{"id":708,"date":"2010-10-29T19:17:12","date_gmt":"2010-10-30T01:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/?p=708"},"modified":"2010-10-29T19:17:12","modified_gmt":"2010-10-30T01:17:12","slug":"%c2%a8eres-tostada-toe-stah-da%c2%a8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/%c2%a8eres-tostada-toe-stah-da%c2%a8\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a8Eres Tostada…TOE-STAH-DA\u00a8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which I am assuming means \u00a8You are tan…REALLY TAN\u00a8, but literally means \u00a8you are toasted\u00a8.\u00a0 And this form of \u00a8to be\u00a8 even suggests permanence in a characteristic which, of course, when Kikay said this to me, I had to ask \u00a8No debe serlo ‘EST\u00c1S’ tostada<\/em>\u00a8?\u00a0 That was the\u00a0level of conversation on the bus ride from Tierra Colorado two weeks ago, which was a lot different than this week’s bus ride which included musings in English about who was going to use the machete in my tool bag.<\/p>\n

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Antoinetta mixing cement in her huipile and corte<\/p><\/div>\n

The camioneta\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0(more commonly referred to as \u00a8chicken bus\u00a8) business here in Guatemala seems to be run by some kind of organized crime ring.\u00a0 At least that is what my teachers have told me and I think that is what I have been reading in The Quetzalteco.\u00a0 There have recently been quite a few homicides of ayudantes,<\/em> the guys who help the drivers load up buses with passengers and collect the dough.\u00a0 Anyway, several different companies own these buses and I am guessing that some may compete for routes.\u00a0 Not really sure.\u00a0 On our way back from the safe stove project this week, which was in a different area than the last two weeks, we got on a yellow school bus, that I am pretty sure came from Quebec because instead of\u00a0 having \u00a8School Bus\u00a8 on the front, it had L’Ecolier, which actually means schoolboy, I think.\u00a0 Anyway, this big yellow French-Canadian school bus waited for us to run down the hill, maybe 3 minutes the most.\u00a0 Now, I am completely shocked that there is any kind of schedule with these things…but apparently there is.\u00a0 You would never guess it, because\u00a0time is so random and abstract\u00a0here in general, but that broken down bus that exhausts\u00a0thick, black toxic fumes as it barrels haphazardly\u00a0through dusty\u00a0rural roads\u00a0was on a schedule.\u00a0 And it seems that because he was waiting for us, our bus cut into another bus’ schedule\/route and our teenage driver and his pubescent ayudante<\/em>\u00a0became the objects of wrath of the other baby boy bus drivers.\u00a0 These guys really look like children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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On a tight schedule...<\/p><\/div>\n

So first, the other bus overtakes our bus forcing us to stop, and then the drivers engage in some heated argument.\u00a0 I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Minor (one of the Pop Wuj teachers) whispered one word in English to me when I asked que pasa<\/em>…extortion.<\/div>\n
Now, of course I am thinking, this guy is probably going to get on our bus and rob us, and although it looked like a junior high school fight was about to break out, Minor looked nervous and heard the other bus driver threaten to kill our bus driver. \u00a0I guess he thought he was the rightful owner of several fares on that bus.\u00a0 After about 10 or 15 minutes of angry arguing, both sets of bus drivers returned to their buses and started driving aggressively. \u00a0The other bus was ahead of us and our bus would try to overtake it, but then the other bus would block it…a different kind of chicken on the chicken bus. \u00a0And it forced us to stop again in front of a scrappy looking bar where the other guys went in and I was sure a whole bunch of camioneta thugs were going to come out.\u00a0 One of the volunteers was wondering whether we should arm ourselves with the stove tools.\u00a0 There were a bunch of spades and a machete in the bag next to me. \u00a0There were maybe 8 of us on the bus, a 2 quetzal fare each, representing $2 in total.\u00a0 \u00a0I am simply amazed by this.\u00a0 For some reason, it just didn’t feel dangerous to me, not sure why. \u00a0I was more worried about the driving because this kid was all hopped up on adrenaline and obviously too young and angry to actually care that he was responsible for the safety of other people.\u00a0 After nothing happened at the tense stop, our bus finally overtook the other one and it seemed like all was resolved…but noooooo.\u00a0 A third bus came toward us and the driver must have been friends with our bus driver and he blocked the road so the other bus couldn’t get through.\u00a0 Then our bus driver stopped our bus to go yell some more at the other bus driver.\u00a0 At this point, I was just freakin’ annoyed. \u00a0I suggested getting out and walking and Minor figured we were about a mile or two from our stop and if he didn’t return in a few minutes we would go. \u00a0Well they finally returned and off we went. \u00a0Loco.<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
Otherwise, the day was amazing.\u00a0 I have helped build two stoves for two different families.\u00a0 I didn’t do much on my first outing, but I think I can build one all by myself now.\u00a0 I know the second, third and fourth step and I could pretty much wing the first step. \u00a0In the last two weeks I chopped concrete bricks with a machete and sculpted an opening with a chisel to hold the aluminum chimney.\u00a0 I mixed concrete and worked with clay and applied both to the top surface of the stove to install the plancha<\/em>, which is equivalent to a stove burner.<\/div>\n
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Last week's stove...<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The families are so lovely and everyone pitches in to help.\u00a0\u00a0 It feels really good\u00a0to contribute to a project that directly improves the health and safety of other people.\u00a0\u00a0I have heard so many negative things about\u00a0how corrupt some\u00a0NGOs are here (and honestly, I don’t think that is something endemic to Guatemala), but\u00a0even if someone is taking a bunch of money, which I\u00a0doubt,\u00a0this project\u00a0has still\u00a0realistically improved the economy of extremely poor families while decreasing respiratory illnesses that result from constant smoke inhalation.\u00a0 It has also prevented countless accidents that occur when small children are around open flames.\u00a0 That’s a lot of bang for my buck.<\/div>\n
I actually can’t believe how much I wrote about that bus ride…I wanted to post some more pics of Leticia and her beautiful children, Antoinetta,\u00a0Norma and Domingo (Miguel was back at the school squeezing oranges)\u00a0and write about other stuff that I am sure I have already forgotten, but I have to get ready to go out, which means I have to put my hiking boots.\u00a0\u00a0Caliente!<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0I brought\u00a0one fancyish top with me, but everyone in Xela has seen it…twice.\u00a0 Or maybe four times.\u00a0 \u00a0I actually miss taking Spanish classes.\u00a0 Tomorrow I am going to study for five hours in the morning and then Sunday I am off to Todos Santos for a little break!\u00a0\u00a0 Should have some great pics next week of Dia de Los Muertos…<\/div>\n
Oh yeah, if you haven’t already guessed, I’m not coming home on Wednesday.<\/div>\n
Have a nice weekend everyone!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…which was a lot different than this week’s bus ride which included musings about who was going to use the machete in my tool bag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-studying-spanish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}