Yes, folks!
To your enthrallment, we're back with yet another edition of Merryus-sits-on-his-ass-doin-fuck-all. But, then again, that's not all he's doing. He's doing some thinking, and he's doing some looking, and who knows what other senses he might be using - they're all there for your exclusive benefit, that's for sure. Anyway, I'm telling ya, this town put the cult intah culture, then avidly - or, rather, procrastinatingly - exchanged the c with a not-so-popular v; which reminds me, I'm gonna get a picture out here of those bastards, the bastards being, as some readers with academic leanings may already have noticed, the vultures of Todos Santos. Or, on second thought, firstly, picture publishing; internet lines seem to be not-so-bad-as-I-thought, the machines around here being the bottleneck - a word, which in spite of what my provisional English teacher Kelsey - the (female) coordinator of my language school and the greater part of my social life, as I am still not able to have a decent conversation in Spanish - anyway, the bottleneck, in spite of what Kelsey (God bless her) said, does in fact have the same metaphorical implications in English as it does in Norwegian. Hah. That being out of the way, I will commence publishing a few photos, as it is a time-consuming, but not impossible task. The photos will be published at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangseth/ , as the blogspot interface is less than impressive. Not to worry; before publishing too many pictures, I shall employ an excessive amount of uneccessarily complex words an sentence structures to convey next-to-nothing with eloquence. First, I proceed to reveal the implied vultures: There are, in fact, relatives of vultures flying around the garbage dump here, the dump basically being she side of the road on a spot were it's really steep. Although not very official in appearance, there is a sign: Basurero Municipal, basurero funnily meaning both wastebasket and garbage dump. The whole of Guatemala is basically a wastebasket; the windows of the buses are wastebaskets (ie the entire road/ditch), and you'll find garbage lying along even the most remote mountain paths. Anyway, the garbage is slightly more concentrated in the Basurero Municipal of Todos Santos, as well as the scavenger in his different avatars: vultures (at least, black lookalikes); dogs; children. A little farther downhill, naturally, is the town river, the Rio Limón, ostensibly named after a lemon tree that grows or grew - my Spanish tenses still require some repetition - somewhere in the area, by the river. The raw sewage is also disposed of in this area; bathe above this point. Come to think of it, there are people living upriver as well. Stay dirty, that's my motto. For real. Which brings me to my current project; no washy-washy. Not as in, I'm not taking showers, rather; I'm off the soap. This idea popped into my head upon encountering the lively Dutchman Jan, who is forty-something, looks pretty good and claims he hasn't been using soap for twenty years; strangely, I believe him. Soap is basically bad for your skin, he says, which basically everybody knows, because it removes your natural protection coating, leaving your skin dry, old and in need of moisturizer. The question here is not the negative effects of the soap, but rather: is it possible to get off the soap without getting on the stink? I gathered I'd never have the guts to try out this shit anywhere else, and thus, I find myself on day nine of nonesoapness, the only problem areas being; predictably perhaps, armpits and scalp. According to Jan, things improve given time for natural restoration, the question is; do I have the faith necessary? Do I have the patience necessary? My hair is beyond greasy, it's a bleedin' oil well; wearing a cap alleviates some of the unpleasantries by way of the ostrich-strategy. I need to change shirts daily because of the fear of old sweat, and I don't have a lot of shirts, which is why one of the muchachas (housemaids, we have two girls between 15 and 18), by request, is teaching me washing by hand tomorrow. All this about filth being said, the dirtyness seems to stabilize, or recede even; my hair is not quite as filthy as it was three days ago, and my armpits are not really a problem even though my own stink is new to me, it's not that bad as long as I keep washing with water regularily. The real test will be when, or rather, if I should encounter female company; that's gonna put the soap theory and the pheromone theory and, I'm sure, lots of other theories, to the ultimate test. The observant reader is sure to be wondering about the hands by now; and yes, they're getting their soap, their sanitizer, their everything. What puzzles me is Jan's claim that he washes them (as well) with water alone, without getting sick in Asia, in Central America, nothing. Who knows, I ain't going there, Hand City, that is. About the rest of the body, I'm giving it another week before I snap unless radical improvement occurs hairwise. My skin is real smooth, though.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
Mi vida en Todos Santos
Hola, soy Mario de Noruega... Of course, one needs an artist's name when travelling, and Mario slid in there with ease, probably the second day here in Todos. Now, this entry has been somewhat delayed, as predicted when things (including myself) began settling down here in the New World. As to physical or psychological extremities to report, I guess not, but there are certainly a lot of interesting quirks around here, many of which I am yet to comprehend fully.
First, a word on my whereabouts; Todos Santos is a town of about 30,000 people, a figure which must be including the rural regions in the municipality. Situated at 2,500m above sea level in a valley in the Cuchúmatanes mountain range, this is the highlands and traditional home of the Maya. Even though the Maya were reduced between 70 and 90 percent by the Spanish colonial conquest, they make up about 70% of the Guatemalan population today, having been able to preserve a lot of their identity (robes, religion, etc.) even through centuries of war and oppression. That being said, they haven't been able to unite themselves politically and seize power, perhaps due to ignorance as well as the diversity (in pre-colonial times, animosity) between them; they speak 23 non-overlapping languages, it seems. Rigoberta Menchú will be running for office this fall, but according to locals she doesn´t stand much of a chance. In Todos Santos, 95% of the population are indigenous, not all of them pure-blood, there's been a lot of watering down through the years. They speak Mam, which sounds sort of clicky, as well as half-decent Spanish; some of the more industrious types speak Spanish very well, including my teacher. I'll be swapping to the school's only (?) ladino teacher once I reach a level where I wanna get into higher-level shit.
About: shit going down around here, random selection: there is the recent road block on the main road out of here, which means people have to ride seven hrs in stead of two and a half to get to Huehuetenango, the regional capital. This road block started a few days ago when citizens of the municipality (or something similar) neighboring on Todos Santos were fed up with not getting the water they'd been promised, initiating the road block with clubs, machetes and god knows what more as a general protest towards the authorities' lack of ability to redeem the situation. Now, the reason why they don't have any water is interesting; some sort of water board, led by a former alcalde (mayor) of Todos, apparently control the distribution of water in part of the region. A few years back they sold off parts of the source to the neighboring municipality for a one-time fee of 700,000Q ($100,000); not accounted for officially, it seems. These times obviously being sort of dry, there is now not enough water for all and the home municipality seems to have priority. For the time being, the ex-mayor - wisely not wanting to face the angry mob - has fled, no doubt along with the money (of course they could be spent, this dodgy transaction apparently took place a few years back). The current mayor of Todos seems to be washing his hands, not knowing how to deal with the situation. Let's hope it doesn't turn violent.
As a footnote on corruption: corruption seems to be so widespread as to be near-accepted by the general population when it comes to most sorts of officials. This fine tradition stems from colonial times, where the crown's local representatives, either Spaniards or Quislings, would suck the marrow of the village dry the short period they were in office. It it still more or less accepted practice; an alcalde never gets re-elected after his four years, "it's just how it is".
Now... this is just the beginning of this entry, but I'll have to stop here as I hate sitting to long in front of the screen; now it's lunch at home, then class from two to seven as usual. Get back to y'all soon.
By the way, an interesting piece of info I came across; according to one scientist, Latin America in 1490 made up 20% of the world's population, concentrated in Central America and the Andes. 1590, the figure was 3%.
First, a word on my whereabouts; Todos Santos is a town of about 30,000 people, a figure which must be including the rural regions in the municipality. Situated at 2,500m above sea level in a valley in the Cuchúmatanes mountain range, this is the highlands and traditional home of the Maya. Even though the Maya were reduced between 70 and 90 percent by the Spanish colonial conquest, they make up about 70% of the Guatemalan population today, having been able to preserve a lot of their identity (robes, religion, etc.) even through centuries of war and oppression. That being said, they haven't been able to unite themselves politically and seize power, perhaps due to ignorance as well as the diversity (in pre-colonial times, animosity) between them; they speak 23 non-overlapping languages, it seems. Rigoberta Menchú will be running for office this fall, but according to locals she doesn´t stand much of a chance. In Todos Santos, 95% of the population are indigenous, not all of them pure-blood, there's been a lot of watering down through the years. They speak Mam, which sounds sort of clicky, as well as half-decent Spanish; some of the more industrious types speak Spanish very well, including my teacher. I'll be swapping to the school's only (?) ladino teacher once I reach a level where I wanna get into higher-level shit.
About: shit going down around here, random selection: there is the recent road block on the main road out of here, which means people have to ride seven hrs in stead of two and a half to get to Huehuetenango, the regional capital. This road block started a few days ago when citizens of the municipality (or something similar) neighboring on Todos Santos were fed up with not getting the water they'd been promised, initiating the road block with clubs, machetes and god knows what more as a general protest towards the authorities' lack of ability to redeem the situation. Now, the reason why they don't have any water is interesting; some sort of water board, led by a former alcalde (mayor) of Todos, apparently control the distribution of water in part of the region. A few years back they sold off parts of the source to the neighboring municipality for a one-time fee of 700,000Q ($100,000); not accounted for officially, it seems. These times obviously being sort of dry, there is now not enough water for all and the home municipality seems to have priority. For the time being, the ex-mayor - wisely not wanting to face the angry mob - has fled, no doubt along with the money (of course they could be spent, this dodgy transaction apparently took place a few years back). The current mayor of Todos seems to be washing his hands, not knowing how to deal with the situation. Let's hope it doesn't turn violent.
As a footnote on corruption: corruption seems to be so widespread as to be near-accepted by the general population when it comes to most sorts of officials. This fine tradition stems from colonial times, where the crown's local representatives, either Spaniards or Quislings, would suck the marrow of the village dry the short period they were in office. It it still more or less accepted practice; an alcalde never gets re-elected after his four years, "it's just how it is".
Now... this is just the beginning of this entry, but I'll have to stop here as I hate sitting to long in front of the screen; now it's lunch at home, then class from two to seven as usual. Get back to y'all soon.
By the way, an interesting piece of info I came across; according to one scientist, Latin America in 1490 made up 20% of the world's population, concentrated in Central America and the Andes. 1590, the figure was 3%.
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