Porch View

This is the view to the northeast from my porch. When storms roll into Tactic, which they do rather quickly and rather frequently, they almost always come from this direction. So when I see clouds like these, I know it will be probably be raining within the next 20 minutes, if not sooner. Unfortunately, the clouds are much slower to leave than they are to arrive.

Market Day in Tactic

This is a short time lapsed video I took from on top of the municipal building of the center of Tactic on a market day.

Please Stop the Music

Life is lived at full volume in Guatemala. We were issued a warning and a pair of earplugs in training.

During nearly every moment of the day and night, there is something to disturb the would be tranquility: packs of wild dogs barking, promotional vehicles blaring announcements over loudspeakers, rain beating down on lámina, roosters crowing, buses honking their horns, evangelical churches rocking out, turkeys gobbling, mufflerless motorcycles and trucks zooming past, fireworks exploding, marching bands practicing, and neighbors blasting music.

But you get accustomed to the constant noise. After over a year and a half here I have gotten to the point that I can block out almost anything. Almost.

The other morning I was awoken at 4:30 a.m. to the sound of ranchera music—an accordion laden genre with polka like, bum-bum-bum-bum beats. It’s not the manner in which anyone wants to wake up, and I certainly was not in a pleasant mood. The music was so loud it was if someone put a stereo in my living room and turned it on full blast. I tried to block it out and go back to sleep, but it was impossible.

So in a very un-Guatemalan-like approach, I decided to confront the problem head on. I threw on a few more layers of clothing and went out into the cold to locate the source of my morning torture. The culprit was not difficult to pinpoint. Five houses up the block from mine at a house set back 25 feet on a small hill, a family had set up a 6+ foot speaker outside the house facing the street.

A woman was in front of the speaker washing something in the pila, and I stood in the street and fumed. Unnoticed, I waited until the current track finished. In the brief moment of calm silence, I screamed, “Turn down the music!” Startled, the woman briefly looked at me and then went into the house. I remained in the empty street for a little while longer, waiting for the woman to come back out so I could deliver a rousing speech on respect and courtesy. But I knew it was not worth it. I went home.

It was another 45 minutes until they finally shut the music off. I was tempted to go back and yell again, and I also considered calling the police. Apparently there are noise violation laws in Guatemala, but I highly doubt anyone has ever actually been ticketed. It would consume all of Tactic’s police department’s time if they actually started enforcing these laws, and well, they are too busy fishing body parts out of the river and keeping 1,500 person mobs from lynching people to make sure that everyone turns down his or her stereo. And I didn’t want the family to do any Mayan rituals using my hair (it happened to a nearby volunteer in a similar situation).

I am the only person who told that family to turn down their music that morning. I am probably the only person who has ever told them to turn down their music. It is extremely unlikely that anyone on my block, or the next one over for that matter, was able to sleep through that noise, and yet no one did anything.

Tolerance has its merits, but only to an extent. Unfortunately, and not just in dealing with rude neighbors, most Guatemalans can be extremely passive. And this passivity just makes them victims to be walked on. Corrupt leaders steal money and run an association into the ground, and the members won’t take action to stop it. My friend Kelly was on a camioneta when a speaker fell on a man’s face, and although he was bleeding, was it not for her prompting, he would not have said anything. And someone wakes up the whole neighborhood blaring music at 4:30 a.m., and everyone just stays in his or her house to wait it out.

Paradoxically, though, Guatemala is also a country of lynch mobs and tire burning protests. Perhaps it is the epitome of passive aggressiveness. I am sure this behavior has its roots in years of oppression, the war, lack of education and lack of self-esteem, but it seems the individual will not act until sufficient individuals have been pushed to the boiling point, and they collectively snap together. The individual feels powerless and is therefore passive, but as a part of a group he or she is empowered to air grievances.

And me. I just want to have a peaceful night’s sleep.

Pruning?

My beautiful orange tree a couple of months ago.

After the first "pruning" session.

My poor orange tree now.

This is considered pruning?

Vomit Comet

A small boat designed to be used on rivers serves as the ferry between La Ceiba on the mainland of Honduras to the island of Utila. Utila sits 18 miles off the coast, and the ferry ride should take 45 minutes to an hour. Should. Our trip was not quite so short and far from pleasant.

It was overcast and a bit windy when we departed in the morning, but we had no idea the journey in store for us. Not too long after we left the dock, the boat began to be tossed around rather forcefully by the waves. I have been on many boats and never before have I been seasick, but only 10 to 20 minutes into the trip I started to feel nauseous.

I closed my eyes, put my head between my legs, and practically remained in that position for the duration of the trip. It’s a good thing too, because I wasn’t the only one feeling seasick. One of the ferry workers sole job was to hand out plastic bags to the soon-to-be pukers, and he was a very busy man. People began to vomit on all sides of me, and it took all of my concentration to prevent myself from doing the same. I knew if I saw vomit there was no holding it back.

When I first became nauseous, Kelly, Mosiah, and Dave all still felt fine, but not long after Kelly was in the same state as me. However, it wasn’t Kelly or I out of our group who ended up losing his or her breakfast. That proud distinction goes to Mosiah.

All the while Kelly and I were hunched over, Mosiah and Dave were chatting away completely unaffected. But when the soaked seasick hippies, who at the beginning of the trip thought it would be fun to ride outside the covered cabin, came inside, they zipped off the area to keep out the waves and rain. Enclosing the cabin had the unfortunate effect of blocking the breeze that had been wafting the odor of vomit out of the back of the boat.

Sitting in stagnant vomit scented air, Mosiah succumbed. He felt the urge coming, so he already had a barf bag in hand. But unfortunately it was a defective bag, and when he vomited it broke through the bottom splashing half digested chocolate Dunkin’ Donuts and coffee on his feet and those of the people sitting next to him. (And we were so excited about finding a Dunkin’ Donuts, because there aren’t any in Guatemala.) Fortunately I was spared the sight of all of this as Kelly was yelling, “Don’t look up! Whatever you do don’t look up!”

By the time we reached Utila an hour and a half after departing, nearly half the passengers on the ferry had vomited. The caretakers of our beach house met us at the dock and informed us that the ferry has the well-earned nickname of the “vomit comet.” Appropriate. Very appropriate indeed.

Utila

American drug patrols.
Captain Hal.

Peace Corps vs. Corporate Scum

The joy of scuba diving.

A local with his macaw.

Who's malcriado?

On the way to Utila after a long day’s travel, Kelly, Mosiah, and I arrived in La Ceiba (a costal city where you have to catch the ferry to the island) late in the afternoon. The hostel where we were staying had a common room with a television and a DVD player. We decided to just relax and watch a movie while waiting for the other members of our party to arrive. Unfortunately the DVD player was of inferior quality and would start the DVD over from the beginning any time we tried to make changes. After two frustrating attempts to watch Seven Pounds, we had finally got the picture and sound set at desired levels and were 30 minutes into the movie, when a little Honduran boy walked up to the television and hit the eject button on the DVD player.

Assuming the DVD player would once again start from the beginning, Kelly and I snapped. The boy was probably only around eight-years-old, but that did not stop us from yelling at him. “What are you doing?” “Get away from there!” “We are watching a movie!” And Kelly even pulled out, “¡Eres malcriado!” and shot a glance at the child’s mother who was standing in the back of the room. (To call someone malcriado in Spanish is a very strong thing to say here, and it basically means, “You are poorly raised.”) Without saying a word, the boy left and went back into his room.

We started watching the movie again, which fortunately started at the same part it was on before it was ejected. There was about an hour to an hour and a half of the movie left, and when it finished the boy’s sister came over to the DVD player. We assumed they wanted the children’s movie we had taken out earlier, so we showed her where it was. She just looked at us and said, “No, the DVD player is ours.” Oh.

The Honduran family was leaving the hostel, and they had to wait over an hour for us to finish the movie so they could take their DVD player with them. Their bags were already packed, and the moment their daughter picked up the DVD player they were heading out the door. We felt terrible, and in a I’m-sorry-we-are-jerks gesture, Mosiah helped carry their belongings down the stairs. But in our defense, we had no idea that was their DVD player. The boy didn’t say a word, and the parents, who saw us yelling at him, didn’t say anything either. And who sets up their own DVD player in the living room of a hostel? Yeah, I am just trying to make myself fell better.

Feeshin' nawght cawchtin'

During our first days in Utila it was rainy and overcast, which greatly limited our outdoor activities. But since we were staying at a gorgeous house right on the beach, the uncooperative weather did not ruin our vacation. We played endless games of Scrabble, Risk, and cards. We watched TV and read books. We had family style dinners each night.

When the sun came out for the second half of the trip, we had our days scheduled with outdoor activities.

The house came with a set of horseshoes and bocce balls. Bocce is a game in which you throw shot put sized balls at a smaller ball. Points are awarded to the team whose balls are the closest. We had a Peace Corps (Kelly, Mosiah, and I) versus Corporate Scum (Drew, Dave, and Sean) match. It came down to the last throw in a best 2 out of 3 series, but good triumphed over evil, and we won.

One day we hiked around the island to find some caves. For some reason we assumed these caves would have light filtering in, and we brought two flashlights (Kelly’s headlamp that’s batteries hadn’t been changed for a long time and a small flashlight that was found a hostel) “just in case.” There were two weak flashlights between the six of us, and it was a real cave with no natural light that apparently people die in every year. Despite being ill-prepared, we crawled through the tight spaces until reaching the bottom where the cave opened up enough to be able to stand. Kelly made it through the toughest part, but then claustrophobia and the fear that the battery on the headlamp would run out hit, and she left in a panic (I am proud you made it as far as you did, Kelly). Mosiah went back out with Kelly, and the rest of us stayed to explore the river flowing through the bottom of the cave. Fortunately the only causality of our spelunking adventure was Drew’s camera.

Another day we hired a guy to take us out in a boat to one of the numerous cays off the coast of Utila. Almost all of the cays around Utila are privately owned, but one, Water Cay, is open to visitors. There is not a single building on this minuscule island, just coconut trees and white sands. Our water taxi dropped us off in the morning and then came back to get us in the afternoon. We were the only people on the island for the day, and we spent it snorkeling around the nearby reef and relaxing on the beach. I again tried to fulfill my lifetime goal of being able to climb a coconut tree, and I again failed. Someday.

It came down to our last day on Utila, and I had the opportunity to either go scuba diving or fishing. I love both, but I had a very strong desire to fish, so I went with that option. Mosiah, Sean, and Drew all went scuba diving while Kelly, Dave, and I went fishing. We chose poorly. Capitan Hal warned us before going out that, “De cawl it feeshin’ nawght cawchtin’,” and he was certainly correct with his maxim. We spent four hours fishing, and zero seconds catching. The experience would not have been so miserable had it not been windy, overcast, and cold. Since we were trolling, we drove around in circles for hours shivering while getting hit with waves and holding huge fishing poles. To add insult to injury, we when finally called it quits and headed back to shore, we reeled in one of the lines only to find that the lure had been bitten off. I suppose it greatly reduces your chances of catching anything when there is nothing on the end of the line. But we did see a sea turtle and a group of American helicopters patrolling for drugs, although I would have much rather have caught a fish.

Dangerous Men

One of Mosiah's friends who met us in Honduras understood a bit of Spanish but was not quite fluent. He thought this sign, which was located on the desolate road between the town on Utila and our beach house, said "Dangerous Men." Just a friendly warning to keep an eye out for any unsavory characters who might be lurking in the bushes.

The Beach House

Ocean view from the deck.

Mo & Kelly in the kitchen setting up a game of Risk.

The house from the ocean.

Nighttime fisherman.

Banda de la playa

Mo: The birthday boy.

Kelly: The international terrorist...

...disguised as an innocent PCV.

Kate: The coco provider.
Dave, Sean, & Drew: The fearless spelunkers.

The whole Utila beach crew.