WHAT TO DO WITH A CHILD IN GUATEMALA (IF YOU MUST...)

View from Plaza Mayor (Main Plaza) of the Historic Center

Weather: Spring-like with lots of rain.

Keeping up with this blog has been difficult, due to the fact that I have accepted to work on several projects. I accepted, all around the same time, to turn in a long, in-depth article on the recovery and renewal of the historic center of Guatemala for a local major newspaper. I also had to turn in a research proposal for the Historic National Police Archives.

BTW, if you read Spanish, you can read the online version of the article by clicking here.

Then accepted to work on a couple of community-building projects. One of the project positions I accepted is with a partnership program between the City government of Guatemala and International Cooperation from the European Union. This is a paid position, of course.

The meetings are long but very productive and actually, the members are all young-ish--at least, much younger than yours truly!--and very enthusiastic, as well as knowledgeable, so it has been a real pleasure.

The pleasure is compounded by the fact that at the end of the meetings, we end up at the neighborhood pub. A good time is had by all.

Some of my (unfinished) prints from silkscreen printmaking workshop

While I was taking on all these projects, including an unpaid position as chair of the board of a non-profit organization that is a partnership of businesspeople and government for the development of the Historic Center, I also accepted a job as a thesis advisor for a master program in Communication, at the local Jesuit university.

Then, I had to start an intensive printmaking workshop and a copperplate printing workshop I had signed up for weeks ago!

Finished print (inspired by a music magazine cover and my nephew's mohawk)
(not all of my stuff is this wild)

I couldn't very well drop out, being that we had been chosen via a selective process which meant that we were taking the spot others had also applied for, and the instructors are accomplished experts in the fields of copperplate and silkscreen printing. This is something I didn't want to miss out on.

Either way, some days were brutally busy but you know, you keep your head down and just forge ahead and next thing you know, there is breathing space again. And so here I am!

One thing I really enjoy of all this is that I get to work most of the time at home. It rains every afternoon, so it would be a bear to have to drive in rain and chaotic Guatemalan traffic. I get to sit at home, listening to the rain fall outside my window, or else, while I listen to Last.fm radio online and drink tea, coffee or iced Coke, depending upon the mood. Sometimes it does call for hot chocolate ...

Street of Historic Center of Guatemala City

By the way, for expats who miss Pandora radio in the US--one cannot get Pandora radio outside the USA--there is Last.fm, where for a monthly fee of US$3, one can get pretty much any type of radio station one may desire.

Right now I am ecstatic to have re-created my Steampunk radio station from Pandora, and also created a Baroque music station. My music taste runs the gamut from Blues, to punk and indie, to Baroque and Medieval. Last.fm works well with all of this.

Cobblestone street of Historic Center, Guatemala City

The Boy's Visit.

I received the visit of my 8-year-old nephew from the USA, Little Louie. Is he 8? Going into 3rd grade, anyhow.

Either way, my youngest son is 21 and living in his own place at a university town in the US while he finishes his degree. It has been a very long time since I have had to share my life with a young child (thank goodness!). Hence, there was little I had around me to entertain the kid, unless he wants to read Freud, or so I thought.

Turns out that we have several computers on the premises, so he was quite happy with one of the laptops all to himself and required little else in the way of entertainment!

Our "artisanal pizza"

We also made pizza "from scratch," which involved Betty Crocker's pizza mix, some decent quality mozzarella, common tomato sauce and a few dried spices. It turns out pretty good, thin crust and toasty. The boy was happy as it was the first time he "made" a pizza which wasn't the frozen kind. And I let him use his hands as much as he wanted to.

The pizzas came out a bit ... uhhhh, how shall I put this ... artisanal? Nevertheless, tasted really delish. I mixed dried herbs into the flour before adding the water and then sprinkled basil onto the basic tomato sauce. The kid loved using his hands to spread the tomato sauce and cheese. Mud or tomato sauce, doesn't seem to matter. For some reason, kids just love getting dirty.

Basic supplies for a homemade pizza (+ 1 cup of water)

Another afternoon I took him to feed the doves at the main plaza. That was interesting. All the Guatemalan kids run around chasing after the doves to make them soar in flight in large groups. Louie told me that the other children were "breaking the rules."

Yeah, I know. I was like, huh?

Well. He has been taught to respect animals and not scare them needlessly. Damn, this kid is better raised than mine ever were!

So he complained that the other children were scaring the doves and that wasn't proper. (sigh!) This child is too well-behaved. You know what I mean? I used to be a hellion. Nevertheless, I am not one to complain about any child in my care being too well-behaved! The better behaved, the happier moi.

Little Louie feeding the doves

When I had to go to art class, which I wasn't about to miss for babysitting duties, I took him with me and registered him in the Chess classes they have for kids there. I had called previously. The hours coincided perfectly with the time I would be in class myself, in the same building. Great!

Although it seems I forgot to explain to the teachers that the boy's Spanish wasn't, well, all there, so to speak.

Children at chess school, Centro Cultural Metropolitano

So I dropped Little Louie at his classroom--by then he had acquired some survival Spanish and what he didn't have, he'd just have to figure out!--and went to my class.

When I returned, he was miffed that all the other kids had taken a snack to chess school and I had forgotten to prepare one for him ... at snack time, he had to eat his Tic Tacs!

Well. All the other kids have mommies and I am not a mommy! I am just the aunt with her head in the clouds, I guess! ... but otherwise, he had loved it, made new friends. Kids will communicate across language barriers somehow.

Also, from what I understand, his short "mohawk" haircut had been quite the ice-breaker. I think his mother is enamored of Angelina Jolie's boy with the mohawk hair. But he looks cute.

Rainbow sprouting from mist in the fountain, Plaza Mayor, Guatemala City

The classes cost the equivalent to US$10 per month, so I paid a whole month even though he was staying for a few days. Worked out pretty well.

I thought he had spent a very boring few days with me, and turns out that having a laptop all to himself (he's into computer games), making his own pizza and going to chess school had turned out pretty well.

The best fun, as he told my brother, was feeding the birds at the plaza, where he got wet by the mist expelled by the giant fountain and ate ice cream from the vendors carts to his heart's content. Luckily, he survived that without catching any sort of diarrhea-inducing germs.

Street of Historic Center, Guatemala City (National Palace at the end)

So the aunt feeds him ice-cream from street vendors and the uncle--my beloved husband--spent hours exchanging fart and poop jokes with him, which for some reason I shall never comprehend, both of them seemed to find absolutely hilarious. We are definitely NOT the best influences on the child. But then, what kind of parents send their child to visit the aunt and uncle living in downtown Guatemala? I mean, really!

Oh well, he survived. And so did I!

Street and church dome, Historic Center, Guatemala City

Ah well, it was kind of sweet.

Moving on.

The inn has been very busy these last months. Very. One of my favorite guests lately was a gentleman from the Shalom Foundation, who came with two specialists to work on a pretty impressive children's hospital being built quite close by. All of the gentlemen were Southern to the core: Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky being their places of origin. All very courteous and nice. Loved them!!!!

I also love their work. The specialists work on medical equipment wiring. They invited us to go visit the hospital they are refurbishing in a huge, ancient house nearby. I couldn't make it but my husband did go and he came back tremendously impressed. It is a charity hospital, but it will have all of the technology and layout proper of a private hospital back home in the US. What a wonderful project!

You can read more about what they do by clicking here.

National Palace and Street in Historic Center of Guatemala

Upcoming these days we have reservations from some groups of college students coming to study Guatemalan history, I assume, a group of artists coming to a convention, an international tattoo artist and so on. Groups make it interesting. Especially young ones. They tend to do things like order pizzas, light candles in the garden and sit around strumming a guitar and singing till very late at night. People travel around with guitars, which mystifies me.

The tattoo artist seems to have been especially invited to come give a demo and make some tattoos. For sure I don't want to miss out on that!

Cobblestoned street on Historic Center of Guatemala City
(with historic building at the end)

The political situation here, in crisis mode, as always. People hate the government, distrust the authorities, public hospitals' staff have to go on strike just to get attention to their demand for basic supplies. Same old, same old.

Same levels of crime (sky high), but violence seems to have been abating somewhat (somewhat as in a little) especially since they fired the---is it the third one they fire in the last year or so?--the Chief of Police and several of his immediate officers. For armed robbery, of all things. There are so many government and authority officers on trial for corruption that one loses count.

I guess it should be a good sign, but frankly, feels like a drop in the ocean.

On a lighter note, just read a fascinating article by Sean B. Carroll on the latest oceanic fossil discoveries, which are over 500 million years old. He ends his article with this phrase: "Our earliest animal ancestor probably had no head, tail, or sexual organs, and lay immobile on the sea floor like a door mat."

Doesn't it seem to describe somebody you know? It definitely describes some people I know! I am sure we all know somebody like that.

Anyhow, this is it for today. Thanks for stopping by and hope some of the information may be of use, in case you're thinking of coming here at some point. I wish you health and peace!

www.QualityGuate.com

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In the Historic Center of Guatemala City