So I'm back in Canada, alternately reflecting on my journey and focusing right here and now . . . wondering what the hell I'm doing.
The travel experience, guat city to Toronto, was blessedly uneventful - my favourite kind. No major flight delays, no major crises . . . nothing. I did have, believe it or not, a US immigration officer flirt with me and invite me to the Caribbean for his birthday this summer. Given how formidable they can be, and how long I waited in line, I guess that's pretty noteworthy - especially since he was quite cute.
I arrived to a rather chilly Toronto retreat back towards winter (I had optimistically hoped that they'd be past this by now). So I'm very grateful that I packed my sweaters and warm pants . . . and the new wool coat that I bought in Pana just before I left. It's a rather abrupt and harsh contrast to my last night in Guatemala - hanging out under the stars until the last possible moment before crawling into bed. I almost locked up my hostel room and slept under the stars in a hammock . . . except that I don't actually sleep all that well in a hammock.
So, along with the cold on the outside, I also seem to have a cold on the inside, along with what I suspect is water transition blues . . . or something. My body has declared war on me - demanding that I sit still and rest, rather than race full speed ahead the way I'm wont to do. Although I can't say I'm all that happy about being so sick . . . it is ensuring that I take some time to think about what I want from this next leg of my journey, from this time here in Ontario, with my family.
It's also a time to fill in my blog with missing stories, while they're still fresh . . . knowing they will be harder to retrieve as time passes.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Acts of Dog and other things not covered by the small print
So . . . we´re all familiar with the phrase, "An Act of God" - it´s often used in insurance small print to provide an escape clause, whereby the insurance company does not have to fork out any money for the suffering of the insured. Usually it refers to natural disasters and other such things. In this case, someone with dyslexia was taking care of my fine print.
I have three dogs in my life in San Marcos. Pinto was my first dog-buddy. I discovered him when I was eating at Fe, while on the Moon Course, before I started working there. He was very friendly, but not well-received by most, as he had a ghastly tumor on his flank - about the size of a large lime, and really gross - because he was constantly chewing on it. Being me, I couldn't help but fall in love with him immediately and wanted to know who was responsible for him, and for ensuring he get the care he needs. Turned out that while he is 'owned' by a family up the path, they're not very reliable about following through on care for him if it costs money. So there's another foreigner that buys him big bags of food . . . and things like surgery for his tumor just keep getting put off.
My first act of Dog: at the end of January I got up early in the morning and went on the hunt for Pinto to take him to the monthly clinic offered by a vet from Guat City. Fortunately Christina, Pinto's owner was on-board, came with me and was totally supportive. While the dog was being operated on, Christina went home and returned with a wheel-barrow, which is what Pinto was taken home in when he emerged, groggy, from the surgery.
The next 2 weeks were fairly uneventful - although I'm sure the other dogs were making fun of him in the make-shift cone that his family created from a waste-basket. Like most dogs, he desperately wanted to chew at the stitches . . .and the cone was necessary to keep him away from it. It worked for about 10 days, after which he managed to catch the basket on a barbed-wire fence. I spent the next 4 days chasing him to get a cone back on as he chewed away at his stitches every chance he got. Quite despite him, however, we got through it, and he is healing very nicely. 4 months later you can barely see the scar.
Pinto was the first of my dog-loves in San Marcos, but I fell just as in love with the two beautiful dogs that live on the property where I´ve been staying for the last 3 months: Wispy and Sassy. Sassy is the smaller of the two dogs; black with gold markings and deep mournful eyes. She has an ability to get in and out of the property at will, and to get in and out of trouble with equal ease. She´s a little bit timid, and very loyal, and used to follow Katherine (the owner of my hut) everywhere. Now she follows me. Wispy is a bigger golden lab cross, a big chunky guy, who gets into trouble easily, but doesn´t have nearly the same grace or ability to get back out. Where sassy wisps in and out . . . he lumbers. No one is certain how he ended up named Wispy, except maybe for its irony. Some suggest it´s a reference to his brains . . . ie, he´s not very bright; but I have witnessed that his intelligence is simply selective, rather than lacking.
My second Act of Dog came towards the end of my stay in San Marcos. I was scheduled to work my last weekend at the restaurant, and was having some rather mixed feelings about it. My feeling of needing the money had taken priority over my feeling of being really done with the job and the restaurant. (You know that relationship that´s really done, and ready for transition, but you just keep hanging on???) So, Friday arrived and I got myself ready, physically and emotionally, for my night at work, reminding myself it was just two more shifts.
As I walked to work, I discovered Wispy on the path . . . surprised a little, as I was certain that I had left him inside the property . . . but who knows - maybe someone stopped by and he took the opportunity to go wandering. So, I greeted him with enthusiasm and walked him promptly back to the property. Previous experience has demonstrated that Wispy, out-of-the-yard while I'm at work, is not a good thing. When he's come to visit me in the past, he's just generally a trouble-maker . . . . in and out of the kitchen, following me around generally getting under the boss' feet. It's not pretty. He's also, more recently, gotten wise to my game of my walking him home . . . and tends to resist. Fortunately, I hadn't reached work yet, so he followed me home quite willingly.
I got to work and discovered the boss was in a less than stellar mood. Improved none by the appearance of Wispy, trotting in after me. Now I was suspicious - it seemed unlikely he'd been let out again. . . .but as far as I knew, while Sassy could get in and out of the yard at will, Wispy couldn't. Sooo . . . with some persuasion (ie. food) I managed to walk him home again. Unfortunately, as I returned to work, I discovered him on the steps of Fe - it appeared he'd found his own special route out of the yard and he was quite determined to stay. This did not improve my boss' mood . . . at all. So, we came up with a win-win solution. He paid me my base pay, and I took the dog home. It didn't take me long to find my gratitude and joy for this very annoying dog.
The next afternoon I went back to talk to the boss, and explained that since Niki & Dave were out of town, and the dogs were missing them - and therefore more likely to follow me, and since Wispy now had his own escape route . . . I couldn't promise he wouldn't follow me to work that night. We agreed that it was best if we just called things done. And so the relationship ended peacefully, and I didn't have to work my last two shifts. Many thanks go out to Wispy the annoying escape-artist.
Of course, lest I get too mushy about it . . . this all happened the weekend of Feria, the town festival. A big, noisy, drunken affair in which wandering dogs is not a good thing. With the family away, Sassy basically tried to carve herself into their front door . . .except when I was home - then she came and chilled in my hut. She is terrified by the noise - especially the fireworks. Wispy's more of an extrovert - so he followed me around and sought reassurance as long as I was around . . . hovering like Sassy . . . until Saturday night sometime when he buggered off and didn't come back.
This would be Act of Dog number 3. I spent two days worrying pathetically, envisioning horrible stolen-dog scenarios, alternately worrying about the worst and then cursing him for just being off having fun. It was Sassy's grief-stricken look all weekend that was my undoing. Fortunately,when the family returned I found out that Wispy has a regular house he goes to up in the Barrios where he feels safe when the world has gone crazy, and that's where he'd been all weekend. Chente brought him home the next morning. sigh.
Acts of Dog . . . and other things not covered in the small print. It's amazing how these four-leggeds can have such a huge impact on our life.
The morning I left San Marcos, it was saying goodbye to these pooches that brought me to tears. The sad look in Sassy's eyes as I hugged her goodbye . . . knowing I couldn't explain it to her, and that I would be just one more person who has left her. Thank goodness Wispy came back . . . and they have each other, and Rose . . . and a whole village that is theirs to roam. Pinto has many others who watch over him, and even travelers who come back just to see him. I trust they will all be ok, as I know that each of them has a little piece of my heart.
I have three dogs in my life in San Marcos. Pinto was my first dog-buddy. I discovered him when I was eating at Fe, while on the Moon Course, before I started working there. He was very friendly, but not well-received by most, as he had a ghastly tumor on his flank - about the size of a large lime, and really gross - because he was constantly chewing on it. Being me, I couldn't help but fall in love with him immediately and wanted to know who was responsible for him, and for ensuring he get the care he needs. Turned out that while he is 'owned' by a family up the path, they're not very reliable about following through on care for him if it costs money. So there's another foreigner that buys him big bags of food . . . and things like surgery for his tumor just keep getting put off.
My first act of Dog: at the end of January I got up early in the morning and went on the hunt for Pinto to take him to the monthly clinic offered by a vet from Guat City. Fortunately Christina, Pinto's owner was on-board, came with me and was totally supportive. While the dog was being operated on, Christina went home and returned with a wheel-barrow, which is what Pinto was taken home in when he emerged, groggy, from the surgery.
The next 2 weeks were fairly uneventful - although I'm sure the other dogs were making fun of him in the make-shift cone that his family created from a waste-basket. Like most dogs, he desperately wanted to chew at the stitches . . .and the cone was necessary to keep him away from it. It worked for about 10 days, after which he managed to catch the basket on a barbed-wire fence. I spent the next 4 days chasing him to get a cone back on as he chewed away at his stitches every chance he got. Quite despite him, however, we got through it, and he is healing very nicely. 4 months later you can barely see the scar.
Pinto was the first of my dog-loves in San Marcos, but I fell just as in love with the two beautiful dogs that live on the property where I´ve been staying for the last 3 months: Wispy and Sassy. Sassy is the smaller of the two dogs; black with gold markings and deep mournful eyes. She has an ability to get in and out of the property at will, and to get in and out of trouble with equal ease. She´s a little bit timid, and very loyal, and used to follow Katherine (the owner of my hut) everywhere. Now she follows me. Wispy is a bigger golden lab cross, a big chunky guy, who gets into trouble easily, but doesn´t have nearly the same grace or ability to get back out. Where sassy wisps in and out . . . he lumbers. No one is certain how he ended up named Wispy, except maybe for its irony. Some suggest it´s a reference to his brains . . . ie, he´s not very bright; but I have witnessed that his intelligence is simply selective, rather than lacking.
My second Act of Dog came towards the end of my stay in San Marcos. I was scheduled to work my last weekend at the restaurant, and was having some rather mixed feelings about it. My feeling of needing the money had taken priority over my feeling of being really done with the job and the restaurant. (You know that relationship that´s really done, and ready for transition, but you just keep hanging on???) So, Friday arrived and I got myself ready, physically and emotionally, for my night at work, reminding myself it was just two more shifts.
As I walked to work, I discovered Wispy on the path . . . surprised a little, as I was certain that I had left him inside the property . . . but who knows - maybe someone stopped by and he took the opportunity to go wandering. So, I greeted him with enthusiasm and walked him promptly back to the property. Previous experience has demonstrated that Wispy, out-of-the-yard while I'm at work, is not a good thing. When he's come to visit me in the past, he's just generally a trouble-maker . . . . in and out of the kitchen, following me around generally getting under the boss' feet. It's not pretty. He's also, more recently, gotten wise to my game of my walking him home . . . and tends to resist. Fortunately, I hadn't reached work yet, so he followed me home quite willingly.
I got to work and discovered the boss was in a less than stellar mood. Improved none by the appearance of Wispy, trotting in after me. Now I was suspicious - it seemed unlikely he'd been let out again. . . .but as far as I knew, while Sassy could get in and out of the yard at will, Wispy couldn't. Sooo . . . with some persuasion (ie. food) I managed to walk him home again. Unfortunately, as I returned to work, I discovered him on the steps of Fe - it appeared he'd found his own special route out of the yard and he was quite determined to stay. This did not improve my boss' mood . . . at all. So, we came up with a win-win solution. He paid me my base pay, and I took the dog home. It didn't take me long to find my gratitude and joy for this very annoying dog.
The next afternoon I went back to talk to the boss, and explained that since Niki & Dave were out of town, and the dogs were missing them - and therefore more likely to follow me, and since Wispy now had his own escape route . . . I couldn't promise he wouldn't follow me to work that night. We agreed that it was best if we just called things done. And so the relationship ended peacefully, and I didn't have to work my last two shifts. Many thanks go out to Wispy the annoying escape-artist.
Of course, lest I get too mushy about it . . . this all happened the weekend of Feria, the town festival. A big, noisy, drunken affair in which wandering dogs is not a good thing. With the family away, Sassy basically tried to carve herself into their front door . . .except when I was home - then she came and chilled in my hut. She is terrified by the noise - especially the fireworks. Wispy's more of an extrovert - so he followed me around and sought reassurance as long as I was around . . . hovering like Sassy . . . until Saturday night sometime when he buggered off and didn't come back.
This would be Act of Dog number 3. I spent two days worrying pathetically, envisioning horrible stolen-dog scenarios, alternately worrying about the worst and then cursing him for just being off having fun. It was Sassy's grief-stricken look all weekend that was my undoing. Fortunately,when the family returned I found out that Wispy has a regular house he goes to up in the Barrios where he feels safe when the world has gone crazy, and that's where he'd been all weekend. Chente brought him home the next morning. sigh.
Acts of Dog . . . and other things not covered in the small print. It's amazing how these four-leggeds can have such a huge impact on our life.
The morning I left San Marcos, it was saying goodbye to these pooches that brought me to tears. The sad look in Sassy's eyes as I hugged her goodbye . . . knowing I couldn't explain it to her, and that I would be just one more person who has left her. Thank goodness Wispy came back . . . and they have each other, and Rose . . . and a whole village that is theirs to roam. Pinto has many others who watch over him, and even travelers who come back just to see him. I trust they will all be ok, as I know that each of them has a little piece of my heart.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Feria!
Every little town in Guatemala has it's own town fair once a year: Feria. But in true Guatemalan style, although Feria is a single day - the celebration starts 3 or more weeks ahead, and continues for at least 8 days afterward. The preceding three weeks are a build-up: of vendors, of musicians, of food and of general partying and mayhem.
The Feria celebration is a mixed thing. The music is pretty good - lots of marimba bands and other live performances. The food is great; cheap Guatemalan tostadas and lots of Feria cookies (they look like bagels, but apparently they're like biscotti). The school bands kick into high gear and can be heard at all hours. Of course, so can the fire-crackers and the bomb-like things they set off in lieu of actual fireworks.
The music incites dancing - which generally I think of as a good thing, but in this case some of it made me sad. What I came to see, that others had warned me about, is that Feria is also an excuse for the indigenous to get rip-roaring drunk, and much like in Canada - there's nothing pretty about that. Watching old men and ancient women dancing the awkward weave and wobble of the pitifully inebriated is heart-breaking. Worse to watch young girls and their mothers try to drag home their dad, who is long past time to go home - and he is too drunk to leave. The first night that was all I saw. I didn't hang out that long in the village . . . I just wandered through, saw the lights, watched the few dancers and headed home.
Fortunately, the night I actually went out for the evening and hung-out on the dance floor, I also saw young couples enjoying the music, enjoying each other. I saw folks of all ages dancing, sharing the floor, sharing laughs . . . . I even got a picture of some adorable little girls, hanging out under the stage. That was on "Ocho Dia" . . .the 8th day. As I said, Feria has a three week lead up and then at least an 8 day follow up, known simply as "Ocho Dias" (8 days). On Ocho Dia I was hanging out by the stage, watching the conga player, dancing with my friends, listening to the children scream on the Ferris wheel, and watching the community dance.
Eight days earlier, on Feria Day, I had finally wandered up for a bit to get a better look at what was going on, and then settled in to see what was going to happen under the big-top. I couldn't tell if the band was just ending or about to begin. As I was trying to figure it out, I found myself in a staring contest with a most lovely Garafuna (Afro-Latin) man. When he patted the speaker he was sitting on and invited me over, I discovered that he was a conga player in the marimba band that had been playing all weekend . . . waiting for the next band to begin. I also discovered that he didn't speak any English - so my Spanish, highly under-developed for three and a half months, suddenly got an incredible workout. Turns out I had learned far more than I realized all that time - taking it in, even though I wasn't using it. In my last two weeks in Guatemala I spoke far more Spanish than in my prior three months. Jeshua turned out to be an amazing Spanish teacher.
So Feria was a memorable experience for me in many ways. I saw another side (several actually) of the local people, I met a lovely man, and I finally got my Spanish jump-started . . .enabling me in my last weeks in San Marcos to finally have some long-overdue real conversations with several of the locals who I had wanted to connect with.
The Feria celebration is a mixed thing. The music is pretty good - lots of marimba bands and other live performances. The food is great; cheap Guatemalan tostadas and lots of Feria cookies (they look like bagels, but apparently they're like biscotti). The school bands kick into high gear and can be heard at all hours. Of course, so can the fire-crackers and the bomb-like things they set off in lieu of actual fireworks.
The music incites dancing - which generally I think of as a good thing, but in this case some of it made me sad. What I came to see, that others had warned me about, is that Feria is also an excuse for the indigenous to get rip-roaring drunk, and much like in Canada - there's nothing pretty about that. Watching old men and ancient women dancing the awkward weave and wobble of the pitifully inebriated is heart-breaking. Worse to watch young girls and their mothers try to drag home their dad, who is long past time to go home - and he is too drunk to leave. The first night that was all I saw. I didn't hang out that long in the village . . . I just wandered through, saw the lights, watched the few dancers and headed home.
Fortunately, the night I actually went out for the evening and hung-out on the dance floor, I also saw young couples enjoying the music, enjoying each other. I saw folks of all ages dancing, sharing the floor, sharing laughs . . . . I even got a picture of some adorable little girls, hanging out under the stage. That was on "Ocho Dia" . . .the 8th day. As I said, Feria has a three week lead up and then at least an 8 day follow up, known simply as "Ocho Dias" (8 days). On Ocho Dia I was hanging out by the stage, watching the conga player, dancing with my friends, listening to the children scream on the Ferris wheel, and watching the community dance.
Eight days earlier, on Feria Day, I had finally wandered up for a bit to get a better look at what was going on, and then settled in to see what was going to happen under the big-top. I couldn't tell if the band was just ending or about to begin. As I was trying to figure it out, I found myself in a staring contest with a most lovely Garafuna (Afro-Latin) man. When he patted the speaker he was sitting on and invited me over, I discovered that he was a conga player in the marimba band that had been playing all weekend . . . waiting for the next band to begin. I also discovered that he didn't speak any English - so my Spanish, highly under-developed for three and a half months, suddenly got an incredible workout. Turns out I had learned far more than I realized all that time - taking it in, even though I wasn't using it. In my last two weeks in Guatemala I spoke far more Spanish than in my prior three months. Jeshua turned out to be an amazing Spanish teacher.
So Feria was a memorable experience for me in many ways. I saw another side (several actually) of the local people, I met a lovely man, and I finally got my Spanish jump-started . . .enabling me in my last weeks in San Marcos to finally have some long-overdue real conversations with several of the locals who I had wanted to connect with.
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