I
know I’m supposed to be writing about my adventures but right now I’m not
having a lot of them and the ones I am having are shrouded in a cloud of the
dust particles rising off my shattered Spanish. Ok, that might have been an
overstatement. I’m not completely terrible at communicating. I’m just not
fluent which, coming from a girl who prides herself on an above average mastery
of the English language, is like saying I can’t speak at all, nor think, nor
even breath properly. How am I supposed to enjoy the beauty of the natural
world when I can’t breathe for choking on all these words that aren’t mine
yet?...
Anyway, my point is, my adventures in the physical and linguistic
worlds are slightly sore topics at the moment and I don’t really feel like
conjuring up the energy to make them anything else. I’ll cover instead a random
array of…stuff (for lack of a better word) that I’ve learned, or observed, or
just pulled out of my ass out of a complete inability to think of anything
else.
1: I CAN’T HIDE! I have always prided myself on an ability to
blend and melt into my surroundings. I try to look as little like a tourist as
possible every chance I get. Not so much because I don’t want to be thought a
tourist, as because I just don’t want to be noticed. Of course there are certain
times where I want to go out like a peacock and I do, in full color, but this
is not one of those times. I want to blend in so badly. If you blend in you can
walk down the street and soak up the sights without feeling like a sight
yourself. If you blend in you can walk past the stalls of men and women selling
things and they won’t literally follow you trying to convince you to buy
something. Edy, who has been showing me around and being my occasional friend
laughed yesterday and said, “Tus palabras favoritas son no gracias. Siempre es No gracias.
No gracias.” They are NOT my favorite words. I don’t want to go to any of
the beautiful tourist destinations here because I am so tired of hearing over
and over again the same words and seeing all the same beautiful things shoved
in my face. Actually that might be a sore topic too. I’ll move on.
2: I’m not a coffee snob anymore. I am living in a country known
for coffee production and I have been drinking nothing but instant and Folgers.
So sue me. I’ll put some sugar in it and, yes I’ll take cream, and I’ll drink
it and I’ll like it because I want it and I don’t care.
3: I have always loved traveling alone. Ok, I wouldn’t say I am a
seasoned traveler by any standards so to use always might be a bit of an overshot. What I mean to say is that I
am perfectly comfortable alone. The problem with that is that I am completely
comfortable. I want to leave
my comfort zone. I want to learn new things and experience new things and be
forced to do something I don’t want to do, but in the long run I really should
do.Unfortunately, I will only take myself so far toward that goal. I’m
here. I’m in another country, in a little village where tourism isn’t a thing
and there is no one who really speaks English. I am here and I refuse to leave
the house. That’s a lie. I have left the house, but not much and I was never
out longer than I absolutely needed to be to buy whatever it was I left to buy.
I can’t help but think that just having another person with me would make
walking down the street so much easier. So I love the freedom of traveling
alone, but I think I need the challenge of travelling together.
4: Platanos fritos (fried
plantains) are where it’s at.
5: The Guatemalan people are obsessed with love. I don’t know that
definitively, but I do know that they sure ask about it a lot. “¿Tienes un novio?
¿Porqúe no?” I only barely have the linguistic ability to explain in Spanish
that I don’t have a boyfriend because no one has asked recently and the last
thing didn’t work out, and it’s hard to have a boyfriend when you are however
many 1000s of miles away. I’m afraid if I tell anyone here though that I’m not
dating anyone because no one has asked, that that excuse may quickly become
invalid. I’ll stick for the moment to “no, yo no sé.” I guess I really don’t know why anyway.
I would like to know why they always seem so taken aback by the
fact that I am single. One man told me it was good for your soul to care for
someone and to be cared for back. One man explained to me the importance of
fidelity and how one man and one woman is the only way it should be. Yet
another man explained to me that it was very rare for a beautiful woman to be single
and asked me again why I didn’t have a novio.
I want to know why they think it’s so easy. Maybe they know something I don’t
know, or maybe the men are just more straightforward here. Whatever the case, I
guess I can add “No, yo no sé” to my list of palabras favoritas in Guatemala.
I think that’s enough for now. If I make this any longer you won’t
want to keep reading. I know this hasn’t revealed much about my adventures or
lack thereof, but this is it for now. These are some of the things on my mind.
My ability to think in English has been slightly impaired by my constant
attempts to think and speak in Spanish. I’ll
keep working on it though, so keep an eye out. I’m sure I’ll have a story for
you soon enough.
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