A beautiful country

     While the doctors were here I asked one of the nurses what she thought of Guatemala, fully expecting the typical "it's a really pretty country, lots of cool people etc." but her answer to the question made me step back and look at my situation here.  In response to my question, she said only one word: "Depressing."  Over the next few days I struggled to convince her that Guatemala is really an amazing place, presenting her arguments like a toddler trying to impress a teacher, but she continually shut me down.

"What about the mountains? Those are really pretty."
    "We have those in California"
"What about the weather, it's nice literally ALL THE TIME"
    "It's nice all the time in California too"
"Fresh fruit everyday"
    "... fresh fruit in California too"
"Well, what about the people, they are an amazing people with beautiful traditions"
    "They are starving to death and have no access to even the most basic necessities."

     Eventually, right when I was about to give up and call it a lost cause, I hit a breakthrough.  Yes, the people are unbelievably poor, but they have an incredible sense of community because of that.  A friend related the story of interviewing a local woman for a catholic article and asking her whether or not she did charity work.  She said no.  As the conversation progressed it became evident that every day, her family shared their lunch for their poor neighbor and every evening, their other neighbors shared their dinner with her.  Thinking that she was on a breakthrough for a front page article, my friend asked her if she did this because Jesus said to do things like this.  No, the lady replied, I do it because she could be my sister.  Her sense of community was so strong, that she looked upon all of her neighbors as brothers and sisters.
     Guatemala also offers an opportunity to see the better side of humanity.  Yes, it is sad to see such poverty, and the corruption and greed that leads to that poverty is depressing, but because of that poverty, one has the opportunity to see people doing great things to help people.  I have seen such generosity from people who give their time and money just to help the poor down here that it really makes me feel good about humanity.
 
     Although I found an acceptable answer to what makes Guatemala beautiful, that question has still been in the back of my mind for the past few days.  In this quest to see the beauty of the country, William  and I climbed to the antennas, which are located at the highest point in the region.  The climb was somewhat difficult, on the way there it was about 12.5 Km all uphill, by the time we reached the top, my feet had ceased being covered in blisters and had converted to one big blister, and my hip flexers were crying for mercy.  Joe Vardas would be so disappointed at the state I've let myself fall into.  On the upside, I learned how to say the word blister, "ampolla," and the entire was was absolutely gorgeous.

     About 7 Km into the walk we passed the "piedra de los compadres."  The legend has it that a woman and her godfather were visiting the "cristo negro." On the trip back home they stopped here to rest for the night.  During the night they were overcome by carnal desires and gave into them.  Because two people who share such a close spiritual connexion shouldn't have sex, they were turned to stone, hence the design of the one stone on top of the other.  While we were walking, there was a group doing some kind of ritual that was described to me as witchcraft.  Apparently they often sacrifice chickens at this place. Interesting to know that Esquipulas is home not only to a Catholic pilgrim site, but also others.

 Though it was a cloudy day, the hike was beautiful.  From about halfway up, we began to see the country side all around us open up revealing rolling mountains, coffee, banana, and other fruit plantations, and lots and lots of volcanoes.

 Here, Willy is showing where we are headed to.  The antennas are quite a way above the cloud line.

      The view from the top was incredible, we could see both Esquipulas (on the left) and Quetzaltepeque (on the right), one of the oldest cities in the region. 

 

Just over my left shoulder is the city of Esquipulas.  If you have a high resolution monitor you might be able to zoom in and barely see the basilica.  Below is a zoomed in picture. The larger than normal white blob is the bacilica where I live. 

     I find Latin American cemeteries fascinating.  This one, which was just off the side of the road, separated from houses by barbed wire, shows the typical above ground burial plots adorned with real and plastic flowers as well as tinsel whatever else is on hand (used coke bottles are popular).

      My last reason why Guatemala is such a beautiful country. PETA would love it.

AWkward Foreign Language Experience.  Having to translate emails one of the novices has been receiving from aspiring Russian brides.  Some website somehow got his email, and he has been receiving messages and pictures from Russian women who want to marry him and move to Guatemala.  Except, they are in english.  He has me translate every lurid detail (and there are quite a few) and thinks it is hilarious to watch me try to come up with all the words in spanish.