Being the old person that I am, I avoided starting a blog for the longest time, despite several requests to do so. But in an effort to avoid spamming the inboxes of those who thought they wanted to read about the minute details of my adventures, but then realized they didn’t quite have the time, I’ve decided to join the crowd. This’ll be a sort of record of my thoughts as I travel the world. Feel free to tune in and out as you please.
Arrived in Guatemala yesterday, marking what I think is my seventh time here. When I first came after freshman year I had no idea it’d turn into an epic series of adventures. Yet here I am trying to roll my r’s as I dole out vitamins and eat things I probably should have sanitized first. But, knock on wood, I have yet to get the gringo illness, so maybe I’m actually immunizing myself against the real awful amebas.
Every time I come back, the scenery around me catches my breath. The shades of green and blue, red and orange are stunning. Now, since the big storms, a lot of the greenery is punctuated by massive boulders and other rocky items. The main road in and out of San Lucas is a bit unsound, structurally speaking—there are signs that tell you so: cross at your own risk. Those chicken buses and pickups rumble across anyway, so I figure I’ll be fine. Someone actually painted a rock shaped like Snoopy’s head, like Snoopy. Pretty funny. I’ll have to try to grab a pic of that one…The weather here is pretty crazy. Summer’s starting—all the kids are on vacation and it’s not monsooning anymore. It’s been crazy windy all evening, though. The lamina (aluminum roofs) keep flopping up and down. A portion of the roof over my room actually slid down into the street. Good thing it’s not raining or I might wake up in a small pond. Despite the wind, I took the fam out for ice cream—less than eight bucks for nine people. Ridic. We also stopped to drop off my poorly translated version of Paradise Lost for one of the cousins. There are whole chunks that I had no idea how to translate into Spanish, so I just gave a general synopsis of what I thought was happening in those twenty lines. Ha. They have them reading Hamlet, too, and translating legal documents. I can name about ten people who speak English as their native language who have trouble understanding those…I now appreciate the Spanish Lit I took way back when.
The intense poverty here still amazes me. Every time I see an old man hobbling down the stony roads with swollen and callused over bare feet, I come close to offering my Nikes. Every time I see a two year old covered in dirt and tattered clothing, with hair turned red from malnutrition, I wish I could pull an Angelina and just take him home with me. Every time I see a woman doubled over under the weight of a load of produce or wood, I have to resist the urge to offer to carry it. Same goes for the ten year old boys alongside their aging fathers barely standing under the huge stack of firewood. A part of me wants to idealize everything: Oh, look at these men bringing home wood for their families, where hot coffee and warm tortillas are waiting. But really. That’s ridiculous. I wish I could fix the world. One malnourished kid at a time. And still come home to my bug-free bed and nice hot shower. Ain't called the third world for nothin
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