Whatta pisser

Where it has ended up costing me $850 in legal fees to have a UIP (Urinating in Public) citation expunged from my permanent record -- thanks to an alert crime fighting police duo working latenight undercover in an empty Charlotte parking garage last spring, and who, ignoring my cordial compliance with their every inquiry and demand, indulged in the powertrip of constantly reminding me, "We can take you to jail right now. Wanna go to jail for the night?" -- in Guatemala any place a man can plant two feet is a public toilet. Everyday I see the phallically-endowed suddenly veer from their paths and, shielded by turned backs, relieve themselves roadside. And yet half the population radiates scorn should I run past barechested.

Keeping with reminiscence, I just had a classic American moment. Not quite eating an entire Trader Joe's frozen carrot cake in one sitting, and certainly not a repeat of representative feat of good ol' American gluttony nonetheless: upping my daily consumption of pastel de coco to two hefty, indeed already Texas-sized, portions. The type of $8 slices dates share after a nice steakhouse dinner, hefted into my to-go back for Q$6 each. It's a heavy cake, literally, with a dense cake portion and sufficient frosting, but not the inch-thick layers necessary to satiate a frosting-fiend like me. The solution: eat all the cake from one slice, leaving an L-shaped surface of frosting, then tip the untouched slice on its side and layer the extra frosting atop, effectively creating a side-and-top iced slice of bliss, a triangularly-cut piece that is frosted like a corner chunk from a rectangular cake. Or, another option I haven't tried -- maybe tomorrow -- is draping the lonely layer of icing directly over the icing of the slice still intact, like an icing-armor upgrade or a vanilla-frosting cape.

Taming the Lion

I have only to endure one additional five day deluge of mind-cluttering conjugations until I can catch a bus to Chichicastenango for the city-sized Sunday market, then waste a few days in Guate dodging armed robberies and seeking out the Patsy chain of pastelerias with tiered cakes beore I jet to Aruba for a mini family reunion, trading third-world struggles for first-world excess. Resort life: prepaid drinks and eats during a week of beachside splendor. I'm salivating for cakes sliced into American proportions with blizzards' accumulations of fresh white frosting, longing for menus where "steak" signifies a hunk of meat thicker and tenderer than a t-shirt. Stiff mixed drinks and hoppy imported beers will feed a steady stream of clear urine belying the dehydration I'm suffering in the sun.

I doubt I'll be able to find rellenitos though, my new favorite Guatemalteco snack, an alternative take on the popular plates of planatos fritos con frijoles y crema: rellenitos are platanos mashed and then reformed around a thick paste of sweetened refried black beans, then fried until crispy and golden brown. The final product resembles a fresh foods Twinkie summoned from Dimension Unprocessed and Unchemically Altered (which is nearby but securely separate from Dimension X, so there's no risk that preparing rellenitos will transform your frying pan into a portal for Armageddon, General Trag, Bebop and Rocksteady not a threat to burst into your kitchen in a spray of spattering oil).

Until Aruba I expect my vision will be blurred and judgement impaired by the pursuit of a woman: the traditionally garbed bottlefront sketch adorning every bottle of Quezalteca Especial. Friday night she led me and two fellow gringos into the neighborhood den of seediness: La Cantina el Rinconcito. Mildred, my maestra, had advised against our patronage, suggesting instead the nearby La Estrella, reasoning, "It's safer and cleaner. La Estrella doesn't allow borrachos to snort coke off its tables." But already swigs deep into the Quezalteca, carrying a half can of Cola to chase gulps from my next 1/8th liter bottle, el Rinconcito was a fated adventure.

When we entered three or four drunks were slouched against walls, balancing within a lurch of the bars from behind which are dispensed bottles of beer and liquor. Not drinks. Bottles. We ordered our bottles and before I could clear a chug a diminutive man who was watching at least three of me sidled up and said something about Jean Claude Van-Damme, then Chuck Norris. As usual in San Pedro, the bums speak the best English, always enough to ask you for a drink or a few Quetzales and recite the names -- accompanied by the requisite handchops and halfkicks -- of the butchers of acting and bad guys who dominate American superaction cinema.

After I passed the bottles of liquor and Coke to Devin, friend and fellow student from Denver, a blue t-shirt clad man stumbled into the room, spouting nonsense as his eyes pinballed about his sockets, his hands and arms disassociated entities rising and falling, waving and gesturing without any discernable pattern or motive. His fingernails appeared to have been cultivated for years, his fingers permanently mangled, like crooked and bentback remnants from a hobby of slamming them in heavy wooden doors. Afraid anything could rile the man further, his finger-and-fist assaults on his own cranium increasingly violent by the second, I turned around to talk to the bartender, hoping his eyes might indicate were I about to be impaled by knife or fingernail.

My drunken spanish exhausted itself after the usual introductory probing and I turned back to the floor, where the maniac was removing his shirt, staring down my other friend, Florian. Suddenly he turned to me, dropped his shirt, raised both hands with fingers fanned and fashioned into crude claws and began roaring like a lion. With a hybrid gulp-laugh I stepped past the drunk and exited the bar, as did Devin, and shortly Florian too, followed by the manimal still babbling ominous nonsense in Florian's face. The beast kicked at nothing like Bruce Lee in super slo-mo, much to the delight of the short kung fu fanatic who'd likewise followed the action into the street. The bartender ever materialized from behind his barricade, poking his head out of a doorway into the street to motion that we should leave, alternately pointing toward the raving Guatemalteco and aiming the same finger at his own temple, air-tracing invisible cones in the swift rotations thereof.

And we walked to La Estrella, where an extra Quetzal per bottle is the price of safety.

Fresca como una lechuga

The house has emptied out, Mama Claudia popping in from Guate to recollect her rascals, Melida and Mariori. When Mingito and Jacueline are at home with Ana Maria and I'm lounging in the hammock enraptured by Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, the only sound to break the silence is the soft slapping of palm on dough, the gentle spanking of barely resistant fistfuls of dough into flat, round tortillas to be fired on the comal the ritual premeal toll.

It's when we sit down for meals that -- if I were a God-fearing man -- I'd be concerned about my soul. As it is, I'm content to respect the religious beliefs of friends and family and enemies too while reserving my Sunday mornings for worship at the waffle iron, especially when I can get my hands sticky with authentic Vermont maple syrup. Guatemala is like home in that Bible-beltish kind of way. Which is fine and well, except I'm uncomfortable attempting to explain my lack of religion to a wonderful and devout family that prays before every meal. I think admitting "Soy ateo," would have me ostracized faster than a pedophile at preschool. (If that analogy is too much to stomach, substitute "Christian Laettner at a 1992 UK basketball reunion.")

As it is, I've adopted Davidson College Presbyterian Church as my place of worship, because I once entered for a wedding during the proceedings of which God was invoked or mentioned at least. For now I can rely upon my lacking language skills to circumvent discussion of the finer points of Presbyterianism, of which the only components I'm certain are the Bible and God. I've found myself engaged in two animated ¡Gracias a Dios! for all that has and will pass conversations, compelled to join to the fervent nodding and gesticulating toward the heavens. And I bow my head premeal and mumble thanks for Obama and the success of various sports teams and the wonder of peristalsis, continuing to thwart my strict diet of bowel cloggers if somewhat irregularly, and sometimes just strings of gibberish, my brand of speaking in tongues.

I'll admit, it feels wrong. But funny too. Like the other day when Melida and Melani decided to click buttons on my iPod and split earbuds. I started them on Smashing Pumpkins, unconcerned they could unwittingly navigate to Project Pat's X-rated glamorizations of Memphis street life, their English vocabularies limited to a short game of point-and-mispronounce-this-facial-feature. When they air-guitared my way, mock headbanging toward whiplash, I was a little startled they had discovered Aborted, a Belgian death metal band every bit as brutal and inappropriate for children as the name implies. I redirected them to Mountain Goats, locked the iPod, and found myself spewing sincere thanks to a subject unspecified: that Mama Melida wasn't around to witness the pumping of Satan into her angels' heads, and at eardrum rupturing decibels to completely destroy my credibility as a responsible guardian.

For the Babies

Families in Central America accumulate children like I used to collect baseball cards. Like babymaking is a pastime. This is partly due to religious condemnations of contraception and, I think, to a severe lack of education and foresight which allows the poverty-stricken to ignore the enormous costs of raising children for the money-making potential inherent in every breathing body. But every American adult knows there's only one good reason to birth a barnful of tots: more goodiebags to riad come Halloween! There's no Halloween in Central America, however, and as far as I know cannibalism is still condemned by Christianity, so I'm not witnessing some widespread stockpiling of protein snacks the way disaster-wary Americans load up on canned goods. But maybe the Mayans are taking those 2012 catastrophe predictions a bit more seriously than I'd realized...

Feeling Desserted

Despite the fact that I've compiled a pagelong checklist of foods I intend to gorge myself upon in a self-inflicted binge that might well end like a particular scene in 7even, I'm hardly dissatisfied with Central American dining. I still love the tortillas that appear fresh from the comal the moment the cloth-wrapped and basketed stock tablecenter begins to dwindle. My hostmom's version of tomalitas, essentially surfboard shaped bars of ground maíz moistened, compacted and cooked, are a delicious sometimes substitution, though I do prefer tortillas.

I've enjoyed chuchitos, which are small tamales, thus made from maíz, filled with a tomato-based sauce and chunks of meat wrapped and cooked in corn husks. Paches are phenomenal, papas-based cousins of tamales, thickly mashed potatoes mixed with a tomato sauce then packed around combinations of meats, vegetables, and the mandatory hot chili, then wrapped in giant green leaves and cooked. And dobladas are a deep fried delight, fried tortillas stuffed with, in Mama Meli's kitchen, papas o arroz, then served smothered in shredded cabbage, salsa, and jalepeños.

But Mom's carrot cake, thickly spread with rich cream cheese frosting, Grandma's Thanksgiving strawberry pies, and Aunt Lily's skyscraping Pineapple-Coconut cake, not to mention Landmark Diner's entire dessert case and Cuz Jamie's Michigan blueberry pie, are never far from my mind when I attempt to appease my sweet tooth with snackpacks of cookies.

Getting to know San Pedro La Laguna: Cantina El Rinconcito

Cantina El Rinconcito is one hundred meters from my host family's home, the liquor dispensing establishment favored by San Pedro's drunks. El Rinconcito defines "drinking establishment": two concrete-floored rooms with doors to the street barren save a single small plastic table stashed in a dirty corner each, both with an interior barred window too, which divides the drinking rooms from the third room, with the liquor stock and cantina attendant, from the withdrawing incoherents who stumble in during the AM hours. The dirty cobblestones outside the entrances are usually occupied by slumped, mumbling heaps of humanity, the ones who can keep afoot more likely to accost fair-skinned foreigners for a few quetzales. Eerily, disproportionate numbers of roaming canines seem to succomb to the hopelessness on that stretch of street too, splayed in the dust separated from roadkill only by a faint pulse.

The cantina's charm, I'm sure, is obvious after sufficient hard drinking. And when the doorstep patrons are generous to add a little color. For instance the old man I passed last night, sitting, cradling in his lap one arm that looked like it had been dipped in a bucket of red paint, the dark pool on the cobblestones between his drawnup knees trickling downgrade between his feet, in tiny rivers diverging and converging and diverging to reconverge again in the crevices between the stone dodecagons, slowly fanning into a bloody reef.

Baller Bloggin'

Playing basketball most afternoons on San Pedro La Laguna's new centertown court is a hybrid of fun and frustration. Losing in any competition -- from card games to eating to, especially, sports -- is known to provoke my transition from Smiley to Satan as suddenly and uncontrollably as a muscle spasm. So it's problematic when one's teammates' idea of defense is ball chasing so rabid the only logical conclusion is that the opposing team is tossing an orb that grants immortality upon touch. The inevitable procession of uncontested layups equates to afternoons of one-and-done. Man-to-man defense: such a simple concept. How many times can someone commit the same mistakes without learning?

And then I consider my Spanish studies.

Right.

Otherwise, I've settled into a routine, which suits the order-lover in me. Study, eat, exercise, and sleep. To spice a boring afternoon gouge a shallow, five-inch long gash in my scalp on rusty barbwire, failing to remove all the flakes of grime during the post-injury shower, leaving that up to my alcohol and gauze armed spanish instructor cum sexy nurse the following morning, when the wound had turned greenish. Seriously, what's an adventure without the threat of lockjaw?

Barry: cool, guatemala sounds like squatemala

There are few games uglier than Guatemalan men's basketball. If the women aren't fundamentally sounder, at least their slower, more deliberate pace produces the illusion. It's obvious some Sega-freak implemented NBA Jam as the official tutorial for Guatemalan men because they believe that triple-threat position (a traditionally crouched and grounded stance from which a player can dribble, pass, or shoot) occurs sometime amidst midair contortion.

Where traditional, Gold medal-winning philosophy stresses players never leave their feet without predetermined intent, a Guatemalteco hooper's sole intent is to pluck a pass from the air and sprint the minimum number of steps required to maximize his leaping ability. Presumably, the idea is that his 18-inch verticle will bring him to the height of the average American point guard (or mythical Guatemalteco), from where he'll be able to survey the court and make a play. Yes, Guatemalteco is like NBA Jam minus the fundamentals and played with human physical limitations.

The consequences of faking premeal prayer by mumbling Spanish sounding gibberish

A booming voice startled me from sleep before 5am this morning, eulogizing the dead while locals from all corners of San Pedro slowly converged upon the source. Monologues and sessions of song successively surged through the distant loudspeakers, adjacent the cemetary, commencing el Dia de los Muertos. Shortly, a string of explosions jolted from my dreams any final prayer for sleep, bombas launched heavenward to stir any stubborn soul or diety whose Saturday night acquaintence with Quezalteca Especial was a touch too spirited.

Acquiescing to consciousness, I performed my near daily routine of situps and pushups before I was hailed downstairs for family breakfast, a delicious Sunday spread of carbs: pan de banano, pan de elote y huisquil, a green starch vegetable dispensed by tree in-yard, featured prominently in our diet of sopas, sopes, and today served solo, peeled and boiled. The pan de elote was exceptional, rivaling the subtly sweet perfection of my mom's corn muffins and the complimentary baskets served steaming at my favorite soul food outposts. The pan de banano was delicious too, but I have yet to find a loaf in Central America that approaches mom's. Huisquil is similar to a green potato, better as an ingredient or with accompaniment.

Yesterday was my first hanging solo with Guatemaltecos outside my homestay family. Early in the morning I speed-hiked a mountain in neighboring San Juan La Laguna, to Mirador Rostro Maya. The middle-aged father of my language school's coordinator was my climb partner, his respect earned after I dictated the speedy completion of the demanding climb circuit in record setting time. Sore quads and megabytes of photos survive as memories from the up and down workout.

In the afternoon Chema, the twenty-six year old coordinator at Corazón Maya language school, invited me to backseat on his moto while we powered uphill past town to San Pedro La Laguna's campo de futbol, an officially-sized and lined megasandbox. We watched parts of two league games, action-enveloping duststorms spawning from frantic footwork following scattershot toeballs crossfield. At night -- after I strolled through the raucous bewreathed and candlelit cemetary, escaping the circus of special occasion street vendors sandwiching the entranceway with just one Q$3 hunk of pan -- I joined Chema and his wife for sloppy hoops action at its finest: a señoras versus señoritas debacle on the municipality's new cancha de basquetbol, every whistle signaling a chaotic surge of youth sprinting and screaming and hoisting errant shots with an assortment of balls all over the court, often a scramble that ignored the referees' imploring whistles and returning jugadoras, lingering into the resumption of league play, amusing spectators by further confusing the action.

Afterward our trio parked on tienda steps while Chema and I fended the cold with lukewarm canned pints of Gallo. On the walk home I won the alleyway adventurer's award of spanish practice with two long-celebrating Guatemaltecos, a more or less coherent conversation that the sloppier-drunk of the two kept redirecting to martial arts with flatpalmed convergences of hand held centerchest preceding the signature half-bow, that he could summon his eyelids only halfmoon and his slurred speech I could imagine as any language completed the effect. Fifteen minutes and thanks but no thanks to offers for weed and the opportunity to buy the pair more drinks later, "Hasta luego," signaled the day's final ascent: to bed.

Sorry Mom and Dad

Situated on the majestic volcano and mountain encircled shores of Lago de Atitlán, Guatemala, San Pedro La Laguna exists for most tourists between the two arrival docks, a stretch of colorful storefronts, hippie-owned restaurants butchering international food and offering "special" brownies and cookies, and bars luring tourists with drink steals and American sports and cinema on TV. Townspeople venture into Gringoland to sell fresh-squeezed juices, basketfuls of warm pan, or handicrafts for an extra week's wage surcharge in quetzales. A few natives own and operate hotels, there's the one papuseria and a few Guatamalteco run restaurants. A handful of taxis crowd the docks offering tuk-tuk transport to lazy, bag-laden tourists who'll never do more than admire the steep hills rising into town proper and will be staying in a hotel a flat few hundred meters (maximum) from the dock. A shadier few with hoodies up and signature bloodshot eyes lurk in shadows and alleyways exercising their limited English, essentially the ability to ask, "What you need," and then run through a litany of illicit substances for smoke, snort, or syringe. But a quad-testing hike uphill reveals a different city entirely, closer to the third-world that characterizes much of Guatemala and Central America outside the major cities.

San Pedro above lake level is a grey concrete expanse. The ascending passageways are cobbled in varying degrees of danger to ankle ligaments. Those with a high dirt-to-stone ratio rearrange themselves during heavy rains. Every edifice bears the sharp edges of cinderblock construction and rusty tin roofing protects most homes, thin sheets spanning the poverty rainbow from dry blood reddish-brown to compost heap black. Tree limbs crudely fashioned into fenceposts and strewn with barbwire delineate dirtpatch yards; chimneys puff the breath of fresh tortillas from the moment the first rays of sunlight pierce the crisp morning cool. Men who don't work a farm, construction, or a store are simply there.

Dogs with countable ribs wander listlessly, following anyone holding so much as a candybar wrapper with a stray smear of chocolate or a sugary sprinkle tucked into their bushy mustache. Kids congregated in front of home-businesses kick and toss circular anythings in gestures of sport, donning tattered dusty clothes invariably sizes too small or large for their small frames, a few feet from a mother perched upon the entranceway steps with a basket of tortillas to vend. Traditionally dressed Mayan women stream by balancing baskets headtop, draped in flowing, intricately patterned cloths, multicolored garments that shame Crayola's suggestions of variety.

Amidst all this I've found a new family. Sorry Mom and Dad. Because I'm not entirely clear on the family surname -- the Spanish language has a tendency to keep things rather unclear for me -- we'll call it the household of Mama Melida (Meli for short) and Papa Mingo (who I see only in the evening, gone to work before my daily 7:30am breakfast). Besides the househeads, Tia Ana Maria, and myself, there are alternately between six and eight others in the household, a pack of tireless kids who love nothing more than wearing my watch and reporting every minute advancement: Mariori and Melani, ages four and five respectively, princesitas who shower me with hugs and kisses every time I reappear from Spanish class or a walk into town; Mingo (Mingito), a cool rascal of seven years who often sports a pair of blue goggles; Meli, eight years old, who communicates with me in words and at a pace slow enough that I can occasionally comprehend, generously accomodating my every "otra vez"; Jacuelin, nine years old, a cutie with an angelic voice who constantly keeps a sly eye on me; and Eric, twelve, a kite-flying professional patiently teaching me the craft, in the rare moments I escape Mariori and Melani's clutches. To be honest, I haven't figured out exactly who belongs to who, but that's the beauty of a Latin family: however tenuous the relationship, it's still family.

Yes, I love my (new) family, communicated through an everpresent smile and bobblehead-nodding which has the family convinced I understand far more of their conversations than the random words I actually intercept from their unbroken strings of Spanish. Thank you active listening. Mini-Meli, however, did write me a note that could heartwarm a statue of Stalin: "Tu eres parte de la familia. Te queremos mucho." I guess it really does pay to sincerely enjoy the insanity of kids. A sampling of the daily play routine: loose the family dog in the streets and run away while he chases; pretend to be various animals and crawl around imitating their sounds; pick up and/or hug Melani and Mariori; chase Melani and Mariori pretending to be a monster, until they face me and cross their arms, at which point I'm magically transformed into a benevolent aficionado of pirouettes, extending a hand to each from which they dangle and spin like ballerinas on a windup toy until they become too bored or dizzy and I momentarily revert to monster; using two dilapitated wooden ladders laid on the ground to simulate American football footspeed drills; and my personal favorite, "El Rey", which involves me sitting anywhere upon an imaginary throne and ordering objects I want, sending los niños scattering in search, the first to return with an object satisfying the requested-item-criteria awarded a point, though at no accumulation of points does one actually win or the game actually end. Tireless, imaginative kids. Much preferred to America's TV-mesmerized french fry fatties are my Guatemaltecos with carb-fed panzitas.

The food, too, is much to my liking. That fresh tortillas are served with every lunch and dinner goes without saying. And that every meal is abuzz with flies is something I came to terms with the moment I hit Mexico in September. With limited resources, Mama Meli does a commendable job. My first meal was homemade ceviche, basically pico de gallo with bits of raw shrimp "cooked" in lime juice. Seriously great stuff. The anticipated fare of black beans, rice, and eggs has been accented by platanos fritos, homemade tamales topped with cabbage, salsa, and jalapeños; some delicious dish combining ejotes, huevos, salsa y chilis; and various other combinations of the usual suspects with meat and a vegetable or two. The unexpected versatility proves the all too common homestayer's culinary complaints and dietary denunciations spew forth from filet-spoiled lips that deserve only a hearty helping of comida tipica fattened pompis.

Living with a family -- and one I believe is slightly more well off than average for San Pedro -- elucidates what closer-to-third-than-first-world actually means. Like almost every building in San Pedro, my family's home is constructed of cinderblocks, but with the luxury of near-Ace Hardware grade planks of wood for fenceposts. The ubiquitous snaggle of livewires powering the waterheating showerhead provides warm to hot water. Drinking water arrives in five-gallon jugs delivered by truck, but I brush my teeth with buckets of water from a stagnant pool floating with insect corpses, a deep reservoir central in a massive sink system.

The central dining and dish-cleaning area is covered but open air, doors to the shower and bathroom stall each opening from one wall. Two bedrooms and the kitchen/prep closet open along the two walls along and behind the kitchen table. I reside in a separate two-story structure adjacent the kitchen, forming the fourth wall, sheltering the kitchen from the gale force winds gusts that haven't abated since they arrived four days ago, chasing the rain and introducing the cool winter nights that will quickly see my single Davidson sweatshirt out of style. The first floor of my homey concrete behemoth is under construction, eventually providing a handful of additional rooms, but I occupy one of two dorms on the second level. I'm provided a double bed and ample blanketry, a desk, chair, and small shelf, a hammock outside and rooftop access to peer down upon the lake, across and around at the terrestrial undulations of the highlands, or up into the starry nights. I also have a toilet closet immediately atop the staircase, obscured by a hanging cloth flap which the incessant gusts have effectively rendered useless, whipping the flap about so anyone on the street or the courtyard can observe my every piss and plop. All part of a different perspective, no doubt.

Concerning school, I'm still slow at Spanish. The process is trying for someone who born sans a natural reserve of patience and I'm cursed with a beautiful young guatemalteca maestra not averse to flirtation. At twenty-two and single, Mildred is both the reason I've signed up for another week of classes and the reason I can only half-concentrate during session. She's patient and encouraging and part of a traditional family that make it tough for me to torment her outside of class. If I can improve my Spanish and my tan, then maybe, just maybe...

El Dia de los Muertos is Sunday, though the celebration takes place all weekend. I've been spending a lot of time in the cemetary the past few days, which has been crowded with people repainting, cleaning, and otherwise touching up the graves of loved ones. The cemetary is colorful, beautiful, and to be the place of jubilation (and a bit of libation) this weekend. Should be fun...

(And a tuk-tuk blasting DMX just rolled by...what a place!)