was stopped and I thought we weren’t going to be allowed through. I forgot that this is Guatemala and everything is at-your-own-risk. Only motorcycles and four-wheel drive trucks were making it through.

That’s my week. It was crazy and fun and awful, all at the same time. I’m feeling quite poor now, so the adventures will have to come cheaply. But that shouldn’t be a problem here.

Worth the Pain?

Vale la pena? Unfortunately, my crappy camera doesn’t quite capture how amazingly gorgeous this view is. It just took every last bit of my willpower to get there. The volcanoes and mountains of Central American offer some of the best hiking around. Much of the terrain is manageable for amateurs and relatively safe. Volcan Tajumulco, at nearly 14,000 feet is the tallest peak in Central America, thus one of the most popular hikes here. A group of 17 people from my school, led by one maestro, decided to make the journey to the top of Central America to see Sunday’s sunrise. Since I love to go to the tops of things, I jumped at the opportunity. The plan was to leave Xela at 10:00 PM Saturday, arrive at the base at 1:00 AM, hike for 4 hours to the top, wait for sunrise, then hike back down and head home.

First, since I failed to bring a winter hat or gloves to the tropics, I had to rent some. There’s a group here in Xela called Quetzaltrekkers that does weekly hikes to various local volcanoes. They have lots of warm clothing to rent. We could have gone with them also. They were leaving Saturday morning and planned to camp on the mountain for the night, then wake up to catch the sunrise. But we planned to hike up Saturday night and avoid carry the camping gear. I tried taking a nap Saturday afternoon, but I guess I was too excited, so that didn’t happen. So off we went at 10 Saturday night. We had a couple of private shuttle vans take us to the base of the mountain. The trip took about two-and-half hours and since we were driving on Guatemalan roads, there would be no sleeping on the way either. I wasn’t worried though, I was feeling great.

We arrived at the base, probably about a mile below the summit altitude-wise and several miles of trails to the top. We all bundled up, gathered our flashlights, water and snacks, and joyfully started our ascent on schedule at 1 in the morning. We were fortunate that it didn’t rain, except for some spitting now and then, as we didn’t have to worry about the cold nearly as much. Our leader had told us to all keep together, so with 17 people of different hiking ability, it made it slow. The first hour was almost entirely a dirt road. Why we couldn’t have driven up that far, I’m not sure, but it was pretty easy. Then we got into a meadow, which switched to a forest, which switched to another meadow, which switched to another forest, which switched to another meadow. We were now about 2.5 hours into the hike and we had a beautiful view of the lights of the surrounding towns below, plus we could see the top of the volcano. It still looked far away, mostly because it was. The temperature had dropped to the 30s, but I was sweating. Still, I started to notice the lack of sleep. My legs were beginning to burn a bit. The altitude was making me feel drunk. And the terrain was getting steeper. There were a couple of people who would have preferred to stop right there, but most of the group maintained a go-get-em attitude.

The next 1.5 hours finally produced some casualties. It had been four hours of hiking and we were supposed to be at the summit already, but we still weren’t really close. About seven people couldn’t go on anymore, but that wasn’t going to stop the rest of us. We didn’t manage to stay together, fracturing off into smaller groups. There was a group ahead of me, and a group behind me. I was exhausted, but determined. Eventually, Raji and I were on our own. She was the wind beneath my wings. Around 6 am, the sun started to come up and we were close to the top. Due to the clouds, it wasn’t quite as spectacular as it could have been, but it was amazing. Finally, around 6:15, we joined another group at the top, and the other group was right behind us.
It’s tough to tell, but that’s the horizon meeting the Pacific Ocean behind us, about 150 miles away. It was freakin’ cold up there though, so we didn’t bask in the beauty for too long. We all reconvened just down the mountain and ate some banana/apple/yogurt breakfast. My old legs were not happy that I was still walking on them, but we couldn’t wait to get back to the vans. The hike down took about 2.5 hours and by the end of it, even the young people were exhausted and bitching.

I’d have to say it was the most difficult physical activity I’ve ever done. I had completely underestimated how difficult it would be. Particularly since I had a similar view just two months ago in Hawaii. A volcano that Scott and I drove up. But I’m also proud of myself for doing it. I was so tired when we got back to the vans that I slept most of the way back to Xela. I got home around noon, showered, and only allowed myself to sleep for three hours, before getting up and getting some food. I did nothing but watch the Twilight series in Spanish all day. (I’d kill myself to have to watch them in English, but they’re really good in Spanish because the dialogue is slow and basic And I’m totally on team Jacob!) I still haven’t made it to the fair yet, but tomorrow is Guatemalan Independence Day, so it’ll be spectacular. My legs are still sore, but it’s a good sore, ya know?

Halftime

Yesterday was my mediotiempo here. Four-and-a-half weeks down, four-and-a-half to go. On one hand, it feels more like it's been four-and-a-half years. On the other hand, I think I was hugging my Boo at the airport, I blinked like Samantha from Bewitched, and time fast-forwarded to now. Conversely, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever make it back to LA, but I’m sure it’ll feel like just another blink when it’s all done. Also, I took something of a midterm exam, not for a grade or anything, but just to check in on my progress. Alas, I’m still depressed about how much Spanish I don’t know. I think I’m going to vote that the rest of the world should have to learn English for the sake of my brain. Where's that ballot?

One of the pastimes of some maestros here is ping pong. There’s a table at the school and this group of four plays doubles every day. Thus, they’re really good.
Now, I’m not a great ping pong player, but I can usually hold my own with most people. Not with these guys. They don’t really like playing against me because they’re so bored by it. I haven’t been this beaten down since I’d play against the Chinese kids in my college dorm. (Yes, Daryl/Steve, you usually beat me, but not 21-5!) I think I’m just going to have to live with being a Pepe of all trades, master of none.

Annie de LA and I went to brunch a couple of weeks back. Here’s the menu.
We both ordered a number four, of course. Even though it’s pretty much the same meal I get from Maria de Xela nearly every day. It was yummy and filling, naturally. Speaking of Maria de Xela, I still love her, but I’m not as enamored with her cooking anymore. While I really like all of the food, it’s pretty much the same every single day. Mush with banana or corn flakes, one huevo, frijoles, and tortillas for breakfast. Arroz, pasta, this potato-like vegetable called guisquil, tortillas, and either broccoli or chicken for lunch. Carb heaven! Dinner is more frijoles, tortillas, and platanos. Again, all stuff that I like, but can a gringo get a burger once in a while? I'm kidding. Mostly. It’s a good thing I’m a creature of habit myself. Occasionally, I buy banana bread or other pan to take a break from tortillas and I occasionally hit up different restaurants, like the one from the picture. And in spite of the ingredients, I couldn’t pass up the chapin desayuno.

Maria de Xela likes having a man around and I try to help out where I can. I removed a big rock from her garden. I change the agua pura bottle in the house. I kill gigantic flying insects in the house. I removed the old TV from the shelf and put up her new one. One little problem with that--when I reconnected the old cable wire, the connector was messed up and the TV wasn’t very clear. She thought the problem was with her cable company, but the TV just needed a new a cable. So I bought her one, thinking it’d be an easy fix. The cable from the TV goes outside to a connector. Problem one: I couldn’t unscrew the rusted connector and I needed a wrench. Which she doesn’t have. The next day, she had borrowed a wrench and I proceeded to switch out the cables. Problem two: the cable connector wouldn’t fit through the hole in the wall. So I had to cut the connector to remove the old cable, cut the connector on the new cable to put it through the wall, and reattach the connector inside the house. Finally, one day and one hour later, I got them connected and gracias a dios it worked. Unfortunately, now she thinks I’m some kind of handyman, which should be making you laugh right now. Her phone wasn’t working last week and she dragged me up to the terrace to look at the phone wires there. I didn’t see any problems. Fortunately the phone started working soon thereafter. Then the other day, she pointed out to me how her faucet is leaking. Since this is clearly out of my league, I just shrugged and returned to eating my tortilla and frijoles.

I’m not sure if anyone is watching world news, but all that rain I was complaining about last week is killing people. The big highway from Guatemala City to Xela, that’s less than five years old, is washed out in various places. Basically, I think they didn’t really have the money to properly build a highway on the side of a rainy mountain region in the the first place, and now they’re paying for it all over again, but now with lives. The school was supposed to receive about 10 new students on Sunday, but most of them were stuck in Guatemala City. Eventually, they all made it here, taking alternate routes that lasted 12 hours instead of the normal four via the highway. Oh, and it’s still the rainy season here for two more months.

On a brighter note, September 15th is, along with the cumpleaños de mi hermana, Guatemala’s Independence Day. The big event here in Xela is a week-long fair. I’m super-excited about this, and I hope the weather will cooperate a bit. Having grown up with the Ionia Free Fair, me gusta mucho fairs. Plus, I missed the Orange County and LA County fairs this year. I’m terribly curious about it and I’ll make sure to recap and post some pictures next week.

Besos y’all.