Life as a Quetzaltenanglo

Xela is definitely a unique city. Here´s a good view of the city center:

There are people of all types, shapes, shades, and sizes. There are native Mayans, Guatemalans, Europeans, Canadians and people from the United States intermingling with each other in harmony on a daily basis in this busy little city in the clouds. As far as the locals go, there are some that go about their business paying no attention to us, whether it be a five foot tall Mayan lady dressed in colorful woven clothes usually carrying something absurdly heavy on her head, or a Guatemalan thirty something dressed in a suit frantically trying to navigate through the crowds on the narrow sidewalks to get to his afternoon meeting. There are some, not many, that stare in amazement (or disgust) as we walk by the café or panaderia that they are in (especially in the less-gringoey areas, like the one we're living in now). But for the most part no one even notices.

I have seen and met some of the happiest people (locals) on the planet here in Xela. A good example is a street cleaner that we passed one day. This guy was about sixty years old and as he was bending over picking up garbage he was humming a happy little tune to himself and had the biggest smile on his face that you could imagine. He specifically stopped what he was doing to say "Buenas tardes." (good afternoon) to us as we passed. I've never seen such a happy street cleaner in my life. The first few days we were here in Xela I walked around by myself (Melanie wasn't feeling very good), getting a good lay of the land. I had my map out here and there, marking points of interest, restaurants, etc... Three different locals went out of their way to come over to me and ask if I was lost or needed any help at different points during my exploration. And of course there's Magda, our friend at the Black Cat Hostel, that helped us find our current apartment. I am fond of calling her our Xela "Yoda" or "OB1". She has given us so much help and has been an absolute pleasure to be around at all times.

We've met so many people from different places here in Xela: a lady and her daughter from the Netherlands (Mel bonded with them over Harry Potter fanaticism at a benefit dinner we attended), a weird shy Canadian guy named Owen, a guy from Washington named Chris also, two surfer dudes from Hawaii, and many other travelers from the U.S. here to learn Spanish or to just be lazy dirty hippies. We met a guy from Australia, who had been to Xela before, on the journey from San Cristobal to here. He told us that we should go with them to Lake Attitlan, a beautiful lake in the mountains, instead because he thought that Xela was a just another big dirty city. Hopefully we will be visiting the lake on a side trip next weekend, but that dude failed to mention any of the amazing aspects of this city. It is a little dusty and dirty, but not as bad as most of the big cities in Mexico we've been to. There is a nice mountain breeze all the time here so the pollution is not bad at all. The coffee and pastries are great and cheap (so much better than in Mexico) and the food overall is excellent. There's a great gourmet pizzaria, a French restaurant, and a crepe café that we patronize on a regular basis (on average about $10 a meal for both of us including drinks).

A short break for some interesting and odd notes from our first few weeks here:



I've almost been run over several times by what people call "chicken buses". They are wildly painted school buses that take people all over the place in this area. We are probably going to take one to the lake. As not funny as death is, death by chicken bus sounds pretty damn funny. --------------->

They blast a cannon from the top of the church in the central park several times a day almost every day. It is so loud it sets off all of the car alarms and it is fun to watch all of the people jump out of their skins as it unexpectedly erupts. They set it off for holidays, saint's days, birthdays, funerals, and quinceneras. Basically they make a reason to set it off every day. My Spanish teacher seemed to think they just do it for fun. The city also has a fireworks show almost every night as well. These people are serious pyros. The church is visable in the picture of the city center. It´s very white.

I learned in my Spanish class that the people of Xela are nicknamed ¨Chivos¨. Their sports team is called the ¨Super Chivos¨. I didn't make my teacher to happy when I accidentally called them the ¨Chivos Locos¨ in a homework assignment -- that translates to ¨Crazy Goats¨. Chivo also means goat.
Here´s a crazy goat pic just for you teach:----------------------------------->

There are guards at every supermarket and bank wielding shotguns, yes I said supermarket. It was a bit of overkill to have a guard with a shotgun at the entrance tell me that I couldn't bring my pastries we had just bought into the store. He looked like he was ready to blast me. I just gave him the pastries and asked him not to kill me. Just kidding, he was really nice about it, but I would have complied with a pimple faced teenager on that request. The weird thing was that he was stationed with a gun at the entrance and not the exit. Do you think they have such a problem with people smuggling food inside the store that they need armed security?

Speaking of armed personnel, all of the cops in the city ride around on motorcycles... in twos. Yes, that's right, one cop driving and one hugging the other one around the waist holding on for dear life, all snuggled up together. It's hard to look tough like that. Imagine (if you're old enough) the show C.H.I.P.S., however, there's only one bike and it's half the size and they're wearing the same uniforms and helmets. I can't resist making some cop jokes...

"Those darn bumpy roads"
The officer driving says to his partner while patrolling, "Hey buddy would ya mind? Your gun is poking me in the back."
The partner replies, "I would, but that's not my gun."...

"Now that's coordination"
Recently we noticed police driving training in the local high school parking lot...

While the driver navigated through the obstacle course his partner had to stuff donuts and coffee in his mouth without spilling a drop. Amazing.

"It's tough being a rookie"
We were walking down the road the other day and were shocked to see a motorcycle cop alone on his bike....

As we turned and watched him pass we read the back of his uniform, "If you can read this the bitch fell off!"

"Advancements in law enforcement"
Recently I read in the local newspaper that in Summer '08 the Xela police department is releasing their brand new "prisoner side cars".

"As everyone has seen," one officer points out, "It's really hard to drive with the prisoners sitting on the handlebars."

That's all of the interesting notes and I apologize for the bad jokes. To continue...

After a full week of Spanish classes I´m pooped. Five hours a day with a private tutor is a lot of work. I have, however, already noticed quite an improvement in my comprehension. My teacher, also named Chris(tian), was twenty years old. He focused mainly on teaching me insults and genital terminology -- like how to say ¨pubic hair¨ (vello púbico). No really, he was a great teacher. He is studying currently to become a doctor so he was able to teach me medical terminology along with brushing up on all the Spanish language basics.

I still have a long way to go but at least I was understanding everything he was throwing at me. The poor guy had just broken up with his girlfriend the week before so every example he gave had something to do with women bashing. It was really sad. Here is a picture of us on our last day. Seriously, dude broke down and started crying and tried to hug me as our last lesson finished (I acted like I was having a coughing fit to avoid it). He really needs to find a new girlfriend in a hurry. He was a great teacher though and the best part about our stay at Miguel de Cervantes Spanish school.

I said in my first Xela post that we had scored a pretty cute room up in the attic of the school. That´s what I thought until we really moved in up there and realized that no one had lifted a finger to clean the place... ever. We spent the entire first day there scrubbing the place down and still couldn´t come close to getting all the dirt and dust. Our upper respiratory systems were painfully not happy with the situation. In addition the place was drafty as hell and it got freezing cold at night. As with everything else in the place, the bedding was disgustingly dirty, and we ended up hucking it on the floor for the duration of our stay. If you smacked the blanket, a cloud of dust would fly up like a mushroom cloud. Plus the bed was rock hard with a two inch thick ¨matress¨(thin foam on top of a cement block). I would have slept on the floor if it weren´t for the three inch coating of dust, which actually would have probably been softer than the matress. We hudled together every night to keep warm only using the sheets we had brought with us for warmth. It was pathetic. We hardly slept the entire week.

The rest of the place was similarly dusty and dirty. The one time I saw someone cleaning was a girl perched ten feet high on a rickety ladder held together by packing tape with a feather duster getting spider webs out of the corner of a room. It was bizarre due to the fact that nothing else in the entire building had been cleaned in years. It was also amusing considering they had a sign in the kitchen stating how utterly important cleanliness was. I put together a collage of Miguel Cervantes grossness for everyone to enjoy: (bottom-right: limpios means clean)The kitchen as you can see was atrociously disgusting, the floors putrid. The rest of the place was covered in so much dust it looked as if the nearby volcano had erupted and spewed ash in a funnel directly into the place. The shower, which I heard one of the staff describe to a potential client as ¨muy rica¨ (extremely nice), was a room on the bottom floor that resembled an old fashioned outhouse. The walls were made of wooded slats, which allowed for a nice freezing draft to enter and there was a window with no cover that allowed everyone on the second floor to view my privates as I was scrubbing them (I didn´t hear any complaints).

We also had the door to our room kicked in while we were away during a brief time on our second day. Luckily we had not left anything valuable in the room. Nothing was taken. The locking system consisted of two tiny screw-in metal pieces, one in the door and one in the wall; a lock was provided to go through the holes. We, however, used a lock we had purchased previously because we were worried about someone having a copy of the key to the provided lock. Whatever happened we don´t know, but we did go out and buy a new steel hinge lock. It cost us a whole one dollar and took me a whole five minutes to install. I mean, seriously, how lazy (or shady) do you have to be to not install decent locks on the rooms? Needless to say we were ecstatic to leave.

We moved into our new place that Magda hooked us up with (see Melanie's blog), after a full day of lessons at nine 'o clock at night. It was hard to be nice when the owner asked us why we were moving out when we had paid for that night´s stay. I forget what we said, but we tried to be kind.

Our new place was pretty dirty (not even close to the school grossness) and we spent the last couple of days scrubbing it from top to bottom. The couple that lived there before us had just split up and moved apart so it freed up the apartment for us (thanks to Magda). I have a good idea why they broke up though... I must have scrubbed about thirty dried crusty boogers off the bedroom walls and ceilings. Seriously, what adult still wipes their boogers on the wall (besides my brother).

The apartment is looking pretty spify now and we are enormously happy to have our own bathroom (see previous blog post - top ten list) and some privacy. The place is also about three times bigger than our apartment at Westside Animal Hospital in Santa Cruz . We even have a large rooftop balcony with a great view of the magnificent volcano in the distance and an even better view of the Gallo beer factory right across the street (eat your heart out Homer). I'm applying for a janitorial position there next week. Hopefully I´ll work my way up to taster in a few months... we´ll see. Here is a picture from the rooftop patio: (you can actually see the volcano when it´s not so foggy)

We bought a little stove and fridge and even a blender. The blender is a very frustrating story that Melanie wants to tell. It's too fresh on my mind to talk about anyways...

Well that's about all for now. Check back in a week and I'm sure I'll have some more interesting things to share for all those people living vicariously through me. I hope that all my compadres are not tired of hearing about my adventures and I think about you all every day.


Your Friend,


Chris

P.S. Click the links at the top of my blog to check out our new website! Or go directly there from here :

Bohova Travel Guide

This is really Melanie's baby and she has put in hundreds of hours working on it. I hope that people going to Santa Cruz will use it as a travel/ history guide, but I also encourage Santa Cruzans to use it as their daily restaurant guide and to brush up on your Santa Cruz history. Don't forget to set it as your homepage. You can actually access both of our blogs from the website! Hope you enjoy and thanks to everyone for giving us your support.