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No, I’m not referring to government schools, I’m talking about homeschooling here in Guate.  Apparently it’s an unheard of practice, with many children dropping out of school altogether, some going to government schools, and the affluent attending private school.  In the US, homeschooling has become so common and homeschool students dominating so many academic contests and even achieving prominence in sports (such as Tim Tebow), it’s unusual to get a strange look when you talk about homeschooling, but whether from locals or expats here I get that quizzical, “Why would you do that?!” response when explaining that the Wife and I homeschool.

I resist the urge to say, “Because we don’t want them to grow up to be idiots”, and usually give a longer explanation that the interrogator (or probably most readers) really want.  The question, naturally, presumes that government schools are the norm and that anything outside that would be unusual, even weird.  As if some of the greatest men (and women) of modernity weren’t homeschooled, including some of the top names in their fields.  Presumably they weren’t all social misfits either.

I don’t want my kids to be ‘average’, I don’t want them to spend their days among kids with whom the only thing they have in common is a similar birth date and whose parents care so little for their formation that they abandon them to a system which excels only at mediocrity.  If my kid wants to become a car mechanic, that’s fine, but I want him to live a rich and fulfilling life where nothing beyond his desire and potential is out of his reach.

But the real point, as Butler Shaffer observes, is:

There is nothing so disruptive to the status quo as a society of self-directed, independent-minded people both capable of and insistent on informed, analytical thought. It has been the purpose of government schools to assure that such conditions do not arise; to continue to produce a society of capable workers but who, nonetheless, have passive and contented minds.”

I’ve noticed the same here, even among the upper classes, where students do not seem to be taught critical thinking, problem solving, logic or ethics.  All you libs who want government to manage our entire lives should take one look at the system which government has dominated for the last three generations-education-and ask yourself if you really want them doing to your health what they do to kids’ characters and brains.


Last month I got the opportunity to meet long-time reader, blogger and recent resident of Guatemala Kerry Smith.  Kerry blogs at ¿Dónde están mis pantalones? and is working at La Limonada in the capital.  Kerry is coming into this opportunity with her eyes wide open and has what I think is a healthy perspective.

La Limonada is a Christian organization that works to take children from the worst slums of the capital and provide them food, clothes, an education, in short, a better life.  For you libs, this is real ‘hope and change’, the kind that actually makes a difference in the life of someone who is suffering.  Yes, I know some of you won’t want to have anything to do with a Christian organization and believe both the kids and society would be better off had they just been aborted, but they’re here now and these people are doing good things, so….

I want to encourage you to make a tax-deductible donation to support Kerry’s work and the children at La Lemonada by going here.  You can click on monthly donation, select the team member (Kerry Smith), and contribute by credit card or check.


A few months back when I reported about the attorneys going around town telling people that the Wife and I had stolen our children, I was pretty upset.  It’s a small town and when you’re trying to do business and people are willing to touch on an issue that is as hot and sensitive as adoptions/stolen children, well, I was pretty hot about it.

Today brought me to the worst feelings I’ve had about this place in 15 months.  Let me give you some background; on a frequent basis the Wife or I take the kids out into the neighborhood or in the empty lot next door and they kick the soccer ball around, climb trees and basically do harmless, old-fashioned kid stuff.  One of us always accompanies them for their own safety and to make sure everyone is well-behaved.

Over the last few weeks, there have been some strange happenings.  One of the kids told me that he thought someone had thrown a rock at him.  I didn’t pay it much attention since he couldn’t actually point a finger, but the next day he had a huge bruise on his leg.  It’s hard to place blame when you’re a rough and tumble kid and you have a mysterious bruise.

Well, a few days later the Wife was sitting with the kids and got hit by another mysterious flying rock.  She looked around and wasn’t able to place where the rock had come from or who might have thrown it.

Today the Wife and kids were outside playing when the two year-old suddenly dropped to the ground and after those long seconds of silence which preface an outburst, began screaming wildly.  We wouldn’t have had any clue except that at the exact same instant the Wife was hit by a small piece of brick which presumably ricocheted off the baby or originated from the same place.

The impact left a gash and a huge knot, not bad enough for an emergency room trip but pretty severe.  I surveyed the scene with a neighbor and we quickly ruled out about 270 degrees of the field as an origin for the rock based on the wall that separates the neighborhood from the street, dense trees and our own house.  The severity of the impact on the baby’s head and the substantial bruising left by the previous projectiles pointed toward a device, unless Nolan Ryan is hiding behind a tree and throwing 90 mph rocks and broken bricks.

We found nothing, but my suspicion was immediately centered on a kid with a slingshot.  Regrettably, we didn’t find such a kid, in fact, we found nothing at all suspicious, there are only a handful of houses around that could shield an assailant and the lay of the land is such that there just aren’t that many angles that would work.  However, it was obvious to me that someone has noticed a pattern of the gringo kids playing outside in the afternoons and has decided to use them for target practice.

I shared the story with Santiago, concluding, “I can’t believe it”, to which he replied, “Dude, that’s the way it works here.  They hate you because you have money and white skin and they’ll attack the weakest, most defenseless member of your family with a slingshot and then slip back into the shadows.  Even if you caught them red handed their parents wouldn’t do anything; they probably know about it and approve.  You’re lucky they weren’t using marbles, which is their favorite weapon.”

So, I hung up the phone and counted to 10.  I don’t lose my temper easily, but neither do I take kindly to people attacking my family.  The kids on the soccer fields who responded to gringo goals by throwing rocks was bad, the licensiados lying about my family around town was pretty bad, but this stuff is deadly.  A small child hit with a brick could be fatal, and I know better than to imagine that anyone here would care if a gringo toddler was blinded, impaired or killed by a Guatemalan kid with a slingshot.

It’s not that kids around the world aren’t bad and don’t throw rocks or use BB guns, but realizing that someone has staked us out and is methodically taking shots at little kids…and who knows how many attempts there have been that have gone unnoticed?  It makes sense that if you’re armed with a slingshot or some other device that you’re going to miss more often than hit, so somebody has been working hard at this.

So, I’m kind of down on life beyond the gated community at the moment.  It’s sinking in that it doesn’t matter how safe I feel around town if the moment my baby steps outside the door he’s target practice for would-be snipers.  I know some of you readers will laugh at my concern over what is undoubtedly nothing compared to the violence some experience regularly, but when I think about how close we came today to losing a child, I get sick to my stomach and wonder what my hand in it would have been since I am the one who brought my children into this culture.

No, it’s not another confiscation scheme from the socialists in Washington or your state capital masquerading as help for the needy, this event will actually benefit children!  From JP at RumBar:

We’re doing another NGO event at RumBar for Ninos de Guatemala, an education project based in Ciudad Vieja. The party is this Thursday, January 21st. It begins at 6:30pm and will go on till about 11pm. The 25Q cover at the door gives you free food and great music by the famous La Raiz. We will also do a raffle with prizes from Panza Verde, Earth Lodge, Reilly’s, Old Town Outfitters, Cafe No Se, Travel Menu, Jades, S.A., David Bau, Toko Baru, Skin Deep Spa, YogAntigua, Nancy Payne massages, and Kathleen Marsh Acupuncture.
If you would please send this along to your friends – the more the merrier and the more we can help Ninos de Guatemala.
Thank you so much and I hope to see you here!!
What could be better…free food, drinks and the knowledge that you’re helping little kids?  I hope to see you there, and if you can’t make it, send a donation via paypal to Ninos de Guatemala.  (Link coming shortly).

It was a gorgeous day last Saturday, in the mid 70s, sunny and with a light breeze.  I was dealing with some car repair issues and called home to check on things.

I found it hard to believe the house was really on fire given the house is made from concrete and tile, and when the Wife got on the phone she explained that the finca next door was burning stuff and the house was covered in smoke.

I thought she might be exaggerating, but on my way home I could see the cloud of smoke enveloping the neighborhood from more than a mile away.  Naturally all of the windows in the house had been open to take advantage of the perfect weather, which meant now the entire house was filled with smoke.  I arrived home to find children coughing, crying, everyone with articles of clothes tied around their faces, and the smoke just hanging in the air.

My original thought was that it would have been better to leave all of the windows open, hoping the wind would carry it through, but the density of the smoke was such that it was unbearable, so they had closed all of the windows.  This kept most of the smoke out but also meant that all of the smoke that had stayed in was trapped.

I climbed on to the roof to evaluate, and sure enough, workers on the finca which adjoins our property were burning huge piles of the leftovers from their recent harvest.  One fire was literally at the base of our wall, another was about 10 meters away, and the third closest was only 20 meters away, and the wind was carrying the smoke right across our back wall, into our patio and into the house.

I yelled at the workers to move their fires away from the house, explaining that it was not safe and that my family was getting sick of the fire.  I observed that they all were standing up wind of their fires and hand their faces covered with cloth.  They talked amongst themselves for a moment and then resumed.  I thought about telling them I would call the police, but realized they would see right through that and know I didn’t have a clue how things work here.

The roof afforded the cleanest air for hundreds of yards so I contemplated my options.  What I really wanted to do was hook the hose up and drag it to the roof and spray the fires from the roof.  After calculating the distance, I realized my hoses aren’t long enough to reach up to the roof and be of use on any but maybe the closest fire.

My next thought was to arm myself and the teenager with machetes and approach the fires with buckets of water and rakes and hoes, to dampen and then spread them.  I thought for sure my action would send the workers running, and that whoever they brought back might listen to reason.

The longer I remained on the the more bizarre the ideas got, evidence of the effect the smoke was having on my thinking process.  My final strategy was to buy boombas across the street and shoot them from the roof down onto the workers, hoping they would scatter.

In the end, I abandoned my plans to adapt to a GuateApproach to the problem and instead chose the passive, gringo approach, opened every window in the house and put the family in the van and left for the day.  When we returned 8 hours later, the fires were out, the skies were clear again and the house was mostly smoke-free.  Of course, all the clothes, beds, linens and furniture smelled like smoke, and we still had red eyes, coughing and sore throats.

As readers know, I’ve got a collection of real estate stories, but one lesson I never thought of before now was to make sure you don’t rent or buy next to a finca, or you’ll be dealing with these occasional, unannounced fires and smoke that will ruin your day, threaten your house, and cause all your friends to think you’ve suddenly taken up an extraordinary smoking habit.

A friend of mine, we’ll call him Edward, called me up one Saturday morning and invited my boys and I over to his place to climb the mountain that adjoins his property.  I had been to his place before, near San Lucas, and knew that his property was ringed with high peaks and thought it sounded like a great opportunity for the boys to burn off some energy and me to burn off some calories.

On the way out the door, the Wife asked if I was going to be okay.  “What do you mean?”, I said.  “Well”, she replied, “We were out awfully late last night with Juan and Jane Doe (two friends of ours who wish to remain very anonymous), and I know you had a few drinks….I don’t think I would want to climb any mountains today.”

I assured her I would be fine, blew her a kiss and we were on our way.  We arrived at Edward’s, who was waiting for us and was anxious to get started up the hill.  It was only 2pm, and his pace should have been the first warning signal.  It doesn’t get dark for hours….why is he in such a hurry?

Well, Edward was setting a pretty aggressive pace (especially for an old guy), and of course the kids were having no trouble keeping up (one was actually hopping back and forth across the trail, like a ball in a pinball machine, despite the 60 degree incline), but by the first stop 15 minutes into the climb, I was breathing hard.

Edward took 60 seconds to show us the spring where he gets his ‘mountain fresh water…a lot cleaner than that crap you city people drink’ and we were back on the trail.  After about 10 minutes Edward mentioned that I should indicate if I needed a break since he “wouldn’t be stopping otherwise”.  “Now would be a good time for a break”, I wheezed quietly.

After 60 seconds Edward was reminding us that we didn’t want to wait too long, and before I could ask what the big hurry was, he and the boys were off.  The forest was pretty dense, and we had zig-zagged back and forth around the side of the mountain enough that I wasn’t sure of my bearings, so I didn’t want to fall too far behind.  Additionally, we were in the shade of the other peaks and so it was occasionally difficult to find the sun.  To make matters worse, the pace was such, combined with the poor footing, that I had no chance to look around to develop any perspective; it was eyes on the path and keep moving.

The first break had come after 15 minutes of climbing, the second after 10 minutes, but the third and fourth breaks came at 5 minute and 2 minute intervals.  We got a few minutes of respite when we came to a ridge that was only about a 30% incline, but by this point my heart was beating so fast the 60 second breaks weren’t doing much.  I remembered the last time I felt like this; I was 17 and trying out for admission to the Pararescue program in San Antonio and was supposed to swim about 30 laps in an Olympic size pool and then tread water for an hour.

That was before I started drinking or smoking cigars or had lived through any pregnancies, and I still didn’t make the cut (Only one guy out of 30 did).  I’m pretty sure that later that afternoon I was fine, but I was starting to contemplate what they would do with my body if I died up here where the corn doesn’t grow.  My boys wouldn’t be able to carry me down, Edward-an agnostic and cynic-would just roll my body down the back side of the hill, and worse, GuateLiving would come to an unexpected end.

After contemplating all this, I asked Edward, “How much further is it?”  He stopped, agitated, and said, “We’re almost half way.  Let’s keep moving.”  I walked another 100 meters or so and declared, “It is finished”.

I told the group that I wasn’t going any further, that I would wait for them here and see them on the return trip.  I took a bottle of water from the backpack and watched them climb another 100 meters or so before they disappeared.

After a few minutes leaning against a tree, I realized that I wasn’t going to die.  My heart rate was now Read More→

The other day we were having some guests over, which meant the Wife didn’t sleep the night before (lying awake in bed thinking about all the things she wanted to get done), then ran around all morning cleaning and preparing, which resulted in the disruption of my normal feeding schedule and various other things.  My normal role in this situation is to observe those things which are not being done, critique, and if absolutely necessary, get personally involved.   In this case, that meant checking on the personal hygiene situation of the little boys.

Me:  Boys, are your hands clean?

Boy 1:  Ugh, I don’t know…do they look clean?

Me:  No, wash them.

Boy 2:  Dad, I smelled them, and it smells like someone peed on them.

Me:  Wash them.

Boy 3:  Dad, my hands smell like my butt.

Me:  Wash them.

Next up is clothes.  These boys will wear clothes indefinitely and not think anything about it.

Me:  Okay, let’s check your clothes…Boy #1, when was the last time you changed your underwear?

Boy 1:  Umm, I don’t know..when we went to Mass (5 days ago).

Me:  Change them.  Boy 2, when was the last time you changed your underwear?

Boy 2:  I don’t have any underwear on.

Me:  Find some.  Boy 3, when was the last time you changed your underwear?

Boy 3:  Boy #2 stole my underwear.

Me: : Find some. I need some cucha

On a recent Sunday a woman came up to the Wife and invited our family over for a ‘coffecito’.  I was really surprised by this given both how large our family is and the fact that my Spanish is considerably better than this woman’s English.  However, she seemed very excited about it and her home is near ours so we agreed.

When we arrived at her home we discovered that several other parishoners from church were there and are actually her sisters, and of course there were a handful of young people who were children of one or another of the women.  What unfolded before our eyes was really extraordinary; these ladies proceeded to bring out box after box of expensive US cereal, and then cooked up these little hot dogs, made scrambled eggs, and of course served the requisite beans and cheese.  They also made thin, light pancake-style patties.

All the teenagers involved from both sides of the cultural divide were, of course, timid and refused to speak to one another in the others’ language, and so ate their cereal, beans and eggs in an awkward silence, but once the Wife and I sat down for our turn you would have thought we were close family.

They told us all about their extended family, how they live in the capital and come to Antigua every weekend, who in the family goes to church and who doesn’t, and which of the children they’re having a hard time disciplining.  I got to query them on a wide range of topics including their opinions on Colom and Molina (thumbs down to both), and whether women in Guatemala are oppressed by their men (‘No, that is only the case in the lower classes where they are not educated’), while the Wife got to ask them about prices for pillows, blankets and other domestic matters.

We ate and drank the family coffee (the husband’s family apparently owns a finca), and talked for nearly three hours, while the children had the run of the house and the neighborhood.  By then I was exhausted from the lengthy Spanish conversation and apologized but insisted I needed to leave.  (When the toddler is rolling around on the floor begging to take a nap, it’s always a good sign it’s time to wrap things up).  Our gracious hosts wouldn’t even allow us to help take the pile of dishes into the kitchen.  For all the friendliness and familiarity they treated us with, in the end we were still honored guests.

On the way home, I reflected on the odds that back in Phoenix I would have ever invited a family I didn’t know and whose language I didn’t speak into my home for an impromptu, substantial three hour brunch.

Of course, the true test will be whether we ever get a second invite.

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