Guatemala

Guatemala impacted me in more ways than I imagined. Many of the ways were good---I now love to listen to Spanish music, and eagerly translate parent-teacher conferences at my new school. Other ways were not so good---I have trouble falling asleep at night.

Guatemala taught me to fear the night. Night was when evil happened---gunshots in the street, broken windows, and men wandering the street toward the local house of prostitution. Needless to say, you didn't go out at night.

I'm still glad I went to Guatemala. I may have come back with a few scars, but I also returned with a new knowledge of our world. My worldview was unalterably changed. I no longer view the US as a place of all things good---learning how your country sponsored a faction that wiped out entire indigenous villages will do that to you. I met many kind people, and learned more than I ever thought possible about the Mayan religion.

19 Jobs

Children today will have an average of 19 jobs before they are 38. I've had nine, and I'm only twenty-two.

I've had good jobs---reading tutor with AmeriCorps, and English teacher to refugees and immigrants in Minnesota. I've also had some crazy jobs: English teacher with a European Academy in Guatemala, where my boss paid off the gangs to keep the teachers from being kidnapped, and selling plasma. Nothing too entirely special jobs were working in the college dining service, and acting as a custodial trainer.

Somehow ordinary jobs just can't be normal for me, though. Even working as a custodial trainer, I managed to discover that my coworker was a drug dealer and get hit on by a retired monk. Average? Hardly.

Nothing beats my job in a little, out of the way Spanish academy in Xela, Guatemala, where I fended off the advances of my three bosses while trying to get my full paycheck. It was always a negotiation. "Will you take half your wages? We're a non-profit!" Me: "No. I need to make rent this month." Them: "I don't have change." Me: "I do." Erg!

That job had a rather interesting ending: I was forced to quit after my student proposed to me, and my bosses refused to do anything about it.

At least life is never dull!

It Can Be Really Hard to Be Gay

It can be really hard to be gay, and not always for the reasons that you might suspect. Sure, you have to deal with your mother's fear that you won't be with her in Heaven some day, and your dad's fear that you'll be the victim of discrimination or a hate crime. However, sometimes it's the day to day difficulties that wear on you the most.

It's all of the flirtation and suggestive comments aimed your way by unsuspecting strangers. It just goes completely against the grain for me. It grates on me, and is intensely uncomfortable. To help my family understand, I liken it to a gay person hitting on them, and the intense reaction they would feel. Suddenly they seem to get it.

I wonder what would happen if I told these unknowing strangers the truth---that I can't be interested in them because I'm gay. I would never be so naive to do so, but I hate having to bury who I am all the time. It's like a strangling of the soul.

Teaching English in an Inner-city School

I want a job that makes a difference. One of the hardest things I experienced in Guatemala was walking by children begging for food on my way to my academy. Little boys, hardly more than eight years old, daily approached me pleading for some bread or water. To see this, and then enter into the ridiculous affluence of the academy was such a jolt. I saw horrifying levels of poverty each day, and then entered into this little land apart, where everyone had plenty of food, cars, fancy houses, and security. I saw small children with torn, dirty clothes begging for a ten cent piece of bread, and then taught an hour long class to an affluent businessman who could pay the school $20 an hour (the equivalent of $100 an hour here). I couldn't reconcile it.

I came from an inner-city public school, where I had to scrounge crayons up off the dirty floor and break them in half, so that every kindergartener had something to write with. I saw children with distended stomachs from the parasites in the impure water they were drinking. I held a little boy whose legs were bowed with rickets. To see that, and struggle to teach just a little English through the violence and the hunger, I couldn't feel right just teaching the rich.

Anyone reliable enough to keep to the system and show up to class on time could teach the students at my academy. When you have a comfortable classroom and a set method of instruction, it's not so hard. You earn a comfortable wage. You don't worry about your students stabbing each other or hitting others with chains. You don't get kicked by angry, abused children. It's just a whole lot easier emotionally.

It may be selfish, but I wanted to be somewhere where I was needed. I crave job satisfaction, and fulfillment. The public school was tough, but I was making a difference. It was worth struggling to make rent every month and working crazy hours. I felt fulfilled.

I also discovered that I can put up with a whole lot of craziness as long as I was content with my work. I can cope with students who never seem to do their work when I know that there is a real reason behind this behavior. Many of my students didn't have school supplies at home. Rather than students who just came to English classes as a way to ward off boredom, these students were struggling just to stay in school when economically it made more sense for them to be working.

I couldn't justify staying in Guatemala after I was shot at when all I was doing was teaching the affluent. They had many ways of learning English. Maybe it's a horrible thing to say, but since they didn't need me, it wasn't worth the risk. I may have stayed if I felt my work was making a difference. Whether that is foolhardy or not, I don't pretend to understand.

Sleepless in the States

Guatemala gave me so many wonderful things---a beautiful Mayan host sister to play with, increased fluency in Spanish, and self-confidence. I hate to always seem as though I'm meditating on the bad side.

That said, I think I've finally figured out my reluctance to sleep at night. It was always at night that the club next door would get crazy, and when I would hear gunshots from the park or in the street. Night was a dangerous time in Guatemala. Not having any males to escort me home late at night, I tended to stay inside after dark.

Night was also when I would feel tremors. It never failed: about six a.m. every month or so I would be suddenly awoken by the shaking of my room. I soon "earthquake-proofed" it by moving all of the heavy shelves to the other side of the room, away from my bed.

So I guess my inability to sleep at night may just be a residual effect of living in Guatemala. Daylight just feels so much safer.

So I'm sleeping with my kitten tonight. Everything seems so much better with a warm, cuddly little bundle of fur curled up next to me.

Where Are Career Services When You Need Them?

Is it horrible that I have no idea what I truly want to do with my life? I have the respectable list of goals to pull out for my relatives (get a Master's degree in education, teach English in Asia, do two years of Americorps service in public schools), but so far I haven't found that one thing that makes me just love getting up in the morning. Maybe because I'm not a morning person?

It's not that I don't enjoy what I'm doing (teaching English as a Foreign Language and tutoring in public schools), it's just that it's not my passion. I want more from a job than this.

If I could, I would work with children one on one, completely on my own (no list of what has to be done, no goals to meet, just some nice, child-led learning). Getting my Master's degree sounds great and all, but I don't really gel that well with public schools. I've seen too many kids who just can't fit into the classroom mold.

Take Ashton, for example. I started taking him out of the classroom for forty-five minutes three times a week, and was just amazed at his academic level. As long as I wasn't doing anything that screamed "schoolwork" with him, he would actually ask to write short stories (and illustrate them) and do math problems with cubes. The minute I pulled a worksheet out, though, you could see the enthusiasm visibly drain out of him.

I do want to travel. If the only way I can finance it is teaching English, I'll do it. I just need some flexibility. Conversation classes with adults are great, as is working with children. As long as there isn't too much structure, I'm great.

I think what got me in trouble in Guatemala was just working for the absolute upper class, and working in an extremely structured environment. I can't stand walking by hungry, begging street children on my way to teach absurdly demanding rich students, who can afford to pay the equivalent of $100 an hour and not show up to class on time. I didn't feel like I was making a difference. I'm all for paying the bills and all, but I also need some sort of job satisfaction.

The semi experience

I found this draft of a post a few days ago. I wrote it while I was still in Nicaragua, debating whether or not I should take a flight home from the capital.

It´s about time to come home. Two weeks ago I hitched a ride in a semi truck after being stranded on the border to Nicaragua. The semi had to stop for the night due to a very bad stretch of road. Highway robbers were known to leave bodies on the road to force drivers to stop, and they would then be robbed and killed. I slept on part of the bed with the guy in back, and woke up to him brushing the hair off of my forehead. He asked me later, very nervously, if he could kiss me, and I said no. He was so worried that I´d be mad that he had even asked. Needless to say, I took a bus at the next town with bus services. In my defense, the guy was 25 years old, with a three year old son. I had three people (plus countless border guards) who could vouch for him. One was an old lady with a seven year old son who also hitched for about an hour with us from the border (she knew his dad), and the other was a money changer who sees him regularly passing through from Honduras to Costa Rica. I felt completely comfortable with him. On the other hand, I´m not doing that again.

My feelings have been pretty accurate so far this trip, but sometimes surprising. I had a bad feeling about two police officers who started to take the report after my bag was stolen. It was confirmed when they later said that in order to file the report, I would need to go with them down to the police station, in the dark, in their car, and I couldn´t bring any of the family from the States that I had met with me. Needless to say, I didn´t file that report. I just got a bad feeling about it all.

Which makes my feeling that going back to Guatemala would be a mistake a scary one. I just don´t have a good feeling about going back. It doesn´t feel safe, somehow. Do you think I´m being paranoid?

Ultimately, I decided I had to come back. I couldn't risk going back to Guatemala. Things were getting a little too scary for me. All the harassment, close calls, and violence that I tried to push out of my mind were suddenly at the forefront. I had to get out while I still could.

I knew I had been lucky. I was shot at, but they missed. I broke a few minor bones, but they healed (sans X-rays or any "high tech" equipment). I got horribly sick from food poisoning on an island in Nicaragua, but they happened to have the necessary medicine to get me better. I was sexually harassed by cab drivers, passengers on the bus, and people walking down the road, but I was still whole and healthy. I just couldn't risk it anymore.

I bused to the capital two days later, getting one of the last taxis to the airport before the roads were shut down with protestors. National elections had been held the week before, and both sides claimed they had won. Protestors took to the streets. There were police out in riot gear everywhere.

I got out. I just wish I had been able to say a proper goodbye to my host family, who was so great to me. I wish I could have been there for my uncle's wedding, and Sophie's first steps. I miss them every day.

I know I made the right choice.

25 Things You Didn't Know About Me

1) I have a miniature cat who sincerely believes that she is a dog. She sleeps with the dog, eats with the dog, and I will be truly surprised if she doesn't try to bark one day.
2) I once hitch-hiked in a semi in Nicaragua when I got stranded on the border alone late at night (Story to follow).
3) I like mashed potatoes with pickles and steak sauce.
4) I used to sell my plasma during college.
5) I can't whistle or do a cartwheel.
6) I once had a military escort through the streets of Panama City (a military officer took a liking to my friend, and he arranged for a soldier to escort us back to our hostel).
7) I love Juanes and Reik.
8) I desperately want to travel to Asia.
9) I only know ten words in Chinese.
10) I have an English Literature degree.
11) I eat powdered brownie mix plain, because it doesn't cook up right without eggs.
12) I can never shave my legs without getting at least three cuts. In the interest of self-preservation, I only shave my legs for special events and wear pants the rest of the time.
13) My playground of my school when I was in third grade in New Mexico was behind a jail.
14) I can play the handbells.
15) I love "Gilmore Girls" and "The Office."
16) I feel most at home while driving down the road.
17) I spent a month busing down from Guatemala to Panama.
18) I have slept under a mosquito net after finding a tarantula in my backpack at a hostel in Nicaragua.
19) I have lived in two countries, four states, and countless houses. It feels strange not to move every three or four years.
20) I was finally able to leave a crazily conservative Lutheran church that believed that raffles and yoga were sinful. The pastor asked me regularly if I converted any of the Catholics at the school I attended, and his wife wondered if I was becoming a radical feminist (I had a Gender Studies minor).
21) I lived with a Mayan priest and his family in Guatemala.
22) I find Gender and Women's Studies to be a fascinating subject.
23) I use the Diva Cup.
24) I'm trying to find a way to come out to my grandparents. My grandpa is a conservative Lutheran pastor.
25) I am addicted to books, and usually have 25 books checked out from the library.

A Cheerful Post

We need an uplifting post. A post without armed guards or machetes. So, I am pleased to present you with LOL Cats.

Don't you just love the facial expression on this one?

And how about the sad, penitent expression that this tabby is wearing?

Check out the rest here.

Sleepless in Guatemala

I used to hear gunshots in the night. I lay awake, debating whether I should put my mattress against the wall, as a little extra barrier between the bullets and me. I knew it would have been futile; a mattress is little protection against flying lead. I just lay there and prayed that the cement block walls were impenetrable.

I lived across from a house of prostitution. There was an armed guard posted outside the heavy metal door. I hoped that this would function as some sort of protection. Needless to say, I really didn't go out at night. If I did, I had a whole contingent of people walk me home. My Guatemalan friend walked me home once, and decided to catch a cab from there. He said it wasn't safe to walk alone at night, even for a guy.

I couldn't think about it while I was there. I would have gone crazy. I couldn't think of a truly safe place; I'm sure there was one, but when there are armed guards barring the doors of the banks and police with guns in the grocery stores, it was hard to feel safe anywhere. Here, I at least knew the danger. It was identifiable, avoidable. The unknown danger was much scarier.

Juanes and Rayito blared out from the "bar" next door. It was the one perk of where I lived. Free music.

"For Your Safety, We Have Paid Off the Gangs."

I had never been to a staff meeting before. I had just joined a large, private language school in Guatemala. It was my very first day, and my very first encounter with my boss. She kicks off the staff meeting with this lovely declaration: "Because your safety is our number one priority, we have paid off the maras." At first I thought I had heard wrong. Maras---as in gangs?

However, her next words dispelled all illusions of a simple misunderstanding. Apparently, any business that does not pay a protection fee to the local gangs risks having their staff kidnapped and held for ransom, or their buildings vandalized.

I guess I should have realized what I was in for when I had to show my ID to the armed guard at the door, and pass another guy wielding a machete. I guess it should have been some sort of clue. However, I am a perennial optimist. I assumed that this was just a routine security measure. Maybe not.

Armed Guards in the Banks

This is something that you just don´t see in the US: armed guards blocking your entrance into the banks. The doors are literally barred shut by men in red berets, carrying machine guns. The first time I went to change dollars to quetzales, I nearly turned back in terror. What kind of place would need that many guns, and did I really want to go there? Eventually, I bucked up the courage to enter.

I soon found out that ¨Customer Service¨ is a concept that hasn´t quite made it here yet. The bank tellers can be surly, and most deny knowing even a word of English. Their answers were curt and to the point. Three of my twenty dollar bills had small tears, and they wouldn´t exchange them. I asked them who would, and he rattled off a name speedily in Spanish. I had him repeat it, and unable to decipher his accent, asked for directions. So far, all I have to go on is: go to the bottom of Central Park, take a left, a right, and a left. Then go two blocks. So my best bet is to come in another day when he might not be working, and see if they´ll change my bills then.