A world gone by in the blink of an eye

When did we arrive in Guatemala again: wasn´t it yesterday?
No, actually we have already completed more than 6 months here. That leaves only 6 months more to go. Considering the daunting tasks that we have set ourselves this is hardly anything and staying here becomes a tempting proposition. Now it feels like you have gained a good understanding how things go here (or don´t go) and can try to realize some more ambitious projects like:

• Connecting N.P.H. with the United World Colleges and maybe getting some of our kids at least to apply to the Colleges
• Improving intercultural understanding between Guatemalans and Volunteers
• Increasing our kids´ participation in the running of the orphanage affairs in the form of a student representative
• Collecting donations for a new playground so the kids after the old dangerous one was take down - on this one I will get back to all of you soon...
• And of course prevent that any more kids have to leave the orphanage unecessarily

Not that suddenly our daily tasks have gotten all boring so that we needed to look for fresh meat. In fact the English Department has lost one of its volunteers, which still leaves us scrambling find a new teacher. Here is Analida Campos, one of the two Guatemalan teachers at the English Department with her favourite pajarito. Next to her is Eduardo, one of my ¨cool kid¨ students.

Summer has not only brought us an avalanche of rain clouds pouring out their contents over and into our houses. It is also bringing a storm of visitors from the States and Europe asking to be entertained. Bring it on!

In order to tackle this scary mountain of work ¨head on¨ we have been taking some awesome vacations all over the place.

First there was a school trip to Semuc Champey, a natural wonder carrying a magical atmosphere. The Maya name Semuc Champey means ¨where the water goes underground¨ because a river going through a steep jungle valley takes a deep dive under a natural limestone bridge for about 300 meters.

As if that wasn´t cool enough the water coming down the slopes of the valley has formed wonderful pools of turqoise water on top of teh bridge. Cascades of blue water run into each other between groups of reed, leaving you searching for the odd lake nymph or God Pan´s little horns. The sea nymphs are easy to find actually: if you stand still in the water they will gently nibble on your toes in the form of little fish. How tempting to lie down and say goodbye to the world.

It took a whole 10 gruelling camioneta ride hours crammed with 60 kids into one bus to get to Semuc so we took the opportunity and also went on a hunt for Guatemala´s national bird, the Quetzal, in the cloud forests of the Biotopo del Quetzal. Very green it all was and I am certain that we passed the emerald green Quetzal many times while the nifty bird was cracking up for laughter behind us.

Its siren call (some like ¨guap-guap jing jing¨) enchanted and lured us ever deeper into the green hell to become appetizers for the scary monsters.

We battled them all back of course and caught the Quetzal in the end in its creative hiding place: in our wallets (Guatemala´s currency is called the Quetzal). Celebrating our triumph we spend our spoils right away for something almost as precious - Tortrix Lemon Chips, a Quetzal a Quetzal, jummy! It was great to spend this quality time with the kids outside of school, jamming in the night with the teachers, and getting rocked into your sleep with your legs behind your ears on the bus. Good times.

Now that was clearly a nice warm up so Bertine and me decided to take our main vacation course a la Mexicana. We had to leave Guatemala to renew our visas so our choice easily fell on visiting Tapachula and Playa Linda in Chiapas just after the Mexican-Guatemalan border.

Unexpectedly this became an eye-opening experience. In landscape and climate very comparable to many Guatemalan cities, Tapachula had a crucial advantage - it was an actual city with a Central Park, Cafés, nice shops, a pleasant relaxing atmosphere and a working garbage system. Chimaltenango, the same size of Tapachula, lacks all of that except a Central Park. Even its inhabitants say its a terrible city to live in with all its chaos, noise and pollution. The Mexican state of Chiapas is one of the country´s poorest yet it still easily beats all of Guatemala in terms of liveability. How can that be? One probable factor is of course Mexico´s relative achievement of stability while Guatemala has been busy tearing itself apart for the last 40 years (first the civil war until 1996 and now the gangs). While Guatemala probably has a similar concentration of perverse amounts of wealth in the hands of a few families, Mexico seems to sport much of something like a middle class. Guatemalan teachers, officials, small business owners who could form a middle class are desperately vulnerable to even the slightest bad economic vibrations while in Mexico they appear to be a lot more confident.

As a passing visitor to Mexico I was impressed by how confidently people were strolling the streets of Tapachula until late at night. That this does not happen nearly as much in much of Guatemala owes a lot to the terrible security situation which makes people too afraid to go out with their families. Instead most social life takes place inside the houses and courtyards. I cannot imagine to have positive effects of this on civil society in Guatemala.

Reading a development economics papers on the situation could of course give you a much clearer view of the reasons for this difference in development. However, I have always found the real-life impression of development differences to be crucial to really understanding the ground-perspective not only of what things look but also feel like. Even Guatemalans working in Mexico do not seem to feel terribly jealous of their neighbouring country at least not enough to want to go and live there. Most want to go, make some money and come back to Guatemala. Guatemala might be poor and in a rut but is a bloody lucky country for its people.

Tapachula surprised us in yet another way - with its superb pre-Colombian art museum. Here some highlights which show that the area was at the intersection between Olmec, Mayan and Toltek influences and made the very best of its location:

Arriving in Playa Linda ready to go beachin´ we were told there was no hotel around and we´d have to go back to Tapachula. After some pockin´ we however did encounter the bizare-fantastic Hotel ¨Arena de Cuarzo¨.

The hotel was built in the late 70´s by an Italian immigrant all in white and very stylish. We were the only guests and the tragic atmosphere of the place´s long-lost glory shining underneath the dust made it a splendid place to stay. It was a very Alessandro Baricco kind of place and it was truly inspiring to stay there...