Return to Xela
I’ve actually pulled myself together to figure out how to post my first blog. Things have changed a lot in Xela (Quetzaltenango, Guatemala) since I was here two years ago. Internet places are even more prevalent, and one near my house even has a laptop Internet connection, so I hope to write this tonight and post it tomorrow via a combination of my technology and theirs.
Internet is not just for foreign students and a few locals anymore either. Sunday night both places near my house were packed full of local high school kids, standing room only. Fortunately, my family has not changed. I was welcomed with open arms again by Veronica, who is still an excellent cook, and her daughter Susanne, who is still living at home because she chose not to marry the guy she was dating when I was here last. I’m glad because I didn’t think he was the right guy for her, and it was a long-distance relationship at that.
What has changed is that the beautiful white collie, Tricia, had five puppies with Scooby, the Great Dane in the neighboring yard. I learned last time I was here that doggie birth control is not common in Guatemala and this is proof. Susanne talked her mother into keeping the one with the sad eyes, so now Sacha lives here also. Sacha is as sweet as Tricia, but even more enthusiastic, since she’s only a year old. She also has similar bad manners as my dog Fuzzy, such as jumping up on people when she gets excited, but Sacha weighs about 75 pounds more than Fuzzy. Good thing I like dogs.
Once again, this beats the heck out of any bus tour. I love my new teacher. We spent the first hour discussing illiteracy and other social problems. He didn’t even know how involved I am in literacy at home, but I was eating up the statistics he was throwing out at me. Officially, fifty-five percent of the population here is illiterate and only 1 percent complete college. He says people see work as more important than learning, thinking only of the short term.
We also discussed issues related to the 36-year civil war that only ended in 1996. Or, as he puts it, ended on paper, but it is still in people’s hearts and minds. It’s difficult to break this mentality though, when people know who killed their friends, families and neighbors. Brother against brother. Clan against clan. Like in any civil war, but to Americans this is our history only in distant memory and books about the 1860s. Here it is fresh. He was surprised that Americans have so little awareness about the war here compared to El Salvador and Nicaragua (those wars only lasted 10-12 years), especially since a lot of what triggered the war here was when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Guatemalan government in the mid-1950s.
He is also a good teacher and we reviewed a lot of stuff I learned in my class last year at UCLA. But in explaining the concept of how you use the word qué for definitions, his example was ¿Qué es la prensa libre? What is a free press? Today he was wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. I can’t wait to talk to him about Che, who seems to me to be iconic to young people here, but I wonder what they really know about him. My teacher also writes poetry and we’ve read many of the same books, me in English, he in Spanish, by authors such as Isabelle Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Octavio Paz.
It is certainly possible to learn Spanish by immersion with virtually no previous experience, as I proved last time, but it is soooo much easier now. Although it’s been a year since my class at UCLA, having a foundation is a wonderful thing. Instead of figuring out how to say how are you, I’m practicing speaking in the past tense.
The rest of my trip has been more or less uneventful, but it has been fun seeing people I met two years ago. I spent this past weekend in Antigua resting up after having worked a zillion hours before I left. Nothing that 14 hours of sleep wouldn’t cure. Antigua is the tourist town here, so it’s easy and it was my rest place last time. I did do a few things, including making petition for a friend’s mother at the tomb of Saint Hermano Pedro who was canonized less than three years ago. According to the countless testimonials, crutches, glasses and other aids left behind, he is responsible for many healings and miracles.
I hope this missive finds you in good health and not in need of any miracles. I’m thankful that I’ve already had several in my life, and am not in need of any now. Although I wouldn’t mind a little more hot water in the shower and a little less iciness from the tile floor in my bedroom, but I will have plenty of that at home. Until next time….