Solamente español, por favor
…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.
Having never traveled to Central America before, I was prepared to feel entirely unprepared, and I did my best to expect the unexpected. So far I have not been disappointed or even much surprised. The airport in Guatemala City is sparklingly clean (nicer than Lambert-St. Louis International, Springfield-Branson Regional, and yes, of course, Tallahassee) although the runways outside this palatial structure are lined with tin-roofed shanties and industrial garbage. I was shuffled through Customs with no problems and did not have to declare any valuables because I didn´t bring anything of value. Sometimes, being completely rootless, unsettled and forever teetering on the brink of financial ruin at the age of 28 has its advantages.
I´m taller than everyone here (as expected) except for some of the younger men. My taxi driver from the airport to the bus station, who spoke English better than many New York cab drivers I have patronized, warned me that I shouldn´t speak to anyone on the bus and I should keep my bag on my lap at all times. His warnings about the danger proved nothing in comparison to the way the driver navigated the narrow road through the mountains. Flying along what essentially amounts to what we in Jefferson County call ¨the back roads¨ at dizzying speeds, leaving passersby on foot, donkey, and hoopty alike, I wasn´t really scared until I saw that the locals riding the bus with me were getting nervous and remarking anxiously on the driver´s need for speed. I tried to focus on the mountains (volcanoes too, I think), which–as Lonely Planet promised–did not disappoint. There is one thing to be said for a lack of development and infrastructure: it certainly leads to a pristinely preserved wilderness where women still wear Mayan skirts and tunics and walk down dusty roads balancing the days´shopping on their heads.
Yet there is also the fact that everyone here drives cars, mostly imports from decades long past of the U.S. Cell phones and advertisements for cell phone plans or card refills abound. Quetzaltenango, or Xela as it is called, is a dry, dusty town of about 110,000 nestled high in the mountains, with the (active) volcano Santa Maria looming just beyond. When I stumbled off the bus with my legs turned to jelly after a day on planes and fearing that my life would end in a fiery descent off a mountain pass, I was shuttled to the home of Doña Alicia, who kindly fed me white beans, rice and tamales before I collapsed in bed before 9pm.
To be continued…
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