Pasajeros

My daily ride back to zona 11 after work was a little more interesting than usual. A familiar legless boy on a skateoard came on to sing his Mayan chant and roll down the aisle soliciting change in his baseball cap. I have yet to figure out how he gets on and off the bus. I tried to retrieve some change from my pocket, but an impressively large woman in a floral dress sat down next to me a sandwiched me against the window. A candy vendor and a sticker vendor came on to peddle their goods, and one of them stepped over the legless skateboarder entirely causing no harm or foul. As we passed the Eye and Ear Campus, a woman got on with a seeing eye dog, the first service animal I have seen in this country. The strangest part of the whole ride was that the driver came to a complete stop at every juncture!

Chiquimulas y Esquipulas

ASORGUA excursion weekend! Saturday morning, over 40 Deaf Association members and their families boarded a prociegos painted bus and headed to the arid, eastern part of the country. We arrived mid-day at a public pool and hotel complex in Chiquimulas, and were bombarded by the heat. I stayed with H and M, their kids, and P in a basic bungalo. We went for a quick swim, downed sandwiches and grape soda for lunch, then reboarded the bus for an afternoon trip to Esquipulas.

Esquipulas is famous throughout Central America for its magnificent Basilica containing a black sculpture of Jesus Christ on the cross. We entered the cathedral and were permitted to come very close to the black Christ. The presence of dozens of Central Americans humbled in the presence of the statue in silence was very powerful. Retreating from the cathedral, it is customary to walk backwards as not to turn one´s back to the Christ. In the gardens surrounding the Catherdral, I chatted with ASORGUA members and built up my Guatemalan Sign vocabulary a little more.

As the sun set, we headed back to Chiquimulas, where we went for a night swim, cooked a huge chicken and bean dinner, then fell asleep, full and happy. Sunday, we again went swimming (the heat really did warrant 3 swims), lunched, and boarded the bus back to the city. We stopped along the way for the best coconut ice cream I have ever tasted. I had such a wonderful time with some of the greatest, warmest folks I have had the privilege to meet.

Zona 3

OT, a friend of an audiologist I know, invited me to her home in Zone 3, next to the infamous basurero (garbage dump that people scavenge for viable scrap). She wanted to chat and charge me with brining back some cards and parcels for our mutual friend. I was hoping that it wouldnt be as marginal and unsafe as the zone is rumoured to be. Unfortunately for OT and her family, their asentamiento lived up to its reputation.

Although I had been in plenty of neighborhoods like it on home visits with Pro Ciegos, it was the first time I heard residents complain about the crime and trouble. OT is a hardworking masters student at the public university, and her traditional Mayan family makes a living by selling tamales and other goods. They are all very religious, upright citizens. They want desperately to move further away from the dump but cannot yet afford it.

I met the whole family, and they were overwhelmingly warm and generous. Safely inside their house, I took a few family photos, which I will send to our audiologist friend and to OT who uses email on occasion. I decided to head home well before dusk. OT and her cousin loaded me up with green mangoes from their patio and walked me to the municipal bus, which luckily runs right past their neighborhood.

bendiciones nunca vienen solas

I was asked to come to CECSA on Friday for a special staff refreshment time, which I assumed was for National Secretary´s Day (we have a fabulous secretary). When I arrived, however, I found FR, the director, the psychologist and the speech pathologist gathered around a desk full of chuchitos and punch, holding a Thank You card with my name on it. I was so overwhelmed at this sweet gesture. As we ate the refreshments, the director thanked me for my hard work these past months, and noted that having international staff is a very positive thing for the students insofar as it broadens their horizons.

The psychologist, whom I have befriended as a fellow curious mind, gifted me a small boat made of seeds and the shell of a melon. My cup was overflowing. As I walked up the street toward my bus afterward, a Mayan woman commented on how lovely my little boat was. Before I knew it she was handling it--and asking if she could keep it. I smiled and said it was a gift from a friend, but she wouldn´t give it back. It got a little awkward, I was being friendly but secretly hoping I wouldnt have to wrestle it from her mango-saturated grip. Eventually I wriggled it loose--que suerte!

I stopped into a great used book nook on 8a Calle, and while browsing, the proprietor asked me if I was Swedish! Luck strikes again! and as if that werent enough, he gave me a discount on my age-worn Latin American classics.

On the bus, I gave my seat to an older woman with a basket, but she insisted that I could perch on the corner of the seat as a welcome third party. ¨I´m not yet so fat that I cant move over a little, eh?¨ she cackled. I wanted to hug her, but I was carrying books and reclaimed melon boat.

Ciudad Quetzal

Today I completed my final home visit for this internship. It was, of course, bittersweet. Agaist the backdrop of a cardboard wall We interviewed a mother who, bless her heart, didn´t know her own age, and made a living from making tortillas with her mother. Her husband is working in the United States as a meat packer for the second time; He was deported last year but has returned.

On the way out of the house, three small girls approached us. They were classic beauties of the campo, shoeless, dirt-smudged, but with all the beauty that any child under 8 possesses, eminating from their sparkling eyes. The tallest one spoke ¨Are you the person that comes to give us shots?¨ No, we came here to help that family, I said. Incredulous, she laughed and asked the Pro Ciegos driver, ¨Are they the ones that come to give shots?¨ There aren´t many visitors in Ciudad Quetzal.

Las desgracias nunca vienen solas

Today I interviewed a kind hearted mother of four. She had lost her leg to diabetes, her husband was blind and her son was deaf. Her son in law abandoned her daughter and their newborn baby. Her other daughter works in a factory to support all eight members of the household.
I chose to ignore the cockroach on the wall and focus on her responses. I had to focus, because all of her top front teeth were missing and she was hard to understand. Her husband was missing all of his bottom front teeth, and spent much of the interview swatting at flies in the kitchen with a dirty rag. Her grandson was asleep on the kitchn floor.
Is the United States like this? She asked me.
I told her many things were different.
A little more cofortable? She offered.
She knows. They have cable TV.

No recibí el memo

Yesterday, mid-morning, Pro Ciegos decided to have an inservice today beginning at 845am for all of the staff of the Deaf schools in Guatemala City. They told the staff to show up to Santa Lucia, the school for the blind, with sneakers, and sent the students home with notes for their parents saying ¨no school tomorrow¨. And so it was set.

This morning, I set out early for Santa Lucia, as it is located in Zone 10. The people on my second bus suddenly developed a mob mentality (I still do not know why) and I was pushed out of the back door of the bus with dozens of other people. I was able to get on a third bus, but found that I was running late. In order to arrive on time, I decided to run from the Avenida de la Reforma to Santa Lucia.

When I arrived, panting, I greeted the janitor, Don A., who was standing outside the door of the school. In his precious, monotonous low-talking voice he said, ¨the location was changed, the program is at Fray Pedro¨. Fray Pedro is the other school for the deaf in zone 11 (NOT next to zone 10 as a logical person might assume, but rather on the other side of the city. ironically, where I live.)

¨The...what? When did they change the location? They notified everyone else?¨ Apparently, they had. The only other person who didn´t get the memo was Don E, the other janitor, and he hadnt arrived yet because he has low vision and it takes him a long time to commute with his cane. The Director of CECSA had called and left word with the guard of Santa Lucia to instruct us to take a cab for which she would reiburse us.

I decided to call FR to inform her of the situation. ¨Oh hi,¨ she said when she answered the phone, ¨the location was changed, I was going to call you but I ran out of minutes on my cell phone¨ (bear in mind she was standing in a SEA of Pro Ciegos staffers with active cell phones.) ¨When did they inform everyone of the change of location?¨ I asked. ¨around 8, 8:15 this morning¨ she replied.

Am I the only one who finds it absolutely astonishing that over 100 Pro Ciegos staff members on a phone chain can instantaneously re-route without any confusion? And who changes a location 45 minutes before it starts? Don E. finally arrived and the janitors and I set out in search of a taxi. Every time a white vehicle passed, Don E. yelled ¨That white one! Is it a taxi???¨ The first six times, it was not, in fact, a taxi, but the seventh time was the charm.

We arrived at Fray Pedro to see that the activities had not even started. Just our luck? Perhaps. The opening ice breaker was human bingo, in which each person must obtain the signature of a person with a characteristic on the bingo card (i.e. tallest member of the group). People immediately rushed over to me and thrust their cards in my face,requesting my john hancock next to ¨Whitest Skin¨. Awk.ward.

After a relay race and a rousing variation on the Human Knot, we engaged in 2 hours--2 HOURS--of latin dancing. After 120 minutes of non-stop hip girating, fist pumping and salsa steps, we were all ready to drop (not just me! I was pleased to learn that not all Latina women are skilled in the art of reggeton arobics).

The afternoon session involved disscussion and creative activities involving the mission statement and vision statement of the Comite Pro Ciegos. I have to say, I had a blast. A sweaty blast. And it was a great opportunity to bond with the rest of the CECSA staff, as I only have 2 weeks left (dont get me started [sob] that´s another post altogether).

The kicker was when I was waiting at the bus stop and noticed a boy in a Fray Pedro uniform with hearing aids. I started to sign to him, but got no response other than a sheepish grin. ¨Man he´s shy¨ I thought. But cute. Fifteen minutes later I realized that Fray Pedro is an Oral Deaf school and the boy doesnt know sign language. Good one, Hayley.

El Infierno

Monday night there was another mini earthquake, though I feel that ´tremor´is a more appropriate term. A grade 1 seizmic rumble, lasting 40 seconds. I was reading in bed, and actually, I didn´t even get up or even feel alarmed. Something is definitely wrong with me, because the rest of the house was pretty freaked out. Nothing even fell over, but I imagine that living in a country where earthquakes have a reputation of death and destruction will instill fear in people.

This morning we visited a mother of a student for a socioeconomic interview, and the tremor was the first thing that came up. The mother made a casual remark about the possibilty of divine intervetion in the quake. FR jumped at the opportunity to second that motion, then lauched into a 20 minute prosthelitizing session using the soon-approaching apocalypse as a spring-board. This was the longest evangelical session she has ever indulged with a client, and although I was worried both about ethics and time constraints, the client seemed receptive.

Here are some of the things I learned:
1. The quake was a sign that Jesus is returning soon, so people need to accept him as the one an only son of god.

2. There is most certainly a hell (and when the client suggested that we cant really know what lies beyond, FR corrected her in saying that) the New Testament speaks of hell and damnation, and the bible is the DIRECT word of God. Since man can neither add nor remove a single word from this immaculate work, we know for a fact that there is a hell.

3. The ´nucleus´ of hell is reserved for the worst sinners, and is divided into sections, varying by sin.
3a. ´Fornicators´in which giant snake-like creatures crawl into sinners´sexual orifices, engulf and destroy their internal organs, then emerge from their mouths.
3b. There is also a section for insolent people who deny God and listen to rock music. They are forced to stand or move about forever and nails come up through the ground and stab their feet.

4. The people in hell are forced to wear labels seared into their chests, similar to the concept of a scarlet letter. The labels indicate which sin has brought damnation upon them, and are made of an ´aluminum-like material that doesnt melt or burn´

5. Here on earth, there is really no such thing as a Friend, just companions, and co-workers. People who say they are you friends but offer you temptations like beer are not your friends. People who do not always follow through on their word are not your friends. The important thing to know, however, is that Jesus Christ is a true friend, the one true friend of all people.

Needless to say the session ran very over time, and the Pro Ciegos driver returned to the projects to retrieve us. A loyal but ornery man, he was not pleased when we finally got back in the vehicle. The overtime was worth it to FR and me, but for very different reasons.

una mas

Another banner day in the slums of Guatemala City. Today we visited a mother who frequently visits us on account of an ongoing issue with her daughter. We had to meet her at the bakery where she works because the barranco (canyon) community where she lives is so steep and labrynth like that we would have never found it on our own. After talking to us for over an house in the bakery (there really is no way to get a word in edgewise without interrupting her, really), we descended into the barranco. At least this one had stairs. On our way we passed a dog and a boy. FR asked the boy if the dog bites, and he replied ¨Sí¨. Stupendous. But no one was bitten. The one-room house was made entirely of lamina (tin sheets) and produced a very unpleasant odor. The surrounding area was littered with very unique trash and other scraps. A cat ate a dead moth out of a bicycle rim, and the señora mentioned (laughing)that she sometimes killed cats for the crime of being black or black-spotted. The interview took over an hour and a half because of the tangential nature of the Señora´s responses. She then left us to climb out of the barranco and find the bus station on our own. All in a day´s work.