Today I went to the city of Chimaltenango. Got off work at around ten because the ¨Old¨* that I´m working with was doing something else, and so I went and mowed the rest of the big field and then was done. It was a good thing as I had been working everyday but Sunday from 7:30 to 5:00 doing actual labor for the past two weeks. Not that this is a big deal but when your grossly out of shape and have spent the last six months collecting checks from uncle sam and living the easy life, it was a welcome pleasure. It´s funny to me what is cheap and what isn´t down here. Pretty much I pay the family I live with 12 bucks a day or 100Qs. Pretty cheap for a room three meals, laundry service, and no dishes or chores. Other than that I think I´ve spent about $20 since I´ve been here, and half of that was a birthday present for Flory´s quince. I can get a soda** and a bag of chips for about 75cents, so since that´s all I buy every couple of days its pretty managable. And we rode the bus into the city for 6Qs or about 80cent which was a good fare considering it was about 30 miles***. Food though isn´t that cheap if you buy namebrand stuff. It was pretty expensive at the costco and the grocery store I was at in the city. Anyway we went to the mall which was about the size of Eastgate (bad reference for anyone not from ww) in it´s heyday except every store was filled. There was even a payless shoe source getting ready to open. Anyway we hung out there while the Coy´s car was being fixed. Watched the Netherlands beat Uraguay on a huge screen in the food court, and had lunch. I was amazed that it was 46Qs for a big mac meal about 7 bucks. Thats high, they also had dominoes, taco bell, and Pollo Compero which is more like popeyes than kfc for those who might wonder. I thought that was high, so I got a hamburger from some offbrand place called restaurante internacional. IT WAS AWESOME. After eating cold beans and brocolli for 60% of my meals the past couple of weeks it hit the spot. Not that I don´t like the others, but the repitition and lack of meat has been a hard adjustment. Moving on we walked about 3 miles to the place where the car was, oddly enough a ford escort wagon. It is about ten years newer but still the same model as the long historied one I used to drive and wrecked a few years ago up Tollgate. Anyway when we got there it took about 5hours for it to be finished, and I as usual had no idea what was going on because being in the loop revolves around understanding Spanish beyond basic dialougue. It was all for the better. They had cable, which I will tell you, beat the pants off their employees running everywhere...take note Les Schaub. And not just cable they had English shows with Spanish subtitles, so it was actually very educational. I am stoked to be able to say that I learned a great deal of Spanish from watching 90210, Felicity, and Law and Order Re-runs. I now know a few different ways to say Liar, I´m sorry, Oh my God, and pissed off now. Also I learned a couple of words that I had been hearing over and over again for the past few days. Anyhow later on the way home we stopped for food and I finally got some pork! Not a bad day at all.
Footnotes
*Olds is a term I will take credit for coining in the mid 2000´s, to describe a person that is out of date, and lives solely to be bitter about the world and the state of how their life has turned out. This can also be used in quick passing for anyone over the age of sixty regardless of their outlook on life. I will admit that this is a generalization, but as long as I´m a young punk...you get the idea.
**I have learned that their are three types of Water (Agua)
Agua - This is water used for washing, cooking, cleaning, and all other general purposes such as rain, and watering flowers. You don´t want to drink this water, unless run through a filter or boiled.
Agua Pura - This is drinking water
Agua Pepsi- This is pepsi, and I have only heard it referred to as the soda ¨pepsi¨. no agua coke or aqua super cola, or agua seven up, only agua pepsi. BTW there is an awesome soda called Rica Roja which is tantemount to red cream soda, like the kind they used to have at 4jays. It´s the best.
***Once getting to the city, I noticed that there were several other buses going everywhere in Guate, including Antigua and San Miguel which are tourist spots. They were easy to understand and find. My head was filled with ideas of learning enough Spanish to set out on adventures...
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