ROLLING IN THE DARK

Fiambre.

Weather: Simply gorgeous. Alternating sunny and cloudy, but in the mild 70s during the day and a nice, chilly low 60s at night. Amazing sunsets with views of volcanoes.

I will get to the political news presently, but first some of the more cultural happenings around here.

So the Day of the Dead came and went. People flock to the cemeteries, most businesses close, and everybody eats en famille. Pretty much like Thanksgiving in the USA, if Thanksgiving consisted in family trips (often laden with foods and mariachis in tow) to the cemetery and lighting candles to the dear departed. What people eat here is fiambre, a cold cuts dish which is basically an antipasto with lots and lots of pickled stuff. It tastes much better than it looks, actually. And a syrupy bread pudding for dessert called torrejas.

The food is delicious, and we buy it for take-out nearby. Moreover, some Guatemalans take pity on us, and actually sent us tupperware full of fiambre--including my cook, Catalina, who brought me some from her own big family celebration--so we had fiambre and torrejas for days. I don't recommend much of it if you suffer from heartburn, though.

Tamal negro. Photo: Galas de Guatemala.

Of course people here now celebrate Halloween, but not with kids trick-or-treating, it is really a nightclub party-like-an-animal kind of deal. It can be fun if that's your thing. Not mine! Possibly because there is no good good involved.

On the other hand, many locals are upset on a nationalist angle, this being an "imported and consumerist" holiday that does not belong to the local culture. But, you know? I believe you have to chose your battles, and this one is as lost as the French trying to forbid English words used by the citizens of France in that country.

Anyhow, back to food.

Ceramic reproduction of tamal negro made by one of my community-organizing students (kid is a talented artisan)

Another of my favorite dishes is tamal negro. It is a corn tamal but cooked with cinnamon and brown sugar, folded over chocolate. Latin American chocolate, which is less sweet but richer than the milkier stuff we know in the US as chocolate. It also has chillies, prunes and olives. To me, this dish is to die for! One of my community-organizing students brought me half a dozen, and we had them for breakfast every day till we finished them off. Damn, I love me a tamal negro (black tamale)!

Sunset from my balcony.

November and December are the loveliest months of the year here, and not only because of the gastronomy. When the volcanoes act up, they light up the skies and sunsets are even more impressive than usual.

We are living now right smack in the middle of the upscale 5-star hotel, trendy nightclubs and restaurants area (zona 10), and let me tell you, weekends can be a bear due to the high decibels of disco music and rock from street bands. If you can't stand them, join them, so often we go out ourselves. However, we much prefer downtown for a night out on the city.

Paradoxically, downtown is much more safer than zona 10. More laid back and bohemian, much less likely to have drunk rich kids and narcos shooting their guns to the sky (or at each other) when drunk. Plus, in general, I am just not big on the plastic, yuppie scene, which is what prevails where we now live. They are interesting to watch, though. Also lots of tourists where we live, as well.

Bouganvilias and tall walls in my neighborhood

Our neighborhood lacks parks, because the houses have such huge yards--sequestered behind very tall walls--that I guess people here don't need parks for children's recreation nor do I believe they want their kids to rub elbows with the hoi polloi.

It is lovely to walk around the streets in this area though, due to big, shady old trees--such as jacarandas--and overabundant, bright-colored bouganvilias everywhere. we can also walk to a great number of nice restaurants around, and my favorite bookstore, Sophos, is a short distance away. Sophos, a beautiful bookstore, is simply the best bookstore in the whole nation.

Cool graffiti mural in our neighborhood

It is clear, however, that due to lack of residential zoning, over-construction of buildings, and other societal phenomena, this upscale area is deteriorating almost as fast as downtown is gentrifying. There is increasing graffiti tagging on walls and things of that nature. Mind you, I do like graffiti murals--which is not the same as just tagging (scribbling names) on walls.

But there are other signs of deterioration, such as empty lots where stately mansions used to exist, torn down houses left abandoned (perhaps to make way for a new skyscrapper that never got built), half-built buildings that have remained neglected for years, and so on.

It is common for people to start building projects before acquiring the permits--permits can take years--and it can happen that the permit won't go through, and people are left with a half-developed project that they cannot take any further. If it sounds dumb and inefficient, it is because it is dumb and inefficient. But people take their chances--and hope that their bribes will do the trick--and sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. And life goes on its merry way.

Miércoles de Cumbia. Photo: VJ Gato

Talking of cool stuff taking place in Guatemala, Miércoles de Cumbia--which I have talked about before--is today the number one monthly event in the City. It takes place at different places downtown and you will only know where on that day, if you subscribe to their twitter feed.

It is completely free, and it hosts the best DJs in town as well as some international DJs as well. I have seen big spreads about the monthly event in glossy magazines and all newspapers by now. One of the rules is that it can only take place in downtown Guatemala (zona 1). Interestingly, it has grown immensely and it is the one event that consistently attracts the wealthier younger crowd to venture downtown, which still has a bad reputation (though mostly unwarranted).

Sotzil

I have gone to a few of these events, and besides attracting wealthy young people, the majority are young, middle class kids, artists and bohemians, and lots of foreigners as well. Remember how raves used to be in the US? It is like a rave, minus the abundance of drugs and with Latin music instead of Trance. That doesn't mean you won't smell the occasional whiff of pot, of course, but then, you'll get that at any contemporary music concert anywhere in the world, anyhow.

Some of the DJs who organize the event are my friends--because hell yeah, I'm cool like that!--and they do it basically for the love of the music and the scene. Think of the time and effort invested. Wish more people had that kind of generosity!

Sotzil

We received an invite from the Embassy of Norway (I think?) to go to a concert by a famous Finnish songstress named Marie Boine (check her out on YouTube).

Opening up for her was the local band Sotzil, which I have heard and read rave reviews about. They are that good. I wouldn't call them very original, since the music is a modern, New Age-y version of Mayan music and brings to mind those "nature and indigenous flute" CDs people play to relax or that you will hear at the spa while they do your pedicure. Yet they are very well-rehearsed and harmonious and make creative use of all sorts of indigenous instruments. I particulary liked a piece in which all 8 members of the band produced different bird songs with their throats. It was like, WOW! Way cool. I will buy the CD!

Marie Boine

Marie Boine and her band were just awesome. Her sound engineer manages to triple her strong and sonorous voice into a chorus-like back up, among other really impressive sound effects. Her stuff is folk music from Finland, which sounds like--again, the New Age version--of the child of Celtic and Russian folk music. The theater was full, and the audience's response was very positive (though my husband fell asleep, even while she was banging drums!).

The funny part is that she was being billed as an "indigenous music artist" and upon looking at her mane or red hair and the tall, Nordic musicians, many in the audience were, like, "Huh???" For most Latin Americans, indigenous people look dark. And in Guatemala, dark and tiny (mostly). So it was an interesting shaking up of a paradigm, I guess.

Marie Boine and her band

The only really bad moment spot was that the Ambassador of Norway gave a 45 minute speech--I timed him!!!--and he was using a K'ekchi (sp?) translator to translate every single word he spoke (and he spoke in perfect Spanish).

Mind you, it soon became apparent to all that the translator was doing her own thing, mentioning names of activists and other things that the Ambassador had not said in Spanish! Some sort of political addendum she was adding, and nobody could understand but, I assume, only that minority of the audience who knows the K'ekchi language.

I would have found it amusing if it weren't that this made the speech so horribly long that all of us where falling asleep, checking emails on the phones, talking over her speech, etc. Even the Mayans in the audience were totally checking out! (I doubt we had people in the audience who did not understand Spanish, but still, if they insisted on doing it in both languages, both speaker and translator should have been more considerate)

Next time I get invited to another such event, I know better and will arrive an hour late! Nothing against indigenous languages and I am all for bilingual education and all that, but to sit through another long-winded speech being translated and embellished into a language I don't understand is just brutal. Life's too short for that, y'all.

Bell peppers (about 6 inches long)

Lately I have been sort of on a Martha Stewart kick which is, in general, very alien to my nature. I made jars of home made sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil and marinated roasted bell peppers and garlic cloves in oil. Probably been inspired because buying this stuff here is so expensive and I just love all that stuff.

Bell peppers here are ginormous. Some are 10 inches long. You can roast them close to the broiler, on high, till the skins are blackened. Turn them over so all of the sides get blackened. Then place in a bowl and cover with saran wrap for 30 mins or so, so the steam loosens the peel.

Roasting bell peppers

So you peel them, core them, scrape off seeds and stringy stuff, and place them inside jars. Remember to boil the jars prior to this. Once inside the jars you cover them with an admixture of vinegar, lime juice, salt and oil you have boiled--to your taste, pretty much--and roasted garlic cloves, which you can do in a toaster oven. Take the bubbles out preferably, close them tight, and they should last anywhere from 3 months to a year, depending on how successful you were at taking out all the bubbles. You can find sites online that tell you how to do this.

Jarred roasted bell peppers and garlic cloves

And voilá! Jars of good stuff, at a fraction of the price in the local market. By the way, the dark spots are pepper grains, not canned bugs.

The presidential elections have passed, thank goodness, and all of our nightmares came true and General Otto Pérez, believed by many to be involved in genocide in the 1980s, is president. Well, neither choice was good. I have heard widespread rumors that the other guy, Baldizón, is hugely corrupt and threatens many when things don't go his way. This has been supported by in-depth investigations by elPeriódico.

Still, it is widely assumed that the Baldizon, the loser, will be the next president in 4 years, as it seems to be the rule here. That is, whomever loses in the second round, is the next president. It doesn't have to make sense--not much here does--it just goes by that circular argument: it is what it is. Guatemalans like to hold on for dear life to their traditions, no matter how dysfunctional. Of course, when they see no real change for the better, when they see more of their civil liberties taken away (in the name of security and crime-fighting), then they will whine non-stop for the next 4 years. And everybody will vehemently swear he or she did not vote for him! But next time around will still vote like they always vote!

Oh God, it bores me. Seriously.

Otto Pérez, the new president. Photo: Foro de las Américas

Anyhow, you want to bet on what will happen? You want to know what people here should really be worried about? I can tell you. Some more of this is what will happen. I will post below a few paragraphs from a report on what is going down in the neighboring nation of Honduras, because it reflects pretty darned close what is going on in Guatemala's Polochic area and it will just get worse (trust me!):

"Since 2009, beneath the radar of the international media, the coup government ruling Honduras has been collaborating with wealthy landowners in a violent crackdown on small farmers struggling for land rights in the Aguán Valley in the northeastern region of the country.

More than forty-six campesinos have been killed or disappeared. Human rights groups charge that many of the killings have been perpetrated by the private army of security guards employed by Miguel Facussé, a biofuels magnate. Facussé’s guards work closely with the Honduran military and police, which receive generous funding from the United States to fight the war on drugs in the region.

New Wikileaks cables now reveal that the US embassy in Honduras—and therefore the State Department—has known since 2004 that Miguel Facussé is a cocaine importer. US “drug war” funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker’s war against campesinos. Beginning in 1992, though, new neoliberal governments began promoting the transfer of their lands to wealthy elites, who were quick to take advantage of state support to intimidate and coerce campesinos into selling, and in some cases to acquire land through outright fraud.

Facussé, the biggest beneficiary by far of these state policies, now claims at least 22,000 acres in the lower Aguán, at least one-fifth of the entire area, much of which he has planted in African palms for an expanding biofuel empire. On June 24, with one hour’s notice, police burned down almost the entire ten-year-old community of Rigores of over 100 houses and bulldozed down its three churches and seven-room schoolhouse.

The residents began to rebuild their homes with tarps and sticks, but on September 16–18, in response to the death of a policeman nearby, police rampaged through the town, randomly grabbing and detaining people, including children. One of them was a 16-year-old boy who has testified that police put a bag over his head, sprayed him with gasoline and threatened to kill him. On September 20 police and military successfully ejected all those who remained in the community."

Heartbreaking or what? You can read the complete article by clicking here.

Jacaranda trees in Zona 10. Photo: Panoramio.

So basically, Guatemalan's voted for more of this because lets face it, most just don't give a damn about the rural poor. Hard as it is to believe, they just don't. As simple as that. If that seems ugly to you, just look at the foaming-at-the-mouth hatred we are exhibiting back home in the US against the poor, the migrants and the most vulnerable populations, and you start seeing a worldwide trend. If we, who should be more enlightened and have plenty more resources, are going down that path, why wouldn't Guatemalans?

Dark times ahead, you all, very dark times ahead.

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