Careful What You Read

My 4´11¨ sister gave birth to a 9lb baby yesterday!!!! Hooray for Coenn Jayce Romero!

And I fly home tomorrow! Yay! Please wish me safe travels.

My musings for the day...

When I was in college, I had a few panic attacks that were, I think, partially triggered by reading too many postmodern literary theorists.

Now I´m having a bit of a spiritual crisis about what happened to the Inka.

I´m reading 1491, a book about what the Americas were like before the arrival of the Europeans, and how colonization went down. Apparently a ton of stuff has been discovered recently, and is still being discovered all the time. What we learned in school (which isn´t much) is just plain wrong.

Some anthropologists are estimating that there were as many as 110 million people in the Americas before Columbus arrived...way more than in China or India. The middle of Mexico alone had more people than all of Europe. And yet somehow, every single civilization was eventually taken over by Europe. The Inkan empire was by far the largest one on Earth at the time. It was simply massive. Hundreds of thousands of people.

It seems that what destroyed them wasn´t European technology or ingenuity. The people of the Americas were in many ways much healthier than Europeans, fantastic at cultivating resources, and had formidable technology of their own. What killed them was disease. From what I understand, in about three years smallpox cut the Inkan population in half. In half! The same thing happened in North America, by some hepatitis-type disease: in five years, the civilizations on the east coast were nearly wiped out. Many diseases spread through the Americas before Europeans even saw them. That means white people were discovering places that seemed like deserted wilderness, because everyone had already been killed off. In about a century, disease killed 1/5 of the people on Earth. Until recently, most people had thought the Americas were sparsely populated and little developed. That´s just not the case.

I´ve never been one to lose faith over the why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people question. To me, it seems plausible that the cosmos might not work in a way that makes any rational sense to us, in terms of cause and effect. But so much of the world´s population dying off in a few years, to be forgotten or re-interpreted? How do we make sense of that? What were they thinking as their entire world disappeared?

Lots of people seem to say that human history is made of civilizations rising, fighting for dominance, and diminishing. Some people lose, some people win. The perspectives of those who win are the ones that stick around. The Mayans believed that every so often the gods destroyed the Earth, and many of their elaborate rituals and sacrifices were asking, ¨Please let us stick around a little longer.¨ I would say my heart asks for the same thing.

Pictures of Copan!

I managed to steal pictures from Veronica's camera--check them out!

On that whole self-love thing

I remembered another of yoga guru Ti Harmony´s suggestions. He used to encourage us to say to ourselves: ¨I love you I love you I love you,¨ all throughout our poses. Especially the tough ones, which often made us snicker. Usually I thought to myself, ¨You sound too much like a yoga guru right now, Ti Tree Harmony.¨

But I tried it the other day. After yoga, as I tried to meditate, I said to myself, Self, I love you I love you I love you.

¨Ha! Listen to you,¨ my mind said, on cue. ¨Sucker for that New Age touchy-feely bull-crap.¨ (bull-crap? Honestly?)

So I answered, just to prove a point, I love you too, cynical critical ego-voice.

That made me get into it. Actually yeah, I do. You keep me real. You keep me discerning, C.C.E.V.

¨You´ve got too much time on your hands. But...thanks.¨

I was on a roll now, so I just kept going. I thought about my occasional discontent and anxiety. I love you too, discontent/anxiety. I know better now where you come from. You just want to be safe, to be liked. You worry and criticize because you are the force in me that´s constantly trying to improve.

I have to say, I recommend it. C.C.E.V. didn´t say so, but I felt it blushing. Wrapping itself up in the compliments like a warm blanket. I suddenly felt mysteriously, wholly at ease. So this must be what all that self-love mumbo jumbo is about.

(Mumbo jumbo? Seriously?)

How living in Guatemala may help your self-esteem

If you need a little confidence booster, you might try walking down one of these cobblestone streets, preferably while wearing accessories. The number of flatters will be directly proportional to how many accessories you´re wearing. Each earring doubles them. A long necklace quadruples them. A watch doesn´t count. You will soon start noticing strange hissing and kissing noises (I can only describe it as ¨Ch! Ch!¨ or ¨Ts! Ts!¨), or cars slowing and honking, their drivers staring at you with big goofy grins. My personal favorite is when a man says a long, ¨Hola,¨ then as you pass and ignore him answers with a sad, ¨¡Adios!¨

I was walking back to my apartment yesterday, carrying armfuls of groceries. As I pass them, I hear two men say to each other, ¨Ay, que hermosa...¡que hermosa! Es extranjera.¨ (Ay, how pretty, how pretty! She´s a foreigner.) I couldn´t suppress a smile. I remember my host mom in Spain saying she was sad the day she stopped getting harassed.

Hey now, little speedyhead

There's no one left to take the lead,
But I tell you and you can see
We're closer now than light years to go.
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
Fall into the ocean.

I never get tired of that song.

I just got back from the Copan ruins, this enormous mass of Mayan ruins just over the Honduran border. Most of the visible ones date from 550-800 A.D. A.D.! Just having to say that sounds like just so freakishly long ago.

My camera, which dates back to two years ago, did not return with me. If someone managed to lift it, I hope they are enjoying a blossoming photography career or feeding their children with the money.

My good friend Veronica is here with me during the month of July. It makes me so happy I could kiss the Universe.

The man I supervise is leaving at the end of July. We just hired someone new, Mario, and he starts tomorrow. Two more weeks of work before I come home.

I killed the spider. I'm sorry. I apologized to it. But it was getting bigger and blacker and braver. I admit I kind of miss it.

Things I have learned so far in Guatemala:

-When it comes to hiring, it comes down to personality, for real. And whether you show up to the interview, and avoid telling the interviewers they are pretty. Never underestimate the power of a first impression.

-It is best not to trust a mustache.

-There is one thing more annoying than mosquitoes. It's called my neighborhood housefly. These suckers win the prize by landing on my face at all hours of the night. And they never seem to learn, "Oh, hey, if I land on her, she's going to try to kill me."

-Alone time is good, loved-ones time is better.

-Now I have brain farts in both languages. I like to think that's an improvement.

-Eating large amounts of fresh fruit may just make you invincible. It is my cure-all for:
1) All illnesses
2) Fatigue
3) Depression/anxiety
4) PMS
5) That half-dead feeling you get from sitting in front of the computer too long
6) Boredom
7) Cravings for a big rich chocolate brownie which you have searched for in vain
8) The frustrated search for life's meaning

-Being too nice really is a bad idea, especially at work.

-A surprising number of adorable children across the hemisphere have learned to say, "Give me a dollar."

I have got to find the river
Bergamot and vetiver
Run through my head and fall away
Leave the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes
All of this is coming your way.

My take on abortion

My agency doesn´t provide abortions or abortion information...but that doesn´t mean it´s not an issue for us. Every once in a while, someone will call or show up at our door in desperation.

In Guatemala, it´s illegal to get an abortion unless a woman can prove she was raped, or unless the pregnancy threatens her life. I think the laws are similar in Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, and Mexico. In Nicaragua and El Salvador, abortion is always illegal even if it threatens the woman´s life. Latin America´s ¨maternal death¨ rates are quite high due to women dying from pregnancy complications and botched abortions.

It fascinates me how passionate people get against abortion. It´s a huge issue when considering political candidates and Supreme Court justices. I would guess that hundreds of people march outside schools and clinics protesting each year. Do we get that passionate about, say, health care reform or environmental protection? What is it about abortion that gets into our hearts?

It´s the potential of it all. We infuse into those tiny cells all the wonder and possibility of human life. Yes, it´s a tiny life, but it´s a life. Isn´t that sacred in itself? Who knows what those cells might become? Shouldn´t we give them a chance? It´s a beautiful intention, I think. Wanting every life to have its chance. It feels less controlling...like you´re giving that little life up to God, up to the forces of the universe. If I let it be killed, I´m playing God.

But if I don´t...I´m not? I´m not so sure.

Even though it can´t ask us to be born, we imagine that someday it will have wanted to be. It´s logical. After all, most of us who have been born are glad of it. Those who aren´t are considered ill.

What if we treated every living person that way? Every child and adult...what if we still saw in them all the possibility and sanctity of their life? What if we wished for them the realization of their full potential? What if we believed preserving that life was worth punishing laws, picket signs, sacrifice, and pivotal political decisions?

After delivery, never again will that little being be imbued with such perfection and potential. Never again will so many people speak out to protect its vulnerability. An unborn child doesn´t require anything of us. A born child does. It taxes our ¨system.¨ It might be a Marxist. An immigrant. A terrorist. It might be annoying. It might ask us for money. Once it has a context, a personality; once it has made mistakes; once we disagree with it; once it asks us to share our resources, we abandon it. We tell it, ¨Your life is your responsibility.¨

If we truly believed pro-life arguments, we might...
-Work our butts off to give everyone quality, affordable medical care.
-Be more outraged at human rights abuses all over the world.
-Push for policies that support people struggling through lives of poverty.
-Give all the resources we could to those without enough food, education, money, etc.
-Care equally for the woman having an abortion as for her pregnancy.

I´m convinced we wouldn´t allow a ¨free market¨ without more accountability, and without a bigger safety net. And obviously, violence would be moot.

But we don´t...at least not wholeheartedly. All over the world, all the time, we are implicitly saying, Some people have to die for the sake of others. We call it realism, capitalism, darwinism, ¨nature,¨ scarcity, national security, politics. Every day of our lives, we are playing God. Abortion is no different.

El Padre

He always answers the phone by telling the date. "July 4th," he says.

"Sorry I didn't call you last week," I say to him. "I was out of town, and then we had a power outage one day...it was a busy week!"

I tell him an anecdote about the power outage all over the country. Within a couple hours, theories were spreading about impending earthquakes, volcano eruptions, military coups...by dark we had power again.

"You're such a charmer," he tells me. "You could sell sand to the Arabs."

We laugh. Together.

Very slowly, we have been building a kind of relationship. When I moved to North Carolina, he was able to come visit me twice. We started calling more. I began noticing that sometimes, we were having genuine conversations. And sometimes, I honestly enjoyed talking to him.

Please watch this

God bless You Tube

Monterrico

Helloooooo blog!

I missed you too!!

Last weekend we had Monday off--it was a holiday called ¨The Day of the Army.¨ That´s interesting in itself...considering Guatemala´s history. The activist group NISGUA managed to get the traditional parade canceled, and threw its own parade to commemorate people who died during the war.

I went with my friend Marialos to a beach on the Pacific coast in a town called Monterrico, about two hours away. Might as well have some fun, right? ...right?




I have more pictures!


Coming down from the highlands, the landscape changes dramatically--it turns lush and green and HOT and humid. The beaches are black sand, which is cool to see but makes it even hotter. The water is warm, with one heck of an undertow (hence no one was swimming). I expected the town to be touristy, but it´s not really. It´s still pretty poor, with dirt roads, a few comedores, and a few hotels. Most of the tourists there seemed to be from Guatemala.


I apologize that I did not take pictures of the man in a home-made thong groaning in pleasure in a communal pool. Needless to say, we left that hostel (I am suddenly aware that I´m not 21 anymore) and found a dreamy family-owned place with hammocks and our own room. My favorite part was drinking a coconut through a straw. And the sunbathing turtle.