Finca envy

So last Friday I came into work prepared for an all-day legal team meeting - a marathon affair (I hear) involving lots of coffee and a review of every single active case (and I can´t even count how many that is. 20? 30?). I was just preparing myself for my first legal team meeting when one of the Guatemalan paralegals told me the meeting was canceled and we had a big errand to run instead. It turned out that only of the paralegals (out of two, plus three Guatemalan interns, and then me) knew how to get to a certain public prosecutor´s office in a town called San Juan Sacatepéquez, so we were assigned to literally drive to it, and then drive back (really).

The drive was over an hour long, and about fifteen minutes into it we left the capital city limits and wound our way through farming territory. I rolled the window down and drank in the cool mountain air and ogled the terrace-farming techniques, high-tunnel-like structures specifically made for the hills, and the entire families (school is out here until January for most kids) working the fields with hand tools (which is our past and eventual future, people).

I was envious. Now. I know I´ve got a great opportunity to do a lot of good and get some experience in an office environment working for something I believe in and using some of my talents. But still... I couldn´t help but wish I was out there with them: breathing clean air (not the deathfog emitted from city buses and industry), working with my whole body, and getting dirty. The appeal was overwhelming. Not to say that I´ve given up on the office thing. I´m still doing my job well. I´m still in this for the long haul. But the experience was telling.

We returned to the city and to work. Not much has changed here in a general sense - but some other noteworthy events have taken place. See below.

Fotos

Last night Lerae and I were driving home after seeing a movie. In the middle of the city, at about 10 PM, for no noticeable reason whatsoever, there was a fireworks show. We pulled over at a gas station to watch it. Latin America often doesn´t make any sense, and usually that´s frustrating. This was just a nice surprise.

My friends from Lawrence, Jennifer (left) and Sally (right) came to visit for a night on their way to El Salvador to work with a community development organization for six months. It was really nice to see them. Check out their blog.

Last week my host dad, Victor Sr., pointed out this rainbow (arcoiris) from our porch.

On Día de la Revolución (a national holiday) we went to a spa in a nearby town for its volcano-heated hot pools, cool pools, and absurdly cheap massages. It also happens to be a castle.

My roommate/coworker Lerae and I went to the zoo near our house a couple of weeks ago. I know. It´s a zoo. But it´s a cheap, quiet, safe place to sit outside and read. We´re talking $2.50. I´d pay that much for all of the above without the animals in this loud, dangerous, smoggy city!

I dress up everyday, including fedora and briefcase. Sometimes there´s even a pocketwatch involved.

Fireworks.

Urban Husbandry in Mixco, Guatemala

So part of my job is to go to government offices and get documents processed/signed/paid-attention-to faster. Yesterday I was doing just that with a coworker in the suburb of Mixco, when I noticed some seriously small-scale urban food production going on. Right there, in the middle of the city, just outside of the public prosecutor´s office, was a herd of goats. And right there, in the middle of the city, was a lady milking one of these goats into a styrofoam cup for a businessy-looking customer waiting nearby.

If food systems can get any smaller than this, I truly don´t know how. Maybe if she´d skipped the styrofoam cup...?

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Not much else to report on here. I´ve been reading an impressively dull (and yet intriguing) case brief for the last four days and I finally finished a few minutes ago - so I thought I´d check in. I should be starting a special project compiling all the old verdicts from old cases for easy reference beginning next week - this squeezed around daily trips to various offices in and around the city.

I´m still getting into my routine, but it´s beginning to look like: a long day of work followed by a run, sit-ups, reading (currently Blood Meridian, Psalm 86, and The Best of Outside), journaling, playing guitar (and missing my bluegrass buddies), a Skype call to someone back home, and maybe an episode of The Office with my roommate Lerae, all followed by going to sleep with earplugs in so that a nearby rooster (which crows all night), won´t keep me up.

This weekend I plan on climbing Volcán Pacaya (which you can see from my window in Boca del Monte) and celebrating an acquaintance’s birthday. Hope everyone out there is doing well. If you´re not digging autumn or winter back in the States, just know that I´m missing them both geographically and in my heart. Aprovechen.

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Currently listening to: "When I First Came To This Country" by Crooked Still (unreleased, but available for listening here - I have literally listened to this song at least 20 times today) and Crooked Still's fiddle player's myspace.

Pictures

Alex on the roof in Antigua.

The view from my room.

Victor Jr., Me, and Alex.

First Days in Guate

It has been a week since I first arrived here in Guatemala and I´ve been meaning to blog, but have been so busy. As a result, I have much to report to you, and I think we should start at the beginning.

When I arrived last Tuesday night, I wound my way through the airport to the baggage claim and grabbed my guitar and giant pack, but no giant plastic tote ever came down the conveyer belt. I was thrown into a world of Spanish as I had to ask how to get my missing tote, and was surprised by how quickly the language came back to me. A good sign. I had actually been quite apprehensive in the plane, remembering how hard it had been in Costa Rica and feeling the absence of each of you. It was nice to feel some immediate linguistic confidence, and even better to finally emerge from the airport and spot three of my comrades waiting for me. There was Joanna, the aussie Aftercare Fellow, her Guatemalan husband Victor (they got married a few months ago, and I´m now living with Victor´s parents, Candy and Victor Sr.), and Alex Fine, the Church Relations intern. Somehow we immediately recognized each other and they took me home to Candy and Victor´s in a suburb of Guatemala City called Boca del Monte.

Candy and Victor are very nice and immediately made me feel at home with some soup and rice and beans (pretty standard fare around here). They put me up in Victor Jr.´s old room with a view that looks up at Volcán (that´s Spanish for Volcano) Pacaya and down on the city. The next day I settled in in the morning and then ran some errands with Victor Jr. (including getting my tote from the airport). We met Jo and Alex for lunch at Tacontento where our friend Christian works. I started work the next day (Thursday). Everyone at the office was very welcoming. I spent the day reading an orientation packet, which I have been reviewing along with the penal code ever since, except for attending the final arguements of a trial on Friday which was very intense and which I could only tell you more about if you asked (legally).

The Communications Intern, Lerae, had been nannying on IJM business in the old colonial capital Antigua, about forty-five minutes from Guatemala City, so Jo, Victor Jr., Alex, Christian, and I all went out to visit. We were welcomed by the family for whom Lerae was nannying into one of the most beautiful bungalows I´ve ever seen. This place, like the rest of Antigua, was all colonial-style architecture with corner fireplaces, tile floors, mosaics, a courtyard with a fountain, a rooftop patio (with a view of yet another volcano), and heaps (I also happen to be working on my Australian) of Latin American art. We dined in and then went out to a discoteca (para bailar... y tomar un poco).

The next day we walked the cobblestone streets of Antigua, winding our way through Mayan weavers (and vendors), food stalls, and families out for the weekend. We ate at a pretty famous (for which I have no name or pictures, of course). I sat in Bill Clinton´s chair. We hung around the town center for a while. Antigua is, in many ways, the antithesis of Guatemala City. It is quieter (they just passed an ordinance against honking - which goes a very long way in Latin America), cleaner, and much more walkable. It was a nice respite.

Later in the afternoon we headed back to the city and ate dinner together that night. Sunday was spent much like my Sundays in the states: church, lunch, a nap and some reading, dinner, bed. So as I finish this up I sit here at my desk drinking mate, listening to some good ol´ American bluegrass on my ipod, and preparing to read the Codigo Procesal Penal some more. That´s my life right now. A very confusing and exciting mix of cultures and people. I know this will get hard, but for now it´s almost completely new and exciting. I´ve felt so welcomed by my coworkers and hosts. I think it helps that we are all united by a very common purpose and calling in a way that I never experienced while I was in Costa Rica. I have felt the provision of God in these new friends, coworkers, and host family. In some ways this city feels familiarly like San Jose. I´m not so shocked by some of the harder things that are just part of Latin American city life (trash, traffic, bus fumes, the parade of people, stalls, and well, Spanish). I´m still excited by some of the better things (committment to family life, food, music everywhere, etc.).

Missing all the folks back home but comfortably and happily diving into life here.