Glimpses of Guate

Life in Guatemala can be random. It so happens that these last three months I have had some free moments on my hands; which I feel opens up even more opportunity for randomness. I wish that I could recount to you all the random and often times hilarious events that I have witnessed or taken part of; well, okay I can try to recount a few. (Also, check out Nic's latest posting for another perfect example of random events, but then remember to come back to my blog: Nic in Guate) 

Due to protests in the street (this is what a protest looks like in Guatemala: piling about 8 tires across the road and igniting them) a recent regular bus route was detoured down a single dirt road threading through mountain villages. Very pleasant until...the transmission goes. We're midway between cities, about an hour from either one and our bus is done-for. Fortunately a pickup came to transport us to our destination. As we are traveling down this road, after Nic helps load some ladies' market cargo, Nic realizes he is standing on one of the women's market sacks, and further realizes there is a chicken inside that bag. He was standing on her chicken. As we talk to these ladies, they begin to ask me; "How do you say 40 in English?" I tell her. "45? 50? 55? 60? 65? 70? 75? 80?" and then something strange happens...she doesn't ask me how to say 85, but skips straight to 90. I don't know why. 

Or the guys who stopped by our house to sell us deer meat. To prove it really was deer meat, they pulled the deer head out of black plastic bag; tongue hanging out, just nubs for antlers. 

How about the microbus that had a decal that read "Star Wars" across the front windshield. 

Or like today, when I fell into my compost pit (yes, it is a pit and don't worry about the details).

Hendrick is always a source of randomness. Tonight, as we were preparing to play Uno I made him wash his hands as they were covered in cantaloupe juice. As he was drying them he looked up at me and said, "Katy, I ate melon because I am going to win!" 

Moving away from random events to just random topics. Here is a picture of Don Juan using this hand-cranked machine to degranulate corn. Don Juan just completed his 71st year of life; and didn't go to school past 2nd grade. I feel that he is warming up to me and this makes me very happy. He even watered my garden for me the other day.

A photo of a particularly stunning sunset, as seen from my front yard.

I don't think I've given too much mention to my guard chucho (street dog), Oso. Although in this photo he doesn't look like the happiest of chuchos, he's got the heart of a champ. He does a great job protecting my house from other neighborhood chuchos and the occasional salesman. Don Juan usually feeds him stale or moldy tortillas so I try to supplement his diet with the scraps that I have; ya know, to keep morale up. But for being a chucho and for living off of old tortillas, he's surprisingly particular. He wasn't into the pot of beans I put out, or the lentil curry but man will he go for some moldy cheese.