Pliers, Vices, and Oars

Today I watched a man pull a battery out of a rickety old truck and put it into the motor of a ferris wheel and then get all of the overhead lights going, one by one, with some loose wires and a pair of pliars. Naturally, I then paid 5 Quetzales (about 70 cents) and got on for a ride. It was a lot faster than I would have anticipated, considering the circumstances, and I couldn´t keep myself from thinking up various emergency action plans in the event that some part became unbolted. It was a great view from up top, and I could see that the town is much smaller and less intimidating than it first seemed. We gain perspective from the strangest of things. Last night, I embarked on a somewhat frantic quest for chocolate. My humble stash of nuts and chocolate from the US ran out only yesterday, but it was only because I was really putting some effort into making them last. So at last I have turned to local forms of these items. I paid 10 Quetzles (about $1.30) for a roll of chocolate. What´s a ¨roll¨ of chocolate? Well, it´s about like a bar but in the shape of a cigar. All wrapped up in beautifully colored tissue paper, I felt like I was carrying around elicit drugs but I suppose the locals probably don´t think of it that way. It was better, by far, than American chocolate, but what was I expecting?

On a walk around town today with my teacher, we came upon an interesting looking plant. As it turns out, it was the tree of my beloved beverage: coffee! That deserves an exclamation point. Decaffeinated coffee really does not exist here, and since it´s grown all over town and in the hills all around here, I have to drink it, and I have to drink it with caffeine. (Sorry for those of you who will have to suffer through my withdrawals yet again.) The taste is great, but they brew it at about half the strength I would... the french press mug was something I couldn´t justify bringing. For someone who studied anthropology and believes firmly in the posibility of enculturation, I am having a tough time letting go of some of the comforts of home. But alas, that is why I am here in the first place-- to push myself out of the comfy complacency that threatens us all.

Another 10 Quetzales went to an hour in a kayak today on the lake. It was so refreshing to get some oars back in my hands and get out for a nice view of the area. The lake was sadly polluted and if I didn´t know how deep it was, I would think it was also suffering from eutrophocation. Either way, today was not the day for swimming, even though I was able to get pretty far from town and the rivers of garbage flowing down into the lake. It gave me the feeling I had while riding here from Antigua on the smog-

filled roads. The image I get is of two wheels turning on the same axis. The inner wheel, representing ¨progress¨ and development, spins clockwise. The outer wheel spins counter-clockwise and represents all of the backward movement society makes while it progresses toward what we consider a higher standard of living. In other words, society is benefiting from cars and breathing in the toxic fumes at the same time. We have more food available, but the wrappers end up in our waterways. None of these thoughts are new; they are the very concepts we teach every day out on Catalina. Somehow, it is striking to see the problems up close-- to see them affecting entire societies in different ways than we are affected at home. It will certainly make me return with fresh energy for what we do.

P.S. This was written yesterday. At various points in the night I came to a few different decisions as the grip of unknown bugs tightened around my stomach again. The first was that I´d get on the next flight home and straighten this whole stomach thing out with a good dose of American food. The second was that I´d stick it out but just fast for the next five weeks. Any ideas out there from folks who have been through this? Of course I´m doing the standard stuff, including drinking only bottled water, but maybe I need to give up all uncooked foods too? Oh, and I just lost all of my photos to a virus, so my new camera is sick too. Any suggestions with avoiding that in the future? I really had wanted to put up some nice pics of the lake, but such is life. The approach here has to be of detachment-- to any given state of being, to belongings, to people and cultural values. I think I´ll try to hold on to my human values for now though.