Happy Halloween

or Christmas.

Holgazán

Mapache's two favorite sleeping positions:

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

It’s October 29th. 80 degrees in the shade. And as I write workers are putting the finishing touches on the Gallo Christmas tree in the park. Are we jumping the gun?

Horse Tricks

Money Tree

This is the guayaba tree in my yard…


…and these are guayabas (or guavas in English).


The guayaba is a tropical fruit native to Central and South America. I find that guayabas have a consistency similar to pears and the variety in my yard is a bit bitter—too much so for my taste. But Guatemalans love them, and now that my tree is in full bloom I have become a very popular person (even more so than usual).

Guayabas go for 50 centavos to 1 Quetzal a piece in the market, so I would estimate there are at least $13 growing on my tree. But the net worth of my giver of fruits is lowering daily as friends, neighbors, and acquaintances invite themselves over to take home bagfuls of guayabas.

Although in an effort to not appear rude they always come under the pretext of visiting me, I am not fooled. I have been here long enough to quickly pick up on when I am being used (which is about 83.2% of the time), but in this case I play along because I am trying to be the shining example of a friendly American and, well, I don’t really like guayabas (although Mapache is a big fan).

So in keeping with the ruse upon leaving, everyone makes a comment to the effect of, “Oh, I didn’t know you had a guayaba tree!” which I would believe only if it came from the mouth of a blind person given the tree is the first thing you see upon entering my front gate. That statement is always followed by the question, “May I have a few to take home?” Then I grant permission and all of a sudden a few changes into a few dozen and then the person leaves smiling with a canasta full of guayabas and the promise to come back to visit me soon.

Ah, the burden of having a money tree.

Inked

Why do I feel like I am doing something illegal and self-destructive when filling up my ink cartridges? Perhaps because of the “Use one time and destroy” warning on the syringes?

The Underwear Thief

Mapache has a penchant for stealing my underwear out of my bedroom and strewing out on the lawn.

By the Numbers

The UN came out with its latest “Human Development Report” on October 5th, which contains country factsheets with statistics and rankings based on factors that affect a country’s human development index (HDI). The HDI is the UN’s “broader definition of well-being” that takes more than just a country’s GDP into account by factoring in life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrollment rates, and purchasing power parity among other things.

Below are a few tables showing how Guatemala compares to the United States on a number of factors and where it falls in ranking overall. The “Countries” column shows how many countries were involved in the rankings for that particular index. The first number for each country shows that country’s ranking while the number in parentheses represents the value or percentage. The data used in the report are from 2007.

Some things to note:

Guatemala ranks 111th in GDP at purchasing power parity per capita, BUT it has the 13th highest Gini Index in the world. (The Gini Index is a measure of income inequality—the higher the number the more unequally distributed income is within a country.) This means there is a wealthy minority within Guatemala pulling up the per capita GDP while the majority of people are earning far less than $4,562 a year. For example, even if a Tactiqueño were able to find work everyday in the fields (a very common occupation for rural indigenous men), at the going labor rate he would only earn a little more than $1,300 during a year’s time. That’s $1,300 for 365 8-hour days of backbreaking labor. But most men aren’t lucky enough to find work everyday, so their yearly incomes are much less than that.

Guatemala has the 4th highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world. In the world! Nearly 50% of all Guatemalan children under the age of 5 are malnourished and that number jumps to 70% in predominately indigenous areas. There have been crop failures this year due to the worst drought Guatemala has seen in 30 years, but the real root of the problem is not the lack of food (although countries have sent food aid because of the supposed “shortage”) but the lack of income to buy food and the lack of education about the proper nutritional needs of children to buy the right food. Tortillas alone do not satisfy the dietary needs of a child.

As an Economist article stated, malnutrition in Guatemala should be a “national shame.” And from looking at the numbers there is much improvement to be made in other areas too.

October Rains

After what has been an abnormally hot and dry October (Guatemala is facing a severe drought), today the temperature dropped by 20 degrees and it has been raining non-stop all day. Ironically since last year’s dreary cold and damp October I had been dreading this year’s, but now I find today’s downpour a welcome relief from the heat and monotony of the weather. But whether I continue to find the cooler temperatures and rain a pleasant change depends on how many days or weeks it is until Tactic sees the sun again. A day of showers can be enjoyable; two weeks straight of showers is just miserable.

GMAT Prep

GMAT studying by candlelight courtesy of the Peace Corps and Guatemala's overtaxed electrical grid.

Paris to Guate

Guatemala City is apparently 9001 kilometers from Paris according to this sign in the Eiffel Tower.

Guatemalan Roots

One of my kids (well, not my kid) cleared up a matter today that he seemed to have been mulling over for a while. Given that I am brown and apparently Chinese looking (I don’t see it), people here are often puzzled as to how I can be an American. Through my time spent living and traveling abroad, I’ve found this confusion surrounding my ethnicity to be widespread and universal, so I am accustomed to fielding questions on the topic.

Marvin started off with a question I’ve answered a million times: “What country were you born in?”

“The United States.”

This answer did not provide the information he was looking for so he continued. “What is your mom’s name?”

“Janet.”

Still not enough. “What is your dad’s name?”

“Stan…like the hurricane that killed all those people in Guatemala.”

“Oh. Yes. Estan.”

I could tell that Marvin was still not satisfied with the information he had received, but I didn’t know where he was headed with this line of questioning. Then he continued with, “Where are your parents?”

“They’re in the states.”

“But where were they before?”

“Before? I don’t get it. Before what?”

Finally Marvin’s brother Brian chimed in to get to the heart of the matter. “He thinks that your parents are from Tactic, and that they went mojado [illegally] to the United States and had you there, and then you came back to work in Tactic because you’re really Guatemalan. Is that true?”

Hmm. I should have just said yes.

Vinos

I wish this photo were taken in Cobán instead of Paris, but unfortunately there are no such stores in Alta Verapaz.

What does my shirt say?

If it weren’t against Peace Corps regulations to set up money making operations, I would start a one-person side business translating people’s t-shirts. For a meager 1Q fee, I would tell you what is written across your shirt in English actually means in Spanish. Not only would I pull in a little extra monthly income, I think my enterprise would have a profound affect on the wardrobe choices of many Guatemaltecos.

Shirts in English are very common here. Used clothing from the states gets packaged into huge bundles, shipped to Guatemala, and resold in the numerous “Ropa Americana” stores all over the country. (Does it make you feel good to know that your generous donation is helping to clothe many a poor Peace Corps volunteer?) And since 99% of rural Guatemalans don’t understand English (that is a rough estimate), shirts are chosen based solely on cost, size, and color without any consideration given to what it says.

So therefore you get macho ayudantes wearing shirts with slogans such as “Shall we dance? Do you even have to ask that question?” and old men sporting “World’s Best Mom” sweatshirts and teenage girls wearing shirts basically proclaiming themselves sluts. But only the English speakers find this amusing, because everyone else is just as clueless as the person wearing the should be embarrassing shirt. For just a Q I could change that.

Churrasic Park

This is by far the wittiest business name I have ever seen in Guatemala. It is a churrasco stand that the owner rolls out into the park every evening. Hence the name:

Single Use Only

I hope the doctors and nurses at the health center who made this float for the feria actually know what “single use only” means.

Strapped for time

A man in town was just put in jail for sexually assaulting his 11 and 12-year-old daughters. The police were made aware of the situation when one of the girls’ teachers made a denuncia (pressed charges) against the father. Unfortunately sexual abuse of children, spousal abuse and the like are not terribly uncommon here, but it is rather uncommon that it is actually reported to the police.

Apparently the father had been abusing the girls for more than a year. When the police asked the mother why she hadn’t made a denuncia before, she replied that she had been very busy and could never find the time. You can’t find the time to keep your husband from raping your daughters!?

According to Guatemalan law the mother is not guilty of any crime and the daughters are going to stay in her custody. Some future they have to look forward to.