Not too long ago, Los Estados Unidos beat Mexico 2-1 in the finals of the Copa de Oro - the Gold Cup of Central and North America - playing well but undeservingly getting one of the goals off a ridiculous penalty decision. Such are the ways of football, or any other sport; every once in a while you get shagged in the ass by the ref. And that's fine. The referee's a human being and makes half-honest mistakes from time to time, you get pissed off but you also get over it; let's just hope the right side won.
Now, something completely different is the referee first strapping on his five-feet polished mahogany dildo enhanced with a blade at the point, not unlike the one seen in Se7en, then firmly telling you a) to remove those cute little footie shorts and b) that your shoelaces need to be tied. These were my sentiments as I was playing football for the first time with a local team of Todos Santos. ‘Twas an away game in Mash, a caserío (hamlet) half an hour away by truck. Impressively, no matter how small the place there will be a football team and a campo (field); not all the players suck, either, but the technical skill is generally lowish, and team coordination and strategy nonexistent. The campo was made up of hard mud, loose mud and a few playable areas, needless to say distributed much like the continents of the Earth: big, connecting patches with irregular shapes. Even so, the game started well, me dribbling my way forward into the centre from my left midfield position, then flicking it up to a meeting forward who headed it back to me as I was rushing forward; I hit the ball on the volley, and the hard but imperfect shot went in from about twenty metres thanks to an uneven field and inept keeper. The goal was still very decent; in my Swiss (neutral) eyes, the goal of the match.
The adventure began when it started raining heavily and the hard mud turned into ice, extremely slippery and bone hard to fall on; the loose mud, on the other hand, turned into the type of mud pit that some readers will know I am only too familiar with. It was soon completely impossible to play with any sort of finesse. The pit, being the worst for playing, nevertheless provided the only opportunity for sliding tackles, a fact I was the only one to take advantage of. Thus, somewhere into the second half, in need of an frustration outlet, I spied an opportunity when some fool clumsed the ball way into the pit; a defender of the opposing team soon collected it and started dribbling it as best he could out of there. I slid in with great force, and while my underwear got filled with mud in no time at all, this was no cost whatsoever compared to the revenue: the infinite satisfaction of ploughing through this unsuspecting fool, him soon on his back beside me even more covered in mud than I was, me lying there smirking, too devilishly pleased with myself to collect the won ball; the local spectators laughing their asses off at the sight of the gringo and their buddy in the mud, glad they were under umbrellas and not playing this hellish day. Everybody who's played football knows this, but for y'others: many a time a splendid sliding tackle can be more satisfying than a not-too-important goal.
The built-up frustration was in part due to the horrible conditions of the field and the entailing randomness of the game, in part because there was no team cooperation or formation, and nobody who whipped the idiots back in line when defenders suddenly fancied themselves forwards; also there were 22 players on a field more suitable for 14. We were winning though, leading 6-3 or something, but not if the ref could help it, which is what was really pushing me off my rocker. Of course, the tradition around here of employing home team locals as refs does not alleviate the bad judgement situation that one would have either way at this level; in fact, as they changed refs at half time I realised that the new ref had been playing in the first half and the old one was playing now. Fair enough, but a series of obscene decisions soon awoke my slumbering sports rage, which I had not felt in years. Sports is such a great way to vent aggression, but then again, as long as it causes it as well, I don’t know whether the therapeutic value necessarily is positive in the end. Hmmm... Anyway, we were in a slump, leading 6-5 or whatever, when the ref first whistled against us for an offside that wasn't even remotely in progress. Not like the normal urge to shout 'referee!' that one feels whenever a decision, not necessarily wrong, is passed against you; this was more like when the military comes into your house, burns it, slits your fathers throat and rapes your mum, with neither of you being members of the communist party. Thus depriving us of a goal, Mash was shortly after on the offensive, before losing the ball to one of our defenders, who was seeing the ball safely out of play when an attacker came from behind and kicked him in the legs once ('hey!'), twice ('referee, Jesus'), three times ('...?'), the defender falling, everybody on our team ceasing play, the attacker seizing the ball, passing it to another who 'scored'; the goal, to most people's complete amazement, was allowed. Our guy was unhurt, which did not excuse the foul play or the idiocy of the ref, and at this point, I forgot all my principles that had guided me through Guatemala thus far; this must have been in June after about two months in Guatemala, two months of careful non-imposition, not even taking any photos of locals as not to offend because the culture was still being mapped. I screamed whatever obscenities I knew in bad Spanish at the ref, like '¿cual es tu problema, cabrón?' and '¡pinche puto!', while walking briskly towards him, which ended up with the ref somewhat scared, members of the other team going 'tranquilo, tranquilo', at which point I snapped out of it, never intending to hurt the ref or anything, just wanting to yell closer to his face as to hit him with flying spit I imagine.
In the end, we won the game 7-6. The aggression experience somehow released the final bit of the fear I’d had about behaviour in the culture, thus making me more confident and relaxed in my relatively new surroundings.
On a different note; someone told me, several times, in fact, that people are not to be trusted in this country - not as in criminal; unless you are stupid enough to go to Guatemala City or volcano-hike alone near touristy places, it seems pretty safe so far - no, untrustworthy rather because if you ask someone a question, the concept of 'I don't know' apparently is nonexistent. Even epitomes of trust, like cops, will tell you to go five blocks down to catch the bus you're searching for, then a mean of the crowd down there - you need to ask at least six people and figure out an average response - will tell your confused self that the bus stop is, in fact, exactly where the cop was standing five blocks back. In general, what they don't know, even about their home town or daily habitat is sometimes unbelievable. Ask a guy in a shop where to buy cheese and he'll say 'saber' - who knows - even if the shop next door is 4000 square metres of QuesoRama 2000 (tm). Yes, as you correctly observe, this is at odds with my previous statement; let us revise; only when there is no way they could NOT know, they say they don't. Anyway, this peculiar behaviour is all good and expected by now, just bring a map, a guide, and buckets of time, and you'll get where you want in the end.
A thought related to the lack of precision in all of this is the Germans; they came in some numbers to Guatemala in the early 20th century or before to start up businesses, and did so with some luck - establishing a few breweries that still live, among other things, and among many traces of their activity (or is it via the US, perhaps) is the name for preschool: kinder and prekinder. However, they didn't integrate to well with the local people; they remained an isolated industrious click with schools and language of their own - as is often the case in imperialist tradition. Even bearing this in mind, they were surprisingly segregated. What could the reason for this be? Dr. Mangseth explains: with the previous theme of impreciseness in mind, they of course tried to have as little to do with the locals as possible; in spite of their segregation efforts, this was to prove itself too great a task, as business demanded some interaction. Weiter, any fastidious character - that includes some of my own leanings, as well - would go nuts trying to get shit done around here. Thus, eventually, the sudden recession of German influence in Guatemalan economy does not concern itself with political change (like WWII); I firmly believe they imploded from aggression and frustration, much like the renowned lemmings of the animal world.
In current affairs, i.e. today, ask any Peacecore – a US government organization sending young and intelligent people to help out in many parts of the world, often the same parts they scrupulously exploit (guilty conscience or brilliant PR scheme, who knows) – anyway, ask a PC volunteer, most of them young idealists, many with skills, banging their heads against brick walls of inefficiency for two years before going home in blood and tears, maybe having changed the world just a tiny little bit, at the dire cost of any future benevolence toward the underprivileged - those corrupt and/or, poor ignorant bastards sure have themselves to thank for their state - and at the additional cost of their Peacecore lungs - if you didn't smoke before the Core, you will when you walk out the door (as they say); the remote areas and the impossible challenges help insure that; in other words, Peacecore is a devious machinery created by the government Hawks, funded by the Ku Klux Klan, here represented by the tobacco business, all in order to convert the young and hopeful Democrats (or worse, Greens!) of America to cynics more likely to vote the not-so-empoverished-friendly Republican Party. Well done, Hawks!
That last bit there will put the US government blog-flagging computers to the test, I'm sure.
Now, I enjoy the fact that I can go on at seemingly infinite length without ever reaching the typical blogness of 'I went there, I did that'. Or blow small events like soccer - er... football games out of proportion. That being said, and although that type of blog sure can be a drag, there are also certain taxing elements to people going on in abstract and plentiful terms on the general blahblahness of whatever; the conclusion is you must all be starving for some hands-on action. Here follows the rundown on the few weeks following the last entry.
As mentioned in the previous entry, a few weeks back in Xela I had a serious case of diarrhoea that left me bereft of power and liquid for days. I then got better and went on to coordinate Hispanomaya for two weeks; upon termination of the coordinator-job at the school (June 15th), I again experienced unwanted bowel movements, as well as a general feeling of inexplicable lowness that had to a varying extent gone on since I got 'better' in Xela. That night, as I proceeded to sacrifice my intestines at the holy altar of crap – a routine process by then – I also experienced a novelty: the need to vomit. Well, the urge an sich had been there two weeks before in Xela, but it didn't happen then. Now, there was no way out. And I was sitting on the toilet, emptying my other end. Quickly finishing off as best I could while holding back the vomit, I got off the stool and proceeded to flush down. Yes, we have a water closet - but it ain't exactly nuclear powered, now is it; so in order to purify the basin, there was the need to wait for the hellish-brown shake to settle before flushing anew. I had reached the limit of my vomito-suppressive ability, and there was no way I was going to toss my cookies into that mass of loose shite and thus befoul my gentle appearance (not the face! not the face!), that was for sure. Alas, where? Where? Shower? Sink? Floor? I opted at last for the bin: the omnipresent receptacle for toilet paper in this country of poor plumbing. And let me tell you, 'twas no picnic sticking my head down there either, but at least the shit there was dry and the paper does not backsplash as easily. A feeling of emptiness prevailed in the end.
After this horrible night, my keen instincts told me there might be a colony of illegal residents in the good ol' intestinal system. Reading up on amoebas and parasites, I learned that there are kinds who penetrate the intestinal walls and go on to settle in the blood system, liver, brain and so on if left unchecked for extended periods of time. Upon deliberation, I thus settled for the classical stool sample and doctor option; Kelsey, the wonderful coordinator, escorted my weak self to Huehuetenango, the regional city, and to a lab testing shit and piss and stuff. They found a couple of parasites in there, Endolimax Nana and the unfriendly-sounding Blastocystis Hominis, and I went on to see the doctor, a Cuban woman volunteering in the shittiest doctor's office I've ever seen. Take a ten square metre student residence from 1930s Albania, in operation ever since, divide it in two and you have the waiting room and the doctor's office. Let it be noted that I could have gone to a place where one pays and got higher-standard facilities, but that's no fun, now is it; it was wonderful sitting in line with the locals, some of them packing small babies with fevers, some poor-looking, others more like I felt myself, city-people who could've afforded to go somewhere else but enjoyed a free doctor's visit. The doctor was all about speed, five to ten minutes on each patient, it seemed. In an accent and a tempo new to me I barely understood that the parasites were present in just about every local and were mostly harmless, but that tourists could be affected more severely and there was no point in going for acclimatization. Thus, I bought two packs of the aptly-named Ex-Amoeb, with Secnidazol as a working-agent (for those with medicinal leanings). One now and one in 21 days, was the message, the latter dose yet to come. I felt a lot better taking the first, strength regained, but would sure like to see the second dose kill off the lingering flatulence and slight stomach pain I experience after meals.
That weekend, Friday 23rd, I started hiking again, maybe a little prematurely, still dizzy after my long period of being energy-drained, but what the heck; I explored the southern ridge without a map with Carlos, a Bostonian with some hiking skill, on a seven-hour hike that pushed me to the limit of my decent-but-recently-sick walking endurance, and provided one of the most beautiful hikes yet, with views on both sides of the ridge before the fog and clouds closed in, as they always do this time of year, and which is why it is no walk in the park exploring new paths. However, we found a viable route through the fog and down to Todos Santos and were very pleased with ourselves.
The day after Carlos was gone but I went on a five-hour, medium-demanding hike to San Juan Atitán, the town centre of the neighbouring municipality of the same name, with Carly and Diana. You can see them getting friendly with the insanely drunk local with the flat hat in some of my pictures, the guy whispering in bad Spanish and a not-too-low voice in Diana's ear that he'd been searching for some gringa sex but that it'd been hard to come across up there in the middle of nowhere; so why don't ya come home with me ferr some action? I'll let the rest be up to the reader's imagination. Anyway; this was my second time in San Juan, the first one being with Huge (Hugh) Harkin of Ireland upon my arrival in Guatemala and Todos Santos. Me and Huge stayed for the night and walked back the next day, but since there was the fiesta of John the Baptist (San Juan), this time me and the girls were counting on taking the bus back the same day since there probably wouldn't be room in the hostels during the fiesta. And so we did.
A couple of weeks went by without, as far as I can recall, much incident, until lovely Loren of California showed up and caught my slumbering fancy. It was a very good feeling to be interested in someone again; that was something I sincerely thought wouldn't happen during my travels, for reasons of old age as well as shallow encounters losing (I thought) their charm at some point during previous years of semi-debauchery, sort of a marriage-or-nothing being my MO. That obviously ridiculous sentiment soon cast aside, I was happy to learn that I seemed to have some effect on her as well, possibly amplified by my supremely fortunate position as only man in the school, as well as hiking guide, at that particular, star-blessed point in time. And so we acted on our interest after only five days or so, becoming holiday sweethearts for her tiempo restante in Guatemala, which was three weeks. What can I say; a sweet and lovely girl with more depth than my shallow, infatuated self initially spied; thus later a girl who I would have liked to know better, had the situation not been adverse to such exploration. She has now resumed real life in California, getting a good job in public health, I believe. And with that being that, this entry ends.
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