entry of many entries...
I'm still not able to get my mind around Guatemala. I've been home (I just looked at my watch to see what the date today is -- but it being going on midnight as it is, it's between dates. There's the last part of an seven on the left, and the first part of a two on the right) sixteen days now, and I'm still thinking about it most constantly. It just comes down to the fact that it's absolutely and all-encompassingly sad. I may go grab my journal that I kept down there and find some things to transcribe into here:
June 30, Wednesday - ...All I know is that the children are wonderful and I was able to make them happy in the square before the church's shadow when I would grab their little wrists and spin them around in circles. The children are enough to make one cry.
July 1, Thursday - ...This is all making me loathe and question the way I live. Fuck. These children are happy. But you wonder if that's because of their child-borne ingorance. They don't know of the lives they lead yet? Is that it? I'm also frustrated at myself for not being able to do this life any justice through my pictures...
July 2, Friday - ...Afterwards, we kicked the soccer ball around some more. I was kicking it horribly -- over a fence into someone's garden most every time. Apparantly, one time I hit a chicken -- hard. I didn't see it happen, but I guess I completely knocked it over. I did hear the noise it made, though...Before lunch, when we were leaving the classroom we had spent the day in, I wasn't thinking very straight and went around saying "los einto," whereas I meant to be saying "hasta luego." So, as I realized in afterthought, I told every last kid in that second grade class "I'm sorry" on my way out of their classroom.
July 4, Sunday - ...We went up to the church real quick, and I saw one of the most painful things I've ever seen. On the steps to the church, there was an overwhelmingly mad woman crouched on the balls of her feet, staring in wide-eyed fright at everything that happened around her. Not even looking at faces, just movements...
July 5, Monday - Today was hell. I got violently sick all night last night and barely slept. Between puking and shitting incessantly, all I could do was just lie in bed, shaking shivering in a cold sweat. I slept all day today. I hate saying it, because it certainly isn't the overall feeling of this trip, but right now I want nothing more than to be home. I have a fever and my insides are nonexistant. I hope tomorrow is better...
July 6, Tuesday - ...Our nights here are slowing down. They're calmer, quieter, somehow sadder than when we first arrived. In a modestly bad way, this place is taking its toll on all of us in a big way (in addition to physically). This is a hard, sad, difficult-to-swallow, draining, tearyeyed place to be that is so sharply contrasted to that of even Elmira. The physical labor is taking effect as we never do this kind of thing as American teenagers -- let alone most, or any, of the adults with us. We have been told by suburbanite lessons that the way that these San Lucans live is inadequate, almost inhuman. But it's not. We're just over-the-top, flamboyant, unnecessary people. BMWs don't matter, big houses don't matter. We are so sad in the fact that we think anually. How much money we make from January 1st to December 31st over and over again, only to repeat. These people don't work because of the money they will make, it barely has significance to them. They work for corn to make their tortillas with. They think in generations, not years. But the thing that makes me the saddest thus far is knowing that when I go home, I'll sit in front of my computer and get picked up by my dad on wednesdays and every other friday in his BMW, and I'll swim in his in-ground pool, and I'll cry into my big bed or my wide-wale sweater and never do anything about this. I'll think the thoughts, but not do anything. And I'll know I'm less of a person for it.
July 7, Wednesday - ...I went out for my walk after returning from recess with the school kids and took about a roll of pictures. Men asleep (dead?) on sidewalk, boys from school jumping at me, men walking by with 100s of pounds of sticks on his back, dog in Pepsi basketball court, sad children, happy children, cats, buildings, yards, roads, mirrors, Guatemala...There is no comparison on the exterior of how Elmirans and San Lucans live - and yet it's lovely to think that there are so many ways in which our livings are the same. Humans, on the whole, are all one.
July 8, Thursday - This time is going too fast. Tomorrow is our last day in San Lucas. I truly cannot believe how near to an end our trip is.
July 9, Friday - ...I don't really want to leave. It not only doesn't seem like we've been here for as long as we have, it also doesn't physically look like I've written 10 or 11 days worth of words in this book. I'm very confused about this going home thing. How it breaks down is that I don't want to leave, but I do want to be home...I learned today that Guatemala literally means "land of trees" or something like that...We traveled 30 minutes (standing in the bed of a truck) outside of San Lucas to a small village that was hit by a mudslide a year and a half ago. Por Venir was the name...A wall of water, mud, debris, rocks, trees 9 feet tall came through the village and took the fast majority with it. Families simply disappeared. The man that showed us around told us of how one could hear the slide coming, but didn't know what it was, so simply hid under the covers of their beds in their shanties and that was it...The people of the town that survived, who had surely greatly loved the village, aftewards just packed up and moved. Just gave up. The Mayan prieists who ritualized in gorges on beds of pineneedles gave up...I don't want to leave here.
July 10, Saturday - We left San Lucas today. I miss it horribly already, just half a day later. It hit me this morning that I have taken so many less pictures on this trip than I had hoped and expected to take. So, as a result of that, I took copius amounts of pictures in the hour or so before we left this morning in order to 'compensate' for that...[in Guatemala City] We ended up outside of a barber shop, waiting for taxis in the rain and watching a couple fighting as they waited for their daughter to finish getting her hair cut. The woman tearily looked at her daughter straight ahead and he kept saying "I'm sorry" to her profile and acting sympathetically. The little girl's hair turned out terribly and the woman paid for it, crying and stroking her head. Things aren't so much different here in this big city than in any other big city, it seems.
July 11, Sunday - Today was spent at Tikal -- one of the most astounding places on this endless earth. It's what is considered to be the birthplace of the Mayan civilization, and is physically now a multi-dozen square mile national park strewn about with a handful of stone temples, pyramids, observatories, and graves. Just to think that they did all of this thousands of years ago (900 B.C.) is beyond my ability to comprehend.
July 12, Monday - ...Some planes depart and some never arrive...
These are just excerpts -- What I found important. It's mostly thoughts, not the concretes of how our time was spent there.
Something or other has put forth the situation in which I am not able to scan pictures at the moment...so none from Guatemala can be put up quite yet. But it'll happen (I hope).
June 30, Wednesday - ...All I know is that the children are wonderful and I was able to make them happy in the square before the church's shadow when I would grab their little wrists and spin them around in circles. The children are enough to make one cry.
July 1, Thursday - ...This is all making me loathe and question the way I live. Fuck. These children are happy. But you wonder if that's because of their child-borne ingorance. They don't know of the lives they lead yet? Is that it? I'm also frustrated at myself for not being able to do this life any justice through my pictures...
July 2, Friday - ...Afterwards, we kicked the soccer ball around some more. I was kicking it horribly -- over a fence into someone's garden most every time. Apparantly, one time I hit a chicken -- hard. I didn't see it happen, but I guess I completely knocked it over. I did hear the noise it made, though...Before lunch, when we were leaving the classroom we had spent the day in, I wasn't thinking very straight and went around saying "los einto," whereas I meant to be saying "hasta luego." So, as I realized in afterthought, I told every last kid in that second grade class "I'm sorry" on my way out of their classroom.
July 4, Sunday - ...We went up to the church real quick, and I saw one of the most painful things I've ever seen. On the steps to the church, there was an overwhelmingly mad woman crouched on the balls of her feet, staring in wide-eyed fright at everything that happened around her. Not even looking at faces, just movements...
July 5, Monday - Today was hell. I got violently sick all night last night and barely slept. Between puking and shitting incessantly, all I could do was just lie in bed, shaking shivering in a cold sweat. I slept all day today. I hate saying it, because it certainly isn't the overall feeling of this trip, but right now I want nothing more than to be home. I have a fever and my insides are nonexistant. I hope tomorrow is better...
July 6, Tuesday - ...Our nights here are slowing down. They're calmer, quieter, somehow sadder than when we first arrived. In a modestly bad way, this place is taking its toll on all of us in a big way (in addition to physically). This is a hard, sad, difficult-to-swallow, draining, tearyeyed place to be that is so sharply contrasted to that of even Elmira. The physical labor is taking effect as we never do this kind of thing as American teenagers -- let alone most, or any, of the adults with us. We have been told by suburbanite lessons that the way that these San Lucans live is inadequate, almost inhuman. But it's not. We're just over-the-top, flamboyant, unnecessary people. BMWs don't matter, big houses don't matter. We are so sad in the fact that we think anually. How much money we make from January 1st to December 31st over and over again, only to repeat. These people don't work because of the money they will make, it barely has significance to them. They work for corn to make their tortillas with. They think in generations, not years. But the thing that makes me the saddest thus far is knowing that when I go home, I'll sit in front of my computer and get picked up by my dad on wednesdays and every other friday in his BMW, and I'll swim in his in-ground pool, and I'll cry into my big bed or my wide-wale sweater and never do anything about this. I'll think the thoughts, but not do anything. And I'll know I'm less of a person for it.
July 7, Wednesday - ...I went out for my walk after returning from recess with the school kids and took about a roll of pictures. Men asleep (dead?) on sidewalk, boys from school jumping at me, men walking by with 100s of pounds of sticks on his back, dog in Pepsi basketball court, sad children, happy children, cats, buildings, yards, roads, mirrors, Guatemala...There is no comparison on the exterior of how Elmirans and San Lucans live - and yet it's lovely to think that there are so many ways in which our livings are the same. Humans, on the whole, are all one.
July 8, Thursday - This time is going too fast. Tomorrow is our last day in San Lucas. I truly cannot believe how near to an end our trip is.
July 9, Friday - ...I don't really want to leave. It not only doesn't seem like we've been here for as long as we have, it also doesn't physically look like I've written 10 or 11 days worth of words in this book. I'm very confused about this going home thing. How it breaks down is that I don't want to leave, but I do want to be home...I learned today that Guatemala literally means "land of trees" or something like that...We traveled 30 minutes (standing in the bed of a truck) outside of San Lucas to a small village that was hit by a mudslide a year and a half ago. Por Venir was the name...A wall of water, mud, debris, rocks, trees 9 feet tall came through the village and took the fast majority with it. Families simply disappeared. The man that showed us around told us of how one could hear the slide coming, but didn't know what it was, so simply hid under the covers of their beds in their shanties and that was it...The people of the town that survived, who had surely greatly loved the village, aftewards just packed up and moved. Just gave up. The Mayan prieists who ritualized in gorges on beds of pineneedles gave up...I don't want to leave here.
July 10, Saturday - We left San Lucas today. I miss it horribly already, just half a day later. It hit me this morning that I have taken so many less pictures on this trip than I had hoped and expected to take. So, as a result of that, I took copius amounts of pictures in the hour or so before we left this morning in order to 'compensate' for that...[in Guatemala City] We ended up outside of a barber shop, waiting for taxis in the rain and watching a couple fighting as they waited for their daughter to finish getting her hair cut. The woman tearily looked at her daughter straight ahead and he kept saying "I'm sorry" to her profile and acting sympathetically. The little girl's hair turned out terribly and the woman paid for it, crying and stroking her head. Things aren't so much different here in this big city than in any other big city, it seems.
July 11, Sunday - Today was spent at Tikal -- one of the most astounding places on this endless earth. It's what is considered to be the birthplace of the Mayan civilization, and is physically now a multi-dozen square mile national park strewn about with a handful of stone temples, pyramids, observatories, and graves. Just to think that they did all of this thousands of years ago (900 B.C.) is beyond my ability to comprehend.
July 12, Monday - ...Some planes depart and some never arrive...
These are just excerpts -- What I found important. It's mostly thoughts, not the concretes of how our time was spent there.
Something or other has put forth the situation in which I am not able to scan pictures at the moment...so none from Guatemala can be put up quite yet. But it'll happen (I hope).