I got a dog

I need to mention that I bought a dog three weeks ago. Her name is Gabe, which about a week ago I realized that I had subconsciously stolen from the Gate’s old lab, family friends. That was disappointing, but it’s done now.

She already know the name, and I love it because Guatemalans can’t say it. They don’t have the G sound, and nothing ever ends in a short “ba” sound either. So often they’ll be way off and say Kevin, or a bit closer and say Yabay. I give that one to them, especially if it’s their fith try.

She is a lab-boxer mix I bought from some missionaries that Seth was staying with when he was working here in Guatemala. She’s a great dog.

I think whoever said that imagination is what separates us humans from animals was full of it. So many times when I call Gabe and she’ll come running towards me then suddenly stop, stare intently at my shoes and begin to prowl slowly towards them like a cheetah approaching a grazing gazelle. Then she’ll pounce and vigorously try to break the neck of my shoe laces.

Now this is not the behavior that I wanted to see. I wanted her to come up to me waging her tail and perhaps sit politely waiting for my affirmation, but how can be upset with that? And you can’t tell me that isn’t imagination either. You can’t say that she thought my shoe or the rope bone was a unsuspecting mouse, she knew what she was doing and she was imagining.

Also, having this dog has drastically changed my daily conversations here in Guatemala. It used to go Buenos días, Buenos días, and usually nothing more. Sometimes a “how are you?” then how long have you been here? but most times they jump straight to the personal ¿Como halló aquí? which directly translates: “How do you feel here?” but how I like to think of it as: “Are you accustomed to the life here?” which may be more accurate. Then “Oh that’s nice, ¡Qué le vaya bién!” which means, poetically translated, May it go well with you!

But now conversations go: “What a cute little dog, buenos días. How much was he? Oh, it’s a she. They weren’t any males in the litter? (they’re quite sexist when it comes to dogs) Are there more? No? Vendamela. Sell me yours. No, come on, sell me yours. What do you feed her anyway? Just dog food! Hmm. She sure is a beauty, sell her to me.”

Or many times people just say ¿Cuanto? How much? or ¿Compro? Can I buy?

I think when she’s bigger this insistence on buying her will subside. It seriously happens 5 to 10 times a day. Reason being, that in a developing country where 2 in 3 rural children are under-nourished not much food gets down to the dogs. In a litter of 10 in normal for 2 or 3 to make it. That’s just how it goes.

So when they see an energetic, playful puppy that doesn’t have her ribs showing, they have to have her. Who cares if she’s not a macho, male. They like males because they don’t have babies nor go into heat. Spading is practically unheard of here.

Now many of my conversations end with: “Well, what are you going to do with her when you leave? When are you leaving, anyway? Oh, well, sell-her-to-me when you leave in a year and a half. ¡Que le vaya bién!”

Elección de Señorita

That means “Beauty Contest.” That one I knew because I was robbed after one with my friend during the town fair. However that wasn’t mentioned. Aniversario del Instituto that one I picked up alright. It was just one word I couldn’t understand: Calificador. That means judge, well judge particularly for beauty contests. (Just tried to find it in the dictionary to check spelling. Not there. That consuls me abit.)

I think it can also be shortened to calidor, which they might have used when the student of the high school in Campachan asked me to be one next Wednesday, which was yesterday. In any case, I didn’t know the word, and I am sure elección was not used. However, I felt I just given a pretty good lesson in the high school, and didn’t want to show any Spanish weaknesses, so I just said: of course, I’d love to.

Later that day I asked the women in my office what calificador meant or something that sounded vaguely close to that. The first thing I thought was, oh no, first I don’t want to endorse that sort of woman demeaning activity, especially in a society so filled with machismo, and after being robbed, well even before being robbed after one, I was thinking one 5-hour beauty contest would do me for this lifetime.

But I’m glad I unknowingly said yes. It’s a completely different experience when it’s “performed” by a high school in village of 70 people and you have judge (calcular) it, and perhaps give a speech in Spanish at the end. It’s more like a talent show that has three girls that do most of the dance acts.

Unlike the Tejutla show, all of the entertainment was in town. Actually, they did get a pretty good lip-sync girl from the village on the other side of the mountain. In between the particapaciónes of the three contestants practically every student in the school: sang, danced sometimes quite provocatively (so much so that one time I couldn’t take a picture because I was sitting in the front row as a calificador’s table, and I didn’t want to seen as a one of those guys), or lip-sync which at it’s best is sexy dancing, and at it’s worst a 10-year-kid wearing shades, a telephone headset, and baseball cap to one side, stepping off beat and looking terribly nervous through two ranchero songs.

My favorite was the kid who looked 8 but was probably 13 at least. He sang his own songs, scared as hell, but not to bad a singer, probably the best. And what gestures. Every climax of the chorus his hand would raise in a fist every sinew taut, eyes squinting, teeth bared and still mostly hitting the notes. He was the highlight. I’d have given him Señorita del Instituto, first place, if I could have. (see flickr for more pics)

My nervousness about presenting the award turned out to be unwarranted. Nobody cared what I had to say, they just wanted to know who got what. Of course I said the expected and cliché thing anyway, “It was hard to the choose the winner among such beautiful and talented contestants…” They didn’t need to listen.

Also, the great thing about beauty contests in Guatemala is everyone gets something; there are no losers. If there are five candidates, there are five awards. You still have feel bad when you get Señorita Simpatía, “Miss Nice Girl”, or perhaps better translated “Miss Congeniality.” However, we made that one second prize, even though I think it’s usually last. How can you judge someone’s “niceness” from a couple dance acts in different outfits, and a memorized expressionless speech which you don’t understand all of anyway? I gave them all and 8 out of 10 in niceness.

shiny silver pistol

Well, again much has pasted since my last post. I´ve gone home and seen my family and some friends, I´ve been robbed twice, and been visited by two good friends from the States. Almost all of which were great experiences (the second robbery wasn´t fun).

The first wasn´t that bad. I was on a bus early morning when three sleepy looking men entered the bus and sat in different places on the bus. After about five minutes the middle man who I was closest to pulled out and cocked a shiny silver pistol. My first thought, ¨Oh, hey, we´re getting robbed,¨ then, ¨Sweet, I have my iPod, but shoot I also have my camera which is not a scheduled item on my personal items insurance (that means there´s a 100 dollar deductible on it)¨

They immediately searched a few men they thought might have a weapon or might put up a fight, strangely I, the gringo, was not one of them. I think then the guy with the gun went and kept it on the driver and the ayudante (guy who takes the money) telling him to keep driving but not too fast. While the other two men methodically went through everyone´s things including all pockets.

This is where it gets really strange. When one of the men came to search me with his cellphone flashlight. He took everything out of my pockets wallet, cellphone, change and threw it on the seat. Then looked in my wallet which had around Q200, not a huge sum but something, about 26 dollars, and some credit cards, then he shut the wallet with out taking anything and threw it on the seat. After this, he continued to go through my backpack felt where my iPod and camera were but didn´t bother to find the opening. I had mixed feeling about this failure on his part, because I wasn´t exactly sure how this deductible thing worked. After that he told me to stand up so he could see if I hid anything in the seat cushions. I this point I found out that my Spanish isn´t so good when I´m being robbed.

¡Párate! ¡Párate! He kept shouting, however I´d never heard this command in the tú form, because it´s kinda rude even in the best of circumstances, even parents use the usted form when telling their son to do something, but really, I think it was an appropriate use in this case. After the fact, I wished I had hide the iPod in the seat and left the camera in the bag (it´s a really old iPod). But how could I have known? And if I had known that would be insurance fraud or something terribly close, collaboration or coordination or something.

In the end, they peacefully left the bus with all of our bus fares and maybe a few nice cellphones and watches and things of real value. I wouldn´t have lost a thing except for that the ayudante owed Q50 in change.

Guess, I´ll get to other recent events later. I can´t write a short blog.