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Archive for Expat Adaptation

With visitors to the blog and first time emails reaching record levels (unlike global temperatures), I thought it might be a good time to get input on GuateLiving from other expats living in Guatemala.  I’ve assembled a list of prospective expats (write if you’d like to be profiled) and I have a starting point for questions.

Readers, what would you like to hear about?  Review the list and comment and I’ll get started.

How long have you been here?

Where are you from?

Why did you stay?

What is your favorite thing about Guate?

What is your least favorite thing about Guate?

Where in Guate have you travelled?

Do you have a favorite restaurant, hotel or business you want to mention?

Are you active in a business, NGO, church or other activity?

What things do you miss about ‘home’?

What things do you really prefer here vs. ‘home’?

Update: I got my first hatemail in record time, only 30 seconds after posting and surprisingly it wasn’t from a disciple of the Global Warming Church, but instead a Chapin who alleged my deep seated racism/paternalism by seeking out only expats, or as he wrote it “rich white Christians”, to interview.  Keep in mind dear readers that the blog exists primarily to please me and a distant second purpose is to educate and/or entertain NorteAmericanos who have an interest in Guatemala.  So grab a licuado and chill.

It sounds like the ingredients to a al Qaeda plot or perhaps a MacGyver episode, but in fact it’s just the first blog post by Sweaty in Peten since returning from the US following the birth of their twins.

Before leaving for 5 months, the most important thing for us was to find somebody to watch our house (really just our dogs but house sounds better.) We have two big ferocious guard dogs for whom we would trade everything they are supposed to be guarding to keep them safe.

If you read this post you can get the background on how much we were paying him. While we were gone he was kicked out of his village for his association with us (we were also kicked out, but that’s another post) and so lived at our house full time. Instead of buying a motorcycle, we talked about him buying a plot of land and putting up a “house” since he has no place else to go.
Living in our bodega (concrete storage room off the house) full time, we didn’t really know what we would come back to. Happily, the dogs were both alive and healthy, which was the main thing. However, he had siphoned all the gas out of both vehicles (I’m not sure what he did with it though), given my nice soccer ball to the dog to chew up (probably not intentionally as much as left it outside without putting it away), and I am missing a nice flashlight and some MACE I had left for him. I also lost both cell phones ($12 ea.) that I had left for him.
If you don’t remember, Jimmy and Shelley are two missionaries who have committed their careers-indeed, their lives-to Guatemala.  They are one of a few bloggers willing to link to GuateLiving and were even brave enough to meet me at McDonald’s for coffee once.
Welcome back and congratulations!

Continuing with the theme of ‘What Would Don Marco Do?’, I thought readers would enjoy this little tale.

I was walking East on 4th Calle, from the McDonalds towards the park along a street that is always busy with beggars.  I suspect they favor this calle because the tall buildings provide lots of shade and there is so much pedestrian traffic.  I make it a habit to give away my coins to children, nursing mothers and the disabled, and on this day I had given away all my coins already and had to fish out a 1Q bill to give to the mother who was asleep but nursing her child.

I folded up the bill and put it in her outstretched hand, but as she was dozing she didn’t respond quickly enough and the wind grabbed it, throwing it about 10 meters down the street.  I instinctively took a few steps for it, and then paused, asking myself how hard I was actually going to chase a 1Q bill.  I decided to run after it, and you know what happened next; the wind kept blowing it further down the street, always just out of my reach.

Again I asked myself what in the world I was doing chasing this 1Q bill that I was giving away.  By the time I did catch it I was nearly to Burger King, two blocks away.  I grabbed the bill and seriously thought about just continuing to walk towards the park and my appointment.  There were lots of other worthy people to give to along the way, and certainly at the park, and I thought about not going back.

But, in the end I walked back to the original woman, who appeared to be oblivious to the entire scene (although gawking French tourists were laughing and pointing at me), put the 1Q in her hand and closed her hand on the bill, before resuming my eastward walk.

We expats are confronted with a lot of decisions living here in a third world country, who to give to, how much to give, when to say no, and how to reason it all in your own mind.  I’d like to think I’m becoming somewhat comfortable with the decisions I’ve made and how I execute them…but what I’ve not encountered before this day was just how hard I should work at getting that 1Q into the hand of a beggar!

When we left Phoenix we made the decision to store unique valuables and sell everything else.  Once we settled here and decided to stay, we faced the monumental task of starting from scratch by accumulating everything from appliances, to furniture and other household goods. For most people this may be a better decision than shipping a container, and it certainly has been for us.

One of the first tasks was to find comfortable furniture.  You won’t find American or European style furniture here, in particular the comfy Lazy Boy style chairs and comfortable couches and sofas that are common in the US.  I’ve always preferred leather furniture for its enduring style, sturdiness and ease of cleaning.  Good stuff like that is two to three times the cost of comparable quality in the US, so I endeavored to have something built for me.

First I hired a carpenter I knew to build the frames.  Admittedly I didn’t think this all the way through; I should have found one shop that really knew how to build furniture.  Instead, I found a needy but competent carpenter, who built a sofa and loveseat strong enough to hold a dozen gringos.  This thing was overbuilt by a factor of three.  And all the dimensions suggested said carpenter thought the average gringo was about 7′2″. The frame for the sofa and loveseat cost me 1500Q.

So the stuff sat while I contemplated the next step.  One day I overhead Maid #6 telling Maid #7 (her older sister), that her husband didn’t have much work.  I knew her husband was a skilled carpenter, and a friend had seen some of his work.  Knowing that I was already networking into a pretty good family, I told her to call her husband and have him come by.

90 minutes later Jose was at the door.  He brought several catalogs, material samples and an eager disposition.  I liked the guy and he asked lots of good questions.  He took lots of measurements and notes and wanted to confer with his boss before giving me a quote.  Four hours later he returned saying each couch would cost 2000Q to finish to my requirements.  I paid half on the loveseat, telling him I wanted to take one at a time to make sure it was to my requirements.

Two weeks to the day, Jose showed up at my house at 7am.  I was lying in bed, wishing I hadn’t stayed at Panza Verde entertaining some Mules until 1:30am.  Anyway, per the instructions I have received from the ‘good families’ of Guatemala, I rewarded his presumption by taking a shower before meeting him.  You see, this guy didn’t call me to see if he could come out, didn’t even bother coming with his wife an hour later, and hadn’t brought the couch.  It takes some getting used to if you, like me, were trained to answer the phone quickly, not make anyone wait at the door, and quickly accommodate unannounced visitors, but the reality here is that people show up unannounced at all hours of the day (and night), and the veterans and locals tell me that when this happens you deal with it on your own terms.

So after showering and avoiding the mirror, I hit the coffee machine extra hard and welcomed Jose in.  He explained that he had delivered the loveseat to my office the day before, and wanted final payment plus the half for the next one.  I calmly but firmly explained that he needed to deliver the couch to my house, and that I would be here all day.  I gave him some money for the bus and sent him on his way, irritated.

Well, the next day he showed up at about 5pm.  I was out in the neighborhood doing a recon mission with the kids, looking for a gringo couple who are neighbors and occasional commenters on this blog but who have steadfastly avoided introducing themselves, when The Wife called saying Jose was here with the loveseat.  I pointed out to the kids which house I thought belonged to the gringos and why, and made my way back to El Compound to discover that Jose and his accomplice couldn’t get the loveseat through the door to the house.

For a moment I thought that by some bizarre chance the loveseat really might be too big for the door frame, and since all the doors are steel and thus welded, it’s not easy to take a door off the hinges and gain an extra few centimeters.  But looking at the loveseat I couldn’t believe it was really too big.  Too prove me wrong, the older gentleman took his tape measure, measured the width of the door frame and then the largest part of the loveseat.

For a moment I couldn’t comprehend, and then I realized that these two guys hadn’t considered angling the loveseat so as to present the longest portion through the door and then rotating the loveseat to bring it through at an angle.  After all, this was the loveseat, not the couch, and it wasn’t as though it was so long as to prevent rotating.

I struggled to explain in Spanish what I wanted, but step by step I coached them through it and they both expressed amazement as it (easily) fit through by turning on it’s end and then rotating once inside the door frame.  They beamed at the discovery while I gave the loveseat a good trial.

This loveseat had been finished well in a nice beige leather, but something was missing.  Something significant.  As I sat on it, I realized that even with my 6 foot-plus size, the depth was extraordinary.  The loveseat was missing the cushions at the back. To sit on the couch you had to sit upright, not resting against anything. After a lot of explanations and demonstrations, I got them to understand what I needed.  They were happy to provide what I needed, but warned it would require more money.  I thought about arguing that the pictures we had used as examples all included cushions, but decided this was a case of miscommunication and not a scam.

So I paid the balance on the loveseat, told him to get back to me on the price for the extra cushions, and paid half for the sofa, which he promised to deliver within two weeks.

To be continued…

3/8" frame, 1/4" plates and only 390Q installed!

Apparently 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

When 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

I 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.

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