Yesterday, Sonia, a couchsurfer, found me immediately in the welcome area crowd at the airport. She gave me a big hug and I felt so lucky to be greeted like that by someone in a new country. She drove me to a patio cafe/bakery for lunch called Los Alpes, about 10 min. from the airport. The airport is right in the center of the city. Sonia explains that the city is arranged in a spiral of zones. Often when people say Guatemala, they are referring to Guatemala City rather than the country. The nickname Guate is commonly used for the country. States are called Departementos.
Los Alpes was the perfect place for relaxing and catching up - that is what everyone seemed to be doing there. No one was rushing in and out quickly. Service was a little lazy. We arrived at 12:30 and stayed until 2:30. Lunch time in Guatemala is more like 2pm. I had a delicious salad composed of piles of each: cucumber, grated carrot, sliced tomato, sliced hard-boiled egg, cooked cold green beans and cooked cold brocoli...followed by tres leches cake - I had to scrape the frosting off because it was too sweet. Sonia told me the Spanish word for too sweet, but I don't remember. Too much to take in. Lots of pretty flowers, bright colors, traffic, greenery, birds perched on chairs waiting for crumbs.
Sonia works as a journalist and as a journalism teacher at the university. Her job has allowed her to travel free to many places around the world. She lives with her sister, niece, and nefew and helps her single-mother sister raise the children.
Harold, my couchsurfing host, meets us at Los Alpes at 2:15 after he gets out of work. He owns his own teaching English company. He has coffee with us. Sonia tells us both about a band playing the following night and invites us along. I think Sonia and Harold enjoyed meeting and talking. Couchsurfing is so great!
Harold lived in Guatemala until age 6, then he moved with his family to New Jersey where he learned English and grew up. In the meantime his dad moved back to Guatemala. When he was 27, Harold returned to see his dad and ended moving back and starting his own English teaching company. Now he is 35.
Last night was a quiet one. I went for a walk around the neighborhood accompanied by Harold. He insisted I do not walk around the city by myself even though his neighborhood appears so friendly and nice at first glance.
This morning, I woke up at 6am and went with Harold to the English class he teaches every day at an energy/fuel plant/company called Eliott. Eliott's slogan is: "Making the world turn. Eliott. Fuels." Harold taught the main class and he put me aside with a second chair. Each of the 6 men in the class came over and sat next to me for one on one conversation practicing. I would ask them questions they had been learning:
What is your name?
What is your work email? Personal email?
How old are you?
How big is your family?
What are the names of your brothers, sisters, father, mother?
What do you do? (mechanic, welder, accountant)
and then I started making up new questions out of curiosity and because there was still time:
Where have you traveled?
Were you born in Guatemala city?
Where do your brothers/sisters live? What do they do?
What are your favorite places in Guatemala?
and then I gave them the chance to ask me questions, which I could tell they really wanted to do. They were curious\surprised that I came here by myself and that none of my family lives here. At the end of class, I joined the main group and they quizzed me/helped me learn some Spanish, which was great. Harold said later that they all really enjoyed talking with me and practicing with a foreigner. I will help again tomorrow!
Then, Harold and I went back to his house for breakfast at 9:30am. The maid fixed us a traditional Guatemalan breakfast - refried black beans with creama and eggs scrambled with onions, peppers and tomatoes. Harold explained that maids are very cheap in Guatemala compared to the U.S. The maid, Angelica, comes every day from 9-3.
After looking at my guidebook, Harold picked out some places to take me that he had not been to before and we took off to explore. Our first stop was a botanical garden where I saw lots of beautiful plants and flowers. My favorite tree is the towering, thick-trunked Ceiba. Then, we went to a museum of Mayan ruins - all the collection was excavated from the spot the museum was built upon. In the back of the museum there is a mound where a temple was dug up. Several zones of current Guatemala City used to be a Mayan City 3,000 years ago and the Mayan city became covered up and over grown.
Traffic is pretty crazy. We always lock the doors and roll up the windows. "Chicken buses" - repainted in crazy colors U.S. school buses packed with people, and motercycles, are the craziest drivers. Harold's car has multiple dents from collisions with motercyclists - accidents mainly caused by the bikers. I have seen maybe 2 police cars in my 2 days here. Harold says the police hardly do anything. Especially in small towns, ghetto areas crime is taken into the hands of the people and the police actually protect the criminals from being lynched. Ambulances pass by and only half the cars move out of the way. The other half either don't move or else they get right on the tail of the ambulance and try to get ahead in traffic. Unlike in Taiwan, where driving is also congested yet where cars/scooters yield and merge with the awareness of a school of fish, here in Guatemala, traffic is aggressive and there are a lot of accidents. Its very interesting, the comparisons and difference I see between Taipei and Guatemala City. Even though Guatemala City is huge, the air seems cleaner and you can still smell all the flowers. Both places have that jungle/mountain scenery.
We came back to the house after exploring, for lunch. Harold says the lower class and the upper class almost always come back to the house for lunch - the lower class because they have flexible jobs like selling bananas on the street; and the wealthy because they can afford to. The middle class tend to eat lunch in their offices.
Harold also tells me about house-hold dating culture in Guatemala. Young men and women live with their families until marriage most of the time. Harold's girlfriend, Stephanie, moved in with him a year ago and that was a huge deal for her family. Even now, when they get together with her extended family, her parents introduce Harold to their relatives as Stephanie's husband because they don't want to explain that he isn't and be embarrassed. It is uncommon for a girlfriend or boyfriend to be allowed to spend the night at the parent's house. For this reason, something called auto-hotels exist in which couples can drive their cars into a garage, and pay an hourly rate for a room above. Rooms range from incredibly sketchy to extremely posh with waterbeds, hot tubs, gardens etc. So, apparently it can be pretty pricey to have sex here, or, as Harold says, "get your rocks off."
Back at the house, Angelica has fixed us the kind of lunch I would have wanted to fix myself: pureed squash/cilantro soup, and one each of a slice of squash, corn on the cob, boiled carrot, thin slice of breaded steak, and some kind of delicious white vegetable I had never tried before, which tasted earthy like a brazil nut. Mucho gusto.
I take a long nap after lunch and awake to a cockroach crawling across my arm. I'm pretty used to cockroaches from living in Austin, but that does not mean I am happy to see them. At least now, I can remain calm and kill it with my shoe.
The sun is starting to go down. The flowers in Harold's garden, which emerge at night time, smell divine. I think we will go out soon to see that band Sonia told us of and she will meet us there. Harold went out to drop Stephanie at university. She studies law from 6-9 at night after working in the office from 8-5 during the day. She is such a talented and dedicated student that her university offered her a half scholarship out of the blue. She is Guatemalan, 25, and beautiful. She always gives me a kiss on the cheek hello and good bye. That is customary here. I love that warmth/physical ease of Latin countries. At the same time, Harold tells me Guatemalans in general are a very repressed people and even he feels that from growing up with a Guatemalan family in the states. He tells me that often it is hard for Guatemalans to feel comfortable demanding what they want or saying no to what they don't want and that frequently, you will get a yes answer face to face only to never get the follow through.
Uploading pictures now, and dinner soon. Dinner is the lightest meal and I'm still full from lunch :)
