Guatemala City

Every visit to Tikal, I spend time conversing with visitors who inevitably ask me what Guatemala City is like. I always feel like this question is so loaded because every guide book and website and communication about Guatemala talks about how horrible, terrible, awful, disgusting, polluted, oppressive, and dreadful Guatemala City is. Every guide advices people to get out as fast as possible and travel to Antigua, which is a much nicer place to visit. My general answer revolves around the positive and negatives of GC. The positives include several good and interesting museums and a few places to go out. The negatives involve pollution, difficulties and potential dangers of public transit, and general difficulties of negotiating the town. I advise them to see the museums and Central Plaza if they really want to hang out in the capital and otherwise to hoof it out of town. For me, I appreciate seeing two sides of Guatemala, provincial in Tikal and metropolitan… or enormous city… in Guatemala City.

How can I describe Guatemala City?

A constant cacophony of sounds crashes in my ears as I walk along Vista Hermosa Boulevard. Rumbling cement trucks, garbage trucks, semi trucks, and chicken buses cruise by at neck-breaking speeds as if the Boulevard is the Daytona 500 and which ever massive machine reaches Carretera El Salvador will win the grand prize. Only here there are no prizes and the aggressiveness of drivers seems unwarranted and out of place in this upper class zone.

Vista Hermosa is one of the main arteries in town and connects Zona 10 with Carretera El Salvador, rich neighborhoods with other rich neighborhoods with slums just blocks away. High rises and volcanoes loom in the horizon as slowly these hulking concrete buildings pop up in low-lying family units. There seem to be no building codes here just a frantic push towards development, constructions, and moving asi adelante, pues, moving forward. On early mornings or on rare days I can look out from the pedestrian cross walk and see Volcan de Agua’s conical shape rising distantly over the city. Normally, however, a thick layer of grey smog coats the city and obscures even the nearest mountains from view. When this happens only the imitation Eiffel Tower and high rise office buildings near Zona 10 are visible in the distance.

My ears protest as the beastly form of a corroding number 1 bus careens past me. It’s grumbling sound changes to a shrieking cry as the driver takes his foot of the gas, pushes in the clutch, and jams the bus into a higher gear. The grumbling continues until all it leaves behind is the impermeable cloud of black diesel smoke that covers the entire street. I cover my mouth with my sleeve as I walk through the cloud of acrid, dirty smoke. People look at me like I’m crazy, but anything I can do to prevent lead build up in my lungs is something. Synonymous with the smoke, smog, and general overwhelming air pollution of the city, my lungs begin to ache, nose begins to run, and I begin to cough as my body fights the allergic irritation of air pollution. Brian wondered how people can possible exercise outside here – the pollution truly must shorten your life by several years.

I watch as the Number 1 Centro bus hurls down the opposite side of the street. It’s packed so full of people that men are clinging precariously to the front and back bumbers and wheel rims, anywhere they can in order to get to their destination. I always pray those men won’t fall off, get run over, or be trampled by the reckless driving surrounding them. They’re like martyrs for the revamp, red school buses whose lives have been miraculously sustained by replacement parts and acts of God to keep them running. On more than one of those buses the floor is rusted nearly or completely through. Sometimes it offers a view of the pavement whirling away below. Other times the drivers have covered the spongy metal, hot from the engine, with plywood, as if that inspires confidence in the security of the floor.

A car backfiring like a gun shot jars me back into consciousness on the Boulevard. Cars backfiring, firecrackers, and fireworks mark any moment of the day. It seems as though Guatemalans light firecrackers for any and every situation. For me, I am always startled and shocked at this noise that I firstly associate with gunshots before realizing that there is yet another celebration of noise in the neighborhood. Maybe this paranoia comes from the constant stress of hearing deadly stories of life in Guatemala. Maybe it comes from the recollection that only ten years earlier the country “ended” a thirty-year civil war. Or maybe it comes from the jolting reality of hearing gunshots to terrible results in ever quiet and peaceful Moscow this spring. I think it’s the combination but it always makes me so edgy and nervous and exposed to hear these sounds.

Boys no older than 14, who probably only studied until second grade, sit resolutely outside Blockbuster and pitch their collection of pirated DVD’s packed squarely into their worn out second or third hand L.L. Bean and Jan Sport backpacks. “Peliculas, seño? Son originales! Films, lady? They’re originals!” they exclaim as they try to convince me to purchase their films. By original I’m sure they mean filmed in the movie theater, which always reminds me of Mystery Science Theater as people’s heads pop up when they leave the theater to purchase popcorn, soda, or to use the bathroom. I shake my head and continue down the avenue past maquila clothing stores where Koreans sell clothing made in their Korean-Guatemalan factories for less than Q25 per shirt (~$2.00). They are always the latest Latina fashion of brightly colored printed baby-doll shirts with hearts, flowers, stripes, and large plastic butterfly buttons adorning the front. I imagine 20 year olds wearing these shirts that make them look pregnant and 12 years old at the same time. It’s not an attractive image.

The wrinkled lady who sells hot tortillas from a large plastic container sits everyday except Sunday outside Paiz, the grocery store, waiting to sell the corn flatbread to passersby. I stop to talk with her and she greets me happily. Her mouth is full of red gums and broken, jagged teeth. “No le había visto, seño. I haven’t seen you, ma’am. I was wondering when you would bye tortillas again.” She scoops 8 tortillas into a pink plastic sack for me as I dig in my coin purse for 2 quetzales. It’s such a juxtaposition to see this poor woman sitting outside Paiz, owned by Wal-Mart, where all the wealthy neighborhood people purchase their groceries. Across the access road from her are two indigenous women cackling over a small wood fire where they are preparing humble meals of chicken, rice, and beans for the poor workers in the neighborhood. Their eyes have the glazed, bluish grey look of cataracts caused by standing over the smoky fires day after day.

Down the street a Mayan woman sits in the shade with her small stand of avocadoes, papayas, strawberries, and pineapples waiting to sell her wares. I ask the price of avocadoes and while exchanging money she asks if my hair color is original. I tell her it is and she exclaims, “Qué calidad! That’s quality!” It makes me smile as it’s definitely the best compliment I’ve ever received about my hair color. Quality.

There are always these small fruit stands or trucks around the neighborhood. When they drive through the neighborhood the venders announce their produce in mournful, drawn out voices as if there were nothing more serious in life than selling a tomato, lettuce, or oranges (“tomaaaaaaaaaaates, lechuuuuuuuuugas, naraaaaaaaaanjas!”) to the maids of these households. Others drive in their decrepid Toyota trucks and call through loud speakers, “Hay naranjas, uvas, limon.... There are oranges, grapes, limes.” At home I always know which vender is coming by the sound of their voice, the time of day, and occasionally the tinkling bell of the ice cream cart.

In the stores the same people work all day every day. I know all the grocers in Paiz, for example, and they always smile when they see the red head (though I’m sure they think I am blond) come through their aisle. “How was Tikal this week, seño?” they always ask as they pack my groceries in three times as many yellow plastic sacks as is really necessary. Whenever I insist that I don’t actually need a bag they look at me for a good 10 seconds, continue to bag, until I firmly say that I really don’t need a bag, thank you. Then they look at me some more, ask if I’m sure, and as if I’m crazy, hand me whatever small item I’ve purchased. Gringa loca.
It’s funny how insanity is common here like how people drive, fail to learn to parallel park, honk, and generally live in a chaotic, overwhelming style. It must just be the difference in culture for me where I find no sense of normality over the blatant holding-life-in-the-palm-of-your-hand manner that Guatemalans exist. I am constantly amazed, for example, at how they drive exceedingly fast in residential streets, on highways, or in traffic with no seatbelts on. I wonder how there are not more accidents or traffic confusions but people seem to understand the normalcy in the insanity, the life-threatening mediocrity of situations. In this constant threat, fear, and struggle they live, survive, and thrive.

How can I describe Guatemala City to a passing tourist? It is an overwhelming proposition.