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DECEMBER JOURNAL ENTRIES |
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5 December 2005 |
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The streets are dirty, with a thin layer of dust settling on everything. Men in uniforms with shotguns patrol in trucks; people look away when they approach. There is a miasma of fetid decay that shrouds the city. Garbage is piled on every corner; children play in between the piles, and scavengers pick through them for something salvageable. The bureaucracy is impenetrable. Getting help over the phone? Fuhgeddaboudit. Driving is a challenge, as intersections are not well marked, and the rules of the road are mere suggestions. Coming home to New Orleans has certainly minimized culture shock for me. Restaurants. That is where I am hit the worst. A huge amount of the conversations that take place in restaurants are totally scripted and rehearsed. "Do you want fries with that?" "Refill that coffee fer ya?" "You wanna supersize that?" The phrases, out of context, are almost meaningless. In context, the same things are so part of the phatic communication that they take on the importance of background noise, and are accorded almost as much attention. Change the culture, change the communication. And it is jarring. It is not so much the food, the lights, or the pace that is different between Antigua and here. It is more the insignificant interactions that leave me stranded. In Latin America, when you go into a restaurant, regardless of whether you know a soul, you greet the other patrons. "¡Buen provecho!" "¡Que tal!" etc. No obvious difference to the restaurants I encountered in SC during the two days there. But the words that try to force their way out of my mouth are not in English. With all the finesse of a worn-out ignition on a jalopy, I open my mouth to say something, and nothing comes out. It isn't even as though I have been immersed in Spanish. But my restaurant communications have been exclusively in Spanish. It is a hard habit to break. But basically, other than an overweening desire to hide, I haven't been hit too hard with any culture shock since returning. It helps that Antigua is very European. It also helps that Easley (three-day stay) and Wiggins (overnight stop) are very parochial. And that New Orleans is very Latin, and quickly becoming more so. I expected to be shocked by the destruction here. Instead, I am shocked by how little I am shocked. The streets are mostly clean, and, with the exception of a number of refrigerators and construction debris, even the curbs are cleared. A lot of restaurants are open with limited menus, and many businesses have cordoned off any under-construction areas in their buildings and are doing business out of the others. We dropped by the appliance store and ordered a new refrigerator that will be delivered Thursday – they had moved to a large warehouse in a non-flooded area, and are selling fridges by the dozen (check your Electrolux and Whirlpool stock – they have climbed about 20% each in the last quarter since the hurricane). And the most obvious difference is the light – enough trees and branches and leaves have been removed from the area to where the light is much brighter. It is infrastructure we lack. The work is frenetic. Levees are being shored up. But not completely rebuilt. The University is laying off people and looking to lay off more, while making their maintenance people work 98 hour weeks with no additional pay. The garbage is being picked up regularly, but is more regularly being replaced. No mail service. Mail pickup requires standing in long lines. As a matter of fact, everything requires standing in long lines. Phones are not manned – if you cannot do it by internet, be prepared to go to the office and stand in line. The French Quarter is open for business; much of the Lower Ninth Ward is still off-limits to people who lived there. The problem with New Orleans is, just like always, the issue of what is going on under the surface. The metaphors are easy to come up with. Beautiful edifices, rotted to the core by termites. The diseased courtesan. Anything that destroys from within, leaving the façade untouched. So what we are doing is fixing the façade; putting on makeup, and going out on the town. Mardi Gras, or at least a scaled-down version of it, will take place. Some of the saddest parts are the people who are working to clear their houses in the hardest-hit areas. Insurance does not cover them, and if it does, they are being forced to wait while the city fights over guidelines for rebuilding. New flood maps, new building codes. Do we allow these people to build again, where it is likely to flood? Do we require them to build only after raising the home above the flood line? So while the government vacillates, these people are gutting and rebuilding, just to be doing something positive. To stave off the frustration with the process – it has now been over three months since Katrina, and we still don't have a building code – people are avoiding it altogether and working. As I see more and more, I am hit with more survivor's guilt. Our house survived. No flooding. One destroyed refrigerator, now sitting duct-taped on the curb with a sign hung on it – FREE TO A GOOD HOME. Porch screen slashed from roof slates flying from a neighbor's destroyed roof. A cedar tree in the backyard that had the good sense to tip over toward the back – and ended up leaning against the shed of our neighbor. Inconvenienced, is what I am. Frustrated that I can't get someone from the cable company on the phone. Upset that the grocery store lines are long. And then I remember why the lines are long – the normal employees evacuated and haven't returned, probably because there is nothing to return to. Those who usually answer the phones are likely building their lives where hurricanes are unlikely to destroy their lives ever again. I am ashamed at my own frustration. Who am I to get upset? What right do I have to be grumpy? How can I even say 'why me' when people who are really struggling live next door? My problems and issues are real. But like the things that happened in Guatemala, from the woman whose boy died, to the incident with Matt, perspective encroaches on my life. It is simply hard to stay grumpy about how tough it is for me when my life is put in perspective of lives that really are difficult. Just today, a guy from physical plant at Tulane came in, and was philosophical about the complete destruction of his house. He lived in the Ninth Ward, where the worst of the flooding was. The frame of his house is intact, but all the belongings are gone. And he has a couple of friends who are helping him rebuild. His family is safely housed in Maryland, and FEMA is helping a little. So my hard-edged sarcasm has to go out the window. My belligerent attitude has to go, too. And I have to go to work to solve some of the problems facing me – the statistics that I have to deal with, the sampling strategies I have to develop for the work I am faced with in Guatemala, and the reports I owe to various agencies. And I have to work to help other people. There are plenty of people needing help.
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12 December 2005 |
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Roving packs of wild tree cutters are attacking the city with guttural growls. After dismembering their prey, they leave the scene, sometimes carrying the carcass with them, more often leaving it behind, looking only for the kill. Sometimes you see a lone treewolf, but frequently they travel in packs of two or three. Regardless of pack size, wherever you look in the city, you see the carnage left by their passage. And these wolves mark every corner with signs of their passage: "Stump Grinding! Free Estimates!" They passed through my yard on Friday. The lovely cedar tree in our back yard (Kathe and I have a serious disagreement about my use of that descriptive term – she has always thought it was ugly) has fallen victim – literally – to the post-Katrina cleanup. When we came home, it was leaning precariously against the shed of our neighbor to the east. Three guys attacked the tree, carving it up with the chainsaws, and left to attack another tree in another sector of the city. For one day, our cedar tree sat in a large pile on our front lawn, cut into more manageable and shreddable chunks. I completely expected to have to wait a pre-Katrina length of time for the pile to be picked up. Before Katrina, a pile of debris like that would have lasted a month, perhaps two, until the grass beneath the pile was dead and the ground poisoned. The only official action that would have been taken would have been to write us a citation for not moving the pile of garbage back from the curb to beside the house every time they failed to pick it up (I'm not kidding – we got just such a citation last year). In the post-Katrina era, less than 24 hours after being placed on the curb, the entire pile was attacked by two bobcats, and within an hour it was all piled up in the trailer and hauled off. Amazing. No less so than the previously mentioned refrigerator. Someone took at face value the sign I placed on it "Free to a Good Home", dumped most of the maggot-infested contents on our front lawn, and took it away, presumably to a good home. Meanwhile, the rest of the block continues to sport duct-tape adorned refrigerators, so the action was not part of a general cleanup. I have to admit that I was troubled by the presence of the maggots. Not surprised, perhaps, but troubled. What food am I eating that carries fly eggs? Is it the meat? Leftovers? In any case, when the power went out, the flies hatched and reproduced. And they did it again and again, until the electricity was turned on again, at which point they all died. Hmph. I think I'll skip lunch today. The real estate agent came by yesterday to look at the house. We are putting the house up for sale. The process is extremely painful – Kathe and I put our soul into the building, renovating, and decorating of this house, and it feels as though we scarcely got the boxes unpacked before we are now selling it. Double hmph. Speaking of not quite getting to live in a house, Saturday the Times Picayune published a story on two of my friends, Jason Emery and Katie Lintott. These guys, bless their hearts, bought a house, spent three months restoring it so that they could live in it, moved their stuff in, and fled the city the day they were supposed to move in. Now they have been working to make their place livable again. And still have not spent the night in the house they own. Check out the story at: http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/living-1/1133592639325970.xml?nola We have done a little driving around the city in the past few days, and it is an odd admixture of emotions that I am hit with. Areas where I expected devastation are remarkably unscathed. Very little of the old city is damaged – there are FEMA blue roofs everywhere, but everything seems to be working well. Other areas are in deplorable condition, and it is heartbreaking to see it. A recent letter to the editor in the T-P stated that the city can't have it both ways. It cannot proclaim to the world: "We are open and ready for business!" while also stating that it is worse than it is being reported in the media, and that we are in direst need of help. The unfortunate truth is that it is very much like that. The French Quarter was almost completely undamaged. Ditto parts of the Uptown area. Most of the areas that tourists visited have already bandaged up the worst of their wounds and have opened again. Other areas are just recently being opened for residents to return. Most of these areas are off the tourists' maps of New Orleans. Much of it is residential areas on the outskirts of the city. But the devastation there is intense, and New Orleans does not have the resources to help its residents to rebuild. And here exists the weird duality: in order for New Orleans to rebound, people have got to visit – the tourist industry is too integral a part of our economy to lose. But if we say that we are up and running, we risk offending the people who try to help aid those whose lives have been overwhelmed by the destruction of their houses and livelihood here in the city. What we really need is a Big, Easy solution. It is most unfortunate that the solutions available are neither.
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JANUARY JOURNAL ENTRIES |
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7 January 2006 |
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We arrived in Guatemala at the end of February last year. Since then, the crew has endured a near-miss with a poisonous snake, a foiled kidnapping/shooting/robbery/attempted murder, and a near-death experience resulting from malaria (I watched watch as mosquitoes would bite Matt, who was shivering with fever from malaria, and then fly towards me - I am still twitching from that). I saw a woman whose son died from intestinal worms, and one of my friends left town with his family when his uncle was killed in a revenge killing. I have grown to love the people we work with, and have had some of the most amazing experiences ever. And now I am back, to experience it some more. Hopefully, it will be less, well, exciting. Monday we drove from South Carolina, where we had spent Christmas and New Year's with my folks (and the grandkids!). As soon as we completed the 10 hour drive (which started at 5am to make sure we arrived before dark), we began the process of getting the bathroom finished. The tile guy came Tuesday morning, and cut and pasted the remaining two tiles in place and helped me put the sink in place – two of the last things remaining before the house is completed. Tuesday was spent running like mad to complete as much as possible before I left. And on Wednesday morning I hit the air. Can anyone tell me why PJ's coffee house at the airport does not open until 7? Seems to me that the earliest risers have the greatest need for caffeine. Hmm. At midnight, the trip from New Orleans to Atlanta, Atlanta back to Houston (passing over New Orleans in the process), Houston to Guatemala City was completed. By the way, customs in Guatemala is the only place where the bureaucracy is lax. Nobody cares what you bring into Guatemala. The uniformed customs officers collect the aduana forms without even glancing at them, almost as if they are encouraging the laundering of money through Guatemala. During my time in the US, my car had to be moved, and it died in the process. When I arrived, my first order of business was to locate the car and get it brought to the mechanic's shop. Anamaria, the lady who cares for the house, arrived and we looked through the phone book for an hour to find the towing company, and make the appropriate arrangements. Then I sit at the mechanic's and wait for an hour. Time is of the essence – I have to get the car fixed before I can go to the border. And the border trip has to be done by the end of the day Friday, or I lose my car to the bureaucracy in a nasty Catch-22 – I have to drive the car to the border to re-up the papers, but I can't drive the car because the papers are not re-upped. And the tow truck does not come. At midday, the daily trip to the capital by the mechanic came and went, still no car. Finally it arrives, and they find the problem – the recently-replaced starter has failed again. The word used to describe it to me is "forceado", which I eventually have explained. It means that the key was turned and the starter ground down until it didn't work any longer. After a long discussion about whose fault the problem is – it was a brand-new starter – the mechanic agreed reluctantly to send the part out to be fixed that night. It would be picked up in Guatemala around midday on Friday, the day the car papers expire. OK. I have until midnight on Friday to get to the border with a car that might be ready by that point. And the part will arrive around 3:30 pm. The car was fixed at 5:30. The guys were amazing – they fixed and checked everything before I hit the road in a mere two hours, but the timing could not have been worse. I was now set to go through Guatemala City at rush hour to get to the border in a car I did not trust. And, predictably, I took a wrong turn. Wrong turns in New Orleans are bad – you can get really lost very quickly. Wrong turns in Guatemala's capital are deadly during the day, and doubly so at night. I had made this wrong turn before, and the moment I took the ramp, I realized my mistake. Suddenly I am plumbing the depths of my Spanish for new curse words. The traffic was horrific and there was nowhere to turn around for miles. I even stopped and asked for directions at a gas station. He told me how to get back, but then thought of a short cut. "If you turn right here, go one block and turn right again, you will go straight through a light. That road will go through Zone 9, and will eventually lead you to the road to the Salvadoran border." I got to the traffic signal he mentioned. There was no way of going straight. After a heated internal discussion, I turned to Gilberto, my friend who had joined me for the trip, and said "We're not going that way. I don't know it, and we can't afford to get lost." The problem is, the way I had planned to go took us twenty minutes in the wrong direction. Finally, ten miles and one illegal u-turn later, we had righted the course, and were headed toward the border. In the dark. Night driving in Latin America is stressful. Unseen dangers lurk on every corner, from livestock sitting just beyond the crest of a hill, to children darting out into the road without notice (sidewalk soccer is a common game). Make it a Friday night, and the dangers get tripled, as recently paid workers all blow off steam at the same time - intoxicated chapines everywhere. I do not like night driving at any time – my night vision is not particularly good. I also am a ridiculously early riser, which means that I got up at 4:15 that morning. This time I got to add a new kink. As I left Guatemala City, I tried my bright lights. They came on, but would not dim. There are a lot of Guatemalan drivers that are pretty ticked off at me at this point. Add a touch of near-narcolepsy (this explains my sleeping in your class, Will) and you have a formula for disaster. No disaster occurred. At the border, my papers were processed when we arrived, at 9:00 at night. By 9:15, we had turned and were headed back to Antigua. During this whole time, I shared the car with Gilberto, who is many wonderful things, but not a scintillating conversationalist. We shared the ride in a comfortable, companionable silence. I would have wished for less comfort and more conversation. The trip ended well. We arrived at the house just before the Blazer turned into a pumpkin, and headed off to bed. The next hurdle involves fighting the bureaucracy for the permits. C.S. Lewis wrote a book where hell is portrayed as a bureaucracy where demons fight to consume humans and each other. In a book of a different genre, Douglas Adams created a race of aliens who formed a bureaucracy as an evolutionary device to protect against original thought. And neither Lewis nor Adams ever dealt with Latin American bureaucracy. Now mind you, New Orleans is no model of efficiency, especially now. I know that bureaucracy everywhere is ponderous and slow-moving. But there is a special level of Xibalba (the Mayan version of hell) reserved specifically to torture those who participate in the bureaucracy in Guatemala. It is something special. In mid-November I applied for the permits to undertake salvage excavations at a lithic production facility. Meanwhile, both Matt and Christina applied for permits to take obsidian and figurine fragments, respectively, out of the country for chemical analysis. Matt got permission for the obsidian, Christina was denied. The main problem was one bureaucrat who has been causing problems for us since the beginning. As soon as he heard that the permission letter was forwarded to her, Matt turned to Christina and said, "Forget about your export permit." Sure enough, the letter came back denying permission to export the frags based on their iconographic content. Untrue – the fragments are not very special, except in the information we can obtain about their sources – but it does not matter. Nor does it matter that you can buy a dozen of the pieces - like the ones she is looking to take out – for sale in any market in all of Guatemala. But she is back to her starting point. Meanwhile, my permission got kicked up the ladder, and was denied – I had to submit a whole new project, hire a co-director, and provide more documentation. In a shocking move, however, the bureaucracy broke down along lines of seniority. For once, the lower echelon of the bureaucracy recognized how ridiculous the ruling was, in a quiet aside overruled the higher-ups, and suggested a couple of amendments that would make it palatable. But I have to be careful to avoid having it kicked up the ladder again, because it is currently being slid under the radar. But, of course, the original five copies I provided in mid-November have disappeared. Can you just fax us three copies, and add a cover letter and a revised timetable, and.... And, predictably, they were closed on Friday. Please send it on Monday, between the hours of 10:58 and 11:00 am. Ugh. Tonight I get to go to a wedding of two friends whom I met separately, and then found out that they were courting. The wedding is at one of the most beautiful churches in Antigua, and I can't wait. The only concern for me is that I am never sure about the hour. I was told 5:30, and 7:00 pm, respectively, for the civil and church ceremonies. I even asked whether that was Guatemalan time or gringo time, since there are about 4 hours' difference between the two. I was told that it was "siete - cabal" – exactly seven o'clock. But I've been there before.... Happy New Year to everyone, and Happy anniversary to my darling wife. Crorey
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15 January 2006 |
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I went to Miguel Angel and Maria Griselda's wedding. And Miguelito, having compassion on a gringo who obviously doesn't know any better, had given me a time that was only one hour ahead of the time I needed to be there.
A humorous aside that I have to share. The wedding followed several others – Saturday afternoon is the big wedding time. The previous wedding had a hired band, complete with the customary two marimbas, mandolins and violins. After several songs, the band ripped out a wonderful rendition of the Beatles' "Yesterday". The words were not sung, but I just started laughing, running through the lyrics in my head:
So I am still in Antigua, working up old paperwork and waiting on a shipment of screens from the US. Quite possibly the best and worst thing about Antigua is how European it is. The city has worked very hard to make it an appealing tourist destination, and have succeeded incredibly in doing so. The streets are clean, the restaurants are nice (and all serve bottled water), the market is attractive, and the panhandlers are few, and are spread out enough to allow the tourist to feel safe. Most languages can be negotiated by most of the population, at least enough to make you feel comfortable (and, if you can't make yourself understood, just speak your English louder – the locals are all hard of hearing). Local color is abundant, but safely marshaled within certain sectors – meaning you will not be accosted at every turn by Maya women in brightly colored costumes hawking cheap tourist trinkets. It does happen, but the places where it can happen are very carefully circumscribed. Amazing ruins are everywhere, and the grass is kept carefully manicured for visitors. Your bed and breakfast will undoubtedly have a stunning view of the volcano, and you do not have to go more than a block from anywhere to find an internet café so you can write home and share your experiences. Which will be almost as genuine as the world experience at Epcot. Not to malign Epcot, of course. But it seems a little out of place in Guatemala. The artisania market (now safely tucked into a nice niche where the tourist can safely shop for their souvenirs) is nice, and as is the case at Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want. Many of the things you can get are hard to come by elsewhere in the world. The allure of inexpensive antiquity purchases is hard to bypass (but is, for the casual tourist, illegal), and colonial art is still available, albeit at higher prices than was available even a decade ago. The handmade textiles are stunning in their variety and their cultural significance – clothing is particular to the village, and some of the designs have great antiquity, showing up in iconography from before contact. And the quality of artisan work is impressive, and pretty reasonable.
The tail had been replaced with a (somewhat sad) plywood substitute. The paint had been reapplied numerous times, often sloppily, and the result was a multicolored piebald mare. And it was beautiful. Next came the problem of transporting it to the US. Kathe and I looked into shipping it. (In my narratives, the phrase "Kathe and I" usually equals Kathe, and the term "I" either means "I" or "Kathe and I". But I am the narrator, and it is my story, after all....) "We" found that shipping costs were roughly four times the price of the horse. So we packaged it up and checked it with our bags. One oversize fee and some strange looks later, we had passed airport inspection and were on our way. In the process of transporting the horse, a leg and the mismatched plywood tail were broken. Otherwise, it was in good shape. Dad made the brilliant decision to remove the tail altogether, and replace it with a horsehair tail from a tack shop. A family friend repaired the leg, patching some other holes in the process. A quick application of paint to the repaired places (fitting in with the rainbow piebald theme), and the resulting horse was beautiful. And he brought it to the store. Dad was at lunch, and the guy in charge of receiving knew nothing of the gift. He walked into the office, and asked "Where's Mac?" By chance, Mom had not gone with him. "Gone to lunch," she said. "Tell him his horse is here." Mom looked up, confused. Roger immediately beat a hasty retreat, but the damage was done. Christmas came, and everyone got to open presents under the tree. We all went outside to watch the grandkids play on the new swing set, and we snuck the horse in the back door while attention was elsewhere. We grabbed Mom and brought her in, got her to take pictures of us in front of the fireplace. While taking the pictures, she almost tripped over the horse, while taking shot after shot. Finally we told her to look down before she fell over it. And she went crazy. She had not put together the slip from Roger with the fact that we did NOT want her to pick us up from the airport. She was totally surprised, and was delighted with her gift. But not as delighted as we were to give it. It is so nice to be able to give a gift that is both wanted and unexpected. On a different note, Tuesday night I went out with some friends to eat pizza, as a "thank you" for the help they gave me while I was out of the country. See, last week I wrote that my car died, and that its dying created an exciting hurdle for the trip to the border. What I didn't mention is that when it died, Doña Ana's husband, who had been called in to move it, took a drastic step. It died in the middle of the street, and would not move completely out of the way. If left as it was, the car would have been broken into and stripped, or towed by the city police (other cars so towed have been stripped to the frame within 48 hours). Rather than risk that, he grabbed a friend and they spent a very cold, uncomfortable night sleeping in the car. The next day, Jeanne, in whose house I live, made arrangements to have the car towed (furthering the debt I owe her...). I figured that a sleepless night is worth at least one family pizza night. So I invited Gilberto (my friend who accompanied me to the border) and Ana and her family (including daughter-in-law and three grandkids) and carried them into town for a night on the town. What I didn't expect was the gravity of the occasion. I am far more comfortable in my role as class clown than in my role as benefactor. But Ana showed up in a beautiful hand-embroidered tangerine-colored dress, and the rest of the family was scrubbed and gelled and in their starched Sunday best. And the conversation was formal, as befits the relationship between patron and beneficiary. I am quite uncomfortable with that attitude, at least on the giving end (and it was only pizza...). It also does not fit either my personality type or my linguistic talents. My conversational Spanish is acceptable. I cannot hold forth on politics or current events for very long, but I can talk about just about anything for a while. This was a struggle. Everyone was really nice; it just needed a little levity to make it a little more easy for me. I missed Kathe as much that night as ever. Her ability to converse naturally in any group, Latin or gringo, is so impressive, and it comes so effortlessly. She simply fits into any group she is a part of. The struggle with the Bureaucracy continues. Apparently, the way around writing a complete project up, complete with co-director, is for only one archaeologist to work, and to do it under the supervision of a Guatemalan archaeologist. Adriana is my supervisor. This is not such a bad thing. The amount of supervision depends almost entirely on her, and her level of interest in what I am doing. I have to pay her expenses when she is in the field, and I have no idea what that will be. Might be that I have to pay for her time and lunch. Perhaps just for an occasional visit, or as an everyday thing. Either way, I will be grateful for the company. And I hear from Matt that she is on top of things and pretty responsible, so I win either way. If she is only in it for the paycheck, she is likely to get bored with the work after a few days and disappear. If she wants to help with the archaeology and is interested, all the better – I can always use an extra set of eyes. Now the last bit of intense waiting awaits. The head of Monumentos, Gustavo, with whom I spoke for the first time this week, was supposed to go over my proposal on Tuesday when he got to work. Wednesday, I called and left a message. Thursday morning, I called and he said that Adriana had given him the paperwork just that morning, and he was going to discuss it with his boss that afternoon – he'd call me. My phone was silent. I finally figured it was just my ringer, and called him back. Immediate voice mail. The guy had turned his phone off, possibly to avoid dealing with me. Friday morning, afternoon? See previous paragraph. Rinse, repeat. I wish C.S. Lewis were here right now. He'd learn a thing or two about bureaucracy....
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22 January 2006 |
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Is it possible that the bureaucracy pulls through, and works in my favor? If there is any question to the answer to the question, you have not been reading closely to previous entries of the journal. The answer is, of course not. Gustavo's phone remained off until Monday afternoon. I finally got through, and was informed that Gustavo has been on vacation and was taking an exam. So he knew nothing about the result of the permit request. To find out more, I would have to talk directly to his boss, Licenciado Salvador, or to his boss's secretary, Aurora.
And the result of the meeting last Thursday between you and Salvador
where you discussed my proposal? Remember? That is what
you told me on Thursday?
No. He has been on vacation and taking an
exam. He doesn't know anything. I will have to talk
directly to his boss, or to his boss's secretary, Aurora. So I
call Aurora – she is the one who gets things done in the office,
and she is out to lunch, and should return in a half hour.
Half hour later, she is still at lunch. Half hour later, no
change. Finally at 4:30, she returns to pick up her coat and is
stopped by the ringing phone. Who? When did you submit this? Who did you submit it to? Who are you again? She had not heard anything. But she will talk to Gustavo on Tuesday and see what can be done. Fortunately for me, there is very little time pressure. I can do the excavations starting tomorrow and follow with analysis, or I can start the analysis tomorrow, while waiting on word from the bureaucrats about the status of my permits. All the work needs to be done, and I have a couple of months in which to do it. The order does not matter. I still dislike the runaround. It is frustrating and discouraging to be lied to by people who have the authority to turn down your application for permission to excavate. Tuesday my screens came from DHL. I ordered some large-mesh screens from a company in the US at the beginning of December, and then got a runaround from them, culminating in a very exasperated phone call on the 28th. Vinnie promised me the screens as soon as possible, but it was unlikely that they would be made before I left for the field. He was right. They finally shipped three days after I arrived in Antigua, and showed up at the house the next day. MARI sprang for shipping them DHL to me in Guatemala (thanks, Will), and after waiting for a month and a half, I can get to work. Which meant a solo drive to Petén. I fully expected there to be some sort of difficulty to face in getting to the Petén. After all, I cannot make a simple drive to the border without having something exciting happen. So maybe it is that I am getting better at this driving as a foreigner. Perhaps somebody realized that I am no longer equipped to deal with more stress, and gave me an easy trip. Wednesday came, and I got a late start, but arrived early, and had no problems. On the way, I even stopped at a roadside stand to buy grapes the size of golf balls. Delicious.
Flores has not changed. It is a little cooler this time of the year, but still dusty and filled with Europeans. I even arrived early enough to take a look at my new apartment. It is a small room with a bathroom off to the side, and I was promised a refrigerator and stove if I move in and pay two months rent up front. Since I was not looking for anything other than a place to crash and cook coffee and eggs in the morning, the place is perfect. And at about $100 a month, even signing up for three months is not so bad.
Thursday I met with my excavation boss, Adriana. She seems pretty cool, albeit busy. We had to work pretty hard to get a schedule where she can accompany me to the field every day. But I think we succeeded. It will be good working for her. The deal is, in order to bypass the bureaucracy, we made La Estrella a Guatemalan salvage project (I will now have been on almost as many salvage projects in Latin America as I have been in the US). Adrianna is the director, and I am simply there to help. The truth of it is that I am running it, and she is there to help. But we haven't got the whole hierarchy thing figured out yet, so we will just keep working on it until we get to the field. The thing is, if I am nice, I might be able to enlist her help in getting my material from the field to the US. She has that power, and can likely make it happen. It is in my interest to be very nice to her. And she makes it easy, or at least has so far. We'll see how things happen in the field. The end result was a win, I suppose. On Friday I got the letter giving me permission to excavate at the site and make a map. Does that mean that persistence pays off? I suppose so. And once I start working (it will begin a week from Monday) I will be pretty psyched about it. Right now I am a little less enthusiastic about more work. As it stands, I have a huge quantity of material to sift through (literally – I am screening everything through the screens that came in this past week), but it is going pretty quickly. I have completed analysis of two large boxes of lithic debitage in two days, and am working on a third today.
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29 January 2006 |
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OK. It was pointed out to me that I erred in translation of the
lettering on the back of the truck and, as much as it kills me to
admit it, as soon as I read the correct translation, I gave the
Marine Corps salute (palm smack to forehead).
The correct translation is: "If you hate me, why are you looking
at me?"
So much for my dream job as a UN translator....
The week has been productive in terms of analysis. There still
remains an enormous quantity of chert to complete, but I am
methodically taking care of it. Long hours – I am
arriving at the lab by 6 am – but for me, the early hours are
very productive.
On the way to work on Tuesday, I stopped at the ATM to withdraw some
cash for groceries, and decided to hit up the roadside vendor for a 6
am breakfast special. He does a brisk trade selling to
people who are waiting on the bus at that corner, so I figured I
could have some tasty street food instead of the two plain boiled
eggs I had in my bag.
"What you got that's good?" I asked as I came around
the corner.
"Orange juice," came the reply, "and it comes with a
parlama egg. I also have hens' eggs, if you prefer."
"What kind of egg is that again?" I pointed at the
rounded forms in a large Tupperware container (it was still dark at 6).
"Parlama."
Well, since that was all cleared up&ldots; "How much is
it?" Answer: 12Q.
Now a dollar and a half is not a lot to pay for breakfast, but it is
a lot to pay for a street breakfast of orange juice and an as yet
unidentified egg. I have a taco lady who sells me tacos
at 1Q each.
"Thanks, maybe tomorrow."
And I got back in my car and started to drive away, but just
couldn't. When was the last time I walked away from something I
didn't know without trying it? I had to go back. Car in
park. Doors locked. Money placed on the counter,
and I'm ready to try anything.
"What's a parlama?"
"It is a creature, about this size," arms rounded in front
of him, fingers almost touching, "and you can find them in
Escuintla." He turned back behind him.
I still was seeing no griddle, and was starting to worry a little,
but when he reached behind him, I thought he was going to pull out
the grill.
Wrong. He was getting the glass for my orange juice.
A quick tug at the membrane, and the turtle egg plopped into the
glass of OJ. "It's good with some salt," I was
informed. After waiting on the nod, he added the salt, and then
sat there expectantly, to see if the big smiling gringo likes the concoction.
What could I do? I drank it. The yolk felt like an oyster
going down, and the dregs of the OJ were pretty salty. Not bad
– very little is better than fresh-squeezed orange juice in any
form - but the addition of a salty yolk made it definitely odd.
After finishing it, I asked "Are the parlama protected?"
"Oh, yes. Of course." Of course.... I had bought some to scramble as well, and the faunal analyst got in on the act at that point – she helped scramble and prepare the eggs (they were more tasty in the OJ) and took a bite. But only a bite. She really didn't like the texture at all (or the taste, for that matter). Wrigley's stock went up later that day, based on her purchases alone.
But I had it confirmed by two different Guatemalans that the
OJ/turtle egg breakfast is very tasty - a local favorite
/ delicacy. So it was not just a case of 'let's see if we can
get the gringo to try something nasty.' There is actually a
brisk trade in parlama eggs, especially in the capital.
I have to admit, they were better in OJ than in our parlamelette.
The rest of the week was spent working until Saturday, when I took
off to visit the site I'll be excavating starting next
Wednesday. Yes, that is Wednesday, and not Monday, as I
had thought before.
This time it was Adriana, my boss, who put me off. "I have
to go to the capital Monday and Tuesday. Let's not start
until I get back."
Arrgh. We have already given up the following Monday and
Tuesday for another conference that she has to attend.
Now I am put on hold again. Can I start without you.
No. What is my alternative? I have only two weeks
to do the project, and she (or maybe her boss) is convinced that I
need to be monitored carefully. As though I could do more
damage than the guys who are sacking the site for construction material.
Yep, that's right. The site that in October was not considered
to be in danger of destruction (according to the institution that
turned me down for funding) is now being sacked. They are
likely using large ground moving equipment, and about half the site
is gone. I will likely have problems finding places to
put units in what little remains of the mound.
And the owner of the site works for the governmental archaeology
agency, and he was told of our plans to excavate. So he
sacked the site in deliberate disregard of the archaeology we had
planned. I am tempted to push for him to either be fired from
his job as excavator or to have the land taken away from him, just
out of spite.
Sadly, I have no such influence. And what little remains of the
site is not likely to convince Adriana that the owner has done
anything wrong. A sad comment on the state of affairs in
Guatemalan archaeology today.
So I sit in the lab, trying not to grow bitter about bureaucratic
delays, and work hard to get much of my analysis done before I go to
the field. And I get to hope that there is a site left by
the time I can actually arrive to do some work.
A bright point was an interview with a volunteer. As part of
their degree program, the university requires all archaeologists to
volunteer on two field projects and one lab project. Aura
is looking to complete her lab requirement, and we talked for a while
about what I am doing. She has to talk to her adviser before
making any commitment, but one additional person could provide a huge
lift for me, in terms of completing the debitage analysis that remains.
The week ahead will be filled with lots of exciting
possibilities. On Monday, Matt, Christina and I will be looking
for a causeway connecting the two major sites in our area.
Wednesday I will start excavations, and I have to get the car papers
redone some time in the next two weeks. It would also be a good
idea for me to visit the lithic site in Belize, but we will see how
the time goes. |
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FEBRUARY JOURNAL ENTRIES |
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1 February 2006 |
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So the day I had was as follows: One step forward, two steps back.
4:00 am – give up on sleep, get up and ready for the day
It quickly goes downhill from there, and there is not much certainty
about time for the rest of the day, except that I was back at the lab
by 9:30 am.
Don Angel, with whom I shared some warm backstabbing moments last
year, decided again to let his son (age sixteenish) take the lead in
the arguments, after claiming that he had the title to the property
in his possession (great – does the property belong to
you?). The son argues very forcefully that the illegal,
unauthorized excavation of units on his land is an affront to the
very fabric of Guatemalan society (but, I interrupt, what about the
illegal, unauthorized looting of the mound that your family is
doing?). I explained about Guatemalan law, that the subsurface
remains were cultural patrimony, and that the state had given me
permission to excavate. He said I did not have permission
from the landowner, and that was the only thing that mattered
(grumble, grumble, human rights violation, grumble grumble).
He actually used the human rights violation line twice. If my
hopes of working for the UN had survived my ill-fated attempt at
translation, they died a painful death when I was convicted without
trial of crimes against humanity....
I called the Office of Monuments in Petén, who are in charge
of this. No answer (it is only 8:00, after all). I call
Gustavo, the head of Monuments for Guatemala, and our contact at
IDAEH. Then I think better of it and call Adriana, my boss and co-director.
I hand her the phone and overhear the human rights violations speech
for the third time (he has obviously practiced the speech and is
willing to give it several times).
I get a phone call from Adriana five minutes later, and she tells me
it would be best for me to get off the site until things can be
straightened out. "What kind of time frame are we
talking here? I have workers ready to start digging for me."
The order to immediately stand down is given, and I do so as
graciously as possible, explaining that I will be back as soon as I
can. My guys and I go off to look around, while they
guard jealously their heavily looted 60'x60' plot of undeveloped land. The truly funny thing is that they think I am going to find cool loot. And what I am after is information about the way people made stone tools. That is why, once they found out that I was interested in excavating, they started tearing the site apart trying to find the treasure before I could come and find it.
The truly disturbing thing is that the owner of the property has a
job guarding an archaeological site in Petén. And
he and his family go home to loot another site....
Anyway, as soon as we are off the site, things settle a little.
Then we come back for the car, and I am accosted by another, more
hostile brother, who yells at me about staying off his brother's
land. I look him in the eye, and say "You are saying
nothing that has not already been said. We are not on
your land, and I am going to go see what I can do to get permission tomorrow."
And I start climbing the bureaucratic ladder. Adrianna is
horrified that this happened (I asked her a week ago whether the
owner had been contacted....) and cannot understand what is
going on. Quite naïve for a woman in charge of all
sites in the Petén.
I talk to the town mayor. He is in total agreement with
me, but private land it outside of his bailiwick (and he is quite
relieved that he is absolved of any responsibility).
And so I call and talk to Don Pedro, who is Adriana's boss. He
relies on Adriana to get this done, so I have to go to
her. Pedro will wait for Adriana to return.
Furthermore, he had talked to his employee (Miguel Angel, the owner
of the site) and was told that the land does not in fact belong to
the Miguel Angel, but his father, the two-faced backstabbing Don
Angel. Adriana is obviously the go-to person.
But she is on the road from Guatemala, and out of touch (in more ways
than one). And I call Gustavo, the head Monuments guy at
IDAEH, and our main contact. He tells me that it really is
something Adriana has to do, but he needs names to go on the letter
he is preparing. His boss, Salvador, will be in at 4, and
will sign, if I will just get the information together to give
Salvador when I call.
At four o'clock I call Salvador. "What do you want me to
do?" he says. "This is Adriana's problem.
She needs to get the job done."
And I am kicked back down the bureaucratic hierarchy, back to where I started.
So I pay workers for the day, I fight with the landowner, I get no
work done, either in lab or in the field, and I am utterly exhausted
at the end of the day.
As was pointed out to me, the term "frustrating Guatemalan
bureaucracy" is redundant, in triplicate. And the sun sets on another day....
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04 February 2006 |
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As a side note to the problems I encountered in the field, I was
presented with a delightful opportunity to laugh at the end of the
two-hour work day. One of the workers had guarded my
truck while we were walking around, and was not present for my talk
about when, and if, we would get permission to work. I
asked everyone to be patient, and I would let them know when we had
permission and how we would start.
Then Luis, as I was leaving, asked when we would be working again,
and I repeated the speech (a nice one, although not as well-rehearsed
as the earlier human rights violation speech). He, like the
rest of the guys, was pretty much OK with my suggestion.
"Let me know when you need help." And he patted the
holster on his hip.
Is he armed? I did a total double take, spinning my head
around to see what he had on his hip. With Luis, it was likely
that he was. He was our camp guard, and is no stranger to
firearms, but it surprised me nonetheless. Then I saw what was
in the holster. His cell phone. "Call me,"
he had said, and patted the cell phone in its holster.
When I explained why I had jumped, everyone got a laugh.
Cell phones are certainly odd status symbols right now. In the
jungle, where reception and cell phone towers are an occasional-to-non-existent
thing, almost every family has at least two. They might not
own a bicycle, but they have cell phones. One of the
families has eight. I suppose some families collect Disney
memorabilia, others collect state quarters. Peteneros
collect cell phones....
Anyway, by the end of the week I was seriously cranking on the lithic
analysis. I hired the Ermilda, the sister of Hilda,
(Hilda is the lady who cleans the lab for us - nepotism is a byword
in the area), to wash lithics and help me with the analysis.
Thursday, after a twenty-minute training session, she started to help
me sort and count lithics by the score.
And it simply goes so much faster with two people. On the large
lots, I leave her to separate them into piles of cortex and non-cortex
flakes, while I do two or three of the smaller lots. We count
them, weigh them, and bag them, and it goes more than twice as fast
as doing it alone. I was averaging a little over a box
per day. Friday we almost finished three.
I nearly went ballistic, however, at a mistake she made. She
helped wash a couple of boxes of chert, and was doubling up the lots
in baskets. Two of them got mixed, and I got upset. Hugo
(also washing for me) blamed his aunt (conveniently absent at the
time). I explained that from now on, no more doubling up –
one lot per basket. Mixing, I explained, means that all the
effort that went into the excavation, labeling, notetaking, and
washing (and analyzing) is worthless. I did it without yelling,
but my displeasure was clear.
Friday morning, I explain the same thing to Ermilda. She nods,
and walks around the corner. Five minutes later she has come
back, and begins to work.
Five minutes later, Antonia drops by and asks me, "I just heard
that the kids mixed some of your lithics. Did they?"
I assure her that they did not. The mixed basket was in the
middle of a grid of fifteen baskets. To upset just that
one would have required a jump of at least five feet. The kids
are not perfect, but they respect the artifacts for the most part,
and were innocent of this crime.
And my new employee had gone and told Fredy, Antonia's husband, that
the kids were responsible. Fredy is old-family Petenero
elite class. So she obviously views him as the
patron. But it galls me that she goes to him to explain,
as if Fredy is going to pay a red centavo of her salary.
And worse, she casts around for someone to blame, and finds the
kids. I have no problem blaming the kids – they do
enough to warrant blame (such as Josef intentionally running
repeatedly into the back of my leg with a bicycle until he gets
hurt), but to blame the kids just to avoid it yourself...I lost a lot
of respect for her that day. She caught my grumpy side
for the rest of the day.
But we are making huge progress on the analysis (which gives her a
little bit of a pass). And, of course, this coincides
nicely with further delays in the excavations. I received a
promise from Adriana that we were going to go and do the site
inspection (it was done by Don Pedro three months ago, but who is
going to quibble about a little bit of redundancy?) on Friday when
she got back into town, because that was going to be the last step in
getting started. Somehow, taking more photos, visiting the site
again ( again for me, at least; she has not yet set foot out there)
and writing up the destruction she finds will OK the paperwork in a
way that doing the same thing three months ago did not
accomplish. But she is the boss.
And Friday I call her a little before noon to ask when she wants to
go out to the site. Monday, she tells me.
According to her calendar, she (and, by extension, I) cannot work on
Monday or Tuesday – a scheduling conflict of some
sort. So I had made plans to go to Belize Sunday and
Monday to visit the center of the chert universe: Colha. Now,
suddenly, Adriana is inexplicably free. The change in
plans forced me to scramble to Colha a day early and hope my car
survives the long trip unscathed, so that I could get back in time to
carry her to the site. Along with the owner, whichever of
the six people fighting me that ends up being....
At a lumberyard where I worked one summer, there were signs posted in
the break room, and they all had caricatures of horrific injuries,
and all had the caption: "How could this accident
have been avoided?"
My question is: "How could this incident have been avoided?"
We went out to the site in August of last year, and tried to get
permission to dig. Denied, by the landowner. We
then went to Don Pedro. Gustavo. Salvadore.
Meanwhile, the owner, now aware that his land has something the
gringo archaeologists want, starts to dig seriously. You have
seen the pictures. But nobody showed any interest
in the site, nor did they take the initiative to stop the looting.
Fast forward two months. My request for permission to dig at
the site is turned down flat. But wait; resubmit.
It is proposed alternatively as a Guatemalan project, with Adriana as
the lead investigator. Fine. Fast forward a month,
the paperwork is finally ready. In that time, Adriana does not
visit the site. She does not submit one piece of
paperwork. She does nothing to prepare for the project she is directing.
And is shocked when something goes wrong.
Fortunately, I have a lot of training in survey archaeology in
northern Yucatán. Mostly, what that entails is
preparing your day, having a backup plan for when the first plan
fails, having an alternate to the first backup for the screwup that
keeps you from undertaking the backup, and three choices that follow
the alternate to the backup to the plan. In survey, there
is always a day when the workers do not show up or the landowner
gives you problems or a one-armed axe-wielding man cuts down a tree
that keeps you from getting to the site (no kidding – it
happened!). Having contingency plans keeps you from losing your
day. And if all else fails, there is always lab work.
I am doing lots of lab work. |
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06 February 2006 |
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Some weeks I have to work at remembering enough things to
report. And then there are days that require an entry all
to themselves. This weekend was such a time.
I went to Colha, a Maya site in Belize that specialized in chert tool
production. The chert from the area is of very high
quality, and artisans at the site turned the raw material into
beautiful tools to be traded; countless sites across the Maya
area have offerings made of Colha bifaces. But the pretty trade
wares were not the only thing they produced at Colha - they also made
utilitarian tools, like axes and hoes.
Unlike most of the sites that tourists go to see, Colha is not a big
site. There is a central area with large mounds, and even
a ballcourt, but most of the mounds at Colha are small workshops,
with tons of debitage representing centuries of work.
For a lithics guy like me, this is Mecca. One of the most
respected members of the profession, Don Crabtree, once said of Colha
that it was the most important lithic site in the world.
After seeing it, I believe him.
To get there, you take the Old Northern Highway through
Belize. Lest you get any kind of mistaken impression
about what constitutes a highway, let me make clear: this is no
highway by any normal definition of the term. Furthermore,
since Colha is not a typical tourist destination, it isn't even on
any of the maps. But in the insurance office at the
Belizean border, I came across a copy of the National Geographic Maya
map, and it showed both the road and the site. And I was off. The Old Northern Road (so called by the people who live there – they don't even think of it as a highway) is a 1-1/2 lane road that has fallen into disrepair. Potholes the entire length of it, it resembles a dirt road more than a highway. There is pavement, but most of it is simply broken and pitted. |
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entourage, and was given their names, which, when I parroted them back, would elicit a giggle and a correction from mom. ShuGAHre, for example, was quickly corrected to Sugar Ray (see photo of kid in yellow rubber boots ). |
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There were also numerous examples of a specific class of artifacts
that I had read about before but never seen. Originally
called orange-peel flakes, they were the final stage in preparing the
bits of large biface tools. The "tranchet" flake was
struck off of the end of the tool to provide a sharp edge for the
bit, and it was the last thing that was done to the tool before it
left the workshop – thus each flake represents one
tool. So you can quickly do a count of how many tools
left the workshop by counting the number of tranchet flakes left behind.
I think that the thing that surprised me most about Colha was the
larger architecture. Everyone writing about Colha
downplays the large masonry architecture at the site. And
compared to most Maya regional centers, it is pretty
small. But they have large residential compounds in
several places across the site and a civic-ceremonial center that
includes a 6-m mound and a ballcourt (both of which are covered in
the forest that is carefully cut back everywhere else at the site)
. But the focus of research has always been the small mounds
made up of 3-foot deep stacks of chert debitage.
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11 February 2006 |
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All good things must come to an end. After making my way back
from the trip to Belize to my apartment and my lab table, I finally
get the news on the excavation permit. Yep, you guessed
it. No dice, still. |
