(no subject)
Pharmacies here are sketchy. A friend of mine got an ear infection and, not wanting to return to the US in pain, went to a pharmacy to get some antibiotics. After a roughly translated IT HURTS ME IN THE MY EARS the pharmacist, who of course hopefully has training for what to provide in such cases, handed over some hefty antibiotics, sans prescription or anything. Apparently you can get anything up to and including morphine just that easy, by asking and paying.
I had an interesting experience yesterday regarding one of my Guatemalan friends. With the knowledge in my head that she goes to university here, her family owns two cars, she has a cell phone etc I pictured her family to be rather well off by standards here. Walking her home after a snack though, we proceeded to walk straight out of town, something I had never done before. I didn't have my camera, but the walk was on the non-existent shoulder of a four-lane highway. There was trash everywhere, random wrecked cars and shacks for stores/homes now and then. Lots of people were walking or biking down non-existent paths that were pretty much in the foliage. Her pueblo, Santa Ines is outside of town on the side of a hill surrounded by jungle forest stretching as far up as I could see with random jumbles of houses and teeny alleys. Her family's two cars were both about 30 years old and one was broken, and they have 10 people from the extended family living in their house. She is very, very, very lucky that her parents are paying for her to go to university and she knows it. Not a lot of people get to go to university. Walking around the pueblo all the little kids playing soccer and just about everyone else was looking at me like I was an alien, which I was, even though in Antigua just minutes away tourists are everywhere and nobody cares at all.
I had an interesting experience yesterday regarding one of my Guatemalan friends. With the knowledge in my head that she goes to university here, her family owns two cars, she has a cell phone etc I pictured her family to be rather well off by standards here. Walking her home after a snack though, we proceeded to walk straight out of town, something I had never done before. I didn't have my camera, but the walk was on the non-existent shoulder of a four-lane highway. There was trash everywhere, random wrecked cars and shacks for stores/homes now and then. Lots of people were walking or biking down non-existent paths that were pretty much in the foliage. Her pueblo, Santa Ines is outside of town on the side of a hill surrounded by jungle forest stretching as far up as I could see with random jumbles of houses and teeny alleys. Her family's two cars were both about 30 years old and one was broken, and they have 10 people from the extended family living in their house. She is very, very, very lucky that her parents are paying for her to go to university and she knows it. Not a lot of people get to go to university. Walking around the pueblo all the little kids playing soccer and just about everyone else was looking at me like I was an alien, which I was, even though in Antigua just minutes away tourists are everywhere and nobody cares at all.