I'm sitting in Houstan International airport. I can see at least seven television screens flickering between The Situation Room and other such broadcasting triumphs, each representing the shimmering culmination of human evolution: manifestly, a clip of Hugh Jackman hitting his head on The Oprah Winfrey show, and an interview with some pie-faced woman talking about her harrowing experience of being stuck on a cruise liner. Both seem to have warrented international exposure...'scary stuff!', exclaims the polyester ancorwoman.
I feel like I am watching everything through a layer of clingfilm.
Starbucks logos are pressing in on every side and UGG boot wearing 8 year olds, clutching i-phones to their ears, strut past me wielding their Hannah Montana super-mini suitcases. Frosty the snowman is playing over the buzz of TV chatter, whilst the blond lady with the luminous teeth in the studio is telling me that a middle-aged celebrity knocking his forehead on a chat show is something the world should be concerned about.
I'm not pretending to have abandoned my London ways, opting now to eat only hemp, or getting emotional about grass and co-operative food schemes; and neither am I going to bang on for ages about about reverse culture shock, the claustrophobia of consumerism and the bizarre yet sinister nature of the slogan-based society we have created for ourselves, which, seems increasingly to revolve around an infinite barrage of reflected images...
However, having said that, the world really does feel upside-down in this synthetic womb of an airport, with its smothering of safety announcements and Christmas shopping countdowns...Conversationally, just over a week to go until that festive day chaps! Time to panic I'd say. Will you have time to get to Debenhams and buy that cheese dome for Auntie Ida? You don't want the world to collapse into a cheese-domeless vortex on December 25th.
I check Facebook where some of my friends have sent me premature ''welcome home to civilization messages''. Back through the looking glass. Back to reality?
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
The X Files
In 2005, an explosion in a group of abandoned buildings near the rubbish dump in Guatemala City unearthed a cavern of decaying files, the existence of which had until that point been denied, and each one a record of police activity and brutality during the 36 year civil war.
The Guatemalan National Police Archive is the largest single cache of documents that has been made available to human rights investigators in history, holding answers relating to deaths of the 200,000 people who were killed in the conflict, and offering hope of closure to families of over 400,000 people who were ''disappeared''.
Located in Zona 6 of the Capital, the entrance to the achives are unprepossessing to say the least. Abandoned cars and overgrown scrub land border a weather beaten cement courtyard, around which a collection of squat low ceiling-ed rooms harbour one of the most important discoveries to be made in Guatemala's recent past.
These records potentially incriminate a large number of powerful people, which makes being an employee here a pretty sketchy business. Indeed, just in case the whole thing wasn't quite Mission Impossible enough already, the consensus seems to be that, after the election next year, the new government will destroy these records.
The staff are careful to keep their faces covered as they work busily within this warren of cool tunnels and muffled sound. Each of them wear a synthetic mask which serves to protect them from inhaling the contaminated dust produced by stages of advanced decay and, perhaps more importantly, allowing them to maintain a level of anonymity. Many of them said that they didn't't even tell people outside of their close family that they were working on this project.
After 45 minutes or so of wandering through the halls, I became increasingly claustrophobic. Box upon box upon file upon file upon photos upon more boxes; scanners, photocopiers, a somewhat random and of a topless lady stapled to the wall; room after room of more people methodically dusting down sheets of long forgotten paperwork, each one with the potential to disclose yet another atrocity, yet another person who one day just stopped existing.
Many of the cardboard crates had doodles on the front, or even on the identification papers themselves within them: the date '1976', for example, surrounded by a crudely drawn pencil sketch of cartoon house, or a bird in flight, presumably penned by the same hand who had so carefully written down, on that same piece of paper, the nature by which they had disposed of a human life.
So what happens now? Could the discovery of the archives herald the beginning of a healing process, of cathartic communal grieving, of closure...? I don't know. I sincerely hope so. I am not wholey optimistic, however. The journalist who introduced us to the work happening at the project also seemed reserved on this topic. The political sitation here is far from stable, and it seems like only a matter of time before the lid is once against closed on this chamber of forgotten secrets and it becomes a tomb once again.
Standing outside, watching the wind silently flaking paint from the frame of an abandoned bicycle lying in the cracked dirt, surrounded by blank and faceless windows, it was almost as if I could hear the ghosts of the past whispering in the late afternoon breeze.
The Guatemalan National Police Archive is the largest single cache of documents that has been made available to human rights investigators in history, holding answers relating to deaths of the 200,000 people who were killed in the conflict, and offering hope of closure to families of over 400,000 people who were ''disappeared''.
Located in Zona 6 of the Capital, the entrance to the achives are unprepossessing to say the least. Abandoned cars and overgrown scrub land border a weather beaten cement courtyard, around which a collection of squat low ceiling-ed rooms harbour one of the most important discoveries to be made in Guatemala's recent past.
These records potentially incriminate a large number of powerful people, which makes being an employee here a pretty sketchy business. Indeed, just in case the whole thing wasn't quite Mission Impossible enough already, the consensus seems to be that, after the election next year, the new government will destroy these records.
The staff are careful to keep their faces covered as they work busily within this warren of cool tunnels and muffled sound. Each of them wear a synthetic mask which serves to protect them from inhaling the contaminated dust produced by stages of advanced decay and, perhaps more importantly, allowing them to maintain a level of anonymity. Many of them said that they didn't't even tell people outside of their close family that they were working on this project.
After 45 minutes or so of wandering through the halls, I became increasingly claustrophobic. Box upon box upon file upon file upon photos upon more boxes; scanners, photocopiers, a somewhat random and of a topless lady stapled to the wall; room after room of more people methodically dusting down sheets of long forgotten paperwork, each one with the potential to disclose yet another atrocity, yet another person who one day just stopped existing.
Many of the cardboard crates had doodles on the front, or even on the identification papers themselves within them: the date '1976', for example, surrounded by a crudely drawn pencil sketch of cartoon house, or a bird in flight, presumably penned by the same hand who had so carefully written down, on that same piece of paper, the nature by which they had disposed of a human life.
So what happens now? Could the discovery of the archives herald the beginning of a healing process, of cathartic communal grieving, of closure...? I don't know. I sincerely hope so. I am not wholey optimistic, however. The journalist who introduced us to the work happening at the project also seemed reserved on this topic. The political sitation here is far from stable, and it seems like only a matter of time before the lid is once against closed on this chamber of forgotten secrets and it becomes a tomb once again.
Standing outside, watching the wind silently flaking paint from the frame of an abandoned bicycle lying in the cracked dirt, surrounded by blank and faceless windows, it was almost as if I could hear the ghosts of the past whispering in the late afternoon breeze.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Clifford the Dog
''Ok, so I want you to shut your eyes and imagine something. I want you to imagine your future, I want you to dream of where you would like to be one day, and what you would like to be doing. When you are ready, open your eyes and draw. Draw that place, that time, that dream....''
So, when I am subsequently faced with fifteen pictures of Clifford the Dog, I am semi-disappointed. Fifteen pictures of Clifford the sodding dog. I asked for hopes, dreams and aspirations but what I actually got was a giant red canine. Multiple copies thereof. Oh, and sketches of cartoon students wearing graduation outfits.
Funnily enough, illustrations of both Clifford the Dog, and the wide-eyed animated alumnus can be found on the walls of Salon 3 . It seems that, if there is something within a 10 foot radius which can be replicated by my students in favour of using their respective noggins, they will almost invariably opt to copy. And by 'almost' invariably, I mean, invariably.
A similar thing happened last week, when a perfectly intelligent and talented friend of mine was absolutely taken aback when his planned lesson - a university style seminar type shebang, where we would all talk openly about our feelings in relation to music, probably, according to his rather unrealistic imagination, sipping tea with our shoes and socks off - bombed:
''What do people think of XXX song? [silence] Has anyone ever written a song? [silence] What is your favourite musician? [silence]". This cycle of questioning and aggressive non-answering went on for a period of time before the whole thing was finally aborted in favour of fashioning maracas out of plastic cups.
From these examples, can we then safely that the kids at the project are devoid of taste and opinion? That they don't have ideas? That they lack creativity? Hm...It seems more likely that they don't the confidence to voice their thoughts in an open forum, or to say 'this is what I think, this is what I like'. I have found that you almost have to trick them into it expressing themselves, disguising choices and thinking activities as instructions and formal lessons, it is then you uncover a wealth of imagination and talent. It's all there.
And that's when that old chestnut, cultural context, becomes absolutely relevant.
Just one contributing factor must be that the traditional educational framework here in Guate is based on a system of rote learning and regurgitating information. It is categorically not based on giving the students the tools with which to think for themselves (unless you consider printing 27 pages on the origin of football according to Wikipedia to be a useful activity for the children of the Basurero community).
This country is also only recently emerging from a period of extremely violent and oppressive conflict, where to know anything, to have information about something or someone was extremely dangerous. Although most of the kids in Guatemala are too young to have been directly personally affected by the war, this sense of fear and mistrust is deeply ingrained in the community psyche, fed by ongoing violence and gang activity. And the problem is especially noticeable with the girls who are struggling to breath in a overtly machismo society.
On that note, I'm off to buy some veggies...
So, when I am subsequently faced with fifteen pictures of Clifford the Dog, I am semi-disappointed. Fifteen pictures of Clifford the sodding dog. I asked for hopes, dreams and aspirations but what I actually got was a giant red canine. Multiple copies thereof. Oh, and sketches of cartoon students wearing graduation outfits.
Funnily enough, illustrations of both Clifford the Dog, and the wide-eyed animated alumnus can be found on the walls of Salon 3 . It seems that, if there is something within a 10 foot radius which can be replicated by my students in favour of using their respective noggins, they will almost invariably opt to copy. And by 'almost' invariably, I mean, invariably.
A similar thing happened last week, when a perfectly intelligent and talented friend of mine was absolutely taken aback when his planned lesson - a university style seminar type shebang, where we would all talk openly about our feelings in relation to music, probably, according to his rather unrealistic imagination, sipping tea with our shoes and socks off - bombed:
''What do people think of XXX song? [silence] Has anyone ever written a song? [silence] What is your favourite musician? [silence]". This cycle of questioning and aggressive non-answering went on for a period of time before the whole thing was finally aborted in favour of fashioning maracas out of plastic cups.
From these examples, can we then safely that the kids at the project are devoid of taste and opinion? That they don't have ideas? That they lack creativity? Hm...It seems more likely that they don't the confidence to voice their thoughts in an open forum, or to say 'this is what I think, this is what I like'. I have found that you almost have to trick them into it expressing themselves, disguising choices and thinking activities as instructions and formal lessons, it is then you uncover a wealth of imagination and talent. It's all there.
And that's when that old chestnut, cultural context, becomes absolutely relevant.
Just one contributing factor must be that the traditional educational framework here in Guate is based on a system of rote learning and regurgitating information. It is categorically not based on giving the students the tools with which to think for themselves (unless you consider printing 27 pages on the origin of football according to Wikipedia to be a useful activity for the children of the Basurero community).
This country is also only recently emerging from a period of extremely violent and oppressive conflict, where to know anything, to have information about something or someone was extremely dangerous. Although most of the kids in Guatemala are too young to have been directly personally affected by the war, this sense of fear and mistrust is deeply ingrained in the community psyche, fed by ongoing violence and gang activity. And the problem is especially noticeable with the girls who are struggling to breath in a overtly machismo society.
On that note, I'm off to buy some veggies...
Thursday, 4 November 2010
What are you doing to me Guate?
If you’d have asked me when I first got to Antigua how I felt about Guatemala, I would have told you that I’d found heaven on earth. For the first two months, the sun shone, I learnt the present tense in Spanish and drank Moza on the roof of Cafe Sky. I climbed some volcanoes, swam in some lakes and generally ‘did some good’, volunteering with a local NGO.
But this is exactly it. I anxiously admit to having perhaps romanticized a world about which I have really had very little understanding. After crashing out of the whole new country honeymoon phase thing, the past four or five months have been a process of trying to get my head around the reality of poverty, desperation, and actual stomach-wrenching fear; of quietly reassessing my well-rehearsed arguments relating to ‘the developing world’ and grappling with a creeping resentment and suspicion towards a country which before had been a benign Eden of natural beauty, Mayan textiles and precious cultural difference.
Since I got back from mincing around Mexico and other such exotic locations over the summer, I have once again failed in quite spectacular, although now trademark fashion, to blog. I am perhaps rather predictably going to blame the fact that I have been busy, but it's definitely more to do with not knowing where to start.
I am currently working in a organization based in Zona 3 of Guatemala City, and it's tough... I’m not gonna lie to you, it's tough. And it smells of Methane. All the time. ALL the time.
That's because Camino Seguro, or 'Safe Passage', serves the Basurero community; the people who live and work on the rubbish landfill - the largest in Central America where, for over half a century, over 500 tons of waste has been dumped daily.
Every day, about 650 kids and women attend the project, an educational reinforcement center set up in 1999 in a bid to create opportunity and hope within a desperate area, providing a secure environment for the most at-risk youth and addressing issues such as malnutrition, illiteracy and mental health problems.
There aren’t many days that go past without a shooting/rape/robbery/horrendously terrifying incident in the neighborhood, yet, within the inoffensively pastel tinted walls of the organization, it is possible to forget exactly where the children who attend Camino Seguro are coming from and how old they really are. As inner city kids living in a slum, growing up in a culture of gang violence, they are tough guys and cool dudes, all ‘Que onda voz’ this and ‘hey sexy’ that, giving you enough crap to make you doubt your ability to execute some of the most basic of human functions, let alone someone capable of imparting any sort of usable information to anybody else.
It's only when you see them ambling their way homeward through a post-apocalyptic landscape of grey concrete and carefully sifted garbage, or sitting on the side of the road next a father who has just drowned his second bottle of Quetzaltecca, or a recurring black eye that just refuses to be masked under a layer of crudely applied makeup, that you remember their vulnerability, that you remember the desperate sadness of a youth rudely stolen.
Before I left home, an incredibly wise lady said to me: ''Guatemala: It's wonderful, it's terrible, it will capture you and it will break your heart.''
I had no idea how absolutely and completely this statement would resonate with me. From the climate, to the security issues, to the scenery, to emotions, everything seems to operate more intensely and with greater significance here. I change how I feel about Guatemala on an almost hourly basis. I love this place whilst simultaneously hating it, I want to stick my neck out and scream and stamp my feet, but I also want to shove my head in the sand and admit defeat. I have experienced moments of such intense joy and beauty, brought into relief by a sense of incredible sadness.
Ah Guate, Guate, Guate...Tomorrow is another day.
But this is exactly it. I anxiously admit to having perhaps romanticized a world about which I have really had very little understanding. After crashing out of the whole new country honeymoon phase thing, the past four or five months have been a process of trying to get my head around the reality of poverty, desperation, and actual stomach-wrenching fear; of quietly reassessing my well-rehearsed arguments relating to ‘the developing world’ and grappling with a creeping resentment and suspicion towards a country which before had been a benign Eden of natural beauty, Mayan textiles and precious cultural difference.
Since I got back from mincing around Mexico and other such exotic locations over the summer, I have once again failed in quite spectacular, although now trademark fashion, to blog. I am perhaps rather predictably going to blame the fact that I have been busy, but it's definitely more to do with not knowing where to start.
I am currently working in a organization based in Zona 3 of Guatemala City, and it's tough... I’m not gonna lie to you, it's tough. And it smells of Methane. All the time. ALL the time.
That's because Camino Seguro, or 'Safe Passage', serves the Basurero community; the people who live and work on the rubbish landfill - the largest in Central America where, for over half a century, over 500 tons of waste has been dumped daily.
Every day, about 650 kids and women attend the project, an educational reinforcement center set up in 1999 in a bid to create opportunity and hope within a desperate area, providing a secure environment for the most at-risk youth and addressing issues such as malnutrition, illiteracy and mental health problems.
There aren’t many days that go past without a shooting/rape/robbery/horrendously terrifying incident in the neighborhood, yet, within the inoffensively pastel tinted walls of the organization, it is possible to forget exactly where the children who attend Camino Seguro are coming from and how old they really are. As inner city kids living in a slum, growing up in a culture of gang violence, they are tough guys and cool dudes, all ‘Que onda voz’ this and ‘hey sexy’ that, giving you enough crap to make you doubt your ability to execute some of the most basic of human functions, let alone someone capable of imparting any sort of usable information to anybody else.
It's only when you see them ambling their way homeward through a post-apocalyptic landscape of grey concrete and carefully sifted garbage, or sitting on the side of the road next a father who has just drowned his second bottle of Quetzaltecca, or a recurring black eye that just refuses to be masked under a layer of crudely applied makeup, that you remember their vulnerability, that you remember the desperate sadness of a youth rudely stolen.
Before I left home, an incredibly wise lady said to me: ''Guatemala: It's wonderful, it's terrible, it will capture you and it will break your heart.''
I had no idea how absolutely and completely this statement would resonate with me. From the climate, to the security issues, to the scenery, to emotions, everything seems to operate more intensely and with greater significance here. I change how I feel about Guatemala on an almost hourly basis. I love this place whilst simultaneously hating it, I want to stick my neck out and scream and stamp my feet, but I also want to shove my head in the sand and admit defeat. I have experienced moments of such intense joy and beauty, brought into relief by a sense of incredible sadness.
Ah Guate, Guate, Guate...Tomorrow is another day.
Monday, 26 July 2010
Rio Dulce and the Finca (awesome name for a childrens book!)
I've gone rather off-piste and, having survived a night in the delightful Hotel Lee, a night spent firmly clutching a can of pepper spray to my sweaty bossom, I have made it to Finca Tartin at the mouth of the River Dulce, Guatemala. You can only reach this place by boat, which, having arrived I find out actually comes pretty much direct from Puerto Barrios. Nice Hannah, nice. I could have skipped out this morning's 3 hour journey, which feeds into my increasing suspicion that I am actually one of the most chaotic people at getting from point A to B, and absolutely consolidates the notion that having a copy of the Lonely Planet, or at least consulting a map once in a while, would be advisable. Having said that, despite additional stress, it means I have been managing to completely avoid tourists when and have found myself quite a few times over the past few days with a huge grin on my face, feeling completely free (semi-scared/petrified at times, sure) but completely free.
There is no electricity in the place, apart from between the hours of 7 - 10pm, and there are bugs here that I'm fairly sure have yet to be documented by science. I've hooked up with a bunch of nine other people and we'll head to Livingstone tomorrow. Then, after much procrastination, many wrong turns and unnecessary meandering, I'll journey forth into Belize and the Cayes.
Oh boy, it's been a hard day canoing down the river, swimming and attempting to open coconuts and I'm knackered. Inappropriate to got to bed at 9.30? I think not. Beunos noches.
Finally managed to leave Utila, only 5 days later than scheduled
One ferry, one bus (collectivo-style), one shuttle, two caminonettas, one border crossing and several painful miles carrying an over sized backpack with a sense of impending dread as night draws in... Who said 'being on the road' wasn't a barrel of laughs?
To be fair, today's epically gaylord adventure (which involved a ridiculous amount of time going precisely nowhere) was preceded by a pretty handy week learning to dive on the island of Utila, just off the coast of Honduras. Somehow, though, it is always easier to talk about things that went wrong as opposed to things that didn't...or maybe that's me being the cynical wench that i am.
Yep, having pontificated on diving as being a thoroughly unnecessary and somewhat terrifying way to spend ones leisure time, ever since doing a 'fun taster session' on holiday a few years back, I just completed my PADI Open Water certificate. Despite the initial pangs of intense fear, compounded by an overwhelming urge to spontaneously throw up into my regulator, punch my instructor and bolt for the surface, I am now looking forward to getting tanked up and back into the sea. The water around Utila is crystal clear and we saw sting rays, approximately 30 bazillion fish, dolphins AND , a whale shark touched my leg (not in a sexy way, as in, it's tail hit me as it swam past).
The Utilan accent is excellent. Every time you think you get what's going on with it, it transforms. The combination of Afro-Caribbean, American and Spanish influences combine to create a malleable and incredibly unique language. When we went to watch Utila play San Pedro Sula, at football, the mixture of dialects was incredible, and massively confusing. One minute, you could have been watching a Celtics game, the next, well...you could have been pretty much in any country in the world - Dick Van Dyke - formerly holding the title for most bizarre accent of all time, 'fankoo Mary 'oppins' - ain't a patch on these people. As an aside, the woman selling the tickets had the must humungous shelf-like breasts I have ever seen. She literally kept all the tickets and change just balancing there, under her chin. Practical I suppose, work with what you have and all that.
I am spending the night at some shifty hotel in Peurto Barrios on the East Coast of Guatemala. First thing tomorrow I'll catch a lancha to Belize for some more sun and sea action. And, fingers crossed, tomorrow's journey will be rather less sketchified than today...however, after an awesomely cheap 15Q supper of frijoles and heuvos over which I chatted to a Honduran family on their way to Mexico - who will be sleeping on the street tonight whilst i complain about my perfectly adequate and secure place to crash, I shouldn't really complain.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
On an island in Honduras
Ok, so ain't in Guate no more...and yes, the more astute amongst you - and I use this term figuratively dear reader (probably, if we're honest, my mother) - may have noticed that my last post which was just posted said that I'd be heading east in a couple of weeks. Well, I wrote it and didn't publish it because, as continues to be reinforced, I am actually pretty diabolical when it comes to keeping a blog, i.e. weeks have past, I did go east and now i'm here.
Happy old times! I have a new computer. It's pink and awesome. I fully intend to make full use of it before it inevitably gets stolen again, therefore, expect much in the way of hilarious anecdotes and generally excellent witty banter until then.
Arrived yesterday after a fairly mammoth bus journey from Antigua, including one night in La Ceiba which is, just in case you had it on your list of places to visit, is absolutely not somewhere you want to spend any length of time. Unless you like seeing a lot of people sleeping on cardboard in the street and arguing with taxi men.
Utilla looks pretty handy...staying at a place owned by a gentleman who goes by the name of Rubi. He is probably now one of my most favouritest people ever and has the best/ weirdest accent known to humankind. Tomorrow I'm starting a PADI course, something which is potentially a pretty dreadful idea since the last and only time I have dived I didn't like it. Nevertheless, the water is delish and I can't be on this island and not don a pair of flippers and join the rest of the backpackers on their quest for a whale shark.
Having not been 'on the road' for a while, it's strange to be back amongst the travelling masses. Fun for the most part but, yeah, strange. More on that some other time...oooh, man I'm mysterious, edge of your seat stuff, huh?. This must be like reading an Enid Blyton book, but with less homo-eroticism, and minus Aunt Fanny's home-made lemonade.
Short but sweet, will keep you posted.Or endeavour to, at least...
Happy old times! I have a new computer. It's pink and awesome. I fully intend to make full use of it before it inevitably gets stolen again, therefore, expect much in the way of hilarious anecdotes and generally excellent witty banter until then.
Arrived yesterday after a fairly mammoth bus journey from Antigua, including one night in La Ceiba which is, just in case you had it on your list of places to visit, is absolutely not somewhere you want to spend any length of time. Unless you like seeing a lot of people sleeping on cardboard in the street and arguing with taxi men.
Utilla looks pretty handy...staying at a place owned by a gentleman who goes by the name of Rubi. He is probably now one of my most favouritest people ever and has the best/ weirdest accent known to humankind. Tomorrow I'm starting a PADI course, something which is potentially a pretty dreadful idea since the last and only time I have dived I didn't like it. Nevertheless, the water is delish and I can't be on this island and not don a pair of flippers and join the rest of the backpackers on their quest for a whale shark.
Having not been 'on the road' for a while, it's strange to be back amongst the travelling masses. Fun for the most part but, yeah, strange. More on that some other time...oooh, man I'm mysterious, edge of your seat stuff, huh?. This must be like reading an Enid Blyton book, but with less homo-eroticism, and minus Aunt Fanny's home-made lemonade.
Short but sweet, will keep you posted.Or endeavour to, at least...
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