Volunteering with sweet Sergio in the hospital today – despite the cleft in his lip, the most beautiful of the babies - I began to wonder if I am asking him to do more than he should be capable of. If he’s only two months old, not three, yet….well maybe he can’t be expected to grip my fingers and pull himself up. He has no tendency to grip at all, though – I grasp for my memory of my own babies’ capabilities – this seems strange. Yet he pushes like crazy with his feet, against my stomach, the edge of the bed or whatever he can push against…..not enough to keep him upright, but then he’s probably still so young. I decide to go look at the big board where the babies’ statistics are kept. I can’t believe the dates I see, so ask first another volunteer, a young Dutch girl, and then the nurse. Sergio is SEVEN months old. He still just about fits on my lap between my knees and my stomach….that’s about 24 inches…maybe 25, 26. Quickly I look at the other kids’ statistics. I think Alma is the same age….she is eight months old. Two children are doing well – smart and curious and already sitting and crawling – they are 11 months. Two of the much more compromised babies – cleft, but also with cerebral palsy and maybe retardation, whom I thought about 8 months – are already 2 and 2-1/2 years. And the boy I thought was 7 is 12. I am simply stunned. I wonder what I think I am doing, if so much time has passed without the sort of stimulation I am trying to give the babies. Of course, eventually, as I hold and rock and talk to the girl who is most compromised, finally getting a smile out of her (it always feels like a triumph)…..the idea of making progress passes, and I simply hold her and rock her and talk to her, giving her human contact. I am disturbed that with all the children, the nurses simply feed them and put them down. They tend to feed them somewhat upright and facing out…since they all seem to do it the same way, perhaps that’s how they were taught. Maybe it avoids bubbles, because I don’t see any babies being burped, and forget rocking them to sleep. The nurses have a lot of babies to care for, and except for the day some nurses had off, they are always clean, and don’t have diaper rash, so they are doing something. In all my years of working with children, I’ve never worked with those with physical handicaps. So I suppose I am simply adjusting, but my day feels changed as I contemplate the life some of them will live. I feel as though nothing I do will have any effect, and then notice Sergio using his feet against the bars of his crib to turn himself over. He wasn’t doing that two weeks ago. And when I leave for the day, both he and Alma are looking directly out of their crib at me. So maybe, maybe, what I and the other volunteers are doing help push them along toward greater capability, bit by bit. Later in the day, I talk to my teacher about the babies and the things I learned today…practicing my Spanish. She says that malnutrition is rife in Guatemala. The Mayan people are small to begin with, or smaller than Americanos, but poverty and malnutrition produce babies that are tinier than they should be. Still it seems strange to me that Sergio has been in the hospital since April 28….just over six months, and he hasn’t caught up. I still don’t understand it, but suddenly nutrition education – especially when she tells me cleft palates result from folic acid deficiency - becomes for me a more salient need in this country than I had considered.
“It’s the little things,” as my daughter advised. I start off to “work” at 8:45 Monday morning and notice that a van is parked in the middle of the very busy street I live next to, the street the busses use to get out of town. It has a small collection of metal parts under the front bumper. Has it dropped an axle or drive train? A groaning bus full of people comes up the street and manoevres around it. On my way home at noon, I see two men have jacked the van up, and have a box of tools open on the street next to the van. Whatever is wrong they are repairing it right there in the middle of the street. Typical Guatemala.
One day I walk up through Central Park toward the ATM machine which helps me manage my money here, and notice a huge crowd on 5th Calle. I join them and see men and women with numbers on their chests, balancing trays of food. I think perhaps they are going to serve people in the crowd….but how would this be a contest? Best server?? Then they all move down toward the park and line up in a row, and I get a good look at the contestants. They are all dressed differently, evidently the “uniform” for whatever restaurant they work for….even a few women in indigenous dress. This seems a little unfair as some have dress shoes and some tennies, and it seems like this is a race! I notice with amusement all the different “starting” stances they take, from seriously aggressive to casual, and then off they go! This is actually a race….they will go as fast as they can around the park and then down one street and up another, ending where they started…and carrying their trays aloft!! This is hilarious, but they are pretty serious about it. I watch for awhile, unbelieving and delighted, then head for the Bodegona.
There are so many processions here, all taken very seriously. But on All Saint’s Day there is a big one, leaving from Iglesia San Francisco and going up the calle. I stumble on this as I go to my favorite internet cafe. They are carrying the huge "float" (I don't know the word yet for the big box on which rides different sorts of figures, on this day a saint lying down, carried on the shoulders of many people in unison.) At first I think perhaps someone has died, and this is actually his body.....the people seem to be in deep mourning and most in the crowd around the "bier" are wearing black, but then realize it is just a statue. I have heard there is a tradition of Jesus Acostado (lying down); maybe this is what this is? Ahead I see there are a group of men dressed in long purple sort of Arabic headcloths, with the rope to hold it in place. When the "float" reaches them, they trade positions with the bearers and the procession continues. I follow it up the street seeing other groups gathered ahead, in different colors. Wondering, bemused....I go back to the internet.
I went to pick up a package at a nearby receiving station (cargoexpress) where I was told it was safer to send packages than thru the post office, especially because my house has no way to receive any sort of mail (no mailbox or slot.) I told them it had been 13 days since it was mailed from California, so they talked among themselves and decided that perhaps it was at another station. I couldn’t understand the directions the guy was giving me, so he told me to come with him, and walked outside. I thought he was going to point down the street, but he got on his motorcycle (those and scooters more prevalent than cars, here) and motioned for me to get behind. So off we went, whizzing through the cobblestone streets and around the potholes. My first motorcycle ride in a long time, and very fun. And it turned out that the package and a birthday card from my son were at the regular post office - perfectly safe, but undelivered.
I went to my first real concert yesterday (other than free ones in the downtown park.) It was scheduled from noon to midnite. I paid $13 for a ticket and $5 to share a tuktuk with another woman to get there, since it was held in a pueblo outside of Antigua. This woman – a new friend, met at the Macadamia Nut finca trip - is eight or so years younger than me; I was impressed when she told me she drove her car down through Mexico to get here some 18 months ago. When I had contemplated this, I was told it was totally too dangerous and if nothing else I would be required to pay to get through real or bogus “checkpoints” all the way. She said absolutely not; no problem whatsoever, except that her camper was searched at several checkpoints and fumigated at one. Usually she stayed in various campgrounds, of which she said there are plenty in Mexico, but one time she parked on the beach (where I’ve been told you NEVER camp, being more isolated, etc. - and I did meet a woman who was robbed when she camped on the beach in Livingston) and she realized she was stuck in the sand in the morning (shades of Y Tu Mama Tambien.) She hailed a nearby farmer who tried to get her out with his truck but couldn’t; he located another farmer with a tractor and he pulled her out immediately, and wouldn’t accept any money. She has been in Guate ever since, except for going back to the US to sell her car, among other things. She is headed for Peru in a few months. I have met several women traveling alone through C. America, but except for my short jaunts here in Guate, I can't imagine it. I had heard the bands at this concert were from El Salvador and Nicaragua as well as Guatemala, so I was expecting all traditional music, like some I’ve seen so far at the concerts in the park. Well…..no..... The crowd was at least 3/5 Guatemalan, but 90% young; the music was rock, for the most part. I had also expected that there would be a shaded area, with seats, but this was in an open field (demonstrably a cow or horse pasture on other days) with a huge very well-appointed stage (lighting, sound equipment etc.,) comparable to the Grass Valley music festivals in California. The day was sunny and pretty hot, though the breezes came up at 3 pm or so. The bands were mostly young and good enough but not spectacular, with a few notable exceptions. I don’t care for heavy metal but the first band, with a singer with lots of long black hair and a spectacular falsetto, was excellent. The next two were just loud so I went to get some dinner (for $2.50 a crisp bun full of freshly-roasted pork; the entire pigs were there on spits.) Then there was a guitar player from Canada who played solo, who was really exceptional…he also played one tune with Alicia Jo Robins, a fiddle player whose group followed him. She played four or five selections of old-time fiddle, and it was really fun to see some young Guatemalan men dancing to the music, doing the do-si-do and fooling with it, but also just having fun with the bouncy rhythm. Then there was a group of young Guatemalan women musicians in traditional dress, which I looked forward to, but though they were excellent drummers their singing and especially their harmony left a lot to be desired. Then there were two Guatemalan men, Fredy Colorado and his brother, who did Latin TAP dancing and breakdancing! Which of course I loved. And then a band which I would like to locate the name of….possibly Guanamanga….which consisted of an older guy with long grey hair who looked Gringo but spoke impeccable Spanish, and the others all Hispanic….a percussionist who was one of the best I’ve ever heard – on wooden box, and a ceramic pot, as well as more traditional drums – an old man who played various ocarina-type instruments strung around his neck, a woman who sang behind the lead singer, and a bassist. He was definitely good enough to come to the World Music Festivals in Chico. I would have liked to stay for the next two bands, from El Salvador and Honduras, which were also the highlighted bands, but by now the crowd was a little drunk, my legs were giving out from dancing but mostly from standing, and the wind was freezing! I stood by the warm generator for awhile, trying to keep myself going, but eventually gave in and walked out to the road to wait for a tuktuk to get me home at about 10 pm. This act in itself a challenge, as you are warned so often about walking on a dark road alone. In this whole crowd of maybe 800 people I knew one person (my friend – i.e. a woman I’ve met twice - went home early): the guy from my local English-language bookstore, and he was hung up on some young Guatemalan women. I met one person when my friend spoke to her – a woman with long curly grey hair, dressed in a flowing skirt and bright shawl, who told us she is a musician (guitar and flute) and that she was personal friends with a lot of the folks who would be playing. She has lived in San Marcos (on Lake Atitlan) for 13 years. I am still intrigued about gringos who have managed to live here a long time...how they do manage, but there was no time to query her.
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