So, a week´s gone by

So far, things are going pretty well. I started volunteering today with a women´s weaving collective called Trama, which was started after the civil war, when countless indigenous women were left alone (thanks to the systematic violence of the government troops) and impoverished because of the violence. WHat they did in response was form a weaving collective and school as a means of economic and social support. We´ll be seeing what things they need me to do.

In addition, this Saturday I will start tutoring a local with his English. He´s fluent, he just needs help with vocabulary and whathaveyou. Sounds fun.

Currently we´re trying out a local apartment with one American roommate, and the rest are all Guatemalan. That swhould hopefully mean some degree of authenticity. So far it´s alright, everyone seems nice for the most part, and they tend to be quite social, it appears. There are a few problems, however. Everyone seems to be allergic to washing their dishes, and the sink is therfore rendered absolutely disgusting. On top of that, on occasion the water goes out, and, as has been the case in the rest of Xela, we lose power pretty much every day for some time. Apparently the government of Xela is trying to fix shit and that means some parts of the city lose power at different parts of the day. Who knows what they´re up to...

Weird things have happened, mainly related to drama at the hostel where we were staying until recently. Mostly resulting in two people who are mentally unstable to begin with going completely batshit. The first guy, César, I didn´t know very well, so I will refer you to latinamericanrompings.blogspot.com to get the lowdown about this dude.

The second incident involved a whacked out old American thinking someone stole some of his food and WIGGING THE FUCK OUT at the poor little Mayan women who work at the hostel. IN response, our good friend Pablo tried to be like, "you don´t talk to them this way." So cantankerous bastard tries to start some shit with Pablo, and Pablo´s all, you´re old man, I´m not going to start with you...

I met the old guy at Vrisa books and he seemed semireasonable, but when you´re in a bookstore talking about Hunter S. Thompson and Kerouac with a bunch of old Gonzo beatniks, we´re on the same page because we´re only talking about one thing.

Old Bastard gets back to the hostel and starts screaming for Pablo, challenging him to a fight. All the guys in the hostel did what we could to prevent it, and nothing happened. They called the owner, and the curmudgeonly gringo was kicked out...but came back later that night and moved out the next morning. Good riddance....

Also, WEIRDEST thing in the world happened to me when I was looking for this place that apparently hires gringos. I walk into a tienda and asked where it was. The lady (wrongly) said that the restaurant didn´t exist. I thanked them, we did the whole "Adios/chau" thing, and there was this large Guatemalan fellow in the tienda, looked kind of like he could have been a professional wrestler, really excitedly says "chau," proceds to do the handshake/high five combo, then the handshake/highfive combo into the one armed hug, then to the full-on bear-hug that ended in being shaken up and down, before being officially welcomed to Guatemala.

It took me a few minutes to recover from that one, and after inspection, realized that he was really just a genuinely friendly guy really excited to welcome a gringo to his country. I was kind of happy.

We also said goodbye to Pablo, mainly by making a big dinner (complete with liquor filled pineapples) and a T-shirt we all signed that said "I Love Gringos". So that was fun.

As I said further up, we recently moved into an apartment. It´s alright. THey´re fun dudes and came to the Nuevos Horizontes benefit Halloween party.

Ah, yes, the Halloween party. I was sad not to be back in the states for Halloween because apparently both the Catholics AND the Evangelicals here had officially denounced the holiday. We need a pagan revival here, this religious psychosis (majority Evangelical) has got to go.

But, Halloween was fun. Nuevos Horizontes, the first battered women´s shelter in Guatemala, held a benefit party. Me and Michelle went dressed as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, so that was lots of fun. Lots of cool costumes, met some really cool people there. Including a fantastic Fidel Castro, and an amazing Penguin, and my friend Chris as the most amazing Michael Phelps you can imagine. Also, when you put fresh fruit in a spiked fruit punch, it soaks up all the alcohol...

Anyway, we move on to Día de los Muertos. Me and Michelle, yesterday morning, went to the graveyard in Xela to dig the festivities.

First of all, there´s one graveyard for the whole bloody city. It´s HUGE, and the way they bury their dead puts ours to shame. I saw minipyramids, people, and miniature cathedrals!!!!

So, we walked around, and getting through the street to the cemetary was made difficult by the transport of every market vendor and beggar in the city to this one artery to the cemetary. Once in, however, we were rewarded by a great big field with lots of room to roam around...

And watch people sweep old stuff off of the graves (the tombs are kind of above ground), putting new stuff on to make it pretty, and just generally hanging out and keeping the graves nice-looking. Some people were actually eating at the graves, I guess, to be with family.

Another interesting part of the festivities was the presence of lots of children running around flying kites. Apparently it´s all part of the tradition. Meanwhile, on our way back to the town center, amidst nearly getting knocked over by women shorter than Michelle with baskets on their heads, we ran into our friend Julia, from the hostel. She´s a Swiss girl, who is working at a clinic, and apparently the family of people she works with gave her a full-on Mayan woman outfit, so she was walking around dressed up as a genuine Mayan Woman!!!! This tall, blonde Anglo-European person, dressed as a MAYAN! It was almost hilarious!

Then, later yesterday, my life got even weirder, as someone I recognized from AU but hadn´t met until yesterday, walked in and sat down. I´d seen him pretty consistently since my freshman year, and the introduction was appropriately awkward. Oh well, there´s a new contact in Xela that can become advantageous.

As for the rest of yesterday and today, there´s not too much that can be said. I´ve been trying to change damaged 100 Quetzal bills after I put them in my shoe to prevent theft...I´ve already changed 2, with two to go. In addition to that, I´ve been reading from Hunter S. Thompson´s The Great Shark Hunt whenever I can, which means whenver the city doesn´t kill the power, which is a collection of lots of published and unpublished pieces from the journalistic aspect of his career. I find it fantastically entertaining and interesting. It´s also long, which is good.

Anyway, that´s it for now. My Habitat for Humanity position should be starting soon, and hopefully I´ll actually teach English next week instead of getting left out of the loop by the school´s brainless, dickless director. He´s kind of a schmuck, but if he´s going to pay me, I´m okay with it. We´ll see.