you never know who you’ll meet in the park. upon arriving in guatemala (which almost didn’t happen cause i don’t have a return ticket back to the united states and apparently they don't always let you fly one-way to other countries…), i spent the first two days in antigua-- a tourist hub about an hour outside of guatemala city. per my usual modus operandi in new places, i wandered around antigua just to see where i would end up (this strategy is due in large part to the fact that I can’t read a map to save my life). so by saturday afternoon i’d already wandered around for hours and decided i’d just read my book in the central park.
as i entered the park a man approached me and said, “hello, where are you from?” i am always a bit hesitant to say the united states (cause i’m never quite sure how being an american is perceived and i’m not exactly proud of some international polices of the united states in central america). but seeing as i surely can’t pass for guatemalan, i figured i’d tell the truth and move on to finding a spot to read. not five minutes later who sits down on the bench next to me? that same guy, manolo, who should really be known as the central park comedian. he is hilarious. my favorite part of the conversation happened when monolo asked if i played sports cause i had “strong legs.” um, okay??? monolo then proceeded to tell me i was “loco” (crazy) for traveling in guatemala as a single woman and that i should have a husband. i responded, “sure, no problem, i’ll just go pick one up at the corner store.” he said, "sure, it's easy. go do it." if only...like i said, hilarious. apparently, manolo is also quite the popular guy, too. at one point during the afternoon it was manolo, three of his park buddies and me chatting it up on the bench. as other tourists walked by they give us the what is going on here/i hope that girl is okay look. i was.
a few minutes later up strolled friend number four, gueirmo, looking like a hipster straight from richmond. so, you know how sometimes when you meet someone new you say to yourself,” oh, i also have an aunt named sue” or “my best friend’s name is james.” so, who did i think of when gueirmo introduced himself? “oh, that is the name of nancy’s drug dealing boyfriend from the show ‘weeds’ .” good meredith. gueirmo and i started chatting it up. he had his aqua guitar in hand, at which point monolo blurts out, “he’s not a gay, hahahaha.” i look at monolo with the look of, did you seriously just say that? gueirmo proceeds to tell me that guatemalan culture is highly machismo (which is true—but aren’t a lot of cultures?) and that these guys joke him for being gay cause he plays music and is an artist. i told him i thought it was awesome.
in the park there are these young boys who want to shine your shoes for a few quetzals ( 8 quetzals = 1 USD). gueirmo flags one of the boys over who has an “i love antigua” sticker on his shoe shine kit. gueirmo proceeds to show me the name of his organization, who sponsored the stickers, and starts talking to me about what he is doing with these guys. he calls them the “shoe shine boys” and he is working with them to give them an education through the arts and music. he told me how these boys often live on a few ice creams a day (cause it’s cheap and what kid wouldn’t want to live on that?) and that i wouldn’t believe the conditions of their houses. in most cases, he said, the father has left and the mother just can’t make enough money with a low wage job to support the kids. in addition to the shoe shine boys, gueirmo and his twin brother started an organic farm right outside antigua where people can come and pick crops and receive fresh fruits and vegetables as a payment for their labor. and…he runs an underground music scene which draws people in so he can promote the shoe shine boys and organic farm. freakin awesome.
so, when gueirmo asked if i wanted to meet later for drinks, obviously, i said yes. as we talked, i asked him more about guatemala, who has the money here, what he thinks can be done to help his country. gueirmo told me that tourism is down in guatemala (and with peace corps leaving and a few embassies closing, he suspects tourism will decline even more) and that is bad for the economy (we can discuss the inherently tricky nature of tourism at a later date). i, of course, then ask where all the money in guatemala is. he said the drug cartels. i ask, where else (surely it’s gotta be somewhere else too, right?), and he said, nope, just there. gueirmo proceeds to tell me, “guatemala is only a third world nation because there is no forth.” i was speechless.
i guess the whole point of this story was to tell you that people here, gueirmo, for example, love their country and are doing good things to help their community. and i think, if we’re honest, too often we think that the people here (wherever “here” is) maybe aren’t working hard enough to improve their conditions and that if they just tried harder, things would change. that's possible. but it’s also possible that just that trying to make something from nothing leaves you with nothing (and it’s not as if the trade policies of the united states in central america are helping either). but i think gueirmo’s example is, without sounding too cliché here, an example to all of us. you might be reading this in the united states thinking, “but i don’t live in a third world nation” (okay, i am going to have a lot of blog post material—lets discuss the term “third world” at a later date). but i am certain that if you live in a community where there are people (and unless you live in north dakota where animals outnumber people, you probably do), there are needs that you can help met. and really, who better to help and run initiatives in a community than the people from it?
for me, it's always encouraging to meet people doing fantastic things in their community. and to remember that people are doing good everywhere (cause, my god, with the news you would think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, fast). today was my first day at coopertiva spanish school--talk about people devoted to social justice and supporting the needs of their community. in addition to providing employment for the teachers at the school, they volunteer in local elementary schools, deliver food to local families (10% of tuition goes to this), and are currently working on building their 22 house in san pedro for families who need housing. i realize i probably sound a bit "preachy" here (and i'll try to keep it to a minimum), but, my god, it kicks your ass to realize how much people in the world are doing to help themselves and their neighbors. as the other student who is in my house said this morning (after talking about how she quit her job, sold all of her furniture prior to coming to guatemala, and is poor), she corrected herself-- "i'm not poor. i've realized that poverty is deciding what child to feed." amen to that.
