My World In Shambles

This is what 28 looks like

Annawake — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:46:41 +0000

I know I shouldn’t feel so annoyed when people remark on how much younger than 28 they think I am. After all, they most likely mean it as a compliment…i.e. isn’t it great for women to look younger than they actually are? And maybe in ten years or so, my feelings will change and I’ll be flattered when/if someone tells me, “Wow, I thought you were younger.” But I still take issue with the fact that 1) 28 is an age where you should need to feel flattered about looking younger and 2) it’s a mostly backhanded compliment anyway, as generally what the speaker is NOT saying about your advanced age is, “Where are your husband and kids?” or “Why do you still dress like a teenage boy?” or “You seem a lot less mature than someone who’s pushing 30.” (more…)

The next time I come to C.A.

Annawake — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:35:04 +0000

I am going to do things a little differently the next time I come to Central America. Even though I’ve complained about it often, my standard of living here is far out of reach for the vast majority of Guatemalans. I live on a safe street inside a house that, despite its lack of insulation and the ever-present black mold blossoming on the walls, is equipped with all the comforts to which I’m accustomed (electricity, indoor plumbing, gas for cooking, a relatively hot shower). Because I can’t be bothered to hike the 20 minutes uptown to the sprawling Mercado Democracia in Zona 3–or take the colectivo to the even cheaper, more chaotic Mercado Minerva by the chicken bus terminal–I buy my vegetables and spices at the most expensive, centrally located market in town, a convenient three blocks from my house. For the most part, my weekends have been filled with fun activities exploring the country that many of its countrypeople cannot afford to enjoy, like hikes and hot springs soaks. I consistently drink the best beer available, go out whenever I want and take taxis home after midnight ’cause it’s only Q25 and you can usually bargain the guy down. Almost everything I do is tailored for maximum convenience, which is a luxury so many people around me cannot afford. The biggest hypocrisy of all is that the people at the community center where I’ve been volunteering for the past seven months think I’m the good person for coming here to work for free.

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Boyz

Annawake — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:18:13 +0000

Of all the exasperating questions I get asked by volunteers at the community center where I work (“is it very dangerous here?”, “can you really be vegan here?”, “will I get sick if I eat chicken sandwiches from a street vendor which have been chopped up with a dirty knife and then set out in the sun all day covered with flies?”*), none carries the potential murk of “why aren’t there more male volunteers?”**** It’s a tricky subject, often asked by very well-meaning, young and lonely male volunteers during their first week. Unsurprisingly, I have my own opinions on that, but I am more interested to hear it straight from the mouths of Y chromosome carriers. Operating on the admittedly shaky assumption that if you are a man you may have some greater insight into what men do, please enlighten us. Why are there more female volunteers than male in Guatemala and elsewhere? Or is this just a skewed perception/false presumption? Discuss.

*Well, it’s a Central American city, and you are a foreigner with a shiny iPhone. Exercise the same caution you would in any unfamiliar place where you’re richer than 95% of the population.

**You can be vegan anywhere. Places like Fair Play, Missouri might be difficult.

***You probably deserve to get diarrhea if you ask that question.

****It’s kind of a trick question, because while we do have fantastic male volunteers quite often, women always outnumber the boys—and not just at El Nahual, at all of the volunteer agencies in town except for maybe Quetzaltrekkers, which seems to have a pretty good balance. What I believe many people who ask this question are referring to is the perception—which I share—that female-to-male ratios in volunteer projects and helping professions are, in general, higher. For example, the gender breakdown in my cohort at the School of Social Work at Michigan was 8:1 female-male. I would like to point out that the tenured faculty, however, was 3:1 male-female.

Hair dye

Annawake — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:14:55 +0000

My New Year’s Resolution in 2008 was to stop dyeing my hair. Two years later, I have long, somewhat brownish hair (I think the correct term is “mousey”) and sometimes I still don’t recognize myself passing by storefront windows or mirrors. Until 2008 I hadn’t seen my natural hair color since about the age of 13, unless my roots were starting to grow out. I thought once I got to this point all temptation to slather scalp-searing chemicals on my skull would have diminished to nothing but a passing whim, but these days I find myself in an all-too-familiar situation: wanting nothing more than to slather scalp-searing chemicals on my skull.

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Born secular

Annawake — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:20:55 +0000

My green St. Christopher medal went missing for a little while today. I was boiling oats for my breakfast when I heard a faint metallic clink on our concrete floor, but I didn’t think anything of it. Later I felt for it, as I sometimes do absentmindedly, realized it wasn’t there, and immediately set about looking for it. I was somewhat surprised at my reaction. My gut feeling was that I had to find this medal, that I couldn’t go anywhere until it was located and back on the chain around my neck, that losing it was somehow a bad omen. But why? I haven’t seriously believed in any religious being for many years now. Although it’s only been within the last eight that I’ve admitted to myself and others that I don’t believe in God, I have never truly felt connected to a higher power in the universe. I feel strongly about many things, I have a pretty strict moral code (I’m a feminist vegan social worker, of course, and I always say “yes ma’am”), I have no plans to cover up the religious symbol tattooed on my wrist, and many of my closest friends are Christians. But I have never experienced the kind of spiritual sentiment that most people describe when they “have faith”.

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Fireworks and pan dulce

Annawake — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:38:33 +0000

Lake Atitlan is one of the most gorgeous places I´ve ever seen–perhaps the one thing I have in common with George W. Bush, who said the same during his first and last visit to Guatemala last year. I headed to the Lake for the Christmas weekend for some relaxation and (slightly) warmer climes. The village where I stayed is called San Pedro la Laguna, and due to flattering Lonely Planet write-ups, it is unfortunately overrun with dreadlocked tourists. As in, the ¨bohemian¨types who do hallucinogens, play bongos, and wear tie-dyed harem pants. The strip of cafes and bars running along the lakefront were more reminiscent of Lake of the Ozarks tack than anything resembling Guatemala, especially since there were few Guatemalans in sight–either as shop owners or employees. It made me feel pretty icky. (more…)

Traje tipica de la mujer

Annawake — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:33:57 +0000

Despite the dust and the somber Germanic architecture of the city, Xela is brightly and dramatically colorful. The landscape surrounding the city is largely undeveloped, which at least has one advantage: miles upon miles of forest, steep volcanoes and sweeping valleys so green it almost hurts your eyes to take it all in. Even the trash people toss into ditches from their houses or passing chicken buses has a certain vibrancy against the countryside. People are not afraid to paint their houses dubious colors of hot pink, coral, sky blue, or some combination of all the above (this comes in handy for postal delivery, as instead of giving your address as “29 Avenue A”, which no one will ever find, you can simply say, “the orange and green house next to Tienda Mary on Diagonal 11”).

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The long arm of Bentonville, Arkansas

Annawake — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:29:35 +0000

Fairly sizable and cosmopolitan university town that Xela is, I haven´t run into too much trouble finding things to eat. This had been a major concern of everyone prior to my arrival in Guatemala because of the whole vegan thing–my mother especially was concerned that I would come back in the advanced stages of starvation documented in every National Geographic about Ethiopia since 1981. Vegans of Color has posted before on the intersection between poverty and vegetarianism-out-of-necessity, which is certainly a factor here in the staple diet of corn (tamales, tortillas) and refried black beans. Some families only eat corn tamalitos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and save the occasional piece of chicken for Sunday dinner. Naturally, gringos who choose vegetarianism are seen as a bit of an oddity by many Guatemalans, despite the economic necessity many families face of defaulting to a largely vegetarian diet. (more…)

The dispatch from El Cuartito

Annawake — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:21:39 +0000

I have now been living in Xela for close to six weeks and am more or less getting accustomed to the rhythm of life here…suffering daily linguistic breakdowns, perfecting my sign language (”Quisiera algunas…{frantic hand gesture toward object of desire}, por favor? No…no…este, alli!”), searching in vain for clothes and shoes that fit (this is a country of tiny people), the daily rainstorms, and getting used to sights that used to seem somewhat whimsical, like watching two girls in K’iche dress racing up a dirt road on their motorcycle, the one in back balancing a basket of plantains on her head.

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Solamente español, por favor

Annawake — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:27:42 +0000

…is the sign posted outside my future boss´s office, the director of El Nahual Community Center in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. I can´t decide whether I should be flattered or apprehensive about the fact that I am the first person they have ever hired for this position (the title of which is ¨cordinadora¨, as in ¨coordinator¨) who does not speak Spanish. Yet.

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