i'm writing this on september 2 but seeing as how wifi or even an actual internet connection is next to impossible here who knows when i'll actually post it.
i've had a busy couple of days. my spanish class ended and my teacher ran me through both preterit and imperfect and my mind is completely gone. i have so many new verb forms in my head that i can barely pull off simple present tense now. i'll be in antigua in a couple days and want to take another week of spanish so hopefully i'll get it all straightened out again. or it'll just make things worse. whatever. i could probably get by yelling destination names at bus drivers so i don't know why i'm so frantically trying to be fluent in spanish. its fun, though. and makes me feel like i have a purpose, being jobless and all.
speaking of buses, i am so in love with the chicken buses. not the part where i have to ride on them with everything i own, but their appearance and general attitude. they must get the buses used from the states because i've seen a couple that haven't been painted and they have 'your tax dollars for blah blah blah county at work' written on them. but the best chicken buses are totally decked out, flashy paint jobs in the brightest colors imaginable, perfectly pristine exterior, mounted decorations like bull horns or antlers, things dangling in all the windows, and when they blare their horns it sounds like a barge going by. and man do they drive fast, almost up on 2 wheels when they take the hairpin turns around here. and they all have names, like boats, splashed across the sides and backs and in the windows. sexy girl names.
yesterday i went to a backstrap weaving class. they make belts, shawls, table runners, stuff like that on these. i picked out my colors and started winding the thread in a particular patter on a wooden peg board. when it was about belt sized i took it off and tomasa (mayan woman i couldn't understand at all) hooked it up to the loom. the loom isn't really a loom but she wove these thick threads around each strand and that's what will pull every other thread while i'm weaving. not doing a good job explaining. but the backstrap comes in because the whole thing gets attached to me around my back with a strap so my hands are free to weave. the other end is tied to a post.
i met tomasa in the village above the hostel (straight up climb, super poor town but they all have million dollar views), i was told to sit at the basketball court and she'd find me. i was early and watched the cutest boys playing soccer. she led me to her house and we sat and weaved with barefoot kids running around and dogs wandering in and out. i wasn't sure how long my lesson was supposed to be but at one point she started hanging laundry above my head. i refused to take the hint, though.
anyway, about my belt. since i wasn't told in advance exactly how the colors i pick or the way i wind them would turn out i refuse responsibility for its outcome. i thought by weaving my colors i would get something like those cool mayan patterns, even if in a very beginner sort of way. but not so much, my belt looks like a third grade art project. maybe third graders in the special class. there's a couple places where i knocked all the wooden pegs out of the thread and goofed it but i'm still going to wear it. i'll have to post a picture of tomasa setting up the weave because i'm sitting here with my beer and neither of us has a clue how to give a visual without putting you to sleep with a migraine.
tomasa had brought out some examples of things she's made (which is why i thought my belt would look so much cooler than it does) and i got suckered into buying something that i have absolutely no need for. someone's christmas present, i'm thinking. but i have to tote it around now. that's a bummer. i wasn't really suckered but the weaving lesson was super cheap, i spent about 3 hours of her time, and making my belt earned tomasa about $2/hour. i was prepared to give her way more money than she charges but the penny pincher in me demanded that i get something for all the extra money i was gonna spend.
maybe i'll buy some weaving supplies and everyone will get belts for christmas. it was super fun.
today i went to the market at chichicastenango. woke up at 6, caught the 7 o'clock boat to panajachel, then a shuttle to chi chi, about an hour and a half northeast through the mountains. chi chi has the biggest open air market in central america, and it was insane. its held on thursdays and sundays. hundreds of stalls in this town, plus all the normal stores. and if i thought that i had any idea what aggressive sales people were like from mexico i was wrong. these crazy mayan women would follow us shouting and pushing their stuff in our faces for blocks and blocks. the further you walked from where their stall was the cheaper the price got. but the more you had to listen to stories about how their kids won't eat unless you buy something, no one has shoes, her husband can't work, its up to you to save her family.
i did buy a couple things for the family, as long as i started my christmas shopping i may as well buy enough to warrant mailing a package home. the woman had been following me for a while and we argued until she was slightly less than half what she started at so that seemed ok. minutes after i bought the items another woman wanted me to buy hers for 20q less, which is about 3 dollars. oh well. i'm not the best bargainer but i try.
i still can't get over how crazy the market was. never ending aisles of stalls that have no direction whatsoever (i adopted a couple from australia to hang out with, pat is probably 6'5" so anytime i'd feel lost i'd just have to look over the heads of the 5' guatemalan folk to find my way, kristy is at least 5'10" and that helped too). everything you could image was for sale, from handmade clothing to used nuts and bolts and buckets of shrimp. i've been keeping an eye out for a good folding knife to keep in my pocket and found a couple at a table. when i tried them out i found that they were switchblades, for some reason that made me laugh so hard. what would happen when i go through customs when i finally get home and i have a switchblade in my bag? they were pretty and fairly cheap and i really regret not buying one.
there were times when we'd be in a traffic jam between stalls, people everywhere trying to go somewhere and no one moving. the little guatemalan women would try to use me as a battering ram to get through, i'd feel 4 or 5 hands on my back and ass, pushing me so i would trample through the crowd. sometimes it was fun. other times i'd dead stop and brace myself and make the little women try to make their way around me, that was more fun. one time i did that and a little old woman started punching me. it was impossible to get mad, though, because she was so small she was punching my thigh and i almost didn't feel it.
i heard a story the other day that made me decide that i wasn't going to mail anything home from anywhere. i seem to have forgotten it in my shopping frenzy, though. molly and daniel came here a few months ago and have been working at the hostel. molly's mom sent them a care package with oreos and peanut butter and such, and after waiting and waiting they finally went to the post office to check. they found a letter that hadn't been forwarded, it was from someone in guatemala city, and told them that if they wanted their package they could bring a bunch of money to the post office and they could have their box. the contents of the package wasn't worth how much the guy was asking (over and above the postage paid) so they never got it.
apparently its a bit of a lottery here with the mail. anything from the states that looks good gets taken hostage, and there's absolutely no one you can complain to about it, the police are as bad as the muggers. so i worry about sending a package home but does anyone here really want to steal things i bought here? i'm hoping they won't. but god forbid i get my wallet stolen and have to get a new atm card mailed. not a chance i'd ever see that.
hearing all of the stories from the multitudes of people that have come through this hostel in the past week makes me realize that getting mugged is inevitable. its going to happen at least once while i'm in central america, i may as well resign myself to that fact. wallets and day bags are the only things that get taken, and no one has been hurt. up till now, i've kept all of my most valuable things (iPhone, computer, credit cards, iPod, camera) in the bag i always have with me while on the road. but the general advice is to keep the things i'm most worried about in my giant backpack that gets strapped to the roof of the chicken bus, which is a horrifying thought to me. but thieves don't wan't to carry a giant bag off. so when i get to my next spot with wifi i need to buy some online storage and upload all thousands of my pictures from my computer, and maybe have a little advance goodbye party for the possessions i love most.
but let's end on a good note. i'm getting used to the wildlife in my cabana here. little spiders don't even bother me anymore, at any given moment i probably have one stuck in my hair. and after an initial wall and ceiling check in the cabana (there never seems to be bugs on the floor) i don't keep obsessively rechecking anymore. i think i'm getting better.
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| learning to weave |
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