The Monkey Mind

It´s interesting to see what happens when you´re alone with your brain for long periods of time. That´s the boat I´m in at the moment. It´s been a while since I´ve been there--usually I am adept at over-busying myself.

At the same time, I´ve been trying to learn how to meditate. It all started with that blasted Eat, Pray, Love. That´s how it starts. First the Oprah book, then the dabbling in buddhism for westerners. Next thing you know you´re buying The Bhagavad Gita and spiritual audiocassettes. Or maybe that´s just me.

In any case, all this has conspired to make me even more aware than usual of my ¨monkey mind.¨ I may or may not recommend it.

There is a certain parental amusement in observing its ups and and downs, the way it latches on to things, the way it´s constantly evaluating, planning, analyzing, interpreting. I notice that my brain pretty much constantly writes its own self-help book. There´s a commentary running through the background of my life: ¨How am I doing? How can I be doing better? There must be something I should be doing better. Oh yes, there´s one. ¨ If I´m not doing something edifying, I feel I must be thinking something edifying. The plight of the overachiever, I suppose. I would love to have more moments that were totally devoid of meaning. Where I wasn´t thinking, ¨What does this say about me? Where will this lead?¨

So far, awareness and meditation aren´t quite doing it for me. I want someone greater than myself involved...to listen to, to open myself to. When I try to do that, more happens for me.

Sometimes I feel like I get messages. I get a lot of, ¨Just wait. Just listen. Wait to hear from Me.¨
And, ¨Open yourself to the possibility that you don´t know crap.¨ In so many words.
Sometimes I get the kind of messages I´m looking for. Like, ¨Will you forgive yourself for being young and inexperienced and not knowing what you´re doing?¨
But more often it´s more like, ¨All those things you think, they´re yours. You made them up. Suspend them. I´ve got better things to tell you. And show you.¨

Updates

It has been quite a week. I am house-sitting a MANSION this week and next, while its owner (the founder of my agency) is away. Pictures to follow...

On Sunday, I traveled to a city about 2 hours away called Chichicastenango. It´s in the western highlands, near Lake Atitlan, and has a large Mayan population. A woman from my work lives there and showed us around. She took us to an enormous market, a couple churches, and a hillside where people were performing Mayan rituals. It was amazing. Pictures to follow...

On Tuesday, I traveled by myself to Guatemala City for a meeting with USAID...in Spanish. Gulp! The city is huge--about 1/4 of Guatemala´s population lives there. Everything went very smoothly, and I got to see a couple museums to boot. The highlight was a textile museum which displayed traditional woven clothing, told you which city it was from, and what language is spoken there. There are about 23 languages spoken in this country (which is the size of Tennessee)! I didn´t bring my camera to that one. Just my emergency contact numbers and my sense of adventure.

The price of petroleum is hitting the country hard. Today our educator couldn´t come to the office. He lives in Guatemala City, and said a lot of people are striking and transportation isn´t running. A bus driver was killed last night. People are trying to get the government to subsidize transportation costs. There was one day our pure water truck didn´t come by, because he couldn´t afford the gasoline. Food prices have risen sharply. It seems to me the rising cost of petroleum is the only thing that will motivate us to develop alternative sources of energy. In the meantime, though, poorer countries like this will be hit hardest.

On the bright side, I found this wonderful tuk-tuk driver I use whenever I need to get around town. His name is Dario. He´s this sweet middle-aged man, who charges me less than the going rate, and makes sure I get in the door safely. Sometimes he wears a suit and tie. One night it was pouring down rain, and he opened the little flap for me. ¨Buenas noches!¨ he said, ¨Lots of rain today, no?¨ It´s people like that, you know?

Diaspora (p.s. do even I know what that means?)

Tengo tu antídoto... Pal' que no tiene identidad
Somos idénticos... Pal' que llegó sin avisar
Tengo tu antílico... Para los que ya no están, para los que estás, y los que vienen

I have your antidote...for those without identity
We are identical...those who arrived without warning
I have your antílico*...for those who are not here,
those who are here, and those who are coming
(antílico: a mix between the words "antídoto" (antidote) and "Etílico" (ethylic))

One thing we know about the world: people are always moving and migrating. And that is especially evident in Antigua, Guatemala.

Scene: I have dinner with a group of people who live here. Three of us are Americans who moved down here. Two are native Guatemalans. One is Guatemalan but grew up the States. One is Latvian. We get to talking about Guatemalan history and food. An American girl chimes in: ¨We have lots of great tamales in the States, cause there are Mexicans everywhere.¨ The room falls silent.

Scene: I go searching for an apartment. When I find one I like, the owner tells me she would rather have a foreigner living there. ¨You can´t trust Guatemalans,¨ she says. ¨They don´t pay.¨ Then she pauses and says, ¨Course, most of them can´t pay anyway.¨ Housing prices are so high here precisely because there are enough foreigners who can afford them. People native to Antigua are being pushed out. Or, they take in students like me to help pay their rent.

Scene: A woman who is connected to my agency just lost her husband. He migrated to the States, crossed the desert on foot, and died somewhere in Arizona. She just received his papers in the mail.

Scene: Several American tourists have told me they ¨envy¨ me. One I met while eating dinner at a local restaurant. This middle-aged man strikes up a conversation with me. I tell him about the agency I work for. ¨That is so great!¨ He says. ¨Not enough people are working in family planning. I´ve been traveling for a while, and it seems to me the biggest problem here is population growth. How are we gonna get it through their heads that they have to have fewer children, and they have to send those children to school?¨ He even suggested (albeit a little guiltily) that improving health care without controlling the population might be a bad idea.

Next thing I know, I have a lot to say, too. I tell him I think pejorative language like that is what got Guatemala here in the first place. Not to mention that it´s quite possibly the root of all evil.

Through the eyes of anthropology (which I now wish I had studied!), what a place to be. All these people from all over the world, at once experiencing, consuming, and changing Guatemalan culture. And the Guatemalans trying to go on with their lives. Being pushed out by high prices. Packaging what attracts tourists, playing pre-recorded marimba music, opening up their homes to us, weaving their traditional clothing for us to buy. The municipal police putting a stop to anything that seems ¨too indigenous.¨ Women with food on their heads and babies on their backs, wearing their best woven clothing and headdresses on weekends when there are more tourists. Elderly couples speaking Mayan languages. Younger people wearing Levi´s and cat-calling in English.

-Dice... Pasaporte!

-Ha donde va por ahi, luminario, en esta noche tan fea?
-Usted no se anima?
-Mire como 'sta el camino. 'Ta negaiiiito!
-No hombre, como, el camino es lo de menos
-Lo importante es que haiga bronca

-(He) says... Passport!
-Where you goin', luminary, in this night so ugly?
-Don't you dare?
-See how the road is. It's terrible!
-No man, how (can you say that), the road is the least of it
-What matters is for there to be a fight in you
-Calle 13

Lava cont´d (yay technology!)

Las noticias (in color!)

Check out this website for Guatemalan news updates:
www.nisgua.org

Major highlights: the sentence in the prison rape case. This case was a very big deal--the first of its kind. They say three-fourths of women in prison experience sexual assault. Bringing the perpetrators to justice is not easy. The woman who went forward, and her family, were threatened many times. But they got a conviction.

Testimonies given in genocide cases: now this is a REALLY big deal. Cases have been brought against two of Guatemala´s past dictators for the violence (many have called it genocide) that occurred during the civil war. For the first time ever (and these guys were in power from 1978-1983!), people have been able to testify in court. Talk about an uphill battle. There have been a tons of threats and violence against the people fighting for justice. The cases are being tried in Spain, but the investigator was halted, and now with a bunch of legal maneuvering things are going forward in Guatemala too.

Other news: last week, authorities found a ¨clandestine¨ house full of about 8 or 9 babies just outside Antigua. The owners of the house have not be able to adequately explain why they have all these babies. People are trying to keep it quiet, because there is a lot of fear all over the country about robachicos (kid-snatchers), which has sparked some awful violence in the past. Many illegal adoptions happen, though, which is one of the reasons international adoptions have been halted for now.

Last week in Solola, a ¨delinquent¨ was captured by the community and burned alive. As I talked about it with my family, they said, ¨You see, in Guatemala the police don´t do anything. They´re corrupt. So if someone commits crimes, the community takes justice into their own hands.¨

I´ve had a hard time adjusting to how often I feel scared here. Sweeping generalization of the day: the sad thing is, so does everybody else.

The Big Three

I have been tagged by PunkieMommie to write three things about myself. (She has a great blog by the way--recommended reading.) I haven´t forgotten, PM! I´ve been trying to think of something...here´s what I´ve got.

1. I always, always have a song in my head.

Literally. I will go to sleep with one, and wake up with another. It changes throughout the day, but if I pay attention to my brain, it´s always playing music. Sometimes I think my thoughts are just one big found poem from all the lyrics I have backlogged in my brain.

Song of the moment: ¨If it hadn´t been for cotton-eyed Joe, I´d been married a long time ago. Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, cotton-eyed Joe?¨

2. On personality tests, I consistently score right in the middle between introverted and extroverted.

Relationships are what make life for me. At the same time, the thought of a silent retreat in some Ashram somewhere sounds very appealing.

3. I am not very acculturated.

Today I ran out of the Luna bar stash I brought with me, and I shed a little tear.

Another phone number!!

Awwww yeah. Picking up the digits.

Not very different: 4353.3188. The other phone ceased to work. But at least it wasn´t stolen!!