To Panajachel again

We are going up to San Pedro, on Lago Atitlan, for a training in the Brain Gym – Pedagogia Basica – materials. The bus finally leaves at 7:15. We pick up two young Guatemalan women in Chimaltenango; along with the young man, Carlos, they will be our teachers. If I decide to volunteer with this project, I will assist them.
One of the girls settles next to me and I try to make conversation, but beyond “Como estas?” I don’t get anywhere. I notice that she is praying. She crosses herself when she is done. Wow, is this act that dangerous?
We ride without talking.
At a construction site on the highway, I watch the roadside vendors. A man stands beside the bus with a table heaped high with homemade sweets. They look very enticing, but I know Guatemalan dulces are REALLY sweet, and I haven’t eaten this morning. When he sees there are no buyers on this bus, he lifts the tray of sweets, folds the legs that were under it, tucks them over his arm and moves on down the road. A woman boards the bus with a basket of warm chile rellenos and tortillas; she moves down the aisle. I am tempted but don’t buy, and few others do. Another woman with an identical basket boards, announces her wares, then leaves. Only a young boy remains by the bus. He has a basket of commercial potato chips and other snacks. He looks about six, but is probably eight or so. He pulls a small wad of cash out of his pocket and counts it, then puts it back.
We finally arrive in Pana after 10 am. These young Guatemalans have never been to Pana before, though they live only 2 hours away. But they walk directly past all the enticing stalls full of market goods and look for the launch which will take us to San Pedro.
The girl I was riding next to, with whom I have exchanged only a few words, suddenly clasps me vigorously and laughingly says she is terrified of the lancha. The other girl says she thinks she will be sick. None of the three has been on a boat before; two of them (like me) cannot swim. They are giggling, but obviously nervous. But suddenly I am the “pro.” I reassure them all, suggesting that they breathe and that the girl relax her stomach and think of the boat as “dancing” (all this in stitled spanish.) I point to the lifevests overhead (which reassures me too) and off we go.
This smaller boat goes around the lake, instead of directly across, and I get to view the dozens of great homes around the lake as well as smaller houses clustered together, many of them rising almost vertically up the mountainsides.
San Pedro is not especially attractive. It is also very hilly. We wait near the dock for the project director. Lots of foreigners walk by; one a young man in dreads with a large tattoo on his arm. My companions don’t seem to notice. The director arrives in the typical indigenous outfit: woven falda and embroidered huipile, which the two young girls are also wearing.. She takes us through this rabbit-warren of streets and alleys, passing the restaurant where she explains we will eat (paid for by the project) and then we arrive at our hotel. The grounds are lovely with lawns, flowers, and big banana trees, but the rooms are minimal, though spacious enough. There is no Tv and not even a reading light. The man and I will each get a single room and the girls room together. 35Q – about $4.50 per night.
The four of us go out for our first afternoon in the town. They are all very accommodating to me; asking me which direction to take at each intersection, where would I like to go next, etc. I’m not sure why this is, but at first don’t think about it, just take charge. The young man is especially gentlemanly to me. They are all in their early 20s.
We look for a Mercado (market), which is prevalent in the two other Lake towns I’ve been in, but the outdoor stalls here hold only CDs, toys and other mostly plastic, commercial items. We finally end up walking out the road where we have been told there is a beach. We can see the lake below us, sometimes with people bathing and washing clothes there; in one or two places, small boats are tied up. I am thinking there might at least be a restaurante out this way, with cokes and a deck looking out over the lake. We walk and walk, AND walk and walk, on the dusty road, but no restaurant. At some point I stop to take photos of a beautiful finca with land stretching down to the lake. This lakefront area would cost a million per acre in Sausalito. No wonder extranjeros have built homes here and there. One of them captures my heart; white stucco with tile roofs, as is the style here, not too big, with a small balcony on the second floor looking out toward the lake, and wonderful vegetable gardens running down to the lake's edge.
I sit down on the unfinished upper floor of a house next to the road, my legs dangling, and look at that house and dream. I could have chickens, and a garden, maybe even a goat, though there don’t seem to be hungry children here as there were in Jamaica. But I’d have to sell my house in California - where my younger daughter is living - and possibly the land is too expensive even then.  But "that's MY house!" I say to the three teachers.   [And strangely, 2 years later it is!]
Then there are three days (not four as we’d first thought) of trainings each morning in an open air shed off a main street, reached through a tin gate. The trainers are the project director – a 30s-ish attractive, slim, light-skinned woman – and a rather short, lythe, Mayan man in his late 20s with long curls and one day, a Che t-shirt. He was also featured in the video, practicing the exercises with some children; at one point barefoot.
After the first day, I had realized these young people can’t understand my Spanish at all, even when I take time and care. So the first morning, I hunt for a Spanish teacher. I also want the chance to compare another teacher’s style with my teacher’s, which I think has been part of my learning problem. She does SO much of the talking! Two schools are very attractive and fully booked. Each has a lovely room to work in which overlooks the lake. I pass up several which are also laundries or tiendas, and find one which can give me a teacher that afternoon. I ask for three days, but have to cut it to two when we decide to return home on the afternoon of the third day. They are very accommodating and I like the teacher who is assigned to me very much. He tells me, among many other things, that the land that I was looking at is not THAT expensive….maybe 100 thousand quetzales.
The trainings are grueling for me, but I can understand 90% of the man’s Spanish as he speaks clearly. He also watches my face a lot while he’s talking, perhaps because I am the most raptly attentive in the group of 15 or so, perhaps to gauge my comprehension. He seems to be a lovely person, very caring about the kids’ challenges in learning here, due to the constrictions of their early environment as far as development of left/right hemisphere coordination (what this training is about.) Children are often on their mothers’ backs for a good bit of the day (I have seen 4 year olds being carried in a sling while their mother walks some distance.) They don’t crawl much on the bare ground of the campo or the dirt floors of their homes. I have only seen one tricycle since I’ve been here.
The grueling part is the constant attention it takes for me to understand all the Spanish, and my desire to respond to this material with which I have some experience and much interest. I am a little panicked on the first day when we all have to introduce ourselves and say why we are here, but I get through this with some of the words I learned to describe my job in Spanish back in California. A few times I attempt to ask a question or respond in some way, but as I usually meet uncomprehending looks, I stop.
The second morning I talk to the trainer for a few moments during the break, giving him some feedback about his giving mostly corrective responses – no positives – to each young teacher who volunteers to learn during the day, and then ask, “Me comprendes?” He says (in Spanish), “well I do, because I’ve been a teacher of Spanish in the past; I don’t know about the others.” It has never dawned on me that that might be the difference in the response I get from one person to another in Antigua – the level of familiarity with foreigners’ accents and speaking-styles.
The other trainer speaks much more rapidly. As modern as she looks, she draws a complete blank when I speak, but the third morning I talk to her about the similar exercises I used when I taught neurologically-handicapped children 30 years ago. She seems to understand but because I now think she won’t, I am nervous and stumble over and swallow a lot of words, compounding the problem. Ah well.
But I love the exercises, the focus of them, and the accepting philosophy behind this program.
I take the 3-hour training in the morning after breakfast with my companions, where I notice, again, that both the girls pray and cross themselves before eating. We also eat lunch together in this restaurant where noone else ever goes. The food is really minimal in taste, and a little dry, in general, for me; but it only costs $3.50 per meal. (20-25Q.) However, my companions and I are warming up to each other; the girls dare to ask me questions, and I ask about their families and their schooling. These three are high-school graduates, ready to teach children, but one of the girls is taking additional classes at the college in Guate City. Two have already had their own class, as practicantes. I ask about behavior problems. The man (20, but dressed in clean sport-shirt and slacks, with a long key-chain from his belt) says he had them at first, but not later. I can imagine he takes charge in class, as he does with his harem of three women – arranging food for us, conducting our decision-making about food or where to go, except when he defers to me, graciously.
I learn that two of these three responsible young people (19,20 and 23) are eldest children, the other is the eldest at home now, with five younger siblings. I am also an eldest.
They do something else while I am in my Spanish class, trying to figure out why my Spanish is incomprehensible. In the evening after dinner, on the first nite after training, the young man and I talk about music and listen to his. He loves what he calls Trance and I call Dance Hall, though I can’t keep up with the names. It is my favorite, too. We end up dancing on our narrow terrace that runs outside the rooms and overlooks the gardens.
It is a heavenly night. There is a strong wind coming from the lake, but it is just cool, and rather intoxicating as it rustles the big leaves of the banana trees and blows my hair. The stars are out. The girls arrive home and sit on the benches, watching us. We finally get one girl up to learn to dance Cumbia from the guy. We have a pretty good time.
The next nite is too cool to be outside. They elect to visit in my room – the guy brings his boombox in to play music, and I get out the pack of cards I just bought to avoid going to bed early, as I did the night we arrived. The young man spends the rest of the evening entertaining all of us with card tricks, jokes, stories, and various games. I want to suggest Hang Man, and it’s the next one he comes up with. We are all finally on a teasing level with each other, and have a pretty good time together.
The trip back on the third day is delayed when the girls want to go see the woman trainer’s house. Decisions are being made in rapid Spanish around me; I have no idea what’s going on, but just go with the flow. Eventually they are back and we walk up the steep hill to where we’ll meet a camioneta to go back to Antigua. The lake is evidently too choppy for a lancha. Although it does remind me of San Francisco Bay on the Oakland side, it doesn’t look that bad to me. But we reach the top of the hill and a bus is waiting at the corner. After we hop on I remember that camioneta is the local name for chicken-bus, which I have promised myself NEVER to ride back from Pana, since I’ve heard such horror-stories from my Spanish teacher about bus carcases over the side of the roads. The driver gets on. He is dark, young, lanky, and wild-haired. He looks as though his day-job is running drugs, and as though he could be on them at the moment, but he turns out to be a reasonably careful driver, and cautious with his bus. We drive around the lake and go through San Juan, which is really beautiful. I would like to come back here to explore this town.
The driver gets out to open the hood and put water in at the bottom of the climb to Solola. Once again, he stops while we are in the middle of the climb uphill, and his assistant jumps out to add a bucket of water to the steaming engine. I have always been afraid of cliffs, so I keep my attention assiduously to the landward side of the climb. At one point I can’t avoid noticing there are some steep drop-offs to the left, and there – God testing me on this fear, too – when we approach a sharp turn, which requires the bus to move to the outside of the grade, a huge concrete truck meets us coming around the turn. We have to stop right when I wish we could get out of this area - the cliff seems so close and nothing to stop us careening off -  and then back up enough to allow the truck to make a turn on the Inside of the hill. We then have to approach the turn, and once again back up toward the edge of the cliff to make the hairpin. It is truly grueling for me, my stomach is in a painful knot, but I just keep breathing and look at the hillside, and eventually we are through it.
I am always enchanted with the job of the bus assistants, who hop off at corners to see if people are headed down the street for the bus, and swing back on while the bus is moving. They also help people with their packages, take money, somehow remember on these packed buses who has paid and who has newly arrived, and generally keep things moving and let the driver pay attention to driving. I like that a lot. But I am amazed, when a woman gets up while the bus is moving and walks toward to front to get out at the next stop that this assistant opens the door of the bus and climbs the ladder to get her parcel from the top, while the bus is going at least 30 mph. She gets off, the bus starts up again, and the assistant emerges from the back of the bus where he’s gotten down the ladder and through the door at the back.
We are often three-to-a-seat on this chickenbus; at one point the dirtiest man I’ve ever seen gets on and sits next to me. He begins a conversation with me in very clear Spanish. Where have I been, where am I going. I talk with him the best I can until he starts asking where my husband is. At this point the young teacher I’m traveling with whispers to me “Don’t talk to him.” I am never rude, but diminish the conversation. Eventually he gets off.
And eventually, three hours later, we arrive in Chimaltenango. The girls get off and go their separate ways, with hugs all around. The young man and I walk for blocks and then hop the bus to Antigua, as my Spanish teacher and I did a few weeks before, arriving at the back of the Mercado (and a bathroom) at about 6:30 p.m.. We part company after we agree I will NOT try to help him prepare materials for the next training in Antigua tomorrow, and instead get ready for my quick trip to California for a family funeral.
I buy a few things at the Bodegona, mochilera still on my back, and then opt for a tuk tuk home. This private if bumpy lift costs me more, to go ten blocks, than a 20 mile trip on the crowded bus.

La Posada

The La Posada processions have begun in Antigua. Every nite for (12?) nites groups from the different iglesias around town proceed to selected homes to be welcomed for food and drink. First you hear the sound of small drums and sometimes bells, then here comes the procession, 12 or more people - some with "robes" a la the Middle East (sheets and headbands) who carry the creche, others carry tall lanterns on poles, still others follow, singing. Last nite there were little girls with silver crowns heading the procession. I followed one to the house and watched them open the door, shedding light onto those at the front of the procession, then one by one they entered, still singing. Down the long hallway, through the door, I could see the living room with its tall lighted tree and the family waiting to welcome them. For Antigua's devout Catholics this is the visit of the Holy Family. Anyone is welcomed to come in with the group, but I haven't tried that yet. Maybe when my son comes to visit (today.) 

I was especially happy that I had recently attended the La Posada performance put on by the Montessori school children when I was in Chico, to read and hear the song in Spanish, and see the event enacted. Very sweet, all around. Navidad. This town seems different while my son is here. More inviting, I guess. We try out five different restaurants, partly because of our differing dietary needs, partly just to experience more of Antigua. We also go to my salsa class together, which is a great joy for me. And we go to Sin Ventura, and get to see some of the incredible salsa dancers in this town. This bar is a pretty joyful – and crowded – place this night, where it had been deserted for the nights of Christmas. And it is just lovely to have my son here. Lots of talk, lots of eating, and walking. A total treat. And Christmas Eve is incredible. This country’s response to everything is to set off fireworks, but on Christmas Eve they outdo themselves. We sit on my roof-top terrace and every firework ever created is crashing and flashing and booming over our heads. It is spectacular!!! And one also feels connected to all the different smaller pueblos around Antigua, as Santa Maria, San Juan, Jocotenango, and others set off their display. I can see them all from my wonderful rooftop terrace. In this country so dedicated to its Christian religions, this seems an odd way to greet the birth of their Christ. Yet, maybe just an expression of joy.   My son returns to New York for New Years Eve.

A grey January morning in Antigua – 6:30 a.m. I wait for the bus for Pana sitting on a low wall next to the Bodegona. My young male companion from the project stands nearby. My feet are bare in my sandals; I can feel the cold. A man walks by with his hands clasped together, as if praying. Others have their arms wrapped tightly around themselves. A young blond girl waiting for the bus across the street grabs her boyfriend; he clasps her, keeping them both warm. Near me under the stairway leading to the Mochilero’s Place over the Bodegona, a man sleeps on the ground in a blanket. An older indigenous woman stops across the street from me. I watch her adjust her bundle and am struck by the sight of her leathery bare feet on the cold sidewalk. 

We get on the bus, which is handled by my Guatemalan companion – where is the bus going, what’s the cost? As I wait, sitting by the window, I notice the camaraderie between two disheveled men when they meet each other….slapping each other’s arms, delighted looks as they walk off together, as if conferring the day’s agenda. A tall man stands where we were sitting moments before. He is eating something steaming from a paper cup. He picks up a scrap of blanket that was lying next to me as I sat there – 1-1/2 feet wide, maybe 4 feet long; synthetic light blue material, slightly dirty. He looks it over, then puts it down again, but before he leaves, he picks it up and tucks it under his arm. How different this street must look to the people who have to live here: Which corner is out of the wind and good to sleep in? What objects can be made use of? Waiting, I attempt a poem: Mami, I watch you stop and settle your bundle in a doorway You reach up and arrange your long hair in a tight knot. Your feet are bare. “No quieres zapatos, Mami?” I would buy them for you if I could; if I knew you wanted them. You place your bundle back on your shoulders, Holding a strap before you in each hand. I know that gesture: a long walk is ahead. “But Mami, the pavement is cold this morning.” 

The bus takes off for Panajachel. This is my first time there on a chickenbus (camioneta, locally.)

Home again, Personal musings

Every three months one is required to step outside of Guatemala for a few days, although I’m hearing more and more ways to get around this. However my tickets were bought when I came to Guate in Septemember.
Visiting California after three months in Guate was very interesting.
First, on the bus ride from Sacramento to Chico, I was struck by how grey and barren the fields are, in contrast to Guatemala’s still-green lushness. Then I am surprised by the relaxed warmth of Chico culture, taken for granted when I live here. And Raley’s supermarket! Wow………spaciousness and bright vegetables piled high, and so many choices.
And of course visiting with so many friends, one way or another, and that warmth….so treasured.
After a few days here, I get into winter: the wind, the barrenness, the rain.

And after a very short ten days of family warmth and good friendships, and seeing some old clients, it’s time to leave again.

Extranjeros
On the plane down from Dallas there were at least 20 young Mormon men, on their way to do a two-year Mission in Guatemala. I was surprised to learn that their ONLY mission was to “preach the gospel,” because most church groups come down here to build houses or latrines or do some other specific, needed project. Naturally I was their first victim, though I usually enjoy talking to people about the heart of their faith. These guys were SO earnest, and so excited that I was listening…….it was really pretty sweet, until of course I did NOT want to accept the Book of Mormon. Then the guy I was sitting with asked to pray for me. I resisted, not wanting some sort of scene, but he persisted, I relented and it was pretty simple.
He COULDN’T believe he was finally actually in Guatemala – very excited and quite scared. Reminded me of my first flight.
Finally, I reached what has become my home to find my alleyway festooned with cutout paper streamers. I suspect this is for Navidad, only two weeks away, or perhaps el dia de Guadelupe, not for my homecoming, but it felt welcoming anyway. The house next door has palm fronds tacked to its walls and door. I think this has something to do with the tradition of Mary & Joseph going house to house, looking for shelter….La Posada; the tradition I saw enacted by the Montessori school children in Chico during this trip. I don’t know how the traditional response of the householder goes…. But I’ll learn before then, I’m sure.

Cultural differences
My first morning back, I go to the Bodegona to pick up supplies. On my way back, in the middle of the street is a tiny procession: a shiny pink casket held high by two walking men, the light color in stark contrast to the dark shabby clothing of the people following it….only a few women and children, one man, all looking pretty miserable. I want to respond in some way to the upwelling of feeling I have for them, but don’t know what is acceptable. Feeling a little inept, I stand at the curb for the few moments it takes them to pass.

And the first Saturday that I am back I go to the Mercado on Saturday morning later than usual and encounter a huge crowd (muchadumbre en Espanol) in which I manage to get pickpocketed!
I am distraught, running back and forth between the last stall where I purchased vegetables and the next one where I found I had no money. I had placed my small billfold in an outer pocket of my large market bag, which has a flap, but not enough to deter this determined person. What a drag. I lost my drivers’ license, my credit card, and my ATM card, so not only do I HAVE no money, but I have no way to get any. That was a big mistake; I'll never carry all those things together in one place again.
I go straight home, mad at Guatemala, mad at myself, and slightly shakey. I know the routine, since I lost my wallet some time ago, myself, but this certainly spoiled a beautiful morning and my joy at being back here.

Later I go to a party at BJ’s and look at her gorgeous apartment which she will be leaving, soon, and which I consider for myself briefly, as it is closer to the Mercado and cheaper, but hearing bad things about the landlady and her dog, I decide I can do better. But it is quite lovely except for that, although colder than this house! The entire kitchen and dining room are open-aired.
At this party, I meet Fred, who walks with me to one of the musical events available this evening, AND pays for me because I realize I have no cash. As we walk, he talks to me about volunteering for a Brain Gym-based program here. This is the first time someone has really WANTED me, with my current level of Spanish. Which turns out to be is as good as his, if not better, and he thinks his is fine, and he has been here for more than a year! He just has more confidence than I so he uses his with Guatemaltecos! So I am going to take a training with those folks and see if I have something to contribute.

Volunteering
12/19/06: Today I meet with Fred and Mercedes at Familias de Esperanza and Fred tells me they also need someone to work in the nursery school there. So I will see about that after the training is over (2nd week Jan.) So suddenly, after such a long and frustrating wait, there is some movement! Or at least so it seems. My good friend in Chico, Kathy, is VERY enthusiastic about Brain Gym, and I become so, too, after reading about the exercises and seeing the video.

It’s back to the hospital tomorrow morning. I had the most amazing several moments with Sergio yesterday, after two weeks away. He’s all trussed up so he can’t touch his scab from his cleft palate surgery, (Finally! Why did he have to wait so many months?) and has a tube in his nose, so I can’t lift him, but I leaned over his crib for a long time and got my face closer to his than I usually have done and he just looked at me fully for the longest time. Something very sweet there.

Wednesday and another morning with Sergio, with several of the children who have CP, and with a volunteer from Germany who is as angry as I am – or more – with the nurses who work with the babies. One – actually the cleaning person, not a nurse – is really sweet and loving with them, but most sit around and chat with each other while the babies get nothing but minimum physical care.
There is a tiny one, brand new to the ward, who starts crying for food about 10 am each morning I’ve been there. She’s there for malnutrition, but she has to wait til after 11 for her “pacha” (bottle,) even tho we volunteers start asking when it’s obvious what she wants. And then there’s the practice of feeding the ones who aren’t hungry yet, but that’s a more subtle error.
So out of this came a new fantasy: 1) get some questions answered – what areas do these babies come from? Are there babies whose parents DON’T bring them to the hospital because they’re afraid they won’t see them for the next six months? How do the babies do who ARE returned, five-to-eight months later? Are there some serious or even minor problems down the line due to low stimulation/ non-attachment? Why does it take so long to get their surgeries? 2) If the results seem in line with my hypothesis, I would want to develop a program to help prevent malnutrition in the first place, and for the cleft palate babies, help the babies return home quickly.
1) get money for surgeries quicker
2) nutrition prevention programs
3) followup help, social and nursing, so the babies can return home safely and soon.

I could become very passionate about that.
But as usual, unless I find people interested in the same thing who do speak Spanish better than I, I have to get better at Spanish. I need to talk to that woman I met at Deet’s before much longer. She works at the hospital with the older kids, but is a neonatal specialist, she said.
At least I had one successful spanish interchange w/ a nurse today, where I got her to do something I thought important, though also one unsuccessful one

But now I won’t see them again for a week, because my son Michael is coming to visit for Christmas.
Sergio won’t go home for Xmas. But at least there is one nurse there who spoke to him really sweetly today (besides the cleaning girl) and he responded very strongly to her. So that feels better.

GOING HOME again

GOING HOME We wake in the morning, get off without event, and take the launch to Puerto Barrios….only 60Q instead of 100 and not the long river trip, however beautiful. The trip is across the river and then along the East coast, with the usual view of homes near the water, grand and simple. The waves are easy, the ride is good; it is a beautiful morning. Puerto Barrios is a bigger town, actually a port with large ships in the harbor. We get off the boat and walk up the street to the Itelgua bus office, following a group of Christian volunteers who work in Guatemala City. When I hear this, I catch up with the guy and ask what the project is. They work with adults and families in the area near the dump, not far from Camino Seguro. I ask about programs for adult drug and alcohol users, but he’s unsure of any. They provide food and medical help. I ask how they handle the security issues in G. City. “We pray a lot,” he says in a superior tone. I don’t care much for him so I move on. They are taking the 100Q bus in an hour, we will take the 50Q in about 20 minutes. I sprint across the street while Elena watches my bags and pick up some not very good, too-cool fried potatoes, and some excellent orange juice, squeezed in front of me, the juice poured into a plastic bag with a straw, for “carryout.” She buys some fruit. The bus ride is completely uneventful because I read my book all the way, after slowly picking out all my braids. We are then at the station in Guatemala City. My Spanish teacher had told me to call the shuttle office from Rio Dulce to get a shuttle to pick me up in G. C. Elena said she wants to take the cheaper chicken bus. I have always been told that is too dangerous except in a group; Elena poo-poo’s this. Okay, I’ll give it a try. Cheaper by 112.5Q or $14.50. But where do we find the buses? My Spanish is evidently inadequate for finding this information. It takes us both several tries before we learn there are no chicken buses coming to this station or anywhere around here. We are in Zone 1 (supposedly the most dangerous in G.C.) and the buses come to Zone 3. What to do? The taxi driver offers us a ride for $4. She talks him down to $3.50 (25 Q) for the two of us. He takes us right to the chicken bus station! I had no idea there was one. A bus for Antigua is waiting right there and we hop on. It leaves in about ten minutes, with her huge bag up on top. My smaller one is in my arms. I have heard so much about the danger on these buses (some one was killed for not giving up his money soon after I arrived, and a day after I had ridden that bus with a group,) but I check the faces of each person who gets on. Hard-working simple people. There is one lovely very tall Mayan man (an anomaly,) whose face is so beautifully lined; his wife is shorter and plump. He puts his arm around her when they finally get to sit. I’m certainly not frightened of any of these folks! When the bus reaches Antigua, I am always concerned because there is a place I can get off which is only three or four blocks from my house, but it’s still hard to recognize the corner (I’ve only taken this bus maybe five times.) I realize we’ve passed it and will go all the way around Antigua, coming to rest in the Mercado, a mile away. But for some reason the bus starts up a street I think I recognize as going to Jocotenango. I tell Elena we’re going the wrong way and she stands up and moves to the front. A gringo I hadn’t noticed behind me tells me that some of these buses make a swing thru Jocotenango before going back through Antigua, so we are fine. Elena has said she really needs to go to the bathroom, so she is still standing in front. We pull in behind the Mercado, slowing down, and she suddenly jumps off. The bus pulls to a stop 200 ft away and everyone gets out. The guy gets her huge bag off the roof of the bus. What now? She’s nowhere to be seen. A jovial man explains to me that she ran into the bathroom, he makes gestures like cleaning her pants. He is joking with another man next to me and three others behind another bus. She doesn’t come and doesn’t come. I feel responsible for her pack even tho the jovial one is holding it. This man introduces me to all his friends, giving them silly nicknames. All is laughter and fun, but I would like to get home. I also am not crazy about the slight edge of sexual joking that is inherent in all this, although it’s just what they consider fun. Eventually she emerges, evidently she has diarrhea. I wave heartily to all and sundry and take off. 

I look for a bus going up my street, but the bus signs are incomprehensible and the one bus I try is going down my street but only taking passengers for G. City. So I start walking, and end up walking all the way home. It is really good to open my gate and be back in my little private holdings. 

So. What have I learned in all this? I feel as though Antigua, with its ambience, is like – say – Boston in the 1900s and Livingston is like Cheyenne, Wyoming. There are both good and bad things about each of these. I like the energy and the ugliness and need of Livingston. I like chickens in the yards and pigs in the alleys. I like the river, the warmth in the winter. I don’t know how I would take steady heat and humidity in the summer, but if my house caught a cool breeze, and I had a fan it might be tolerable. I’d like to have a real garden. Who would I know there? These folks I hung out with this week, the local Hispanics, seem by and large undependable, tho more or less well-meaning. I think I could pay any of them to help me do things, but couldn’t get much from a friendship with them, except occasional conversation, which is nice enough. It is possible that if I became involved with the ONEGUA group, besides being frustrated if I actually wanted to see things accomplished, I could possibly find some friends. I think something I might be able to do is mentor a family or two, as well as whatever help I could do in their school, whatever that might be.

In Antigua, possible friends are the volunteers and the expats at the writers’ workshops…..few of whom are really good friends, although there are a couple of folks whose lives I would like to know more about. But still I expect there is more possibility of what might be called a “social life.” And I wouldn’t mind that. All told, I think Livingston is still attractive, but questionable. I can of course go there another weekend in a few months to talk to the ONEGUA folks. This trip only cost me $63 plus food. What would I lose if I moved there? My Salsa class, pastry shops on the corner, cobblestones, the sound of “Guate, Guate!” the babies, the privacy of this house, my Spanish teacher – who is a pretty good friend. What would I gain? Warmth, the river, kids to play with in my neighborhood, a more reasonable rent (probably $150 max.) and I think the very interesting experience of seeing how I could possibly become some part of that community and have any effect whatsoever, and learning about all the factors which would make that more or less possible. It’s not unlike the experience I have had all these years going into the homes of clients…how to make myself a part of their lives, yet not overstep or violate their privacy or confidentiality…that intricate dance of boundary-finding, boundary-establishing. It’s still a toss-up, but at least I have more information. I also have diarrhea and Elena’s cold.

Day FIVE - Livingston

DAY FIVE - SUNDAY morning I wake about 5:30 but it is still dark. I can’t imagine any ceremonial boat landings are taking place at this hour. When it gets a little lighter I go out, and literally run into a parade of people hooting and hollering and dancing in the streets. I pick up the rhythm as I walk toward them, but then step aside to let them pass. Some rather drunk, rowdy woman grabs me and whirls me into the crowd and off we go dancing down the street, arm in arm. Eventually I disengage from the dizzying energy but another woman grabs me and propels me onward. We are on the way to the cemetery. One woman is carrying a large wreath. Others are carrying bottles of beer. We dance and hop and whirl and drum our ways up into the cemetery, and the drumming stops. People walk quietly. I start to ask a question of a nearby man in Spanish; he says, “You can speak English to me,” and I do, gratefully. He is a Garif, visiting from nearby English-speaking Belize. He says that people will place the wreath on one of the graves. The group passes the huge tree, familiar from my last trip, and convenes at one particular bier. I don’t learn the significance of this one. The woman places the wreath on the grave, the drumming starts again, and a woman “falls out” and starts keening and wailing, her body on the bier. Another woman begins crying loudly outside the circle around the grave. They are both supported by young men, presumably in their family. Other women hug them, several other people are tearful. I don’t know what’s going on, exactly, but I’ve seen this behavior at black churches in Oakland and among my first mother-in-law’s friends. It seems sometimes to be ploys for attention, but sometimes just overwhelming emotion, fully expressed. The trumpet player begins a dirge and I notice how he plays this group of people back into a more contained state of mind. How music hath charms…. Finally, the man I spoke to earlier gestures to me, “I’m going down to watch the landing,” and I follow him. Part way he excuses himself and stops off to talk to some women sitting along the road so I continue alone. I start to go toward the beach near my favorite restaurant, but someone says the landing will be on a different part of the beach. I go there and join five or six other people. We all express doubt about what exactly is supposed to happen and when, but we wait. I decide it’s just a beautiful morning to look at the water and it doesn’t really matter what else happens. We wait. Some people come; some get tired of it and leave. It is quiet and the calm bay stretched out in front of us mirrors the clear sky. I watch some fishermen in a small motorboat throw net out of the boat into the water in a long line. Since they don’t come back and open the circle of net, I can’t imagine how fish are going to get in, or, if this net DID fill, how they would get the weight of it back into the boat. But in 20 mins. or so they come back and throw it all back into the boat. I strain to see fish caught in the net, but cannot. Another mystery. Eventually some people with big stalks of coconut leaves come, and some man in a disheveled costume made of banana leaves, and then some drummers. They begin drumming and some of the assembled older women and then men begin dancing. I love this rhythm, and step off down the street with them, alternating between thinking I am NOT part of this group, thus moving over to the side, then feeling that I love the music and I have a right to step right along with them. I end up taking a place where I can hear the drums well, but am not in the center of the costumed dancers. We join the main street and move into the center of town. I catch a glimpse of the Argentinian taking photos. For some reason I didn’t bring my camera; what a shame. Lots of drumming, lots of dancing; different groups of drummers/dancers moving from one end of the street to the other, passing each other in the middle. Finally there is a candlelight ceremony in the center of the street, words by two of the men I’ve seen over and over in these events this week. A woman is carrying a large photo of what appears to be a gringo man, decked with leaves. I have no idea who he is, but he is treated with some reverence. I finally leave this scene and walk down the street in the direction of my hotel, stopped by a large group of people standing around listening to the music coming out of one funky restaurant. In front of it there are a few big women dancing, probably drunk, but not caring and just having a great time. A wizened old man starts to dance with one of them, pantomiming courtship, playing with it humorously. I love this so much; I’m tempted to join in but keep it to a little wiggling on the sidelines. On the way back to the hotel I see that many people are standing in the doorways to the Catholic Church; apparently the Garifuna mass (misa) is still going on; I was afraid I’d missed it when I attended the non-boat-landing (which I later learn it did take place at 5:30 a.m.) I stand in the side door and watch as a long line of swaying women and a few men approach the altar, carrying fruit, eggs, and even salt & pepper shakers. The drums are beating, everyone is singing the same lines over and over (eventually I can join in.) As the people reach the slightly-swaying Hispanic priest at the altar, he blesses each item and hands it to his assistant. Then he begins the mass, (“hermanos y hermanas”,) which is punctuated at junctures by singing and drumming. The leader of the singing is a young man I met with the Garifuna group in Antigua; he is light-skinned and has cataracts making one eye milky blue. His singing in this context – hands raised in the air - is very beautiful, as is the solemnity yet joyfulness of this ceremony. I remain for an hour or less, swaying and singing, then politely leave when there is a shift in the mass. This “event” is very moving for me; I would like to live where this happens every Sunday. Even though I have many negative thoughts about the Catholic church in Central America, I am always touched by the deep devotion of the people in this country to their religion, especially poor people. I have the feeling that here I might be as close to Africa as I’m going to get (my original dream) but in the jungle rather than the majestic plain. For some reason the dirty streets as well as the hum of activity and the sounds of the Garif language make me think of videos I’ve seen of various small cities in Africa…….and are really appealing to me. After my response to the more conventional beauty of Antigua, this seems a little strange, but I definitely feel it. I amble back to my room and take a nap for an hour or less (because there is supposed to be a big dance to culminate the weekend, tonite, and I could use some rest,) then leave again, and wander through town. I am drawn by music up on the hill where the Garif center is, and follow the straggling crowd up in that direction. There is this huge in-process edifice up there – the future cultural center – an octagonal concrete block structure maybe 30 feet around with huge tree trunks for roof beams, held together with specially-made metal braces. A dream of the future. Under tent awnings, there are 100 or more people dancing….another 200 sit under smaller tent structures, eating and drinking, or standing around on the grass watching the dancers. I join the latter. There is one other white person in the crowd, a woman a little younger than me, her hair neatly braided; we catch each other’s eye with a pleasant look. The dancing is wonderful and amazing. Punta involves intense gyrations of the hips and “fanny,” while making fast small steps in time to the 8th-note-beat and keeping the rest of the body fairly still – except for sudden punctuations of the rhythm with quick movements of the whole body – especially by the men. I LOVE it. There is something so contained and yet intense about it. And the old women in this crowd are the ones who are best at it. (I love that, too!) They are mostly large women, with plenty to shake around, and they do. They pantomime sexy behavior with the old men; they are all laughing uproariously. And they are GOOD. There is also a tiny girl, maybe four; and her grandmother watches her with amazement as she does all the moves, too. A woman of maybe 80, thin and arthritic, does the littlest moves with the whole containment and humorously-mocking facial expressions going……….she also gets some encouraging whoops and hollers. I love this on several different levels. With this and the church event this morning – I can hardly contain myself with happiness. I don’t ever get into full-out dancing, but am shaking myself a bit on the edge of the group. 

Then the energy changes, the DJ quits and some Hispanic announcer on a nearby stage encourages everyone to watch a bunch of young girls in sporty/sexy outfits shake their behinds around in more typical MTV-type dancing. They can do it, but it’s interesting to see what a different energy this is. Then they start encouraging people to come up and make fools of themselves for give-away t-shirts. Some of this is playful and fun – the sort of thing I’ve seen twice at festivals around Antigua – but in general I think it sucks; more commercial, more sexy in a dumb way, and nowhere NEAR the dance expertise, even though they are good in an exercise-video sort of way. And of course the announcer just gets off on hearing himself talk. At any rate my interest drops to zer0 and I make my way back down the hill, determined to check back later. 

Both my roommates are in the room, ready to take a nap, as am I. Since the second girl has come, Elena has not said two words to me, and seems irritated when I speak to her. Someone else commented on that about her, so I don’t take it personally, tho it is a little odd to be around. Her friend is friendly enough, though I make a mistake with her that I often do with people; criticizing something when I barely know them. She joined a group of drummers here at the hotel with her guitar (first asking permission.) They agreed but she is just a beginner, AND her guitar is out of tune. After a few minutes the drummers excuse themselves and leave her. When she comes in our room, I eschew saying something about her inappropriateness, but suggest perhaps bluntly that the guitar needs tuning. Between us we get it in good order, but still I’ve done it again, as I did to the restaurant owner when – trying to be helpful – I suggest that her hand-lettered sign out front needed work in order to be more attractive to customers (you could barely read it.) When she says defensively that she gets people here all the time, I realize I had done it again. But a day later she suggested that if I were to come here to live she would pay me to do some menus or signs or something on my computer. Still I need to recognize this proclivity to critique BEFORE I do it rather than after. 

My last evening. I want a bowl of Tapado and decide to invite my two erstwhile friends, the Argentinian and the Swiss jewelery-maker, to have dinner with me at my friend’s restaurant, thus killing several birds with one stone (what a dreadful analogy!) On the way I run into Prince. He is in his low mood (his girlfriend was here yesterday and dissed him one more time, even handing off some of his clothing to another guy) and looks unsure of his welcome with me, but I am delighted to see him….I’m actually rather fond of him. However this creates a dilemma; I can’t pay for everyone, and I know all these guys are too poor for a 50Q dinner. I decide to walk down with Prince to the restaurant to get him ensconced in her motherly atmosphere. When he’s on a chair on her deck I tell him I’m going to go check w/ a friend and I’ll be back. The two guys I’m looking for are together in the vendor’s favorite spot again and I sit down and tell them I’d like to invite them to have dinner with me at the restaurant. The Argentinian says she once fed him bloody chicken and wouldn’t take it back so he won’t eat there. The Swiss man has another scathing story….they are punching each other’s shoulders and laughing and I realize they are both shit-faced at 4 in the afternoon. I am still joking with them and take two photos of them together. The Argentinian is being charming with every young girl who passes by (and he is handsome and good at it, drunk or no) and accosts an uncomprehending Yugoslav guy about his grandfather from Russia and other somewhat incomprehensible stories but after the guy makes his getaway, he tells us he’s trying to get some investors for his cantina. People don’t realize the opportunity here, etc. I can see an evening with these two is not going to be the nice farewell party I’d imagined, so I tell them how much fun it’s been to get to know them, etc., and head back for the restaurant. Prince has obviously given up on my returning, probably used to that sort of thing from the visitors he attaches himself to, and is down on the beach in the dark, but emerges quickly when he sees me coming. He has a couple of little kids with him, and he takes their leave really sweetly. For all his faults he seems like a heartful man. I ask if he’d like to share a bowl of Tapado with me and he says, “yeah” but hushes to a whisper and says there are better Tapado cooks than this woman. Even he is a little shocked at his faithlessness, and says “with all due respect….” etc, “there are better Tapado cooks.” I expect we will head for some Garifuna place, but he stops at a brightly-lit place run by some Chinese. We order, get some lemonade (he asks if he can have a Pina Colada) and are joined by Elena and her French erstwhile boyfriend. Lots of talk in Spanish, which I follow well enough. I watch the two of them demolish one piece of fish on a plate between them, picking every scrap of meat off the skeleton. The conference couple comes and we talk about not being able to get together here to talk, but she says she will be in Antigua in a few days and perhaps we can meet then. I really like both of them, but I think they look a little askance at the rowdier members of my group. When I turn back to the table, Elena and her friend are gone, replaced by the two women from last nite, Jennie and Kim. The talk flows on. Then they leave and Prince gets into his “can’t sit still” thing. He excuses himself gracefully each time, but runs to talk to someone, runs to get cigarettes, etc. It’s true that the only real connection between us is his sad love-life, and I think he doesn’t want to talk about that tonite, particularly since I’d been right in the advice I had given him earlier in the week. I watch the activity in the street…..families, foreigners, kids in small groups with play guns. Jennie had commented how mean these kids are with each other; very like Jamaica. Eventually Prince returns, and I wonder aloud what has happened to our dinner….they could have caught the fish personally in the time we’ve been waiting. He graciously goes to see where our order is, and returns to say he had to order all over again; the girl had forgotten. He asks for a second Pina Colada and I agree, and get another lemonade although I’m going to be floating before long. I’m a bit worried he will be, too, as I’m hoping to see some night-life with him, but figure the food will help. Then it arrives. I only saw the finished (literally) project before…this soup is more than I can handle. A complete baked fish, head and eyes intact; squid, the same. I love squid but don’t even like to see the tentacles much less the face. At times in my life, I have had my hands inside some still-warm turkeys and a goat, but this is too much for me. I also find, once again, that I don’t like boiled bananas. So I pick at what I can eat and hand over the rest. What I like most is the broth and bread, but this bread is just little round hamburger buns, no garlic toast, like at the other restaurant. I am annoyed that I didn’t follow my own inclinations. But he eats heartily, heads and all…….. though we give the eyes and other bits to a starving dog who is watching us. The dog has such a sweet demeanor that it’s hard for me not to rush out and buy dog food, but I don’t know where I would find it. I briefly think of buying him a hamburger, but then what about tomorrow? He ends up getting quite a bit from our table. I finally get the check: Q112….Or about $14.50. I am a little shocked, food is relatively cheap but drinks are not. There is supposed to be a big “closing” dance at 8 pm, but although the lights of the gimnasio are on and the speakers are blaring, there are only a dozen or so people lining the bleachers and none on the floor. I delight in finding an open floor in Chico, but not here….and I don’t think Prince is ready for that, either. We go off to UBAFU, and the drummers are playing. I tell him one more beer is the end of my budget and we sit and watch the drumming. Somehow I want more than this tonite, so eventually we end up walking over to the gimnasio again. And again just a few people and no dancing. He shows me a tiny disco on a side street…..a bar, really, with a tiny floor and a tiny screen showing a dance competition somewhere. We stand outside for a bit and then I sidle in, lured by the screen and the good music. He evidently can’t come in yet…..when I inquire why he shows me his can of tomato juice. Wow, I love tomato juice…I take a sip, not really noticing his wry look. Good gravy it also contains alcohol of some wretched sort. I spit it in the street. I go on in and dance a bit in the first, nearly empty, room. Then he comes in with me and we go in the inner room where people are gyrating wildly, bumping into each other. I opt for a little floor space, and he tells me he’ll be back in a minute. Some guy wants to dance with me, but insists on getting close. I tell him to back up and give me some space and he doesn’t get it, so I back him up physically. He still doesn’t get the message, so he pulls in a friend to dance with me. We step down and have some fun for awhile. Then Prince is back. I like his movements well enough, and match him, but he is more interested in talking to a friend, banging knuckles and all that greeting stuff. [They have a lovely greeting ritual here – besides the cheek-kissing, which everyone does. The young men do the mutual palm-slide and knuckle banging that I saw in Jamaica but then the fist touches the heart.] We dance for awhile, and then he says he’s going to step outside with his friend. They do and start walking off down the street. I run outside and whistle loudly. He runs back to say, “We’re not leaving you – you can come if you want, or I’ll be right back.” The friend is now pissing in the bushes (a common sight in Guatemala) so I think maybe that’s what they’re up to, so I go back in. Half an hour later he is still not back, and the room has become so crowded and hot that I am out dancing in the cool street. So I decide I have had enough of being “squired” and head off for home through the cool night. They are drumming in UBAFU, but the music from the speakers outside is drowning them out. I go out to see what’s going on, and it’s rap and hip hop. I am delighted, assuming I will see some great dancing, but no. Noone is doing anything interesting. I finally head for home. It is only 11:30 so I decide to pack my bags so I can leave early in the morning. I can still hear the pounding of the speakers in the distance, but suddenly the music stops abruptly and the lights go out everywhere. The available electricity in this small city has been completely overwhelmed. Elena comes in just as I’m getting to sleep. I turn my flashlight on for her and she asks me to wake her in the morning. I thought she was going on to Honduras with her friend the next day, but somehow the friend is staying here another day, Elena is returning to Antigua to meet another friend, and then they are going off somewhere.

Day FOUR - Livingston

DAY FOUR I decide it’s time for a shower before I leave the hotel Saturday; think about taking these braids out but decide to just wash my hair with them in. Obviously some of my standards are going fast. The shower is so cold I can’t get under the water, but manage to wash my hair, and rinse everything else. Then there is the towel provided by the management. I don’t think it’s even made of cotton – some thin synthetic material. How I wish I’d followed my first instinct and brought my own towel. When I’m done drying my hair, I hang the towel on the line of clothing that stretches across the garden of the hotel and never see it, or any other, again. The day is overcast as was yesterday. Light sprinkles occur occasionally, like a mist in the air. As I leave the hotel there is a big splash in the little creek-like pond near the lawn. I have heard this before and suspect large goldfish, but this time I see the culprit: a huge turtle…with a carapace maybe two feet long. He’s so big he’s a little eerie looking, but soon disappears in the muddy water. I have talked to the restaurant owner about living here in Livingston and she has said she would help me find a place. When the owner of the hotel calls me over to say we owe for the last day, we settle that question quickly, but I mention to him how much I like it here and he says, too, that he would help me find a place. I say the one thing I don’t like is the cold showers. He says that’s a really simple problem to fix – hotwater showerheads are available. He asks me how old I am and then goes thru the rigamarole about seeing me walk down the street in such a sprightly way (he doesn’t use that word, but..) he thought I was so much younger. He is starting to hit on me, so I smile warmly and make my way out of there. The President of Guatemala is supposed to be here today to make a speech at 10 am at the ONEGUA center on the hill. I notice all the uniformed soldiers and police in town, who hadn’t been there before. I don’t see anything going on at the Garifuna center at 10 am, so I go down to the seminar again and sit in on an hour of talks. Later I learned the President arrived and left in a helicopter a little after I was there. After the seminar the German girl agrees to meet with me the next day to fill me in on what she has learned, attending all of the talks. I spend an hour or two talking with a woman who arrived in Livingston yesterday for the weekend. We have a good conversation about projects for kids, and the counseling she does in Seattle for couples who are trying for open marriages. She says hers has been successful for ten years. I guess “successful” includes the hickeys she shows me that she got on her first night here. I feel as though I’m just a sponge for people’s stories, this weekend. I am so interested to find out what sort of people gravitate to this culture – both the culture of Livingston and the Garifuna, that of Guatemala, and that of the free travelers. Later I see her with her new “shadow,” a beautiful shy little Garif boy who has followed her ever since she bought him some potato chips. She thinks really it’s just the attention he wants and I agree. While we talk outside the store, a family of pigs - mom and two different-sized babies - comes wandering by, nuzzling each plastic bag on the ground. The cleanup crew, I suppose. I run into the Argentinian sitting with a friend in front of one of the hotels, where the friend, a jeweler, has his lovely wares displayed on a big cloth. I had seen them earlier and waved cheerily; now I sit down with them. Neither of us comment on my request to have the Argentinian “squire” me one night so I could see some dancing at the bars.   I presume he has forgotten all about it. He introduces me to the jeweler, a 40 year old blond skinny red-faced Swiss, with a wide grin, who has lived here six years and speaks good Spanish, but no English. At some point I ask him how long it took him to feel like a part of the community; he says five years. Whew. And I would only think of living here for two – that says something. My free-marriage friend comes by and we sit and talk with the two men for a bit, other people stop to chat with them, or with me. This sort of loose, easy camaraderie is familiar to most people who have travelled or hung around bars, I suppose, but is totally unknown to this essentially hard-working mother and farmer. My hanging-around was confined to afternoons at the pond on a friend's land, or at parties of friends in a small rural community. So this continual ebb and flow, like the lapping of lakewater, is intriguing to me. I go off with her and her friend to see the crowning of the adult Garifuna Queen for the year. The junior queens were picked yesterday. 

By 8 oclock the gimnasio is filling up. These two women and I pay 5Q each and go in, sitting on the bleachers. The room is filled to bursting with noise – primarily from the huge speakers blasting disco music at the front of the room, but also all the people – families, kids, adults of all sorts – trying to talk over the music. The audience is on two sides of a central square, with a long table – presumably for the jurors – on another side of the square, and microphones for the announcers and the drummers on the 4th side. The two drummers are from the Jovenes de Garifuna group I met in Antigua, whom I spoke to my first day but haven’t had contact with since….this seems like quite an honor for these two young men. Everything takes forever to get going, but eventually there is a hush and the first Queen candidate comes in, in traditional checked cotton dress and headscarf, dancing a slow step to the music, and curtseying as she gets to each quadrant of the square. She then takes her place near the announcers and the next woman advances. The first is a perfect beauty queen, lovely to look at and very demure in her attitude. The second girl is younger and less sure of herself; the third woman is a little older and heavier. When they have all taken their places they then advance one by one to the center of the square and do a slow step-dance, shaking their rear ends, but no more advanced steps or rhythms. They then leave and some other women all dressed alike come in and do some dance steps in concert, nothing as fascinating as I saw in Antigua, but interesting. Then the candidates return, dressed in raggedy costumes and carrying something depicting some part of their heritage; they act this out, starting fires, cutting wood, stirring food, cooking, For the third return they are dressed again in clean light-colored checked traditional clothing, and they dance again. They then each give a speech, first in Garifuna and then Spanish. The third woman’s speech in Garif is greeted with cheers, but she muffs the Spanish and retreats. They are then each asked to answer questions about Garif. History or something about discrimination. Finally the choice is made by the jurors. The larger woman, who gave the great speech and was the best dancer (and perhaps the most popular in her community to judge from the audience response) is the Queen. The 3rd runner up, the pretty woman, wins an electric iron; the 2nd runner up gets a big electric fan, and the Queen wins a new bicycle. There has been much attention by the crowd of about 500 up to the point that the Queen is picked, but as soon as she is selected, everyone barrels out of there, leaving her with a crown and hugs from her family. There is a huge party planned for 11 p.m. up at the Garifuna center. The couple from the Conference have been sitting in front of me for most of the crowning ceremony, and they agree to walk up the hill with me, since their hostel is over in that direction. The two women I came with got bored long ago and left. When we arrive up on the hill at 10:30, there is nothing much going on and noone I recognize is there. I realize that I have been spending my time with Hispanics and foreigners, exclusively, ever since I’ve been here; no wonder I don’t know anyone. We walk on, and part company at the top of the hill. I make my way down the trail to my street, and my hotel. People from the party will be up all night, and then attend the ceremony of the landing of the Garifuna people to these shores at 6 am, my agenda says, but at the crowning the announcer said it would be at 5 am.

Day Three - Livingston

DAY THREE [images are of the lagoon and the amazing tree in the middle of the cemetary.]
I wake up to the sound of roosters and calling birds and then a lot of hooting and hollering in German from other hotel guests on their way to the bathroom, muy cerca our room. I think about people who travel from one place to another, as the Argentinian has done….meeting new people and telling old stories. And of course always telling the dream: I’m going to build a cantina, I’m going to marry the Hindu girl and we’ll move to Jamaica; I’m going to get on the cruiseship and work around the world; this girl’s going to take me with her to Mexico. It seems like at least for some it becomes an exercise in holding the dream out in front of one but never staying in one place long enough to achieve it, or to deal with not having achieved it. Or maybe the dream is just an excuse; and the living from day to day and telling stories IS the real life. Since it seems to me something of the alcoholic dynamic, it is interesting that it seems to be accompanied by a lot of drinking.
Last nite, the Argentinian introduced the group to some hootch made and sold behind the bar which smelled like gasoline and cloves. He swears that he came to Livingston very ill and was cured by drinking the stuff as medicine. I can’t even sniff it. He also mentions the Nonny juice – as a curative – that I ran into in Jamaica.
Then Elena wakes too, and decides to go with me to get some fresh oj for breakfast. We start out through the garden, but are waylaid – before 9 am – by a group of young people in the cupola performing – in Spanish – what seems to be a comic presentation, mimed and narrated, on the use of condoms. There are two young Hispanic actors – and the girl narrator in a big rasta cap. This event is being watched by four gringo adults and eventually ourselves. I can’t exactly figure out what is going on because of some of the comedic efforts, but decide it is like the skits used in projects in Africa for reaching out into the analfabetic (non-reading) communities to teach AIDS awareness and protection.
At the breakfast place we discover that there is a seminar on supporting and revitalizing Garifuna culture starting next door. So we leave and fall, instead, into the free breakfast – fried platinos and refried black beans (one of my favorites) with excellent scrambled eggs and a white bun. I ask for fresh squeezed oj and have a large glass brought to me for $1.30.
The introducer is a local Garif and the lst speaker a Hispanic anthropologist, I gather married to a Garifuna woman. He is an excellent speaker, very moving (even though I can understand only about 50%.) He mentions that the Garifuna anniversary date (of arrival) is a national Holiday in Belize (albeit a much smaller country) but barely recognized in Guate. He stresses that although the Garif are descended from the survivors of a slaveship-wreck (mixed with Caribs and the Arawak Indians from the coast from Venezuela to Guate) they never actually worked as slaves, and they fought off the British colonizers for many years. Slavery or no seems to be an issue, here. Several local people get up and put in their 25 cents about the value of the Garifuna people and Garifuna women in particular, (I am interested that these impromptu speakers are welcomed however long and rambling their speech) and then they take a break. I have been struggling with all that Spanish, so decide I can learn more later from the German girl who is writing her thesis on the Garifs, and elect to go home and change out of shorts and a tanktop, as the weather has turned cooler already.
I’m not sure what I will do next, as I am learning that what is planned doesn’t happen and I’m better off (perhaps everywhere but certainly here) just following my intuition/inclinations and see what happens.
I would still like to see some futbol and to find out where the community center I saw last time actually is, now that I know the town a little better. I would also like to spend some time with the Argentinian as I find him intriguing.
I go back to the seminar to see what is going on, but they have broken for lunch. I’m encouraged to eat there, but figure this isn’t very fair since I’ve hardly attended, so I eat at the restaurant upstairs, then come down to sit with the Peruvian/German couple while they talk to the anthropologist about the African origins of the Garifs, and a story the Peruvian has heard that there were supposed to be boatloads of Africans who came to the Orinoco R. area in Brazil long before. The anthropologist doesn’t know anything about this. They return to the seminar and I finish my lemonade while I look out at the boats coming into the harbor.
An older Garif. woman stops by my spot and starts talking familiarly to me….I simply must get braids in my hair, it would look so nice, blah blah. I had thought about it before coming but know I look dreadful half-bald, however pretty the braids and beads, but figure what the heck, so I tell her to do it. She says 10 braids for 2 Q each, which as she starts to work becomes 10 braids on each side. She engages a young woman and they start rapidly working on both sides of my head. There is the usual pulling of hair and too tight braids, and we negotiate (that is, I go “ow, ow!” and she says, “Okay, mama,” and loosens up slightly.) It never occurs to me that someone would offer to do this and not know what they are doing. A couple of young guys across from me are laughing at the spectacle; that should have been my first clue. As is the fact that she never looks at me from the front to see what effect we are having. Eventually she says she is done. I feel the back of my head, it is still unbraided! What? She makes a hasty retreat then comes back to tell me I have ten braids on each side, two quarters of my head are done………so I owe her 40Q (about $5.50.) I am angry and make it clear to all within hearing that I am disappointed, but pay up…….it is not much money. But the hairdo is rather ridiculous, not like some of the elaborate braiding I’ve seen – each of my “hairdressers” had different styles of dealing with these tiny 1/8 inch braids and the rubber bands and beads. I spend a little time evening things out, but eventually just figure “What the heck.”
Later in the day, I look for the Argentinian’s place but can’t find it, then run into him as I get back on the main street. He walks me back down the alley and spends the next two hours or so showing me all the stuff he’s building in his cantina, the mess the previous owner left in the yard, where he wants to build a “tiki” hut and then gets out a million photos and shows me other bars he’s built in Florida and elsewhere (all a little Floridian or a la Reno to my taste) and then a lot of photos he’s taken of women, when he was earning a living as a photographer. There are some beautiful photos and beautiful interesting women of every nationality. There are also some photos of him much younger – what a gorgeous guy! I ask what propels him from one city, state, and country to another. “Oh I’m ADD,” he says, “I can’t stand still.” He also tells me his story of betrayal by his girlfriend’s mother,who was his business partner, then robbed him, didn’t use the money he sent to get the licenses and so forth that he needs for the bar, and now wants to marry the girl off to some rich old man. The girl is of course culturally-bound to obey her mother, and on and on. I notice the scars on his hands and comment. Oh yeah, he’d been a boxer somewhere where bare-knuckle fighting was legal. Charismatic guy.
At some point I tell him my problem with not being able to get to some of the places I’d like to see at night, because I’m on my own (and I’ve been warned those areas around the discoteques are dangerous.) I ask if he’d be willing to “squire” me, and tell him I'd pay for his drinks, etc. “Like a bodyguard,” he says, and I say “un poco.” I leave with no clarity on this topic but a cheerful “See you!”
On the way “home,” down this street of stores, bars, restaurants, a big Catholic church, and abandoned buildings, I am startled to hear a grunt behind me, and turn to find a very large dirty pig ambling down the street. Noone else pays it any attention. I guess that puts the chickens in the yard of my hotel in perspective.
That evening I see neither hide nor hair of the Argentinian and Prince has to go to bed at 8 to work at the docks at 4 in the morning. I’m never quite clear what he does but it has something to do with loading something on a cruiseship. Since he doesn’t have the build of a stevedore, I presume he does checking or something. He does this one full day per week and lives on what he makes (I never heard what the hourly wage is.)
I go down to the usual restaurant for dinner by myself and we talk some more. She tells me Prince had a big crack problem in the past when that was rife here in Livingston (people in Guate City had told me there were no hard drugs in use in Guatemala – just alcohol and glue-sniffing) but he has cleaned up his act (except for drinking so much, I suppose, but I don’t say this.) She thinks he has a good heart, and having seen him interact with people when he’s not drunk, I’d agree. When he’s drunk he’s not mean, just a little morose and bitter.
I send some emails to family and friends, watch the street from my favorite perch on the Muni Bldg steps, look for a t-shirt for my younger daughter, and eventually head toward home. I run into two women I have met briefly. We all walk over to UBAFU and this evening there is music and dancing, or at least the drummers – even the big older woman drummer – get up from time to time to dance. When they take a break I walk over to ask the woman to show me the steps. She misunderstands me…is friendly and welcoming and then goes outside…..I think she thought I was complimenting her.
I sure wish I had a male friend to come to Livingston with, as there are so many fascinating places where I shouldn’t go by myself – like all the discos down the side streets, whose music I can hear blaring away enticingly as I walk past on the main street….”dance hall” music, it seems; my favorite. Or at least I’d like a dependable woman friend to sit in Ubafu with, having a coke and waiting for the music to start. All I’ve seen of dancing so far was a few minutes in Ubafu, and a few minutes after the kids presented the skit in the street….and then I couldn’t quite see their feet. This punta dance fascinates me, and I’d really like to learn how to do it.
Since the other folks have left, and the drummers are taking a long break, and I don’t have anyone to talk to, I head for home. A block from the hotel some short fat Hispanic man tries to convince me that he is un buen chico and una buena chica like me could do no better anywhere. I tell him I’m sure he’s right, but no thanks.
I reach the room, do a little writing and read the wonderful book I brought with me. Before I go to bed I sit outside on the lawn and listen to the crickets.

Livingston trip - day two

I tell the management of the hotel that their place is truly lovely but I need to be closer to downtown. They say fine, so I go back to check at Via Del Mar. The manager tells me that they have rooms for two nites, but not four, when the huge influx of weekend reservations will arrive! Yikes! I guess I can continue to pay $20/nite – at least I have a room for all 4 nites, and there are few rooms in town left. Most of the students I “boated” with did not make reservations and are scrambling for a place to sleep. I walk down toward the Bay and the cook/owner from last nite’s restaurant calls out to ask if I want breakfast…..”It’s the best in town; I cook just for you…” etc. My favorite place from last time was still closed when I’d walked by so I say yes. I invite the owner to sit with me and talk because the place is empty. (One thing I notice about traveling is that it makes me more gregarious than I am at home.) While I wait for my food and conversation, I look at her restaurant: wooden walls covered with photos and postcards, open windows with strings of shells hanging in the openings. No glass in the windows, tho there are wooden shutters to close and lock. Most of the open peaked ceiling is covered with plaited hemp mats, but above the first few feet inside the door you can see up into the traipsing electric wires. The roof is slatted wood; all the tables and chairs look handmade. Pretty casual. The owner has made my eggs and potatoes, HER style: little scraps of crispy scrambled egg among crispy potatoes accompanied by fresh pineapple juice. Finally she sits and we talk a little about our lives. She is Hispanic; medium-light skinned with yellow-brown eyes the same color as her face and hair; probably early 40s. She grew up in Mexico and was married at 19 to an older Indian man and lived in India for the next two evidently disastrous years before returning to Mexico. She has a gorgeous son who works for her somewhat regularly – he is very respectful with her. Another son is in college in Mexico. From what she earns in this tiny restaurant (which is mentioned in Lonely Planet) she supports herself and her son in a one-room cabin down the street, and sends her other son to college, while saving for this son and a good friend of his to go to college in a year. After she moved to Guate, one of her husbands was a Garif. We talk about money, marriage, men, and children – i.e Life. I ask her a bit about community projects here in Livingston, but she doesn't know of any. Eventually I remember that I am supposed to be doing something about a hotel. She suggests The African Place. “The guidebook didn’t seem to think much of it,” I tell her. “No, no; they are great,” she says. Since the other hotels in the Garif barrio mentioned in Lonely Planet don’t seem to exist, at least during my walk up and down that street, I decide to go check out the African Place. On my way up the street I run into Elena, the tall German girl from the boat and the dinner last nite. She needs a hotel, too, for herself and a friend who is coming the next day. She decides to go with me to see the African Place. We look at the large glaringly-white Moorish structures, the hand-lettered sign, the huge garden and beautiful tile work and are intrigued. The owner has two rooms left for 4 days….one with two beds, one with three. After a brief discussion in her limited English and our limited Spanish, we decide to take the three-bed room together. It turns out to be 25Q per person per nite…………more expensive than some of those sparse individual 25Q rooms…..but still only $13 total per person for four nites. That seems incredibly good. I pay and she will pay me back. Unfortunately there is NO hot water in the common bathroom with only two toilet stalls and two shower stalls for this huge place, though the owner suggests that the showers are “un poco caliente.” I run back to the other hotel, take advantage of the hot shower there before check-out time, and then carry my packs away to the African Place. I decide to take a short cut - always aware of the reputed dangers of getting off the beaten path - on a road pointed out to me, and end up puffing my way up a STEEP hill – shades of Jamaica! Then the road peters out and I pass a parked sheriff’s car, presumably by his house, and I take a dirt trail down the other side of the hill to where the road begins again. A left turn near the bar and I am on the road to my new home. Later someone tells me where the ONEGUA office is, back up that same steep hill, and with some difficulty, turning down side roads thru residential areas – aware of being the only whitey and tourist in the area - I find it. They are obviously getting some event together here but I find the office, walk in some wet paint that noone seems to care about, and speak in Spanish to a young woman for some time….she seemed to be understanding me, but even when I ask her to speak slowly I’m not 100% sure we are really communicating …however it seemed that they are open to gringos helping the project (projects in general, rather newly, are preferring to have local help whenever they can get it, even or perhaps especially for professional roles, rather than foreigners) and that they have some sort of school and that she thinks my skills could be helpful….and that the person here who speaks English is way too busy this week but he will answer my earlier emails after the week is over. She gives me an events schedule for the week, and off I go. The first scheduled event is at 2 pm, a seminar on the attempts to retain and revive the Garifuna culture. My roommate, Elena, is also interested in this talk so off we go. 

 We think we are in the right place, people direct us up steps past the parked motorcycle and so on…and we stand for awhile, and then a young Peruvian man and his tall German wife come, and it turns out (he spoke only German and Spanish, but she was fluent in English, too) that she is doing her thesis on the Garif. Culture and worked at an ONEGUA project for a month in Belize. It was supposed to be three months, but she said things were so disorganized she finally left early. So mostly the three Germans chat, in German, but occasionally translate for me or speak in Spanish, and then two Hispanic girls from across the river at Puerto Barrios arrive. And then we all wait. Eventually at about 3 pm, a black man in a suit arrives and opens the doors for us and disappears, so we sit inside and wait. Then he returns to announce that speakers from P. Barrios have gotten waylaid and it will be another ½ hour. So my roommate opts to return to the hotel and I walk to the main street. Prince engages me again and wants to talk more about the love of his life who promised him everything in the way of a good life and then dumped him, so I buy us both a coke and we talk. He is obviously a little drunk, especially for 4 pm, and wants to schmaltz me about what a good heart I have, and how younger girls don’t appeal to him, and how he needs a room for the night so he doesn’t feel so alone (he lives in his mother’s small house, here.) All this falls a little flat, so I get out of there after a few more minutes. I then locate a store on a side road where I can bargain for one of the beautiful lacy overblouses the indigenes wear here (since the morning was hot enough for a tank top and I expect a few more days like this) and get a coral one for about $15. I quickly change on the street from my overshirt to this pretty lacy thing, and am pleased when several women wearing similar blouses smile, gesturing at their blouses and mine. I see lights on in the room where we were supposed to hear the speaker, earlier, but decide not to go back up. Later the German girl tells me that a facilitator had them all draw Family Trees (shades of California!) to give some ideas for making a Garif family tree. She and her husband went along with it, but thought the whole thing was silly. Then I go back to our room and Elena has a cough and is lying down, so we talk nicely about her life and my life and why we came to Guatemala, etc. She is only 19. I put on a long skirt to go with my lacy coral top, feeling quite the queen, and we walk out for dinner, and a dance contest scheduled for 8 pm….but after five minutes in the restaurant she says she has to meet someone so she leaves and I have this huge dinner to eat by myself and my breakfast companion/cook is occupied with her helper and ignores me, and two of the guys from last nite come in and sit on the porch with new dates, so I eat and feel a little sorry for myself, here alone. Then I leave and walk up toward the internet shop to send some emails while the Ladino owner of the shop sits in a nearby chair and rocks his baby and sings to her. One of the things I love in Guatemala is the more informal and family-centered sense of work. Many if not most stores are in the front of homes. A different Garif band of drummers and a conch-shell player is at a local restaurant on the main street, so I sit on their steps and listen for awhile. At 8 o’clock I go to the gimnasio where the main contest is supposed to be held – really looking forward to seeing a dance contest - but there are lights and loud music and nothing else. I kill time by walking up and down the main calle, then sit on the wall of the Muni Bldg and watch while the father and son Hispanohablantes from the boat run into the girl who had walked up through the jungle. I almost join them but know I can’t keep up with the Spanish. Prince walks by and joins me on the wall, and two other girls from the afternoon join us and at 9 we go to see if the dance contest has started. I have been dying to see this, but notice that my energy level has dropped considerably since learning that pretty much nothing comes off as planned around here. It’s hard to get excited about things. This is probably good for me – overexcitable and over-planned – but could explain something about the “lackadaisical” people in Livingston. There are more people gathered outside than when I had checked at 8 pm but still absolutely nada going on inside. What a disappointment! We all walk over to the UBAFU bar where I see drummers are setting up so several of us go in, and others opt out. A middle-aged man joins us and for the next hour or so he – a sort of Hemingway/boxer-looking Argentinian who has spent most of his life traveling all over the world and 23 years in the US living in 33 states (or was it 33 years and 22 states?) building and refurbishing bars for people – spins his tales. He and Prince spend their time vying for my attention – both love to tell stories – while I try to watch the drummers. I do want to hear the Argentinan’s stories – I am fascinated by people who have spent their lives traveling; really don’t understand it - so may meet up with him again. He has given me his email address and tries to tell me where his cantina is. After awhile each of them gives up on being heard over the din and leaves, and soon so do the drummers, so I listen to the reggae on the jukebox and watch other people in the room dance or talk together (ever the people-watcher, and actually pretty comfortable just sitting there with music and people to look at,) then walk home about 10:30 pm to find that the stars are glorious overhead, and the warmth is still in the room because I’d closed the windows before I left.

Going to Livingston again!

Extranjeros I am very interested in talking more with some of these folks who have been here for so long…..especially NOT on retirement income. How do they manage? A woman I met in Pana lived by making cookies to sell to tourists. My one steady friend here is a massage therapist. Others live on savings. The woman who hosts the writers’ group I have started going to has been here for 30 years. I know how she manages to live, because she is partners in one of the “hottest” café’s in Antigua, but she must have been here during the war years, and I’d like to know more about how that was for Gringos in Antigua. My Spanish teacher (Guatemalteca) says she and local people she knew were totally unaware of what was going on, even though as part of her university education, she interviewed many people in the government for a paper she was writing. Not unlike the situation in the U.S. for the majority of people who only read mainstream news. 

I’ve been thinking about Livingston since I first heard there was a black Caribbean community here in this Eastern Coastal town in Guatemala, and of course especially after becoming so enamoured of the Caribbean black culture when I was in Jamaica for three weeks. Thus I decide to take my second trip to Livingston during the weekend of their annual celebration of the day the first Garifs landed there, 199 years ago, which coincides with our Thanksgiving week in the U.S.....end of November, 2006. I wanted both to experience what I expected to be a weekend of music and dance, in the rapid hip-shaking punta-style, but also to check in with the ONEGUA organization dedicated to Garifuna cultural revival and to spend time in the community to settle my mind once and for all whether I would like to leave Antigua at the end of my six-months’ lease and live there. 

Last time I went to Livingston was with a tour – the same guide and big van all the way. This time I’m going to get there by public transport, and on my own. My scheduled shuttle pick up is late so it is nearly 4:15 am, not 3:45 when it arrives; I’ve been up since 3:15. Score one for the vagaries of travel, though this is minimal. We drive thru the still-dark streets of Antigua and then into the country and finally the lights of Guatemala City. We make our way toward the bus station through a million dirty streets with closed dirty shops – shades of the downtown Oakland Greyhound station 30 years ago. I stand in the freezing wind with 15 or so Guatemalan men, women and children after the shuttle drops me off. When the station office opens at 5 am I learn that the bus for Rio Dulce is at 6 am, not 5, as my Spanish teacher had been informed on the phone. (Score minus two.) The good news is that I misunderstood the price of the ticket - ¼ of the way across Guatemala by 2nd class public bus – it is not 50 dollars, but 50 Quetzales - about $6.50. Seated in the waiting room, we all huddle over our bags; the cold wind blows through the station door - my teeth are close to chattering. The woman next to me enviably has a light sports blanket over her shoulders (I had elected not to bring mine, at the last moment,) the man across from me has a bath towel wrapped around him. People gather around the lunch counter when it opens but since I thought I was going to be short of cash I have a little stash of food in my bag, which I consume with my hands as I wait. (I wonder what locals think of me, an obvious gringo, operating like a poor person.) The bus, while it has TVs mounted above some seats, and probably A/C and heat…activates none of them. It also has a non-functioning bathroom in the back for this five-hour trip. The temperature in the bus doesn’t become tolerable until 8 am or so. By 9 I’ve taken my sweater off, as the sun comes out and we drop in altitude. It’s been so chilly most days and evenings in Antigua for the last few weeks I am really looking forward to warmer weather at sea-level, but when we reach Rio Dulce it is cloudy and just pleasant. People are saying there is some polar air mass moving down through Mexico and Guate, making the weather chillier than usual. I'm not sure how I'll find the launch for Livingston, but "the tourist industry" takes care of that: when I step down off the bus, a young guide essentially grabs me with the call, “Livingston!” He gathers up the other two gringos who were on the bus – a young couple who have kept to themselves and looked at noone - and we go down to buy tickets for the public launch. I walk with the guide and am pleased that my still-minimal Spanish makes possible a shallow conversation about the weather and his brother who lives in L.A. He says it is even COLDER in Livingston than here at Rio Dulce. I am lucky again – the ticket is $13 one-way, not the $26 it cost for the shared private launch last time – however although I got up so early to be in R. Dulce before the “last launch” I’d heard about at 1 pm, it is still only 11:20 am and the launch not leaving until 1:30 “or when it’s full.” I go next door to a restaurant overlooking the water, opt for a hamburger and fries (something I rarely eat,) and wait, watching the ducks and a coconut floating in the water next to the deck. The food arrives – a huge hamburger, lots of very crispy delicious fries, and a huge tart limeade in a chalice decorated with cherries. About $5. A young man walks past me and dumps what appears to be a large bowl of soup into the beautiful river. He turns, sees me, quickly says “Hola!” and laughs at my exaggerated shocked look. I watch boats and people come and go, some of them fisherman standing up poling their carved wood barcas. Suddenly there is flurry of very small fish in the water in front of me – can they be after the soup? I check; there’s a much greater congregation in that part of the water than anywhere else. The launch is finally ready and I am startled to see it is piloted by two boys who look about 12 and 17, however the older one turns out to be the best pilot I’ve ridden with. We follow pretty much the same route as last visit, minus the wonderful lilypad lagoon. I chat and joke a bit with the 20 or so young travelers from Germany, Australia, France and America, but everyone is traveling in couples and groups. There is one apparently-gringo man my age on the boat, speaking perfect Spanish with his handsome 20-something son. Along the route we drop off a young couple who have decided on an overnite at a riverside Bed and Breakfast run by what looks like a 30-something hippie couple who’ve bought here on a lagoon off the Rio Dulce. The boatmen don’t know the place the couple describes and are not even familiar with the little tributary the B&B is on, but conversations with passing boatmen provide the directions. What a Paradise! A redwood A-frame house visible in the thick dark green foliage that borders the water; other structures half-hidden behind it, and a friendly welcome. A girl in the group who also speaks rapid perfect Spanish gets off at the dock of the school project - Ak-Tenamit - that we stopped at last time. She is going to “stay the night in a Mayan village and walk to Livingston through the jungle” mañana. I beg to get off at the same place – momentarily – as I wanted to buy some crafts objects last time but had no money. The guide agrees to “diez minutos” and I run up the walk, quickly select my carved and painted gourd bowls, and off we go again – churning water downriver toward Livingston. After the obligatory stop at the hot springs on the edge of the river (steaming water coming out of the foot of the mountain) we land about 5 pm. A Rasta guy hits the boat immediately with a “bid” for his Hotel Viajero at $4 per night. Several folks head for there – I look at one room; clean but very sparse. I part from them and continue down the street to look for the hotel where I’ve reserved a room for four nights at $20 per night, which sounded cheap until I got here. On the way I run into a group of drummers walking along – two of whom I’d met in Antigua. One I’ve never spoken to recognizes me and gives me the traditional kiss on both cheeks, as does the guy I know better. He says they will be playing tonight at 10 pm, then extricates himself to follow his friends, saying, “We’ll see you later!” What a nice welcome to Livingston! Livingston is a community of about 5000, on a jungle-covered peninsula on the Rio Dulce, accessible only by water. The town itself is slightly hilly, and rambling - concrete block houses interspersed with some thatched-roof huts or cabins, empty lots full of banana and coconut trees, brush, some flowering bushes, trash, and scavenging, mangy dogs. The main roads are paved with concrete, not cobblestones like Antigua, although there are some with interlocked concrete blocks. Children run all over town, on their own. There are few beggars and no hawkers, such as we encountered in Jamaica, but all along the street, there are tiny carts or makeshift tents with food or other goods in front of the many small stores of every sort. Because it is essentially an “island” there are few cars, but many bikes and motorcycles, and many more pedestrians. My hotel – Casa Rosada – is very pretty, but a long way from the area I presume most activities will take place. I look at the rustic bungalow I’ve reserved, with its traditional peaked roof covered with dry banana leaves, capped with a tin cone. The place is very pretty, right on the river, with flowers and a few pieces of hand-painted furniture in the clean but simple rooms, but the bathrooms are communal and only one has hot water. Seems like a comparatively steep price for this. I decide I will look around for something else, and see if I can change. I throw my bags down and go out to check the town before nightfall. I run into two folks from the boat collapsed on their bags on the sidewalk near where we docked. One of their group has gone to look for a hotel. I tell them about mine and about Viajero, and walk on. I see the hotel - Via del Mar - my Garifuna drummer “friend” mentioned to me when they were in Antigua. I ask about a room there, on the second floor with sort of a view of the bay: “Oh si, no problema.” It is bare but clean, and overlooks the street where a lot of activities will go on. In part this means I won’t have a long walk home alone after midnite or whenever the music stops. It is 25Q per nite or about $3.50. I don’t know if I can get out of my reservation for four nites, but will try in the morning. At the ocean (actually a huge bay) at the other end of the main street, the fairly smooth grey water comes right up to the shore – no sandy beaches. This is about 1-1/2 miles away from my hotel via the street. There I find another group from the boat sitting at a table outside a restaurant, drinking beer with a young local guy in a Rasta cap. They invite me to sit and I order the best lemonade of my life. They make it by blending the whole unpeeled lemon so it’s deliciously tart and tasty. It turns out these kids have been studying in Antigua, so I spend the next couple of hours listening to these young internationals tell stories of the night-life I miss in Antigua, gossiping about people, other places they’ve traveled, and so on. They are very welcoming to me and include me in the conversation, and I make joking remarks from time to time, and by now even have a few simple travel stories. Then the cook brings out their dinners: great curry and a traditional Garifuna dish called Topada. Eventually there is some broth left over from this, so I order more piping hot garlic bread and we all dip it in the broth. The Hispanic man at our table, Prince, eventually walks off with me and a very tall 19-year-old German (Elena) to show us where the bar is where the Garif music will be, later. We get hung up at the internet place where Elena does her email while Prince tells me his love-troubles (in good English – his father is from Livingston but he went to high school in L.A. and his mother and stepfather now live in Texas.) We discuss ethical and emotional responses to his situation [I can’t escape my profession.] We then leave Elena, who is still emailing back to Germany. He shows me the bar I was introduced to last time, in a slightly different place than I thought and looking much more colorful outside than I remembered it from the brief trip just a few months ago. Then I walk back to my room to take a nap before the music begins at 10, knowing there’s a good chance I will sleep right thru it since I’ve been up since 3 am, but recognizing there will be music all weekend. I wake at 3 am, listen to the crickets, the water lapping gently at the dock near my bed, and a few dogs barking in the surrounding community, and go back to sleep. What a treat all this is!