Craigslist Guate
By · CommentsApparently the country is moving up in the world, as it now has a Cragislist page, something that was missing until very recently. I consider this a good sign since Craigslist gives regular consumers and entrepreneurs a chance to sell their stuff. Before leaving Phoenix we sold tons of stuff on Craigslist, then found our house in Mexico and were bummed to find there was no GuatePage on CL. No more!
I suspect that a year from now expats and locals alike will be buying and selling goods, finding jobs and doing real estate deals, all of which this country needs.
H/T: New Maya
God’s Wrath
By · CommentsKemmel and Lisa share a few stories from their mission work:
Sting-y Church Member Gets Taste of God’s Wrath
In Mactzul V during a church meeting to discuss the upcoming construction of their new church building, the members began pledge their personal funding committments to the work. As they went around the room, each family would anounce how much they planned to give over the next year. They came to one brother (quite wealthy in livestock) who said he felt like nobody should be compelled to give, and that he was not going to do it. The church elders said that was fine, and that it was a free-will offering outside of normal giving. A few days later, a call for help came from the man and his family after they and their livestock had been severely attacked by a colmena–a swarm of honey bees! Two of their bulls had been killed and the whole family was suffering from the stings. Several of the church leaders ran over to help them and took up a collection of Q500 to help pay for their medicine. They family was humbled and ashamed of their prior behavior and immediately asked for forgiveness and offered money to the building fund.Police (or rather, Posse) Blotter
A teenaged girl from the town of Chijtinnimit was kidnapped and left in one of the area garbage dumps one night, arousing fear in that town and surrounding communities. Shortly after midnight, townspeople gathered to decide what to do. The girl was found alive and after further questioning, it was discovered that she had been running around with a man–who was already married. It is hypothesized that the spurned wife ordered the kidnapping. Plans are being made to sort out the trouble between the two families.Plans for Teachers’ Protest Rally Strike Out
Friday morning was kicked off by an early-morning call from our physician Dr. Lux who was planning to travel to Clinica Ezell that day. There were reports of a teachers’ strike on the first day of school–all of the main crossroads in the country were to be blocked in an effort to get their concerns addressed by the government. Among the complaints are the job cuts for thousand of teachers despite growing school censuses and lack of teachers in many communities. As the morning progressed no signs of traffic blockade were seen. Rumors of late-morning initiation began to fly–citing first-day-of-school duties to attend to. The day’s activites went smoothly with no stops in traffic, or rioting. Local papers the following day showed photos of a few lonely maninfesters on the palace steps. Maybe they are afraid to loose their jobs too.
iPhone in Guate
By · CommentsWhen I left Phoenix and my cushy office job two years ago I didn’t own an iPod, had never really read a blog, let alone authored one, and the whole gadget obsession with Apple products was baffling. But, we bought a few iPods just before leaving the states and I was impressed with how well they worked, their durability and the fact that unlike their cheap MP3 competitors, you don’t have to buy a bunch of batteries.
Once we were settled in Antigua I decided to get my Blackberry unlocked, or ‘cracked’ as some say, so it could work here in Guate. I loved my Blackberry in the US; it enabled me to keep up on my email wherever I was and the functionality was great. Unfortunately, the 300Q I paid for the ‘unlock’ didn’t get the job done, as I soon discovered I couldn’t access the web and even text messaging was unreliable. One of my Chapin friends explained that my phone was designed for the Verizon network in the US and was specifically intended not to work on foreign GSM systems. I struggled with this for a year and finally decided to bite the bullet and buy a new phone, and the iPhone was at the top of the list.
I found a used 2G phone on eBay and shipped it to a mule who was kind enough to bring it with him. I spent a few hours downloading programs to unlock it so it would work on Tigo’s network, and suddenly I was live. I must say I’ve been impressed with the phone, although it pales in comparison to the Blackberry when it comes to text messaging and email. It’s hard to beat an actual keyboard, but the rest of the functionality is great, and the camera is outstanding.
I’m sharing this because some of you email with tech-type questions and this is the closest thing I’ve got to tell. Some of you might be interested in the cartoon that follows.
This holds true for Guate as much as it does the US
‘Don’ vs ‘Senor’
By · CommentsMaybe I’m a little slow on the uptake here, but it’s taken me awhile to figure out that there is a big difference between ‘Don’ and ‘Senor’ (okay ladies, ‘Dona’ and ‘Senora’).
So far the best analogy I have is that ‘Senor’='Sir’ and ‘Senora’='Ma’am’ (for those of us who grew up in proper families in the US).
But ‘Don’ and ‘Dona’ seem to defy explanation; it’s obviously not “Mr” and “Mrs”, because the Chapins I know say ‘no way’. I hear them (Don and Senor), used interchangeably on occasions, and then there are other times where I am called ‘Don’ and my colleague is called ‘Senor’, and I haven’t quite figured out what the implication is. Is it familiarity? Is one a formal and the other casual? Maid #6 calls me ‘Don Marco’ more times in a day than I would like to be called ‘Good King Marco, He of Substantial Girth Who Knows the Mind of Every Woman‘ in an entire lifetime, but now I’m wondering if there is something patronizing about it. Have I become…a Patron?
And why is it so difficult to get my Spanish language keyboard to put those squiggly lines where they are supposed to be and not where they shouldn’t be?
P.S. One reader likes to call me ‘Papa’, and assures me it a sign of affection. Please don’t mistake my receding hairline for my age!
GuateCalling
By · CommentsI mentioned this phenomenon in a previous post and some newbie emailed and asked me to explain.
Here in Guatemala there are more cell phones than there are people. That’s because many people carry more than one phone, to use networks for different carriers. I haven’t figured out whether this is so they can take advantage of different plan promotions, or whether there are different benefits to calling certain users on the same network, or what.
Additionally, there are about 5 times more cell phones than land lines. This is because the cell phone network began to expand in the country before the copper wire network was fully matured, and naturally it’s easier to put up towers than it is to lay cable, so the then-monopoly stopping investing in wire copper. Finally, it’s really easy to get a cell phone whereas a land line requires deposits, contracts, and the available wire in the ground.
Anyway, most cell calls here are expensive, relative to the states, anywhere from 1-2Q per call, depending on the carrier, your plan and other factors. That translates from 12 to 24 cents US per call. When I recharge my phone by buying prepaid minutes, I usually buy 100Q worth of time, enough for about two weeks in my case. However, I’m told by reliable sources that the major carriers sell far more of the 5Q cards than they do any other denomination. That means most people here are buying enough credit to make at most 5 short phone calls. Based on my own usage I would say it is more likely you’ll get only 2 phone calls out of 5Q.
The result of all this is that most people have phones but have no ’saldo’. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked someone why they didn’t call to say they would be late, or why they didn’t tell me they couldn’t make an appointment, or why they didn’t just call instead of getting on a bus and riding across town and the answer is always, “But I don’t have any saldo”.
This lack of saldo is common, and for a long time I thought there was something seriously wrong with my phone because I would get a call but it would only ring once. I wouldn’t even look to see who called, and then a few minutes later it would ring again, just once. It got to the point that I finally asked someone and he explained that the caller isn’t charged for the call until you answer, or when voicemail picks up, and so even someone with no saldo can place a call and then hang up, which gets the attention of the recipient without incurring a cost.
I know some gringos who refuse GuateCalls, on the grounds that a person basically wants you to pay for the opportunity to talk to them. They argue that anyone worth talking to should invest the 1Q in the phone call. Perhaps my situation is different since I’m so much more reliant on others for helping me in all the ways that I still require, what with business ventures, needy children and dysfunctional Spanish, so I usually respond to GuateCalls.
The other day I learned that one or more of the carriers now allow you to send saldo to another user, so perhaps this will cut down on GuateCalling. I suspect the carriers will charge for this service, which is amusing to me since they’ve found a way to make money off of the fact that nobody in this country has any money to make the call in the first place.
“Dude, That’s Toxic!”
By · CommentsSantiago and I were looking at an office a few days ago and commented to the owner that the large pile of rubble and trash in the front courtyard was really unsightly and that the house would show better if he were to clean things up. He nodded like he understood, and disappeared out the front door while we were wandering out the house, trying to envision how things would work if we took the place.
I was standing in one of the back rooms, stepping off the dimensions to see if it would accommodate an executive desk and sitting area worthy of someone known as a ‘Don’, when the most acrid smell overwhelmed me. Not having had any emergency digestive problems since my trip to Monterrico and the huge bowl of ceviche I ate, I thought something must be on fire. As I walked towards the front of the house, the smoke and toxicity got much worse, and I could hear Santiago screaming obscenities.
There in front of the house the owner had directed some lurker to pile all the leftover construction stuff, all the trash and anything else lying around and had started a fire, which was really going. The smoke coming off it was multi-colored and the fumes were sickening. Even Santiago with his four pack a day lungs seemed to be effected by the mess and was yelling at the guy that the fire was “toxic” and that this was “ridiculous”.
As I was fashioning my handkerchiefs(thoughtfully brought by a mule last December and normally reserved for little boy noses or female tears), around my face, the guy stoking the fire responded to Santiago in the most amusing fashion, “Si, es muy toxico” and continued to throw more plastic trash and buckets half-full of unknown chemicals. Santiago looked at me as if to make sure I was seeing the same thing he was.
I had a little flashback to the guys working in the finca next door who were burning huge piles of rubbish at the base of my back wall, doing everything they could to stay upwind without thinking anything of the smoke filling my house, and ignoring my pleas to cease “por que es muy malo para mi ninos”.
I realized immediately that so many of the uneducated people here are basically like children, intuitive enough to realize the danger and threat to their health, but not aware enough to consider that their actions can be detrimental to others.
Santiago had now stopped making observations and began giving orders:
Santiago: Put this fire out, immediately!
Hombre: El dueño me dijo que me queme toda la basura.
Santiago: I’m telling you to put it out, muy rapido!
Hombre: Está bien, pero yo no tengo una manguera …
Santiago: Take one of these buckets and fill it up with water!
Hombre: Muy bien, ¿sabes dónde está el agua?
Santiago: Probably in the pila.
Hombre: Bueno, eso es una buena idea.
Needless to say we didn’t rent the space.
I Love Antigua, #121
By · CommentsLast night’s sunset was a beauty, even by local standards. At one point Fuego was covered by clouds and a small eruption turned things pink around the peak. It was a nice distraction from the pathetic excuse for a ProBowl.
I tried to take pics but the iPhone doesn’t do it justice. Fortunately Brad and Kara are skilled with a camera, so go check it out!
Maid #6
By · CommentsSome of you have been complaining that I’m not sharing Maid stories any more, and the truth is I don’t have many to share. We figured things out with Maids #1-5 and so now we have a fabulous young woman and we just don’t have those kinds of stories to share.
Well, until a few weeks ago. Maid #6 has been on time every day and hadn’t missed a day of work. In the middle of the day she took a phone call and got very animated on the phone. Apparently one of her two children had been taken to the hospital earlier in the day and the medicine the Doctor prescribed was going to be 300Q.
Our Maid is one of the better paid maids in town, but even at 1600Q a month they obviously don’t have any emergency savings. She asked to borrow the 300Q and said we could take it out of her paycheck. She also asked to leave right away. The Wife gave her the 300Q and told her to go to see her baby.
The next day she arrived on time and asked if she would be able to make up her hours at some point. We said no problem, and took the 300Q out of her next paycheck.
About two weeks later, she came to me with a long story involving lots of ‘fijese’ and obviously wanted some money. I told her to go talk to The Wife for two reasons; first, I want the Maid to understand she works for The Wife, even if she knows I am giving The Wife the money. (Don’t you FemiNazis think I control all the money; The Wife and I own everything jointly, it’s just that the job of hitting the ATM every other day falls to me). The second reason is that I couldn’t quite figure out what she was asking the money for and don’t really need any more drama in my life.
It turns out the Maid got a new floor for her house and needed 600Q to pay for it. I didn’t get all of the details from The Wife, but apparently the Maid’s husband’s friend had installed it for them and done the job cheaply as a favor but they really needed to get him some money. Now, perhaps this floor was an emergency of some sort and we didn’t get the details, but I was a little reluctant to loan the money when it was a household improvement and not a life or death hospital situation.
However, The Wife really likes the Maid and pointed out that the 600Q was less than two weeks pay and that she had effectively already earned half that and so she gave her the money. I really have no complaints about Maid #6, except I’m worried that the lending could become a habit; let’s face it, when you make 1800Q a month you’re always going to need money, and when you know that your Patron gives you money whenever you ask for it, it’s a temptation.
Last week Maid #6 got a phone call from her mother saying that one of her children had been taken to the hospital. She didn’t share many details but asked to leave and ran out of the house in a hurry. I suspect she would have asked for money but hasn’t paid off the 600Q for the new floor.
The next morning she didn’t show up for work, instead, her older sister showed up about 8:30am and offered to work that day in her sister’s place. On the one hand I was irritated Maid #6 didn’t bother to spend the 1Q to call me (or even try GuateCalling), but instead sent her sister to the house, with the explanation that she was at the hospital with her baby. On the other hand I was impressed as could be that she sent the sister and the sister actually showed up.
Of course, I want her to take care of her baby. I know how often my schedule is disrupted by unpredictable children, and Maid #6 has so far made up any hours and repaid any money she’s borrowed. However, after six months I’m starting to get the feeling that we’re slowly, gradually, slipping. Santiago tells me you simply can’t give an inch or you’re going to be dealing with new requests and changing rules all the time, and that the Maid wouldn’t treat a Chapin Patron this way.
What do you veterans think?
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