4 posts tagged “guatemala city”
C was in bed most of the day, sick from something she ate last night, so we didn't get a start until the mid-afternoon. I walked her to the conference, feeling like a bodyguard of sorts. Since my martial arts training is in decline, I would get beaten to a pulp, nevermind mens with guns and machetes. The conference grounds were swarming with Guatemalan police and army, as well as the usual hawkers of wares. I should not have taken this picture of the army on the street, as they are very sensitive about photos, but I managed to be discreet even though the second and third soldiers from the right are looking directly at me.
In the evening was the opening ceremony of the conference and Transparency International -- the organizers -- awarded numerous Integrity Awards to people fighting corruption around the world. The 2006 winer was Dr. Ana Cecilia Magallanes Cortez of Peru, a prosecutor who helped put 1,500 members of Vladimiro Montesinos' criminal organization in jail. She even prosecuted the then federal public prosecutor (her boss). Here is a bad picture of her accepting the 2006 integrity award:
Today women in Mayan villages still wear these brightly coloured textiles while the men more often than not have modern garb, though men in the high mountain villagers still wear the traditional short-pants calzones. In markets, you can buy a swath of woven textile; at first, I thought these were just decorative items to put on tables and such, but they are actually all-purpose, usually used as belts (when wrapped around the body, they look like a cummerbunds, with the folds as pockets), head coverings, basket covers, shawls, slings.
What I found intriguing is that the post-Hispanic technologies and resources didn't replace the indigenous Mayan culture, but actually enhanced the creation and design of an ancient art. This is something dangerously absent in all talks of "technology transfer" between developed and developing countries where, like the 100-dollar laptop project, computers become synonymous with technology and "older" modes of communication, labour and entertainment have to compete with new technologies. As many people have said about computer technologies, most of the time it is a solution in search of a problem.
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In the evening, we head up to Zone 4's two-block pedestrian strip of cafes, bookstores and restaurants and have dinner at an Italian restaurant, L'Osteria. I meet more delegates from Rwanda, Panama and Mexico and talk about video games, soccer and basketball. I find the conversations stilted at times because everyone is talking about work: donors, NGOs, policies, the Americans ... anything in the government/public sectors. I found it funny when some of them referred to the "private sector", as if it were this entirely magical world where lots of things get done quickly and efficiently. An endorsement of privatization and laissez-faire?
You'd think that with a name like "Americano", American americano drinkers would be bothered by the implied insult: Americans (and gringos) can't handle espresso. Instead, it is celebrated in North America as an affront to regular coffee drinkers, as in: You can't handle espresso, even when mixed with water. This I gleam from the smug looks of those ordering the drink at Starbucks: I drink real coffee when the rest of you drink weak, milky coffee. And not only are these Americanos proud about it, they are proud about it while sipping on a freaking 12 oz. cup, three quarters of it water. I think this as I order the drink from Sophos, a bookstore-coffee shop, and only realize how derogatory saying "Americano" is in a Latin American country. Try it by rolling the "r".
Since arriving, I have been drinking an americano at every meal.
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Coffee sold in Guatemalan restaurants is usually the cheap kind, as the best coffee is exported. Even so, the cheap coffee is flavourful, not too bold but bold enough. It is usually grown on the Pacific slope of the country, as the ample rainfall and altitude are the perfect conditions for cultivating it. Since the late 1800s, coffee has been the main export in a country stratified by the landowning upper class and the indigenous Mayan peoples.
I wish I had an insightful story to tell here about coffee and Guatemala's history, but I don't. Full-on curiosity is exhausting, especially in a country with a rich and turbulent history, and I think I'm getting tired of the pollution, the traffic and the scale of this city. It is bigger and richer than either C or I expected (much bigger than Vancouver in size), and we are a bit overwhelmed. I ache for the countryside, mountains and jungle.
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Upon returning to the hotel for lunch, C mentions that there was an attempted robbery of one UNDP international delegate. He was flashing an expensive camera outside the hotel when an armed (gun) man came up to him and demanded the camera. The delegate unwisely said "No". Thankfully, the thief wasn't expecting this, got confused and just left. Since that incident, there is increased security in the already established perimeter around the hotel and ample police escorts to any event of the 12th IACC. I was told not to leave the hotel alone for the day, and so I hit the gym and watched hot, hot, hot Kristina Loken in The Curse of the Ring. Hot!
One of the police escorted events was dinner at El Portal del Angel, which overlooks the city from its perch on the slopes of a large hill (or small mountain). I took this pic of the view with my phone-cam, so it's not that great.
------A Belgian couple were in Spain and hailed a taxi. The husband spoke Spanish, so the wife wanted a translation of all that the taxi driver said. The taxi driver asks where they are going, and where they are from. The husband tells him "Belgium, have you been there?". The taxi driver responds and the wife asks what he says.
The husband says, "Yes, he said he's been there."
The wife asks "Where in Belgium?". The husband translates and the taxi driver responds "Antwerp".
"Ahh, we're from there. How did you like it?" the wife wants to know so the husband asks in Spanish.
"I received my worst fuck there."
"What did he say?" the wife asks.
The husband says: "He says he knows you."
The food in the city is cheap, good and fast. You can have a full meal with appetizer, dessert, coffee and some wine for no more than 25 US$. It usually consists of some fresh corn tortilla's some excellent meat, corn, beans and fried plantains. Chorizo is the standard restaurant sausage and street meat. Mmmm!
Tomorrow is the eve of the International Anti-Corruption Conference, and there are 1,500 registered attendees, 6 of which are the presidents of Central American countries who will sign an anti-corruption treaty. This is Guatemala's biggest international event ever, so the police presence will increase as will the probability of getting robbed. At least I'll be "looked over" by thieves for managers at the IMF and World Bank.
Licorice. That is my first discernible smell of Guatemala as we leave the airport parking lot on a shuttle bus with a number of international delegates for this week's conference on anti-corruption. This lasted for a few seconds as the van lurched over a speed bump before reeking of the combustion of "black gold": exhaust fumes. But this was not merely the result of a badly placed window because you smelt it everywhere; it was/is the background aroma of Guatemala city, and of any "developed" urban area in a third world country, as C says.
The next day as I was traipsing around the city while C was being a conference meeting groupie, I get a text message from her: "Please go back to the hotel now. I'll see you at the break." Before I did so, I managed to take a few pictures for your viewing pleasure:
The main tourist area itself is quite clean by anyone's standards, but as I walked beside the bus station and the hospital's emergency ward, the acrid smell of urine filled my nostrils as the dirty streets filled my field of vision.
Anyway, I was told to go directly back to the hotel as C was in a security briefing and discovered that it wasn't safe for me to be wandering around the city alone when there was a big international conference happening. Mind you, I kind of look like I belong, but it wasn't obvious enough as I had the uncanny feeling that I was being marked by people walking through the malls and streets. I had tried to look the poor backpacker, to no avail. My jeans were stolen off the clothesline in Barbados last week, so all I had were some black khakis, which probably didn't match the poor backpacker aesthetic.
In addition to looking like a tourist, I don't speak Spanish so all exchanges were brief, difficult and ... well ... Italian, if you get my meaning. This was the first non-English speaking country I've been to in a long time, and never have I felt so cut off from the surrounding culture. I suspect people aren't afraid of leaving their country for fear of leaving the familiar -- Guatemala city is more modern than Bridgetown, Barbados by all standards even though it's poorer -- but fear of not being able to connect with the familiar; there everything was, waiting for me to interact, but museums and historical buildings are all that is open to anyone not familiar with the language. This is not to say that I was at a loss entirely as many of the Spanish words are exactly the same in Tagalog and French, but you know, not everything. And Cerveza, por favor is probably not the only thing I should know.
So it looks like my movement in the city on foot -- my favorite way to know a city -- will be severely limited (and rightly so), but I shall try to be careful and inconspicuous so that the view from the hotel room is not the only view of Guatemala I will know for the length of my stay.
There is a rich history here that intrigues me, and as I learn more about the culture I will update my blog as required.
