Closure

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the jungles of Mexico, there was a change of plan after the surf plunge. Weary and weathered I realized I had to go back to Todos Santos for the legendary horse races November 1st, and that there was insufficient time for Havana and back without considerable stress - on this trip the latter is an object of shunning to the greatest extent possible. Anyway, it was the beginning of October, and there was then a month to fill before these races. The grand result of all this was a decision to fulfil an old dream, namely diving; I thus undertook an odyssey across Guatemala to the Honduran Bay Islands, to the isle of Utíla, the cheaper and lesser developed of the two major choices available. On diving, it was the otherworldly revelation one might imagine beforehand, perhaps worthy of its own entry, but not so today. Three days after the events that spurred me now to write again, I am still filled with the awe the festival of Todos Santos so violently bestowed upon me; thus, this must be my theme.

A short time-space sweep to provide the reader with perhaps unnecessary coherence: from ten moistened days of moray- and turtle-spotting highs on Utila, I found myself in Southeastern Guatemala, near El Progresso, Jutiapa, in the home of Jayson and his younger sister Jazz, the two of them living the good life in a default small-ass Guatemalan town, spreading the word as Jehovah's witnesses, a strain of Christianity that has recently gained considerable respect with your humble narrator. There for three days, I also attended, as far as I can say, my first religious meeting in a non-particular (Christmas, confirmation, baptism, marriage, funeral) context since childhood, and although skeptical, I was neither appalled or adversely affected as I thought I would be. People were very friendly in an apparently genuine and definitely in a non-imposing way. JWs are from now on welcome on my porch, in fact I might even invite them in for a coffee and a chat.

Unfortunately I couldn't stay long, as I had already planned a four-day Nebaj-Todos Santos trek with the aforementioned Quetzaltrekkers out of Xela. A lovely gang, it must be added; every time I return to Xela I find that I now only know one of the trekkers - they have a heavy circulation - then I swiftly befriend the rest, finding it always to be good folk. Anyway, we had a challenging and beautiful hike, in many ways completing my experience of the awesome Guatemalan highlands. The fifth day we came to Todos Santos on the eve before the great horse races - there was much fatigue, rejoicing and an incredible drunken spree shared by most of the trekking group, which totally killed me after hours of great fun in the local cantinas - shitholes made for blind drunkenness. At dinner, which was after the first spree and held at my teacher Nora's house - Hispanomaya Language School is Quetzaltrekkers' contact in Todos Santos - I did my best to avoid talking too much to the several family members that were there helping out, including my former host mum Elena, who had not seen me for a while and obviously never in such an animated condition. She minded less than me, though, she sees worse on the streets of Todos Santos every day. Her family is one out of three Ladino - non-indigenous - families that live in Todos Santos, and they drink little to nothing, wisely so. Talking about alcoholism, there are always people drunk in the streets of Todos Santos, just moreso in times of the festival. The festiuval, as it was, started over a week before and the locals had been going at it just as long with no signs of slowing down. Early sights as we got there included much more tourists, many of them of some age, lots more people in general and more stalls and drunk people than usual; there were marimba (wooden xylophone) music in the streets, with drunk women with children on their backs dancing and stumbling about. There were even ferris wheels on the town square - a strange sight in a small, poor indigenous mountain town in Guatemala. Anyway, the night in question I was, after ten beers or so, unable to evaluate what would be a healthy intake - that is, none - of the rum that suddenly manifested itself on the table by which I was seated - not too many dim hours later it all added up to a nice pile of vomit on the bedroom floor that brought the thoughts back to the good ol' days with my russefriends, that nevertheless provided me with ample sleeping space in the tiny room that was meant for ten people. The pile was really beautiful, like the perfect spew pyramid with evenly distributed chunks and all, almost fake-looking; unfortunately it was destroyed by the trampling naked feet of uncareful companions seeking to find a sleeping-place in the dark.

Come the break of day. Still drunk I got up surprisingly early, superficially cleaned up the vomit after logically concluding it had to be mine, and manoevered myself over to the much needed breakfast and then the horse races. Let me tell you about the horse races; ostensibly originating in the sight of the impressive convoy of conquistadors that long ago showed up in Todos Santos on never before seen animals, the locals initiated a tradition of dressing up in colourful costumes and riding horses back and forth on a 200m dirt lane that is actually part of the road, most provisionally fenced in for the occasion. In one end there is a horse depot where horses are changed and also riders come and go, the other end is just a thin fence where guys with sticks try and help the horses understand that they should stop if the rider does not convince the horse of this first. Not a job I would volunteer for. It is not really a race in the traditional sense, as it is not about being first but staying on the horse; this may sound stupid but can prove difficult enough after a week of drinking as well as the serving of refreshing beverages underway. Anyone who races long and fast and drinks hard is a winner, anyone who falls off is a loser. Racers race 200m, stop their horse, wait for stragglers, have a drink, perhaps; then turn around and race back. Ad infinitum, or rather, from about 08-12 and then 14-17. It has not been uncommon for people to die, from nasty falls, trampling, bystanding and so on. Bystanding, you say? The fence consists of relatively thin poles every three metres with ridiculously thin planks in two rows. People are leaning against this, kids are allowed to sit on them. Have you ever had 15 horses gallop a metre from you? They're not exactly mathematically prone to straightness, I can tell you that. It's like a lion cage made of carboard, an accident waiting to happen. And apparently any death related to the race means good luck for a year. For whom, I don't know, but possibly the guy being put out of his miserable drunken existence. However, the lion was apparently asleep this day, and the fence did well.

Regarding existences, it must be said that mine was fairly miserable that day as well; after a glance at the morning session down at the tracks and then the slow descent from uneasy drunkenness into the oblivion of post-megaspree hangover, it became increasingly clear that the drinking had to recommence in order to get through the day; heaps of other people had already come to this conclusion and thus I found myself in the company of friends when I had four beers and a pizza for lunch; I then felt pretty good and was ready to fetch my camera and do some serious shooting.

On the air surrounding the races, a comment must be made about the nature of the locals. They are distinctly unenthusiastic inn all they do. Friendly and smiling, yes, often, it takes very little, but happy-go-luckiness is not to be found among the Mayan today, along with go-getterness, a quality found only in Rigoberta Menchú, who is unpopular among her own. Standing around the race tracks, there is no cheering or much sound at all apart from talking, just the impassive observation of events. The most sound is made by the horses and the riders, sometimes crying out the superiority of them or their horse; sometimes just crying. On the worn-out ferris wheel, Mayans sit in pairs in small metal swings going at speeds far in excess of the recommendations that came with the kit, so to speak. I took the ride later that night. Even used to theme park rides, as the familiar surge in the stomach region occured when going sharply down, I felt a little like screaming myself, at least with exhilaration. The little Mayan girls do not. No Mayan does. It is a peculiar phenomenon. Of words suited to describe this, I can only come up with pacification. They have been mollified for centuries, and there is no enthusiasm left, only a stubborn will to go on, surprised by little and expecting defeat, oppression and doom.

Doom. For some reason, as a group of about ten horses were returning from the end of the lane, a rider was let loose/rode away from the depot side, thus a lone rider was galloping towards a cavalry that likewise was at full speed and covered the whole lane two times over. I stood about 15 metres from where they met, camera ready. There is something, though, humanity perhaps, left in me that prohibited the lifting of the camera as time slowed down and revealed the possible atrocity that was about to transpire. I remember, during the few seconds leading up to the ensuing scene, not being completely sure about how horses would 'blend' in such a situation; I was silently praying for something like two schools of fish meeting one another, seamlessly sliding off and continuing unscathed...

OR WAS I? There is no denying the attraction of horror, the inability to look away; perhaps, in coming to see this particular ill-reputed event, even the lustful anticipation of something awful, a lust that could have ended in many a disappointed tourist if nothing had occured. That day, however, us voyeurs were in luck. The sound of two horses doing a full frontal collision at gallop lingers with me still, and will return every time I think of that day. It can best be described as a thump; an awful, loud, animate thump. Only a pair were affected, the rest came clear off. I almost puked, and my heart fell and stayed down. It was such an ugly sight, riders and horses in a pile of four lying on the ground, all still, as well as the crowd, only a few muffled screams and sighs, perhaps from tourist girls, I don't clearly remember; as far as I was concerned, all was silent, like in a film, when the sound reflects the silence inside the subject followed, in this case me. Then the volume brutally is turned up, back to the reality of what's transpiring around. People ran onto the lane, although in a controlled fashion; curiosity, mostly, but also helpfulness. One rider got up after a short time, the other after five minutes or so, both of them relatively unscathed, bleeding a little from the head, perhaps a fracture in some joint but nothing too serious.

Both of the horses got up in the end, but none could walk straight or hold their head in a natural pose; there was blood flowing from giant nostrils; although standing, they were defeated, destroyed, yearning for the mercy of a swift death, which I am sure they recieved after being led away. I was melancholy for most of the day, although I had an all right time in the evening, drinking a few more beers with my equally spent friends; I am melancholy still, thinking of what went down. I don't know why, I seemed to take it harder than many; I overheard a group of American youth fooling around as if nothing had passed, or even worse, something of pure entertainment value; then they expected more, cheering everytime a rider nearly or completely fell off the horse as the races went on for a few more hours; they enraged me in their incompassion and their ignorance, as I slid around the area looking for good shots. Nothing else but a few innocent falls went down. I keep wondering if the guy crashing into the others planned it, wanted it. A suicide misson on a horse. He only succeded in killing the horse, and as the keen reader may have noted it is with the horses my feelings lie, innocent beasts maimed and slaughtered by drunken ignorant fools as if it was the way things were supposed to be. Well, it is not. I decided a few days after to become a vegetarian. Although I didn't see why at first; I had a sensation that it was relatetd to the incident at the races, but I couldn't quite figure out the clear connection. Then I saw it, how one sentiment of disgust could provide food for an other, lingering in me: I've been thinking of vegetarianism a while but not quite felt it. Now I did, and now I do; the industrial breeding and killing of beasts that feel pain cannot stand. Although I have not yet seen anything bigger than a chicken slaughtered, I now believe I've seen enough to infer the ugliness of breeding and killing animals for eating, an unworthy existence for creatures so close to our own level of sophistication. How close is of course an issue to be discussed, but for me, close enough. With this vision of proximitiy in mind, I'm starting with mammals and hopefully quitting fish and fowl after a transitional period. The hunter I still respect far more than the slaughter, although I don't think I could kill a larger animal myself unless forced. Hunting seems fun though, and so does stuffing my face full of stickmeat and obscenely fat pigparts for Christmas. Feelings and ideology must come first though, and as the craving for meat hopefully recedes, it will feel even more right.

I am very happy to have come to a conclusion on a moral issue; the absence of relativism is liberating. I pray for a continuation along these lines, and that my convictions continue to grow rather than uncertainties, of which our postmodern world is quite full enough as it is.

As for closure, it goes for Todos Santos as well as the connection of ideological dots. The dissipation seemingly has no end and it is sad. Even so, it was nice to see the family again, I staid there for an extra day after the trekker group left and spent the night at Elena's, finally sober enough to present myself but very tired. I strolled down to the cemetery where the Day of the Dead was being celebrated, drunken bastards fighting, drunken bastards playing music, drunken bastards dancing and drunken fools wailing. Although a better and safer tradition than the day before, there was now nothing for me there.

That being said, I may be back to visit sober friends and hike legendary hills in the future.