Martes, 21 de marzo

Today must be the first day of spring up north. Here however, it seems spring’s been going on for quite awhile. I hear it’s “cold and grey” in London and has been chilly in Venice, and apparently there’s been some huge blizzardy thing all the way from Denver to Ohio, if you can believe that____ but here it’s lovely, and if anything a bit too warm on the sunny side of the street, and the shady benches in the park tend to fill first.

In class today we covered definite and indefinite articles, pretty easy and straight forward, but glad to have the lowdown on them, and glad to have the break, after yesterday’s lesson on personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, demonstrative adjectives and demonstrative pronouns, proved to be kinda tricky____ the difference comes down to an accent mark or a definite article a lot of the times, and so, to my untrained eye and ear, they tend to look and sound the same. Anyway, yesterday was a little rough, today was fine… no tellin’ what tomorrow’ll hold. I’m just trying to get through one more week and then I’ll take my notes and study up on my own, and I hope find somebody to do a little practicing with.

After class, I went to the bagel barn and uploaded the last installment of this. It took longer than I’d expected, because the connection was slower than usual, but eventually it worked and I was able to upload some of the photos from the procession on Sunday (scroll down of course, if you want to see them). Then I came back to my room, did my homework and then went and read in the park. Wound up doing more talking than reading, but that was fun.

That’s it for today I think. Been giving thought to the necessity of seeing our options in order to attain fulfillment mixed with the burden of seeing our options and needing to choose from among them. Nobles oblige, the responsibility of freedom___ again, not new areas of thought, but important ones to revisit. I think that the catch 22ish irony can be broken through, but it’ll take a little puzzling.

miercoles, 22 de marzo

the lights just went out, I hope that doesn’t last too long. I just got home and I squandered the charge on the computer this afternoon, so I only have 24%/17 minutes remaining. Hmmm.

It would be better if I was a better typist and didn’t need to see the keys to type. Ahhhh, there they go, back on, but flickering. Cross your fingers for me, but of course by the time you’re reading this it’ll be a long solved situation and won’t matter anymore.

What do I do with my days and where do the days go? It’s all wrapped up in learning how to live in a strange environment. I have it so easy and yet make it harder on myself than I need to. I spend my mornings at class and it’s difficult, but the time flies by. Am I learning anything? Yes, I’m learning a lot, but can I speak Spanish after three weeks of studying?… only haltingly and awkwardly, and I sure can’t follow the conversations between the guatemaltecos.

I’ve got a lot of studying and practice ahead of me. I shoulda come down here fifteen years ago, but who knew?

After class, I come home and take a shower, wash any clothes that need it, today was socks, yesterday was t-shirts. The lines are often used for drying sheets/bedding, etc. that edgar has washed, or else the personal clothing of other guests. I do my few things a bit at a time. Then I go and find lunch, either at a restaurant or the market or on the street from one of the women who makes sandwiches__ no carne, por favor – el pollo? No, no pollo, gracias, aguacate y otros vegetales. I go into a bar, as much to cambio un billete de cien quetzales, as to have the beer I get in the processs.

I go to the park to read, I walk by the stores and ponder the six foot tall pooh bear piñatas, wondering who’d have the gall to pummel pooh for the sake of his sweet internally hidden treasures. He looks so cheerful, never suspecting his fate… there’s another telling metaphor for ya…

Bought myself a new Spanish/Ingles dictionary today, again, using a large bill for a large purchase. The hundred quetzales notes are only worth thirteen dollars, but there’s no way to use them at the market, and even in the restaurants I frequent, they’re an imposition. Found a patinaed half centavo coin on the street today, face value US$0.00066, even here so worthless that it had seemingly been neglected on the street for years judging by the level of corrosion… the date was unidentifiable, but apparently from another era, which here doesn’t necessarily mean that long ago. Remnants of a more desperate and violent past are held over in the form of barred stores; with cash boxes, workers, and merchandise protected behind the barrier___ and impressively armed guards and policia on the streets, but the only explosions are the frequent celebratory firecrackers that are somehow connected with lenten rituals, never any gunshots...

Thinking… I guess I spend my time with that; there seems to be plenty of it to do. That and occasional conversations; politics with the guys, other stuff with the girls. Travelers though, not so much with the locals. Lots of Europeans around and interesting to hear there viewpoints. Northern Europeans mostly, lots of Scandinavians, who’da thought? If politically conservatives travel in this part of the world, they must be the older turistas or keeping their mouths shut… maybe that’s why the girls talk about other things… they might not be the leftists the male half seem to be.

Everyday I think I might walk up the hill north of town and look down on this place, but so far, I find the afternoon slipping by and it not getting done… mañana, tal vez, o viernes posiblemente. I keep procrastinating on buying scissors to trim my beard too. Easy enough to do, there are plenty at el mercado (finally just turned off the auto correct feature that keeps capitalizing things for me, whew) and I couldn’t bring any with me on the plane since I had no checked luggage (and scissors smack of terrorism, you know) and even with only my little backpack, I brought more than I needed. there are plenty of towels t-shirts and socks down here, and boy do I miss my flip flops. they’ve got those down here too, but I’ve been waiting still for just the right ones… then maybe I’ll throw my socks away.

you know, I’m not really that much of a leftist myself. I’m really more of an artist, but that’s a silly sort of political viewpoint. I just don’t agree with the prevailing means of conflict resolution, and the economic inequalities, but I’m not completely unwilling to work within the system, I just want to aim towards a system that doesn’t reward the mistreatment and oppression of the meek, kind-hearted and simple. or something like that. a lot of the misery in the world seems to be bred from ignorance and a lot of the solution it seems, should be tied to education, but that’s a big job and one that our planets schools seem poorly fitted to do.

I can’t really get behind the methods and the content of catholic schools, but the kids in the park sure do look sharp in their uniforms… see I told you I’m not so much a leftist. the people down here do like their Catholicism, although according to alejandra it’s really just the older generation that take it seriously whaile the younger just enjoy the ritual and tradition of it… I’m not sure if that’s an accurate appraisal though.

my knees feel good, and everything else seems to be working well, but this awkward little table and platic chair pulled up sideways to it, aren’t great for my back which seems to have a limited time of tolerance for typing. probably good for me, keeps me doing other things than proselytizing excessively on this blog.

hasta mañana mis amigos.

jueves, 23 de marzo

another day slipping pleasantly past. by the time I head home in a couple months I’m gonna be rarin’ to go. I can feel the enthusiasm building and the sense of purpose growing. so much that I want to do when I get back, and the thing about it is that there are a lot of things I can’t do from down here. there’s the vague sense of missing out on the action, but the overriding awareness that the things I’m spending my time with down here are difficult to do up there___ if for no other reason than all the other opportunities demand attention. this is the essential simplification and it feels good and is serving its purpose.

been reading hemingway’s green hills of Africa, of course it’s wonderfully well written, but more than that it’s a fascinating read as far as cultural ethics go. hemingway wasn’t a bad guy, and yet his completely taken for granted acceptance of big game hunting and the killing of animals in general for the simple sake of sport shows how dramatically social conscience can change. there’s no sense of embarrassment of self cosciousness about killing__ or even the good intentioned condescension to the guides and women. he’s a man of his time, molded by his experience and environment___ what will somebody think of my prejudicial and narrowminded viewpoints in a hundred years (if anybody bothers to pay attention to them. I wonder if this account of this little sabbatical of mine will remain hidden on the internet, waiting to be uncovered by some future surfer, and then as quickly be forgotten again on and on. or will our society collapse and with it our technology and all these virtual words become inaccessible in the apocalyptic future? hard to tell… today I feel optimistic, but that’s not to say we don’t need paradigm level changes to occur, it simply means that paradigms have shifted before and so maybe there’s hope yet.

bought some scissors finally, but haven’t trimmed yet… you just can’t hurry things.

did I mention that yesterday was all about the past imperfect? it was, had forgotten all about that, but it’ll come in handy. I think alejandra is trying to cover as much as she can as fast as she can, knowing that I’m leaving next week, that’s good, because I want as much as I can get so that I can study on my own once I’m out of here. for now, I’m happy if I can just keep my head above water.

seems like a lot of the people I talk with are either coming from cuba or on there way there. hmmm. so much to do, so little time.

g’night.

viernes 24 de marzo

it’s really saturday morning, didn’t get around to writing last night. I’m gonna head up to the bagel barn in a few minutes, but want to catch this up before I go. in class we finished up preposiciones except for por and para, which seem to be the confusing ones, or at least I always seem to guess wrong, but they haven’t been explained to me yet. we’re gonna cover those monday, then do future tuesday, and then I’m on my own. maybe I’ll find somebody to explain conditional and subjunctive to me someday, or maybe I’ll just speak around them. as it is, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy with studying for quite awhile.

yesterday’s realizations and thoughts centered around right action and the overcoming of the guilt I’ve associated with love, or my unwillingness, or inability to devote really, since gerri. both were good understandings. and while each builds on earlier thoughts, each is more nearly novel for me than anything else since I’ve been down here. for the most part, I’ve just been piecing together old scraps of understanding… but this concept of right action that I’m beginning to put together is pretty new. it might be what Buddhists mean by the same term, or it might be different, Buddhist right action has never really been explained to me, I just know that’s one of the steps on the eightfold(?) path. as far as the guilt thing goes, I knew there was guilt associated with the failed relationship with gerri, but I think I’ve been either not identifying its root or misidentifying it. the guilt I think is really not about the breakup, but about the effect the breakup had on me. more on these later, I’ve taken some notes and woke up in the middle of the night with new understandings fresh in my mind, which had to be written down before I could get back to sleep. but I think they demand more consideration than I’ve given them yet.

trimmed my beard almost down to my face. it makes my head hair look longer and kinda silly, but also makes eating less messy.

I’ll post this now and then I’ll add more to it tuesday before heading to the lake wednesday morning. once I’m at the lake I don’t know whether I’ll find wireless or not… but even if I don’t, I can add to this, but the entries will probably be more brief and irregular since I’ll have to do them on the spot, instead of comfortably from my own room. I’ll try to keep up with this account on my laptop though, and post it when I can.