There´s so much to say. Who let me wait a whole week between posts? I don’t even know where my last post left off. So I’ll just start wherever I want. Because I do what I want. Because I’m an independent woman who makes her own choices. (I’m currently going through an issue to remind myself that I’m not, in fact, a small child. Even though I run home from school every day so that I can make it on time to lunch. And I eat whatever my mom makes me.) Whatever.
So I’ll start off with last Saturday, the 18th. I feel like I have to travel back into time to before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. That’s how long ago I feel like it was when I climbed Chicabal. For those of you who don’t know, I’m going to save you time and save myself energy and copy and paste what Wiki has to say—Chicabal is a Guatemalan lake sacred to the Mam Mayan people. A crater lake, Laguna Chicabal was formed in the crater of Volcán Chicabal at an elevation of 2,712 meters (8,879 feet). The terrain surrounding the lake is a cloud forest. When we started the hike, we were offered the option of taking a pickup truck up the volcano. I sort of begged Evelyn to let me take the truck, but she refused. I should have told her that the last time I climbed a large mountain, I had an asthma attack which turned into a panic attack and I was pretty sure I was going to die on the side of a mountain. So I think my request had valid reasoning. But because Evelyn refused and I am disgustingly competitive and I saw an older woman hiking, I decided to climb.
Thank God that older woman was awful at hiking, because she needed to stop even more than I did! Am I a bad person for being thankful that she was even worse at hiking than I was? Oh well. Much to my happy surprise, my competitive spirit propelled me up the hill faster than most, which worked to my advantage as we got tons of pictures before anyone else arrived! I was sweating like a pig, and since Evelyn and I have stopped showering, I smelled pretty bad. This could be why a stray dog chose us in town and followed us during the 2 hour hike up the volcano, occasionally running ahead to check out the path, then returning to me as I whistled to her. At the top, we gave our little Guía (Spanish word for “guide” and the name I used for her.) water and I gave her a little piece of my Chewy bar. It was chocolate chip. People yelled at me for feeding a dog chocolate. Seriously? She’s a street dog. She’s got fleas and eats garbage. I literally saw a dog eating a diaper. My dog sleeps with my every night and ate an entire bag of Hersey’s kisses and the only evidence was aluminum foil in his poop. Calm down, people. She’s fine with a few chocolate chips. Walking around the lake, we learned all about the lake and it’s history. My favorite part of the story is when he explained “Originally, this lake was at the bottom of the volcano, but the people kept polluting it and eventually the lake was like “screw this” and moved to the top of the volcano.” (I paraphrased because my teacher said that all in Spanish. But I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how it went.) Unfortunately, my puppy stayed at the top as we returned to the bottom. She and Beau would’ve been great friends.
The next day, we visited Guatemalan Disney Land. Instead of writing everything out, I’ll use a variation of an email sent later that day. It includes made up time stamps to help everyone get a better idea of the type of life I am living.
Saturday, July 18, 2015.
8:26pm. Host Mom: (in Spanish:) Do you girls have plans for the morning? *Evelyn gave me explicit instructions to avoid getting sucked into a family fun day, but I don’t have the heart to say we’re busy, so I make a vague shrugging motion so I can get out of it if her idea sounds awful*
HM: We were thinking of going to an amusement park!!
Host Family Members: *nod and chime in on agreement.*
*I feel pressured, plus this sounds fun so, much to Evelyn’s dismay, I agree. They tell us we will leave at 7am. Everyone now knows that is only true if your watch is set to Guatemalan time.
Sunday, July 19, 2015.
7:03am: I wake Evelyn up for the 6th time and assure her we are late. We hastily dress to find that breakfast hasn’t even started to get cooked. I feel like a bitch for yelling at Evelyn.
7:47am: We finally finish breakfast.
8:52am: All of a sudden they are very rushed and we hurry out to the car. Another prime example of Guatemalan Time.
10:04am We arrive. According to the dashboard, the temperature is “Hot as Fuck” (Excuse the language)
10:07am: Host family members realize that it’s a “free pass day” so there’s a million people. Evelyn prays that they will give up on the 2 hour line, but I see that this is unlikely, as host family is determined. The general population at this amusement park is eerily similar to 6 Flags. Except I think there is even more pre-pubescent examples of PDA here. Oh God, I hope there isn’t this many children making out in public in America! Most of the younguns are scantily clad and since Evelyn and I have lived in Xela, where it rains daily, we are in long pants. Beads of sweat run down our faces. My jeans feel heavy. I bet Evelyn that she won’t shower. She insists that she will. Stay tuned.
10:34am: Cool HFM finds a friend near the front. He pays said friend 20 quetzals and we cut.
10:52am: We enter the park. It’s still hot. None of the ATMs work and it’s awkward, but HFMs are perfect so they don’t care.
11:24am : We’re on our first ride. It’s very creaky. I realize at that moment that I’ve willingly gotten on a giant, moving ride that has the safety standards put into place by a government that’s known mostly for narcotics trafficking. It’s too late to get off. I survive. Barely. We then go on a roller coaster. The women all refuse to go and it looks pretty small, so I wonder why they seem so afraid… It’s very rusty. I ignore this fact because, hey, whatever! When we get on, I get the beautiful adrenaline rush that I love so much. However, immediately as it speeds up, it begins to throw our heads violently from side to side. I get a massive headache, but I also laugh so hard I cry. (The next day, my head was bruised) We do a few more rides until the lines start getting really long and HFMs decide to sit and watch a show indoors. With AC. We happily agree.
2:03pm: The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen begins. It includes magic, weird dancing, and lots of men on stilts. It’s centered around two magic astronauts. They get lost in a black hole and up somewhere weird with people with these red giant pool-noodle looking things hanging off of them and a giant dinosaur/green dog thing. Then bad people come out of these jelly fish looking things that fall from the sky. The bottom (tentacle looking things) is made of toilet paper. I laugh really loudly. These bad people steal this light thing. The cool magic astronauts capture the bad man and steal it back. It’s finally over. Ev wants to die, I’m laughing so hard I might die. You may think this description is confusing. Trust me, the whole thing was confusing.
2:49pm: It has stopped being 900 degrees Celsius. It is now looking like it’ll rain. We’re starving. We finally convince them to eat lunch.
3:27pm: It’s pouring rain and we have finished eating. They refuse to leave until we get churros. Whatever. Since it’s raining, the men venture out to get the churros. Chivalry is not dead. We begin to wait….
3:38pm: I start to wonder where these churros are. It’s raining harder.
3:46pm: Seriously where are they?
3:59pm: I didn’t even want churros that badly.
4:06pm: THE CHURROS FINALLY ARRIVE. It’s pouring. I inhale the most delicious churros I’ve ever had. I regret complaining in my head. Worth it. Still wondering why they had to go to Narina (only explanation for it taking so long.) to get churros, but whatever.
4:12pm: We leave the park. Evelyn immediately falls asleep. I’m sitting at an awkward angle so that she can sleep on my shoulder.
4:57pm: We stop at this little place and the other car of host family members asks if we want a drink. Evelyn is still sleeping so I say no, but tell them they should go ahead.
5:28pm: Wtf. I thought they were getting a quick drink?! Why are they not back? Ev is still sleeping and I’m paranoid that sex traffickers will see two white girls in a car, so I can’t sleep. I quickly become convinced that I will be sold to a brothel in Argentina and die from an STD. Ev remains asleep.
5:35pm: They return. Guatemalans and their concept of time! I was sure I was going to be kidnapped and sold. I wonder how much I would be worth…
5:52pm: We are very close to home. The check engine light has come on. Carlos (Host mom’s adorable boyfriend) gently pats the dashboard. Ev remains sleeping.
6:03pm: We’re home. I’m tired. Evelyn naps. I yell at her for NOT SHOWERING JUST LIKE I SAID.
6:56pm: We have dominos for dinner. I’ve now had dominos more times in Guatemala than I have in the U.S. Evelyn has not showered. She’s disgusting. I won that bet.
*I think she did shower later that evening. So it’s fine, right?*
And thus concludes the strangest day I’ve ever had.
During the week, I spent my time learning incredible amounts about this country and its history. One of the most interesting conferences was centered around Guatemalan women and the struggles that they face. While Guatemala is 52% women, the majority of women don’t make it past the 3rd grade, and with such little access to education, only 4% go to college. In rural areas of Guatemala, illiteracy rates reach as high as 70%. With such a terrible educational system, it’s no wonder that the health of these women is anything but perfect. In 2014, there were more than 76,000 girls under the age of 19 that were pregnant. A whopping 62% of women in low income areas have their first child before they’re 20 years old. That doesn’t even include unreported pregnancies. If that fact alone isn’t sad enough, sometimes the girls were only 80 pounds and usually, especially in the case of young girls, these pregnancies were results of rape and often incest. However, when a young girl admits to her family that she is pregnant, as a result of rape or not, she is often times disowned. Forced to work on the street, it’s important to note that women are rarely granted minimum wages and labor laws are essentially nonexistent. As women grow up, they’ll find it incredibly difficult to get loans or lines of credit, work opportunities will be increasingly scarce, and they’ll see little to no political representation.
While there are advances, which include new punishments for sexual relations with girls under 14 years of age, these laws are rarely enforced. Funny that we complain about our own gender issues, when things like this still plague the world.
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