Marco-YOLO » Guatemala http://marco-yolo.com postcards from our sixteen month round-the-world adventure Tue, 02 Jan 2024 09:29:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.40 Building Pics in Guatemala http://marco-yolo.com/building-pics/ http://marco-yolo.com/building-pics/#comments Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:20:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/building-pics/ Courtesy of Melanie Rubin: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sephiac/sets/72157604040526535/

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Courtesy of Melanie Rubin:

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Antigua photos http://marco-yolo.com/antigua-photos/ http://marco-yolo.com/antigua-photos/#comments Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:04:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/antigua-photos/ After my camera was stolen, I bought a disposable film camera in Flores which still needs to be processed. However, when Colleen joined me in Antigua, she brought our old digital camera. Here are the Antigua pictures we took and a few from a BBQ in Utila that a friend took with her camera and […]

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After my camera was stolen, I bought a disposable film camera in Flores which still needs to be processed. However, when Colleen joined me in Antigua, she brought our old digital camera. Here are the Antigua pictures we took and a few from a BBQ in Utila that a friend took with her camera and sent me:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sephiac/sets/72157604034323524/

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Pacaya / Diego’s Wedding http://marco-yolo.com/pacaya-diegos-wedding/ http://marco-yolo.com/pacaya-diegos-wedding/#comments Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:54:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/pacaya-diegos-wedding/ Today, we are heading back home to D.C. All in all, I’m looking forward to getting home. I will be facing a tough job market but I’m ready. This morning, Colleen and I had a 1 hour massage session together, which was very relaxing. Yesterday, we mountain biked all over the city for 4 hours. […]

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Today, we are heading back home to D.C. All in all, I’m looking forward to getting home. I will be facing a tough job market but I’m ready. This morning, Colleen and I had a 1 hour massage session together, which was very relaxing.

Yesterday, we mountain biked all over the city for 4 hours. I bought 2 shirts and 2 Mayan masks. Colleen bought a beautiful jade pendant. Later, we went to Manny’s (my pledge brother from Sigma Chi at Purdue) friend Diego’s wedding. It was very similar to what a US wedding would look like with language being the only major differentiating factor. However, it was held in a beautiful setting, in an outside coutyard with well manicured lawns and fountains. A band played virtually the entire time except during lunch and guests from all age groups danced the day away.

The day before yesterday, Colleen and I climbed Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano closer to Guatemala City. The climb lasted about 2 hours, maybe slightly longer for us because Colleen had trouble climbing the the mounds of solidified lava at the top which was very brittle and unstable and had dangerous jagged edges. However, getting within meters of flowing lava and roasting a marshmallow on glowing magma was very cool. I nearly burned my eyebrows off doing it though! That night we had a fantastic dinner at Cafe Flor. We were seated at an intimate candle-lit table for two by the window and enjoyed some first class Thai food while listening to the piano being played 3 tables away. We were the last people to leave the restaurant that night and had a couple of songs played just for us. The piano player/singer then came to our table and we chatted for a bit while I paid the bill. Just a perfect dinner!

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Hauled in by La Policia! / Tikal http://marco-yolo.com/hauled-in-by-la-policia-tikal/ http://marco-yolo.com/hauled-in-by-la-policia-tikal/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:19:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/hauled-in-by-la-policia-tikal/ I was playing pool with the young men of San Andres. All of I sudden, I saw the barrels of 2 AK-47′s come in from the door to the bar, which was closest to our table. A third followed and I was relieved to see they were in the hands of policemen. Then they indicated […]

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I was playing pool with the young men of San Andres. All of I sudden, I saw the barrels of 2 AK-47′s come in from the door to the bar, which was closest to our table. A third followed and I was relieved to see they were in the hands of policemen. Then they indicated that they wanted everyone against the wall. Being as brown as I am at this point, they didn’t consider that I might be a volunteer or tourist so I made my way with the rest of the guys to the wall. The others kept looking back at me and smiling because they knew I was an international volunteer. Anyway, the cops were very courteous and just did a quick pat down. It was obvious they were only interested in guns, of which there are a lot in Guatemala. Even if I had a knife, which I carry occasionally, they wouldn’t have found it and even if they did, I think they would have let it slip.

The next day I went to Flores and from there to Tikal. I watched the sunset from Temple II, looking towards Temple IV and it was very beautiful. That night I camped at Tikal on the grounds of the Jaguar Inn. There were huge spiders outside the tent the size of tarantulas but much faster so I made my entrances and exits of the tent very quickly. Luckily nothing got in and the mosquitoes weren’t that bad either. The howler monkeys however, were something else. These medium sized monkeys make a tremendous sound and until a guide told me the next morning what they were, I thought I was hearing a Jaguar outside my tent. The next morning, I got up at 4:30 and my group left for Temple IV to watch the sunrise just before 5:00. I found it to be the most contrived tourist trap I have ever seen. There were probably over a hundred tourists there and the sunrise really wasn’t that spectacular. However, there was a lot of fog that morning so perhaps it would have been better had there not been any. The wildlife coming to life was nice but again nothing that amazing. I explored the ruins for another 4-5 hours and have to say as a whole they were unimpressive.

The guides could have been better also. They didn’t seem to know much about the Mayans beyond their standard repertoire. Part of the reason for this is that to this day there is much about the Mayans that we don’t know despite their not being that ancient a civilization. By building with limestone in a high humidity climate, the Mayans didn’t do themselves any favors. Their ruins, sculptures and especially records (In the form of Hieroglyphs) are badly eroded and barely legible. Ruins in Egypt and Pakistan that are 3,000 years older are in better shape and indicate a more advanced civilization than whats at Tikal. Currently, there is construction of new “ruins” taking place in Tikal, the idea being to portray what the past may have looked like. However, the recreations are not clearly marked (same as in Copan), which I feel is misleading to tourists who think they are looking at original artifacts. Many tourist I spoke to felt the same way about Tikal. After seeing 2 of the most famous Mayan ruins, I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to visit any Mayan ruins for historical/archaeological reasons unless you have a fascination with the Mayans specifically. The one saving point of Tikal however was that the jungle and whatever wildlife we did see were fun walking through.

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Circus is in town http://marco-yolo.com/circus-is-in-town/ http://marco-yolo.com/circus-is-in-town/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:45:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/circus-is-in-town/ A caravan of 5 dusty cars pulled by a old truck has pulled in to town and is all the excitement. The Red Top Circus is in town and I´m sure its old school all the way, really fat or majorly mustached women and all that fare I´d guess. There was a big accident in […]

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A caravan of 5 dusty cars pulled by a old truck has pulled in to town and is all the excitement. The Red Top Circus is in town and I´m sure its old school all the way, really fat or majorly mustached women and all that fare I´d guess.

There was a big accident in town a few days back. A large truck ran backwards into a house when it lost traction on a steep gravel road. It took the whole house out. They had to put up supports for the roof before taking the truck out of the house because the truck and one wall were the only things holding up the roof. The streets around here are very steep. Much more than San Francisco. Luckily no one was hurt.

I´m trying to decide between leaving for Tikal tomorrow or the day after. They have zip lines running through the jungle which I think would be fun to do and I also really want to see a sunrise or sunset from Temple IV. Thats the update for now. Either way, will be in Antigua come Wednesday.

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Working in the Ecological Park http://marco-yolo.com/working-in-the-ecological-park/ http://marco-yolo.com/working-in-the-ecological-park/#comments Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:35:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/working-in-the-ecological-park/ Today, I found the School construction site empty so decided to join the Canadians in the Ecological Park. I spent around 4 hours today clearing a new walking path through the jungle with a machete and cutting bad branches off of banana trees. On the one hand, it was very peaceful and serene and I […]

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Today, I found the School construction site empty so decided to join the Canadians in the Ecological Park. I spent around 4 hours today clearing a new walking path through the jungle with a machete and cutting bad branches off of banana trees. On the one hand, it was very peaceful and serene and I saw lots of butterflies, humming birds and colorful lizards. On the other hand, there were tons of other not so cuddly bugs all over the place and on me. Sometimes, I´d take a swing at a tree with my machete and a centipede would fall on my arm. I had already seen scorpions, tarantulas and massive iguanas around. Additionally, I was told rattlesnakes and at least one large alligator also lived near where we were working so I was very cautious given how much brush cover was available for them to hide behind and under. I have to say, slicing through the jungle with a machete feels very satisfying.

The cops in Livingston were freed with the government offering talks to the revolting farmers so that crisis is over. I was able to borrow one of the American highschooler´s camera for a few hours before they left and was able to snap pictures of the house where I live and the town of San Andres. I´m going to have a lot of young new Facebook friends once they get back to the States and start adding me. I have to say working with them and joking around with them all those days made me feel younger and I really enjoyed their company.

Last night, the father and eldest brother in my local family returned home for a few days. I spent a good hour talking to Oscar (the dad) over dinner. He told me about his work in Yaxha, digging out and restoring Mayan ruins and doing restoration of artifacts. I´m happy to say I can now conduct long conversations covering a broad subject base in Spanish, albeit with tons of grammatical mistakes and very basic and at times lacking vocabulary.

I saw Mormon missionaries in San Andres a few days back. They are one dedicated faith when it comes to spreading their word, to the point where its really quite ridiculous. I ran into one of them today. No surprise he was from Utah.

I have decided to leave San Andres Tuesday morning and spend the whole day in Tikal. After sunset, I will return to Flores for the night and will fly to Guatemala City Wednesday morning.

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Livingston erupts http://marco-yolo.com/livingston-erupts/ http://marco-yolo.com/livingston-erupts/#comments Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:45:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/livingston-erupts/ It seems I narrowly escaped bad times in Livingston by less than a week. Apparently 1,500 farmers there have taken 30 police officers hostage and are demanding an arrested leader be freed or thay will execute them. Given how unsafe the city looked before and how many crackheads were stumbling about, I take it that […]

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It seems I narrowly escaped bad times in Livingston by less than a week. Apparently 1,500 farmers there have taken 30 police officers hostage and are demanding an arrested leader be freed or thay will execute them. Given how unsafe the city looked before and how many crackheads were stumbling about, I take it that it is very dangerous now that the police are absorbed with trying to rescue their own.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7259659.stm

In other news, I played in a soccer game and a basketball game 2 nights back with the local San Andreans, went to a party last night that was thrown for the American kids where I saw children performing traditional Guatemalan dances. Today the CT highschoolers and MA teachers all left (seperately) which just leaves me and the Canadian couple currently volunteering. The schools has really come along. I think tomorrow the walls will be totally finished. I´ve decided to go to Tikal over a weekday and not a weekend so as to avoid a high tourist traffic day so I´ll work tomorrow.

Other than that, I´m continually dismayed with the manners of Guatemalan men towards foreign women. They make odd and somewhat obscene gestures and sounds when they pass by despite knowing that these women are volunteering time and money in their community. Since I am now very brown, they often think I am Guatemalan and when I walk by with western looking women, they congratulate me in advance on scoring with them and ask me to share the love with them.

I am almost out of money so will probably hit an ATM in Flores or Santa Elena real soon. Only 4 more days of volunteering to go. On the 27th, I´ll be sipping a mohito on my hotel rooftop in Antigua with Colleen.

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Just a normal day http://marco-yolo.com/just-a-normal-day/ http://marco-yolo.com/just-a-normal-day/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:45:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/just-a-normal-day/ Today was very ordinary. Got up early and walked to the site. The clouds didn´t give cover as they had yesterday and so the sun had me sweating profusely in both directions. I feel that my Spanish is improving and am excited by the prospect of knowing a new language that is so widely spoken. […]

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Today was very ordinary. Got up early and walked to the site. The clouds didn´t give cover as they had yesterday and so the sun had me sweating profusely in both directions. I feel that my Spanish is improving and am excited by the prospect of knowing a new language that is so widely spoken.

Last night, the American kids played the San Andres kids in a game of soccer. The Americans fielded a team of boys and girls with a median age of around 15. The Guatemalans were all big guys that looked around 20. There were younger kids ready to play but the older guys who rode in on motorcycles like they were the Hell´s Angels wouldn´t let them play. In the end, the Americans played a good game given their situation. They sub´d a lot and played hard the whole time they were on the field. Every time a tiny freshman or girl of any age stole the ball from a Guatemalan, the whole stadium (maybe 100-150 people) roared in laughter. It was obvious those guys were never going to hear the end of it and this happened a lot. In the end the game was abandoned due to a power outage across town that left everyone in total darkness. The score at that point was 3-1 for San Andres.

I am going to try borrowing a camera from one of the Connecticut highschoolers so I can get pictures of the lake around where I am staying and my host family and their house. Pictures of the construction site are going to be plenty becuse so many of the children and supervising adults have cameras and they will post their pictures online. The cameras that I´ve seen in shops in smaller Guatemalan towns have been very low quality and ridiculously overpriced so I´m going to have Colleen bring our backup camera when she joins me on the 27th and in the meantime I´ll make do with borrowing.

This weekend I plan to go to Tikal and am looking forward to that. I´ve spent a little more than I had intended to on this trip because I travelled to Honduras which was unplanned and I also ate out a lot. However, Mr. ATM card is with me so not a huge problem.

P.S. – I´m upset that Purdue lost to Indiana but then the Pakistan elections went by without any major hitch so on the whole I´m more than happy.

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Nipples! http://marco-yolo.com/nipples/ http://marco-yolo.com/nipples/#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:45:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/nipples/ Central American women seem to be very open with their nipples. I’ve been seeing breasts everywhere. My neighbor showering outside her house, women on Lake Atitlan washing clothes and bathing babies while their boobs flop around, flinging from side to side as if attempting to escape in order to find a good bra for much […]

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Central American women seem to be very open with their nipples. I’ve been seeing breasts everywhere. My neighbor showering outside her house, women on Lake Atitlan washing clothes and bathing babies while their boobs flop around, flinging from side to side as if attempting to escape in order to find a good bra for much needed support. On the bus from Rio Dulce to Santa Elena, a child was crying and his mom just flipped up her shirt and stuffed the really large brown nipple that came out into the child’s mouth to shut it up. I was standing right above her and looked away. The guy in front of me, ogled her as long as her nipple was out, I don’t think he even ever blinked. It was very sleazy given that the woman knew he was staring at her.

Anyway, today was back to work for me. We have now put up 7 layers of bricks on top of the foundation and the site now looks to contain a building. The Peten sun has turned me quite brown already. After 3 more days, I’ll be the color of poo! I told Colleen about it and she’s not happy. Hopefully though, I’ll also get some much desired tone with my undesired tan. A funny thing happened at the construction site today. The Guatemalan girls made a ranked-list of American boys they liked from the construction crew. The person they picked for 1st place was an obvious total nerd. Everyone was confused so we asked them why. They replied that he looked like Harry Potter! So there you have it. You want to pull ass in Guatemala, you better look like someone who goes to Hogwarts.

I think the family I’m staying with may be reading my blog. Perhaps they read that I felt the food was above expectation and so for lunch yesterday they served up super salted broccoli with a side of radish and rice. I hated it and when they asked “Te Gusta?”, I told them “Mas o menos, perro me gusta frejoles, huevos y avacado” so hopefully I’ll be getting more beans, eggs and avocado in the future.

I also just realized that the reaon I’d been hearing pigs all the time was that my family has a pig sty on the premises. They live just 20-30 feet from me! In San Andres, in addition to stray looking dogs and chickens, there are also tons of pigs and horses running around. The some of the horses are extremely emaciated and it hurts to look at their exposed ribs, hip bones and shoulder baldes. The pigs seem very well fed. Sometimes, walking to or from the school construction, I run into puppies, piglets and chickens all running around together. It’s an amusing scene to say the least. Tonight I’m going to a local soccer match. I met 3 American girls and their professor from MA who are teaching in the library that was finished in October. Now I need to run home and get all this cement off me so I can look decent for dinner and the soccer game tonight.

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Awaken! http://marco-yolo.com/awaken/ http://marco-yolo.com/awaken/#comments Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:23:00 +0000 http://marco-yolo.com/awaken/ Today I had a moment where I was the most bewildered and disoriented I have ever been in 27 years. My eyelids fluttered open and I was ushered into another World. Intially, I thought this new World was a dreamworld because it certainly couldn’t be real. I was a caucasian American highschool student who was […]

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Today I had a moment where I was the most bewildered and disoriented I have ever been in 27 years. My eyelids fluttered open and I was ushered into another World. Intially, I thought this new World was a dreamworld because it certainly couldn’t be real. I was a caucasian American highschool student who was sitting up after having been knocked down while playing soccer. Almost a dozen fellow players and concerned students nearby were scrambling all over the place. There was indecipherable shouting and then it hit me…

This dream was like no dream I had ever had before. It wasn’t terribly bizzare but it was TOO different to be mine. What could that mean? Someone places a hand on my shoulder. I look up. It is the concerned mother of one of the other kids asking me if I’m all right. Was I awake before or am I awake now? I desperately try to remember what I was doing last time I was awake. I can’t remember. Panic quickly sets in, replacing confusion. Was I transitioning between dreamworlds or had I in this instant exchanged bodies and lives with some American high school kid? It certainly looked like the Earth I knew but could I be in another dimension?

Now multiple people are talking to me, including a dad of another kid. A boy who was probably on my team holds out an overfilled purple Nalgene bottle in front of my face, water falling out from all sides. “Don’t fall asleep” a tall, attractive 16 year old girl screams at me.

Then it all comes back. I look at my legs. The right one is slightly scuffed on the shin. Then I look to the left one and I grimace. The panic and confusion depart, replaced now with the instincts of crisis management. My left shin had a dent in it, now maybe 2 centimeters deep and 4 across. Good. It had been over an inch deep the first time I had seen it, the time before when I lost conciousness. Trying to make fewer trips back for cement, I had overfilled the cement bucket. When going back to where I was laying bricks, I had tripped on something and run into a partially finished wall. The entire forward force of me and the concrete filled bucket was absorbed primarily by my left shin making contact with the top edge of the partial wall. Moving away from the wall, I saw the dents in both shins. The one on the left was so fucked, it didn’t look real. I put down the bucket and told the other bricklayers where it was. Liam, one of the seniors on my team exclaimed “Oh shit!” when he saw my shins. He called Lois, one of the adults overseeing the Connecticut highschool volunteers for Builders Without Borders (also a 14 yr IBM veteran, now director of a labor NGO in NYC). While she came over and also took a look at my shins, I began to feel faint. It was 11:00 AM and the Peten Sun was beating down pretty hard. Maybe the heat had something to do with it or maybe it was me being squeamish having seen my semi mangled legs. Whatever it was, while I was getting ready to sit down, I fainted and fell backwards on my butt followed by my head. I had just regained conciousness and now finally understood what the hell was going on.

Two guys help to some shade where Rachel, a junior who is student nurse and who had earlier shouted “Don’t fall asleep!”, tells me to elevate my legs while she cleans and dresses the area around the wound. She also touches my feet in a few spots to make sure I haven’t lost sensation anywhere. Not only have I not lost sensation but there is no pain whatsoever. I feel a slight dull pain in my head where I came down but nothing serious. I try moving my feet about, no problem. Good thing. It’s Sunday and there are no open hospitals anywhere in the state. We decide I should go home and rest. A Guatemalan gives me a ride home where I apply tons of ice to the area for the next 2 hours.

Good news is I’ve been walking on both legs for the past few hours and have had no problems. Oddly, there ended up being no pain from the whole thing although it is bruising now. Initially I had thought the shock had kept me from feeling the pain but it never returned. Everyone at the site felt I should take a day or two off but given how good I feel, especially after talking to my father in law, a rheumatologist who assured me the student nurse was being overzealous in suggesting a bone bruise had occured, I think I’ll go back tomorrow if it feels decent in the morning. Schools don’t build themselves! Thankfully, the small misstep stayed a small misstep.

Last night, I had a few beers with a Canadian couple from Quebec also volunteering with the same organization. They are here for another two weeks. I’m here for another 9 days. Given how dead this town gets after dark, I’m sure we’ll be very well acquainted by the end of our time here.

Also an update on the family I’m staying with. The reason I never see the dad is because he is a park ranger in a national park North East of here. Also, I discovered Ingrid is a niece of Carmelina’s and not her daughter.

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