De donde viene la miel?

I was glad to have access to the Mazda 2013 – that’s right, we now have to distinguish between our two Mazdas by year because we have two of them. I can’t believe how much we achieve and it all gets overshadowed so quickly by the next big thing we have to do, project we have to redo, crisis we have to solve, grant we have to win.  Right now I’m feeling insecure about my work, and a lot of pressure to kick some major ass this week and impress Curt. 

So last Saturday I took that Mazda 2013 and drove down that route that has become so common to me, like a piece of “home” here, outside of Xela, past the rotunda, round the corner to the Cantel and Zunil, coasting out of those beautifully green highlands and into the tropical heat of the coast. I played podcasts and Radiohead music and hung out with this crazy head of mine and all of its thoughts. Oh how I love the solitude, whether it’s with coffee in the clouds or a cold agua pura in the coast.

I stayed at Noes house that night, although there wasn’t much to report. Its crazy how much slower life moves out there in the rural farmlands of the coast. Its quiet. Its like being at grandmas house. Theres not a lot to do but sit around, play with the kiddos, eat a little bit and swing in the hammock before you go to bed. I wonder how different it will all be in another generation – will these hammocks still swing or will they be replaced by western-imported recliner chairs? Will the kiddos’ favorite satuday night game still be scooting across the concrete floor? Will the chickens still eat the scraps thrown out beside the pila? At the same time that the life moves slow, the industrial evolution is happening ever so fast. The cocacola sold down the street cheaper than water, the television blaring Toy Story 3, the neighbors that just pulled up in a 2014 Hummer. Its like this place, and perhaps all the rural places of the world, are some giant mixing bowl where all the great fads of the world slyly sneak their way in, for better or for worse – what I wouldn’t give to see some raw food fad slip into the local scene.

It doesn’t always make for a good mix - the Catholic priest steadfastly upholding community morals on Sundays, trying to maintain attention while a Miley Cyrus concert blares on the television at the tienda next door. We have passed the point of return – there is no preserving that ideal bucolic life in some static vacuum. I believe that. Change is the way of the world, and the best we can do is vow to aid and abet in making the most peaceful, just and environmentally sound new mix of rural life.

Noe Estrada is one of the best smallholder farmers I have ever met.  An orphan of sorts, raised by grandparents and earning his first quetzales working long hours on a foreign-owned plantation. Noe stuffed those $2/day earnings deep into his teenage pockets until he had enough to buy a piece of land for himself, the parcel he currently calls home with his wife and three daughters. 

But this is no typical 18 acre plot suffering the ails of chemically-drowned, monoculture corn farming. Noe grows corn, sesame, Chaya, avocado, limes, a variety of local herbs and even sweet potato. And unlike the rest of the farmers on the block, Noe is not subject to the cruel limitations of the once-a-year market run by coyotes (middlemen) who pay – if you’re lucky – $0.12/pound of corn.  Noé kept stuffing those few quetzales in his pocket, saving enough over the years to build himself an irrigation system. He plants a new corn crop every two weeks, allowing him to collect a continual corn harvest throughout the year and enjoy a hefty price increase for his corn in the dry season. And when the coyotes still refuse to offer a good price, Noe uses his corn harvest to make elote, a local favorite sold to his neighbors throughout the year.

“Why limit yourself to such a fluctuating, unproductive crop?” Noe tells me, speaking of the tradition of monoculture corn across the region. “Diversify, that’s what I tell my neighbors.” Enter the most beautiful, perhaps smallest and most productive part of Mother Earth’s great ecosystem: honeybees.  While beekeeping and honey production may be one of the most lucrative options for smallholder farmers in the region – few inputs required, low labor costs, low competition – most farmer won’t give it a shot for fear of the infamous behavior of the bees, explains Noe.

Noe was not scared. Working on a sesame harvest one year for some extra cash, he met a fellow farmer and friend who was raising bees. “I’ll give you one box, with ten panales and a Queen. Just try it.” his friend said. That one box turned into two, and the next year two boxes will turned into four, and soon Noe had his own little colony of honebees. Today, Noe has three different forested areas where he keeps colonies of bees, a total of about 150 boxes full of queens and worker bees working ceaselessly, producing a sweet, simple, healthy and pure product that he can sell locally to his neighbors and for export – literally tripling his annual income. 

On love at the moment. Maybe brave love someday.

 

I live in Guatemala. I live in Guatemala as a single, white, 28-year-old female who is confused about what she really wants in a relationship at the moment. Or maybe this 28-year-old single white female knows what she wants but is too afraid to admit it. This article is a little bit about what its like to be a single white female in Guatemala, and a little bit about what its like to be a 28-year-old empowered female in the 21st century trying to define words like dependence, love, trust, vulnerability and casual. 

In 2012 I got a cigarette put out on my ass. That’s right, some asshole 18-year-old who wanted attention from his friends outside of a bar one night put his cigarette out on my ass, burning a hole in a pair of my favorite jeans, among other emotional damages. In 2013 that same ass of mine was grabbed a total of 6 times in the street, with sporadic additional events to the likings of a few public masturbation occurrences, some tongue-sticker outers, and even a ‘!Que rica tu pusa!’ from a passerby – How exactly does he know how delicious my pussy is?  In 2014 thanks to pepper spray and an increased level of both self-confidence and absolute disgust in the male race, I have managed to escape any major sexual harassment issues – that is, until I was recently robbed at gunpoint in the middle of the day at 2 o clock. But let’s be fair, that probably had nothing to do with gender. 

Sometime around Fall of 2013 came the Fall of Kristin’s love life. In the midst of the catcalling, the disgusting words whispered to me on the dance floor at the salsa club, the realization that independence and empowerment were not the laws of attraction in this country, I voluntarily decided to crawl into celibacy. I’ve had a healthy list of lovers in my twenties, I thought I would give conservatism a try for a while. And something about the way I had been treated as a female in the past year and half made it sound pretty delicious to avoid contact altogether. I made it nine months. That’s right, NINE MONTHS WITHOUT SEX. And I learned a very important lesson, among others, that sex is a very healthy and natural thing. The clitoris is the only organ in all the history of human organs to have one sole purpose: TO HAVE AN ORGASM. That’s right ladies, pleasing your clit is an act of evolutionary worship to the gods that made you. 

So I started off the new year right. ON a trip back to the States I founded a pleasant, bearded beauty to who kissed me at midnight and added another notch to the belt of Romantic Sexual Adventures with Beautiful People.  A few other mostly meaningless (at least in the long run) interactions later, and a string of bouts with emotionalism over the fear that I might turn 30 without ever having a healthy, real relationship, I met Fernando. He is the artistic, expressive, deeply loving type that does yoga with me, reads me poetry, and sips dark, bitter coffee while watching the sunrise peak over the Central American mountains. We started over a sunlit-filled morning building a compost pile, followed up with afternoon strolls through the farmed hillsides of Xela, and with wine buzzing through our bloodstreams we traced the contours of each other’s naked bodies, singing the praises of the life, beauty and wisdom we see in the other. This is that kind of relationship that’s based on a foundation of beautiful friendship. 

But the inevitable occurred, of course. That ever-present questioning of monogamy, of dependence, of trust in another human being. Sometimes I wonder if we’re all too intellectual for our own good, like we can’t recognize and accept simple happiness when it’s starting us in the face. As I struggled with whether to let myself want a real relationship or not, Fernando struggled trust. As we both struggled through vulnerability, we chose the path of least resistance – pulling away from each other. We began to stroll in and out of each other’s list of life priorities like we were strolling through the market, the colorful array of fruit our emotions, often indulging and too often poorly valued.  

Then, along came Mauricio. I met Mauricio through common friends and my poor little heart fluttered at the thought of good-looking, intelligent, well-traveled Guatemalan with a Golden Retriever named Marley who might be interested in a girl like me. A couple drinks and cumbia dances later I discovered two things: 1) Mauricio is the best sex of my life. 2) Behind the initial facade, Mauricio is a party-boy, play-boy who owns two local bars, drinks and smokes too much, in his own words “can’t figure out how not to hurt people’, who got divorced last year after cheating on his wife – a story that unfortunately seems to be the norm among Guatemalan men.  

But I repeat number one for emphasis – Mauricio is the best sex of my life. And the feeling is pretty mutual. So, I thought, what the hell. Maybe Mauricio is the perfect sexual partner – its easier to do this whole numbness of emotions when you know you’re not interested in the guy as a long-term partner, when you’re not really desperate for him to call you or meet your friends or ask you about work. It’s kind of the chicken or egg first conundrum – I’m not sure if the lack of feelings or the immaculate sex came first, or which one causes the other, but I like it. I don’t want to think about consequences and responsibility and goodness – I don’t want to think. I want fingers running through my hair, I want tongues on skin, I want unashamed, unafraid erotic indulgence, sex for the sake of sex. Mauricio will never go on a hike with me, or fall into the endless nuances of Walt Whitman’s poetry. So I’ll keep looking for the guy who will, and in the meantime I’ll imbibe in sensual dreams, orgasmic adventures, and erotic exploration on the kitchen counter, the back patio, the public bathroom, the dance floor, the…. Oh god. 

 Regardless of what Fernando would say, what would I do? What would I like to do? It is as much my fault as it is his. I don’t know what I want. I look at Fernando and there is something in my that KNOWS it will never work. If we explore the mas de nosotros, it will fail. And I’m not ready for it to be over, so I keep avoiding or putting off the mas. But you can’t have moments like this, love like this, beautiful expression like this, and NOT confront the mas. Sooner or later the mas is going to bite us in the ass. And I think its going to hurt me a lot. Is that just the risk? Is it worth it? 

So there I am, going back and forth between these two men, these two “casual” relationships, neither of which are what I think I really want in life. With both, I continue to numb my feelings. It’s like I have come to believe, somehow, that this is what it means to be an adult in the 21st century. And the truly scary part is that I’m getting better at it every time. I’m getting better at playing love and leaving. I’m getting better at not feeling anything. I’m becoming numb to the nervous, butterfly feelings that define what it means to have a crush. And why? 

Yesterday I woke up at a man’s house. We are not dating. He has never seen my house, he’s never met my friends. He has never bought me flowers, or even a fucking drink for that matter.. But I woke up at his house. I woke up to snuggles and kisses and morning sex, and then a long talk about how he really isn’t over his ex-wife, nor is he really over what he did to make her his ex-wife, and how he’s not really looking for anything ‘serious’. Of course of course, I say. Me neither. 

Women have come so far in the world. We have careers, we are CEOs, we vote for presidents and governors, we have babies in our late thirties in life or possibly never, we wear scandalous clothes, we climb mountains, we change policy. And yes - we have casual sex. Society is starting to wake up to the idea that women just may have the same sexual desires (shall we call them needs?) as men, and what may have began in the sixties has revolutionized itself to a woman of the 21st century who actively participates in the hook-up culture.  I am a women who is taking advantage of these advances, not only in the sexual sense of course. I like to think of myself as an independent, progressive, new-age woman. I live on my own, in Guatemala. I am 28 and single, I pay my own bills, I take weekend bike rides on my own, I choose not to take birth control,  and of course I choose who I want to sleep with. 

But whatever happened to a little bit of chivalry? Traditionalism? Whatever happened to respectful relationships? I am a single 28 year old female and I Have never been taken on a date. I have never had a nervous, awkward first date, in which flowers or dinner or a movie might be involved, in which the obvious questions are asked and hopefully lead to a somewhat deep, stimulating conversation, in which the night may end in a simple, “Wow. This was fun, we should do it again sometime.” 

I love my independence, but what if I want healthy dependence too? Does it somehow make me a non-independent woman if I decide I want a little traditional romance in my life? Perhaps the question is: Does independent mean being alone? Or can/should it mean the ability to be alone, but with the empowered decision to choose not to be? Are men afraid of independent women? We send them running in the other way for the weaker, sweeter, seemingly softer female breed, running away from what somehow gets judged as intimidation and radical feminism. 

I think love has to be Brave. I want a brave love. I want multiple Brave loves – with my friends and my family and a life partner someday.  I think Brave Love can’t be lazy.  Brave Love stares the awkward first moments of giddiness and nervousness right in the face, and holds those precious moments dear.  Brave Love recognizes and realizes the insecurities and the ever-changing emotions, and idolizes them, puts them on a pedestal and honors them for making life real with its feasts and famines. Brave Love is not sure. Brave Love is confusing. Brave Love is hard. Brave Love is not one decision, in one moment. Brave Love is a constant decision. Brave Love is vulnerable.  Brave Love is boring, in oh such a beautiful way. Its boring enough to pick weeds on a Saturday morning over coffee. Its boring enough to platicar en silencio. Brave Love has the right effort. 

The day I got robbed at gunpoint

I always thought that would be a harder sentence to write. I always thought it would be more shocking, more dramatic when it happened.  But here I am at Lake Atitlan, giving myself a weekend off, looking out over the serene waters encapsulated by three Central American volcanoes, thinking how strange it was that I was robbed at gunpoint three days ago.

I was carrying my phone in my hand, I knew better. The funny part is that these things always seem to happen on my best days – those sunny afternoons where I’m imbibing in the juxtaposing grunge and glory of my Guatemalan life. I finished lunch with a good girlfriend on my rooftop terrace, munching on fresh greens from my garden and soaking up the mountainous view.

A few minutes after bidding Mellissa goodbye on the corner, I heard footsteps. Running footsteps. These footsteps have come to be an omen to me – they usually mean some little teenage shit running up behind me ready for a hit and run ass grab incident. I swung my ass towards the wall, thinking I was going to beat this one at his own game today. Then, there it was, a cold, heavy silver metal in my face. I remember the gun glistening in the strong sun shining down that day, the same sun I was basking in only a few minutes before.Then, a click-clack. What do they call it? Cocking your gun? Although he never touched me with it, I could feel the cold gleaning off the metal of that heavy contraption, sinking into my skin.

“Give me your fucking phone!” In English, perfect English, in the middle of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. I threw it.  I’ve learned after the fact that this was actually quite a smart tactic, the throwing, unfortunately I can’t say I did it out of strategic premeditation but rather out of complete fear.  “Why did you fucking throw it!” Again, the perfect English. Who was this guy? Then came the cold again, breezing its way onto my face, my hands, my insides. Why was there so much screaming? Where was the gun? Was he pointing it at me? Did I just piss this guy off even more?

“I’ll fucking shoot your ass!” And there he went, running off around the corner, off to god knows where probably to never cross paths with this gringa again. I dropped my keys. I dropped my purse – the purse that was in my hand, that he failed to notice in the adrenaline of all his rage, his cold. A couple walking behind me kindly picked up my things, slowly, carefully, like if they touched me I might explode. “I’m fine,” I said, gulping down any vulnerability trying to seep out. Then I noticed a hand on my shoulder, and I noticed it shaking. I was shaking. “I don’t think your fine,” he said. He walked me to my office. I did not want to be in the street any longer.

I cried. I shook. I hyperventilated. This is fear. This is what real fear feels like.

In the aftermath, I couldn’t ask for more support. It has never felt better to have a hug, to snuggle in bed with a friend, to receive love. The Australian accounting volunteer was a life-saver – buying me a shot of tequila to put the lump the size of texas forming in my stomach to rest, and then walking me to the police station to try to find some solace in at least declaring something official. My friends brought me sushi and wine, my parents told me I was a “tough girl”, and lots of love in the form of phone calls from everyone. As a radical introvert who was stripped of her joy of solitude, I haven’t had to be alone once since it happened – which has been surprisingly nice.

The police station experience was nothing to write home about – a half hour wait in line before being “attended” by a blasé female cop, more interested in flirting with her toned co-worker leaning through the window than asking me what my assailant looked like. She didn’t even record in the official report where the incident happened. Desensitized. Oh, another armed robbery at 2 in the afternoon on a busy street? Sorry, I’ve got a football score to check. Even the bartender that provided the tequila – whose job by the way IS to shoot the shit with customers and console their clients – didn’t blink when we told him our special occasion for daydrinking, didn’t even say the words ‘sorry to hear that’.

Its funny what happens in my brain when this stuff occurs. There is no anger, no want for revenge or justice. It’s a contemplative sadness, its some existential question of the root cause. Who is this guy, what is his story, and what would drive him to be so violent with some innocent girl on the street at 2 in the afternoon. The yelling, that was the worst. The coldness seeping not only off his gun but his soul – the desperation one must feel to treat someone like that. Did he see me? DId he see my face? Did he like seeing me shake like that, in fear?

In retrospect, I know this was miniscule, my first bout with real violence. A man screamed at me and shoved a gun in my face, 30 seconds and it was over. But something happened in the aftermath of those 30 seconds. Its like seeing that fear, I begin to feel the fear of all the victims of fear, of all of humanity. I know it’s a grandiose statement, but its what I felt. When I was hyperventaliting, crying, shaking, wanting to vomit out the ball of evil building in my body, this is what I was feeling. Humanity’s fear. The Palestinian children going to sleep to the serenade of Israeli bombs outside their window. The Central American children falling in line behind the Coyote on their way to climb through the tunnel to the other side of the US border. The millions of women around the world afraid to say No to their husband, hiding the abuse under raincoats and sweaters. I feel a pain that is universal. I feel a pain that is not mine, but collective. And I hate it. I hate that violence and I hate that fear and I hate that pain.

Empathy is an incredible human emotion. Its somehow motivating. You know I keep thinking I see this guy around town – in the bank, on the street corner in front of the bakery. I think about what I would do if I had the chance to confront him. I don’t want to kick his ass. I want to ask him what his circumstances were. I want to find out why there are guys like that running around and change the situations that drive them to that desperation and anger in the first place. I want to stop the pain that humans face from unnecessary violence and fear.

The day I got robbed at gunpoint could have been a much worse day. I am privileged, protected, loved, supported, and extremely lucky in so many ways. The day I got robbed at gunpoint was an experience. As my dad told me, I survived, and now its something I can learn from. My friend told me this beautiful thing the other day, how your memories in life, your experiences go through a cycle with you. They happen, its shocking or painful or intense, then the emotions around the experience lesson and it becomes a scar, and then slowly that scar fades away and the experience actually becomes part of the fabric of your self. Its not a mark on your emotional body that always reminds you of some fateful day, it’s a piece of you, it is you, it becomes part of who you are. The day I got robbed at gunpoint is a day that hasn’t had time yet to turn into a scar, but its already part of me, its already forming its way into the fabric of my self, teaching me something.

Juxtaposition

I remember very distinctly learning the word Juxtaposition.  I was 19 years old, in my first English Composition course. I can’t remember the professor’s name, but I remember he was young, like me. And like me, probably suffering from some combination of confusion and sorrow about the world, replaying our minidramas over and over again. But that professor left a mark on me, albeit futile. “Juxtaposition.” he would say, “It’s the smartest word you can use. Fit it anywhere you can, in any paper you can. It enlightens every subject.” The notion stuck with me.  Juxtaposition: an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast. Everything has juxtaposition, if we look deeply enough. It’s the beautiful, constant contrast of the world, and by engaging it we find a more profound, beautifully layered understanding to our surroundings.

I’m living in a place with endless juxtaposition.  The drastic differences I am confronted with everyday in Guatemala are both stunning and frightening. Guatemala is a juxtaposition – an act of placing together side by side so many of these opposing ideas, one could assume it was done especially for comparison and contrast. I see it in nature, the biological juxtaposition of Guatemala. A biodiversity hotspot, a tropical paradise of infinite species that crash right up against each other and criss-cross lines of inheritance. The stately pines that shadow my weekend bike rides and remind me of my Colorado past are only a short walk away from forages of bamboo and eucalyptus that remind me again I am in the tropics. I live in a tropical mountain valley at 7000 feet, where volcanic peaks spear into a sky so blue you seem to understand the meaning of the word "celeste". Where fierce early-morning sunshine is followed by rainy afternoons and lightning shows, and topped off with chilly evenings that tickle your nose like only brisk mountain air can. A mere 60 km down that mountain slope out of the valley lay the coastal plains, where sweat pours out of your pores like a faucet, where scorching sun can only be appeased by the generous palm and mango trees, where the flora refuses to be tamed, transforming every square inch of open space into an unintentional garden of orchids and Birds of Paradise. 

Ecological zones juxtapose themselves, but then this entire package of natural beauty is juxtaposed against the obvious consequences of man. Mist flows across millions of green hues blending and meshing across the hilly landscape, an impeccability unfortunately soon disturbed by the remnants of this society’s struggle to define its ‘development’. Endless trash heaps like landmarks laid along the highway - styrofoam, plastic wrappers, beer bottles, diapers, food scraps, old cell phones. The contrast is mind-boggling. Mother Nature showcases her talents of mountains and valleys, explosions of creativity, and we invoke the Monroe Doctrine of Man against anything precious and beautiful, lazily tossing our resources out the window of the bus.
However, sometimes I think this is juxtaposition at work - perhaps these trash heaps, this contrast of opportunity and neglect actually make the beauty all the more obvious, forcing me to take notice.

I see this juxtaposition in the spectrum of strangers. I am living in one of the most dangerous country’s in the world, so they tell me. From Aljazeera News to the US State Department, they never tire in telling the tales of drug cartels lording their power over the Southern Coast, the gang killings in Guatemala City, the theft and rape that fills the local newspapers day to day. And its real – bus drivers in Guatemala City are being killed by the dozens as they stand up to gangs, refusing to let them on the bus to take everyones money. A few months ago a 20 year old was shot in Xela, a few blocks from where I live, after the bank security guard texted his buddies telling them the kid had just withdrawn $600; they got him a block away from the bank, with his backpack on. And what do we expect in a country where the police force is corrupt, where justice is foreign, where vigilante action is the only thing you can count on. 
Then, juxtaposed to all of this, there’s this funny little statistic about Guatemala being one of the happiest countries on earth, with some of the most open, friendly people. And I can attest. I get to enjoy that statistic nearly every day of my life. In one of the most dangerous country’s in the world, I have never been invited to as many family gatherings, fed as much free, delicious food, been hugged as many times in my life. Strangers are an incredible, sustainable resource in this country. They help you get on the right bus, they help you find the right bank, their kids play with you in Parque Central, and they let you hang in their hammock when you need a little afternoon nap after working in the hot, coastal sun. In the States I can’t even get someone to let me borrow their cell phone. Everytime I go back to the US I’m reminded how much of this my homeland lacks – our private properties, our fences, our numerous symbols of independence, like the cars we drive straight into our garages, shutting the door and turning on our television without ever meeting our nextdoor neighbor. Guatemala is a lesson in humanity. A country with more cultural identities than the city of Chicago and yet can still find a commonplace in kindness, good food, and a simple ‘Buenos Dias’ as you pass by on the street.

And the most obvious representation of this Guatemalan juxtaposition: its poverty gap. It’s not just that there are poor people here, it’s abject poverty next door to rampant wealth. Driving along the PanAmerican Highway you could mistake yourself to be on a roadtrip in Northern Oregon, passing on the left, coasting in and out of multiple, well-marked lanes, giving thanks to the Sugarcane Landowners and Drug Traffickers for every mile of immaculate pavement. But out the window, just a few meters off the highway where none of the 1% landowning elite need go, the juxtaposition of the poor cries its distinction and divergence.  Shoeless little boys trekking up the shoulder, carrying loads of firewood twice their weight.  Small, mysterious footpaths leading into the forest, where a precariously placed wooden shack lays on a steep hillside, billowing smoke from the open-fire kitchen. Women and girls, dawning their beautifully-colored traje, dredging barefoot through muddy fields, pulling up thousands of onions and cabbage buy hand, and tying them in bunches to be shipped to Guatemala City, where they will feed those hungry Lords of Commodity, and feed the system that keeps them there.

In Zone 10 of Guatemala City I get my morning coffee at Starbucks before strolling through the mall gawking at price tags three times my paycheck, then hopping in a new Chevy Spark Yellow Taxi where I pay with credit card, a receipt emailed to my smartphone within minutes. Meanwhile on the outskirts of town, the smallholder farming communities’ wake up instead to roosters crowing and the smell of tortillas being placed on the comal, rolling back mosquito nets from the small mattress on the dirt floor where mom, dad, and 5 brothers and sisters all share a room. Teeth are brushed with well water before strapping on a ripped, recycled ‘Go Gators’ shirt (or some other US thrift store hand-me-down), and heading off to the corn fields by 5AM for a full day’s work under the tropical sun, and a measly pay of $6, if you’re lucky. In Xela, the juxtaposition is less escapable. It doesn’t exist in a neighborhood or on the outskirts of town, its right on your front door step. Lawyers and businessmen dressed in pinstripe suits recently hand-pressed by their indigenous maid. They walk down the cobblestone streets of the city, performing their well-practiced tip-toe avoidance of the various blockades - stepping over dog-shit piles, side-swiping the unconscious drunkard splayed across the sidewalk, avoiding the emaciated, entreating woman kneeling on the ground with her newborn baby in tow.

This juxtaposition bumps into each other constantly, rolling our Mercedez Benz right up to the doorstep of the open-air markets, where Tablets clash with Tomatoes at 40 cents a pound, where Indigineity meets Modernity, where the kindness of strangers gives balance to the fearful reality of what humans in desperation can succumb to.  I’m glad I see this juxtaposition. It enlightens my experience here. It helps me see the layered reality that is Guatemala in 2014, struggling to find its balance in a quickly changing world.  

My plot of land.

And as I look out into this diverse disarray, I think, That could be me.  And that could be me. While I’m no longer shocked and awed by humanity’s most enigmatic and longest-standing peril of poverty, I am not sure if my conscience will ever cease repeating that mantra: That could be me.  What is it that separates any of us?

A man of relative middle class privilege, Walt Whitman was shocked and awed when he moved to New Orleans and the brutalities of slavery were unveiled to him.  Whitman was driven by a personal demon that compelled him to literally imagine himself as one of those ‘beautiful, olive-skinned, ignorant and illiterate’ human beings waiting to be traded on the corner.  Enraged, engaged, empowered and entrusted with the gift of activism, Whitman never ran for president.  He certainly never started an NGO to save the enslaved from evil capitalists. Whitman wrote. He wrote vehemently, controversially, and unabashedly about these perils of humanity.  Through his voice, Whitman attempted to vocalize the questions he believed were paralyzing his fellow countrymen. 

Every soul has its own individual voice.  I remember being enraged once after I read Nickled and Dimed, and I think there was a point in my college career where I envisioned myself as a social activist, I was sure I would find something I was mad about enough to march on Washington.  As I get older, I find it harder and harder to find injustices with an obvious and blatant solution, and easier and easier to succumb to a life of shrugged shoulders and a general feeling of ‘shucks’.  I admire and so deeply envy the Walt Whitman’s of the world, the risk-takers and stand-aloners and voice-for-the-voicless ones.  I wish I knew exactly what kind of world I thought was appropriate and exactly how to get there.  Unfortunately, I’m one of those with her head stuck in the clouds, congested by obstacles of the ever-present grey area of life.

After I returned from Bangladesh in December of 2010 I wrote that I wanted to stop trying to save the world, and stop thinking that the world needed saving.  I just wanted to find my own little plot of land that was appointed to me in the universe and work like hell to make it as great as I imagined it could be.  Mostly, I just wanted to live, to breathe in the aromatic offerings of life’s games.  I still can’t define Guatemala’s middle class and I still can’t define the nerve endings that squirm into an oblivion of emotion every time I kindly nod, smile, and keep walking when the blind woman on the corner asks me for change, and I'll probably never stop thinking, that could be me.  But I think I've found my plot of land for now, literally and figuratively, with this job and with these communities.  And I'm working like hell to do the very best I can with it.

Roots and Rhinestones, and what is culture anyway?

I love airports. Airports always make me nostalgic and pensive, and make me want to write. I feel like I could write on everything, everywhere, on every piece of this seat I am sitting on, every piece of the barren wall in front of me, on every inch of my own skin. The words I have right now would spill over the ceiling of the library’s walls and run marathons over its bookshelves. Sometimes I wish my brain just wrote everything down somewhere every time I thought it. But then I would have an entire novel for every day of my life, and I would never have time to read them all.  

Airports make me think about my roots. I am at the waiting area. There is a sign in front of me that says Tulsa, Oklahoma. I remember the last time I was here - is that crazy? I know the exact last time I walked through the corridor into United gates b76-80 in the Houston airport.  I was leaving for the first big adventure of my life, but Mother Nature chose to make me wait, showering her power over the US South with one of her famous June Thunderstorms. After all the built up anxiety and anticipation, Michael and I would have to spend an extra night in a smokey hotel room in Houston before we could officially begin our Trip Round the World.  I remember the naivety I possessed that rainy night, hiding my fear behind a feigned excitement, hiding my insecurity behind a feigned love. Or maybe it wasn’t feigned, it was just young. I wonder if I am truly any older than I was that night, walking through this same corridor. Maybe older doesn’t even matter. Maybe there is no older, no more mature, no better understood. Maybe its all just different experiences and they all need to be told.

Now I’m back in that same corridor, flying back to that same place I came from, Oklahoma – where the wind comes right behind the rain. There is a family sitting behind me boasting their country-ness, that Thing I have always been so turned off by, or so ready to refute from my roots. This guy has a giant belt buckle with a big “OU” engraved on it, an emblematic artifact of sorts that explains where our values lay. One of the daughters is showing off the sparkly rhinestones she got after her recent visit to the Natil salon, and telling Mom she is disgusted by Starbucks’ recent decision to start using Greek yogurt in all of their fruit cups.  There seems to be a Family Brawl a brewin’ regarding who has what seat, next to whom, and in what boarding group. I have yet to look at my plane ticket.  I have spent $8 on a damn fruit cup in the airport (not from Starbucks but yes, with Greek yogurt). I’m confused - is the fruit sweeter here or something? Maybe its this weird perception us expats get when we fly back into the States, like our mind plays tricks on us with all the fanciness and we begin to think everything is just nicer here. Maybe it’s the impossibility of it all, like my brain can’t process the idea of sweet pineapple in April in Texas, so it imagines it to be some miracle. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know what a fresh, tropical pineapple tasted like so I could stop complaining about these things. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

But things are fancier here. And I judge myself for not participating, and then I judge others around me for participating, and then I judge myself for judging. The last time I had mangos and pineapples I was sweating in a tropical cornfield. I watched a slight breeze blow my skirt back and I remember literally thanking ‘god’ for the phenomenal movement, then praying that the well water used to wash off the pineapple didn’t give me parasites.  During that particular fruit fest I licked my hands and my face, and used that same skirt to wipe my sticky fingers before heading back to the open fire where the tortillas were being prepared. During today’s particular fruit fest, I have three times as many utensils than I need, all of them made of unrecyclable plastic that will contribute to a landfill soon, wrapped in five napkins that I can’t figure out the reason for. I still can’t seem to keep myself clean. I dropped a strawberry on the ground, a perfectly red and perfectly quartered strawberry on the ground.  Oops. Here comes the judgment.

I sat next to a man from Sololá today. His eyes agape and his adrenaline skyrocketing, we lifted off and he captured every moment on his digital camera. He told me it’s his first time on a plane. He is going to Nebraska as an exchange student. I asked him if he was excited, as if his smile didn’t tell me enough. “It’s hard to leave my family, my community, Sololá.”  I thought about all the times I have gotten on a plane, eager to escape my family, my community, my culture, whatever I thought it was. Yesterday I wrote down a question for our Semilla Nueva Community Survey – “Usted pertenece a algun grupo indigena?”  Now I find myself asking the same – “Y tú Kristina? To what group or culture do you belong?” Isn’t it so funny how my culture, the X, Y or whatever letter they are calling us now, this generation of middle class yuppie twenty somethings with too many things to choose from – we run from our culture. We justify this by citing our society’s lack of culture. We run looking for culture. We say the US is just a big melting pot of materialism and obesity and narrow-mindedness. And here I am next to a young man from quite a narrowly-defined culture who is running towards that melting pot, running toward the diversity and opportunity and ‘culture’. Damn, I guess the grass really is always greener on the other side.

There is culture here. Maybe I never wanted to see it before, or maybe I saw it and didn’t like it. Or maybe I’m just an XYZ generation yuppie who constantly needs something new. But there is culture here. At least half of the clothing worn on this plane is either Carhart material or OU propaganda. There are more cowboy hats than huipiles and more gawdy silver jewelry than machetes.  These are my roots, and so what? A que cultura pertenece tú Kristina?

Homage to History, Homage to Art

Tonight I knelt down on the cool, concrete floor of the Centro Intercultural de Quetzaltenango. This is a building that I have known in passing, those few times I wander outside of Zone 1 of the city I live in.  It’s a public place, maybe a community center of sorts, with a name that touts an idea that welcomes art, and creativity. But, at least until now, the reputation hasn’t lived up to its name. It has taken a long time, a long history of starting as a train station, passing to the hands of the military during a perilous civil war, and finally being returned to the people. I find myself enjoying the coolness of the floor along with the heat of the creativity flowing in the air. I am proud to call myself a friend of some incredible artists that put the sweat and tears into enlivening this place, making the Centro Intercultural really live up to its name.

On March 30, 1930 while the rest of the world waited for the word of the Germans and the results of the first  World War, Guatemalans were swimming in pride and celebration in honor of the opening of the Ferrocarril de los Altos. This was the first train station installed in the country, representing a literal and figurative opening of opportunity – trade, commerce, transportation, recreation. They had good reason to celebrate, although I doubt the campesinos struggling to make a living working on large Spanish plantations had the time to attend the festivities. Yet the glee was short lived – only three short years later the celebrations ended along with the train station. A revolution was stirring in the countryside with the landless peasants, which meant commerce was down, and the government determined the train station could much better serve the people as a military training station. This famed, old, dark and damp building remained in the hands of the military from those days through the revolution, the land reforms, the gory years of the 36-year civil war, and managed to eek past the Peace Accords in 1996. Eventually, the Municipality of Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in Guatemala and arguably the most progressive, made a decision to return the space to the people.  A community center, an inter-cultural center, a museum of indigenous traditional wear, a soccer field for the locals, and a somewhat abandoned warehouse in the back.  Abandoned, until March 30^th 2014.

84 years after the famed opening of this building, here I am, this gringa kneeling on a cold floor, eager to soak up the history of the grand space I am in, eager to fill the space with my own history. My friends Bonifaz and Lucas, two Quetzaltecos with endless imagination and expression in a number of other projects, organized the Homage to the Ferrocarril de los Altos.  I can only begin to imagine all that has passed in the privacy of these tall walls and broken windows in years past, all of the commands whispered, the trainings conducted, the atrocities planned. But I am fairly sure this is the first time these walls are experiencing such an explosion of innocent creativity. The Homage was a history of the building, presented through a myriad of artistic expression – from historical photographs and cello music, to shadow puppets and the traditional marimba, to interpretative dance and afrobeat. I should also mention a stellar tap performance from a fragile, elderly woman and some local university students broom dancing. I have lived in Quetzaltenango more than 1.5 years now and still struggle to find genuine representations of art and expression. The city is not lacking in artists, you find them everywhere. Perhaps what it is lacking is the cultural value of art and expression. I like the Spanish phrase they use here, sigamos la lucha, lets continue the struggle to take back these spaces, take back the culture, take back the art.

I don’t consider myself much of an art connoisseur, and often find myself almost intimidated by the eliteness of it all. I am not an artist, in the typical sense of the word. Sometimes, I find my art is my presence, my participation.  I, twenty something extranjera, kneeling on this cool floor and breathing in the energy of history, creativity, and inter-culturalism in a building that has represented so much of what is wrong with my culture, my country's history, my peoples involvement in a horrid history of this country. My art is being here, sharing and representing what is new about this space and helping take back the culture.  I give my apoyo to these activists, my friends and my fellow Quetzaltecos, transforming the history of this building, this city, this country, and making the name Centro Intercultural mean something again.