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The large tool
on the left is a general utility
biface made from Trinidad chert. It was hafted and used for
hoeing or chopping. The objects
on the right are a cache of obsidian
blades. Obsidian is traded from the mountains of Guatemala to
the lowlands, and obsidian, with its razor-sharp edge, was used to
cut everything from wood to leather to fruit and meat. They
were also often placed in offerings like the one where these were found.
Renderings by the project artist, Ingrid Seyb |
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APRIL
JOURNAL ENTRIES |
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April 6th |
6 April 2005
I hired the services of a door-to-door salesman on Sunday
afternoon. As I was coming home from the internet café,
a guy named LuisArturodelaGarzaHernándezParaServirle (I am
still trying to get used to the fact that "AtYourService is not
really a last name) stopped me and asked, after looking down at my
sad excuse for tennis shoes, if I maybe had any shoes at my house
that needed shining. I said yes, but I was waiting on my
paycheck. I claimed poverty, I claimed student status, I
explained that some gringos are poor, I used every excuse in the
book, but he shrugged it all off and told me the shoeshine, done on
site, was 2Q. That is roughly 25 cents. OK, for that, I
can afford to have my shoes shined. So he followed me home,
explaining the whole way why he was in need of the work. He is
epileptic (see the scars on my head where I hit it when I have a
fit?) and the meds cost 500Q for a pack of ten, and he has to take
one of them twice a day. And his mom has polio. And he
has no father. I grabbed my boots from my room and we sat out
on the sidewalk - I knapped for a while, and he brought my
shoes to a military polish. When he was done, he told me that
fifty women would now throw themselves at me, because I had such
shiny shoes. I said I was looking forward to that, but what was
my wife going to say?
An old woman who was passing by looked at me with a twinkle, and
said, "She knows. Wives can see everything and know it
all." And then she was gone. I believe her.
Later in the day I was approached by a pen salesman. He was
selling ballpoint pens (bearing such auspicious names as Vioxx, Fox
and Associates Dental Group, and Smith and Karlowski Law Firm) for a
small donation. He helped in a halfway house, where he was a
counselor for gangbangers. An ex-drug user himself, he knew how
important it was to get the boys off drugs. The donation helped
the house, where the government couldn't. I have no idea
whether it was true or not, but I gave him 5Q (for the story – I
didn't take a pen) and wished him luck. Begging here is an art
form. There are Maya children who hang out by the teller
machine and beg pesos from every gringo that goes in. Cute
kids. They hang from arms and hug legs, swinging with reckless
abandon if you stand still, which I did while waiting on Matt to
emerge. One of the older ones was coaching the youngest on how
to ask for food.
Without ever moving her mouth, the seven-year old ventriloquist said
"Necesito comida (I need food)" "Necesito comida"
parroted the protégé, from her position draped around
my leg.
"¿Me puede dar cinco pesos?"
The apprentice-in-miniature repeated the words. The seven-year
old master never made eye contact with me, and the apprentice
never stopped hugging my leg. I finally extricated myself from
her grasp, and shook her hand. It had three quetzales in it,
and she almost lost them when she shook my hand. Not the best
technique for keeping your money, to my way of thinking.
But everyone has an angle. For many it is no angle, just the
dreadful reality. I have been approached by a woman wearing
gloves so she could scoot along the street – she had no
legs. Others, however, have included able-bodied men with
conjunctivitis, and even a bushy-haired gringo writer hippie.
An ancient man came and rang my doorbell to ask for help. I
gave him a few quetzals, and he went away. Women who beg tend
to use the children to make more piteous their plight (sin hombre,
they always say).
feel odd saying "no" when comparatively I have so
much, and when a few cents can make so much of a difference (try
giving a nickel to a beggar in New Orleans). But I also have to
pick and choose my charities, because I will be broke plenty soon
enough. So I give when I have small change, and feel bad when I don't.
Saturday, Ingrid and I hiked up the hill behind the house (Matt was
in Salt Lake City at the annual meetings for the Society for American
Archaeology), and went up to the Plaza Santiago at the top. The
climb was pretty tough and dusty, and we were both winded by the time
we hit the summit. Then we followed the hill down, and we
realized we were sitting on top of the Cerro de la Cruz, the most
picturesque spot in the city. Spectacular view. We then
picked our way back down a different way, serendipitously ending up
right in our backyard. I think we'll probably take that route
if we go again. Cerro de la Cruz, however, is a pretty sketchy
place, and bandidos frequent the area and pick off the unwary
tourist. Literally – some have been killed for their
wallets. We didn't realize that was where we were headed, or we
would have bailed. But pretty, mercy, how pretty it was. I saw
parts of the city I have not visited, and realized that I have
unintentionally been avoiding certain streets while walking around
town. I have since rectified that particular tendency, and
widened my collection of streets.
Sunday's mass was nice, with extensive mention being made of the
pope, and also, since it was the first Sunday after Easter, it was
the day for visiting the shut-ins; dozens of men in
uncomfortable-looking black suits milled about in front of the church
until the priest came out. Then they all loaded up in a couple
of cars. Fifteen minutes later, a car with loudspeakers drove
by our apartment, a woman singing loudly (and not terribly well) from
inside the car, magnified a thousand times through the loudspeaker,
and projected across the neighborhood. In front of the car was
a station wagon, the roof of which was fitted with an altar on which
was perched a statue of an angel in white.
The priest walked up the steps right next to our apartment,
accompanied by a number of suited men, one of whom was ringing a bell
like it was going out of style. And then the cars left. I
presume they came back to pick him up a little bit later, but all I
heard was the dreadful a capella singing, mercifully going away from
me. It was, apparently the ecclesiastical version of the
"IIIAAAAGAAAAA!" we hear from the gas vendor.
Mass was beautiful. I actually got to see the results of
something I had read about. The reason that churches are
oriented E-W is to take advantage of the lighting behind the
altar. The sun rose on that crystal morning and the light
exploded through the stained-glass window. Absolutely stunning
effect. I had heard about the reason for the orientation of the
building, but had never been inside a cathedral for sunrise
services. Well worth the effort, if you have the chance.
The city is, of course, festooned in white, gold and black in memory
of the late John Paul. Every business has a multicolored bow or
an oversized poster commemorating his life and mourning his death.
The pictures of Semana Santa have
been developed, and will be uploaded to my Dad's business web site
(www.dixielumber.net, and click on "Antigua Journal") where
a friend of mine is recording my journal. The pictures
are a little washed out. I don't know if it is the camera or
the development (it couldn't possibly be the shaking hand behind the
disposable camera) that was at fault, but it gives an interesting
visual image counterpoint to my descriptions. I will be
stealing Matt's digital camera soon for general Antigua pictures,
since I saw the results of his shots from last year's Semana
Santa. The richness of the detail and the color is astounding.
Matt came back from the SAAs on Monday, and he was more relaxed than
I have seen him in months. The meetings went well, and an
edited volume on Motul will, Matt informed me, include a chapter on
the lithics. The deadline for the draft is December; I have
some work to do.
Still no news on the grant front. I re-read part of my
proposal, now that it has been a month since it was submitted (as of
today), and it is not as bad as I remembered. I just need it to
be "not bad" enough to get funded. Continue to keep
fingers crossed.
The lithic analysis I have been doing was getting me deep into the
dumps, so to speak, until yesterday morning, when I finished up
analyzing a unit that had taken me a long time, and started another
from a different group. The difference was night and day.
I went from working with tiny pieces of shattered stone with almost
no interesting traits to working with big, pretty utilized
flakes. This is really good news, because it means that the
elite residence where this stuff is coming from got the end product,
and pretty high-quality products, whereas the knappers in the other
house had to deal with huge quantities of low-quality material.
I think it was not so much the awful material that was getting me
down about Group G's material, it was more the sense of sameness for
every lot. Now that I am seeing different stuff, it makes more
sense out of what I am doing. I can look at how many flakes per
tool there were, what proportion of flakes were utilized, and compare
them across the site. I just wasn't seeing the petrified forest
for the wood chips.
On a completely different note, my birthday falls on the 28th of
December. In Latin America, that is Santos Inocentes, the day
of the Innocents. It is a perfect birthday for me - the Latin
equivalent of April Fools Day. Last Friday, as you all know,
was April Fools, probably my favorite holiday. My
indoctrination started early (just ask my parents about the snake and
the shotgun) and I have always felt unrepressed glee at even the
silliest of pranks. And for those of you who received my
Yucatecan journals, I am sure that there was a sense of foreboding
when you read last week's entry, mailed out on March 31st. I
have heard from a couple of people that they read it all the way
through, to see what lies I was going to tell this year. And
were a little disappointed when there was nothing there.
In fact, I even got a message from Ali, a friend of mine from
Northern Illinois, in which she forbade me from contacting her on
April Fools day – that in her mind, that day is permanently
classified as Crorey Hell Day. I called her, of course, but
without any joke to play –just to talk. She was
shocked to hear from me, but we had a good conversation. We
haven't seen each other in almost a decade, and narrowly missed being
in Antigua at the same time – her sister adopted a pair of
Guatemalan children from an orphanage here, and Ali came to help with
the finalization of the adoption.
But simply surprising someone wasn't enough. I couldn't let my
day pass without pulling something. A few select recipients got
an email on Friday informing them that I had been mugged on the way
back from one of my early-morning jade-cobble runs, and I was unhurt,
but sans wallet, driver's license, twenty dollars, and ATM card.
I explained it as a sort of Antigueña instant karma, where I
steal the city's cobbles and she extracts her pound (sterling) of
flesh in return. Not exactly up to my usual standard, but
effective, since I am living in a place where it could happen.
One recipient, who had scoured the earlier epistle for a joke, even
asked Kathe about my ordeal. Kathe, who was unaware that I had
anything planned, asked "What mugging?"
I am sure that my comeuppance is imminent, but I simply couldn't help myself.
Heh.
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13 April 2005 |
Once again our Glorious King
Where, o death is now thy sting?
Dying once, he all doth save
Where thy victory, O grave?
Hallelujah!
My grandmother, Caroline McCrorey Lawton, died yesterday
afternoon. She was eighty five years old. She lived to
see her children serve the God she worshipped all her life. She
lived to see them pass those selfsame beliefs on to their
children. She got to watch as her great-grandchildren began to
be taught the things she thought were important. Serve your
God. Be true to him. Don't forget to praise him.
And be sure, your sins will find you out.
Grandmamma was a diabetic, and her feet had been giving her trouble
for years. There were toe amputations and she had had sores on
her legs since before I left for grad school. The day before
yesterday, from what I understand, the doctor told her that she could
no longer wait. The infection had gotten into her bones.
He was going to have to amputate both of her legs.
For Grandmama, that was more than a simple loss of mobility.
She was also losing the freedom to live with her daughter. She
was losing her dignity. She was losing any ability she would
have to assert independence. It was what she had worried most about
over the past few months.
Her family gathered around her. Aside from the few of us who
lived far away, this afternoon the Lawton clan, now roughly forty
strong, got to watch one of the strongest women I have ever known
leave behind a very weakened body, but also leave behind an
indomitable spirit and fierce pride in the people she claimed as hers.
The Doxology has been sung as a blessing before meals at the Lawton
Sunday dinners for years. She would raise a reedy, but strong
voice and start the tune before the beginning of each dinner.
Most of the time (but not all the time), she would pitch it pretty
close to where it was written. And the Lawton clan, in a
capella four-part harmony, would join in right behind her, regardless
of how high or low she pitched it.
In the hospital room yesterday afternoon, the family gathered around
her and sang the Doxology.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
According to my dad, she shed a tear at that point. And then died.
You see, this was the most important thing to her. Sometimes,
especially after Granddaddy died, she would have a hard time
remembering to praise. She would see all the problems around
her. She would get cranky and hard to deal with. But a
simple reminder was always enough to push her back to the recognition
that she served a merciful God, and one that deserved to be praised.
She would also remind me. Every time we spoke over the last few
years, she would say that she was just so blessed to have so many
children that lived to serve her God. And then she would remind
me to trust in the Lord, and serve him. Because that,
after all, is what we are all supposed to do.
I have been very lucky. In the three grandparents I was old
enough to remember, I received the incalculable gift of a lesson in
dying with grace. My nana, Emma Parker, died before I started
graduate school. She endured pancreatic cancer, and even in its
final stages, a scant few months later, she approached death with a
pluck and vigor and a sense of humor that I am still astonished
by. Her family came together before she died, and she said goodbye.
Francis Asbury Lawton died the week I was headed to Tulane.
Much as his widow would do eight years later, he faced an unpleasant
surgery with a strong chance of difficult complications. The
family gathered around, he told everyone that he loved them, and died
the day before the surgery. I am convinced that he had a
conversation with God and they settled on a time for his death that
was best for everyone.
And my grandmother, Caroline Lawton, on the twelfth of April, 2005,
went to join her husband. And is headed to do the thing she
thought was most important: to praise God.
Grandmamma, you influenced all of us whom you claimed as yours, in so
many ways. We, the creatures here below, will praise him, just
like you instructed. You have already given us the pitch.
We just have to sing.
Today we sing in your memory. |
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15 April 2005 |
15 April 2005
Last Saturday was a good day. I got two tasks accomplished
– I braced the shelves that hold the pottery and went to
Pastores to look at boots. The first part went pretty
well. The 2x4 only cost 23Q, and I sawed it using the saw I
purchased at the beginning of the season. I took it up on the
roof to cut it, refusing offers of help. After about five
minutes of struggling, I looked down and said "Hmm."
Matt and Ingrid both came running up the stairs. Ingrid later
said that she had never before been around someone who said
"Hmm" when they hurt themselves. The back of the saw
had metal burrs on it, and in using my left thumb as a guide for the
cut, I had sliced it open. The cut was pretty deep, and I am a
bleeder. The paper towel was dripping onto the floor in 30
seconds. We used up most of the remaining gringo bandages
(local band-aids, predictably, use Teflon as adhesive) trying to
attach bandage to slick finger. And when something like this
happens, I am always amazed at how many times I manage to whack my
thumb during the day.
The trip to Pastores was, by contrast, completely without
incident. We went into a half dozen or more shops, all with
nearly identical boots. There was a pretty wide variety within
each store, and you could get riding boots, cowboy boots, dress
boots, or high-heeled boots. And they are also made to order,
so if you have special tastes or wide feet, they will make the boots
(by hand) for you. 250Q –roughly US30 - buys the basic
cowboy boot. An alligator boot runs 1400Q. Expensive, but
still cheap by gringo standards.
There was one store, obviously the most successful of them, where
they sold, among other things, hooded cobra belts - they used the
heads of the cobras for the belt buckle. The guy – get
this - also had a pair of cobra boots. The head looked like a
tassel on the top of the foot. I didn't ask if it flopped
around. Matt asked a guy about them last year, and was told
that a local guy is raising them on a local farm for these belts.
Now Guatemala is home to a number of highly venomous snakes,
including the very deadly fer-de-lance. Maybe it is just me,
but the idea of introducing another deadly snake with no natural
predators into an ecosystem that is ready made for such an
animal&ldots;. well, it seems about as bright as swimming with
a laptop. The good news is that once a couple of 'em escape,
real estate prices in neighboring Antigua will quickly plummet.
Oddly enough, the town is not friendly at all. I am accustomed
to being welcomed when I shop. I know it is crazy, but I figure
that if I am in the store, perhaps to buy something, and if I smile a
lot and speak politely, nice things will happen, New Orleans Winn
Dixie not withstanding. Not so here. In every store we
went into, the people tending the store were grumpy and sullen.
It also makes no sense to me that there is no outlet in Antigua for
the sale of the boots. Twenty stores located five minutes from
Guatemala's tourist Medina (the hajj akbar is the pilgrimage to
Tikal) known as Antigua. Each gringo, Guatemalteco, German,
French and Cuban makes their way to Antigua on every trip to
Guatemala, but never to Pastores, unless they know to go there to buy
boots. Why not sell the boots in a kiosk in town, with a big
sign, stating plainly "Boots Pastores"? How easily I
forget that capitalist rules do not apply in Guate, and that the boot
mafia puts its foot down, so to speak on the "export" of
their products to the metropolis five minutes away. Go figure.
I am interested in talking to them about using some spare leather
from their stocks for my microwear study. Cutting and scraping
leather should be one of the items on my list of activities I am
doing with the stone tools, and that would be the logical place to do
work, just like Jades, S.A. would likely be the best place to work
with jade here in town.
On the way back into town, we stopped at the ceviche stand down the
street and had some really tasty seafood. Ingrid and Matt just
got the shrimp, but I got the mixto, which had crab, shrimp, fish,
mussels, all of which was delightful, and pulpo – octopus –
which was a little on the tough side. Honestly, I am going to
suggest to the guy in Pastores that octopus boots might be a big
seller. If the meat is that tough when fresh, I can only
imagine what curing it for a couple of days with tannin would
do. And you already have the ink for a natural dye. I'll
be the first guy on the block with octopus cowboy boots. And
probably will remain the only guy. But such is the price of
being a fashionista.
Over dinner on Monday I felt my first earthquake. Pretty
exciting stuff. Ingrid looked at me and asked "do you feel
that?" The answer was unequivocal. Yes, I felt it,
and it got stronger over the next thirty seconds. Matt
announced that if it got worse, we were headed out of the house.
As soon as he said it, the house rocked with a little more force,
and he yelled "keys!" and grabbed them and headed to the door.
We bumped into him from behind, as we were already headed the same
way. But the impact of tectonic activity is exciting. It
turned out to be a 5.4 quake originating 100km to the SW, near the
border with El Salvador (where we headed to re-up the car).
The grant situation is no nearer a conclusion. I received a
message from John Yellen, director of NSF Archaeology division.
He basically told me to wait my turn. Two of the three reviews
needed to make a decision had come in (he sends out six copies) and
the typical wait was twelve weeks for all three to be returned to
him. It has been five. Good news? Bad news?
No news? I can't tell. Likely that the reviews were
positive, or he would be waiting on more than a third
review. But I don't know.
I did get my first bit of bad news on the grant front: I got turned
down for the in-house Latin American Studies summer research
grant. I had asked for money to hire a canoe builder to
construct a canoe using traditional techniques and stone tools (which
would be studied as part of my microwear analysis). The money
was also to purchase a digital video camera to record the process of
production. As other modes of transportation are becoming more
readily available, fewer and fewer canoes are being built, and the
craft is disappearing. Recording the process would be important
for reasons beyond the value to my dissertation.
Will offered me money from MARI to help offset the expenses of this
subproject. Electrons had scarcely traversed the wires before I
had accepted the money – I am a grad student, after all. I
am going to try again submitting the grant elsewhere, as soon as I
figure out where.
Obtaining a flight to Atlanta to get to my grandmother's funeral was
pretty tough. The agent of one carrier (the name of which is a
greek letter) told my wife that bereavement fares were refundable,
and therefore cost more than double a normal fare: $1195.
The travel agent on this end did a good job, coming up with a flight
that was full (but we could come back and check for cancellations
tomorrow) but that cost less than $400, and two others for $890 and
680. Matt's dad got pulled in and got me a fare for $520, and
we bought it. I became a Matt's dad fan in a bigger way than I
had ever been before, as of that moment.
All that remained was to get the car permit "renovated", an
activity that can only take place at a border with another
country. So Matt and I got up early Wednesday morning to drive
through Guatemala City, with its terrific traffic and smog and crime
and chicken buses (with their Pig Pen-esque plumes of black smoke)
and make our way south to the border with El Salvador. The
actual renovation of the car papers was a very straightforward
affair. I think the fact that the car was still hooked up to
the tow truck played a strong sympathy card for me. Let me back
up a little. After we finally escaped the black hole of the
capital, we started doing some serious driving. And about 40
miles later we stopped driving at all. The exact cause of the
problem is still up for debate, but it involves the rear differential
housing, a leak, and a loud scraping noise that continued for as long
as I was coasting or braking (which, among the volcanoes of
Guatemala, is a large percentage of the time). It had gone from
an odd whine that I had asked Matt about, to a sound of something
being unequivocally wrong. I limped us into a gas station,
where the attendant (with true Latin American nepotism) took us to
his brother-in-law's business down the street. He fixed the
problem by replacing the grease with heavier grease, and explained
that we could probably get there and back, as long as we ignored the
noise. And after riding around the block with me, he put us
back on the road. I tipped him heavily, figuring we'd get him
to check us out as we passed through on our way back. We
entered Barbarena, a dump of a village 75 km outside of Guatemala
City, and about ten kilometers beyond where we stopped to refill our
grease. The sound was getting worse, but was still
manageable. Matt
suggested maybe trying it in second gear instead, so we would be
pulling instead of coasting a greater percentage of the time.
It made sense to me, but the car did not agree to the plan and
screamed in protest. There were no options. We stopped,
pulled off the side of the road, and stared at the dash.
The thing is, the Guatemalan government is unforgiving about the
timing on the permit renewal. If you are late by a day, it is
this huge expense and bureaucratic hassle. And they don't care
what the excuse is. So we decided to hire a tow truck, not to
take us back to the capital or Antigua, but to take us to the border
first, and then back to the capital. Great. Now where do
we get a tow truck?
The place where we stopped said that there was a grua three km back
toward Barbarena. So we started walking, itself a pretty
dangerous proposition, considering that we were carrying a fair
amount of cash between us, and were very alone on a pretty empty
stretch of highway. Matt kept his eyes peeled for a bus to take
us the three km to the grua, I kept my eyes open for more jade.
And we both found what we were looking for. I have two
beautiful pieces of jade, one a gorgeous blue-green color, the other
a lime green. They are both harder than knife steel (the
serpentine I have been finding in Antigua is much softer) and very
dense. Matt, meanwhile, has flagged down what appears to be a
combi – a van taxi. As we get in, he asks one of the guys
"is this a combi?" The reply, a 'yes, but no' answer
does not instill confidence. He took us the remaining two
kilometers to a dirt road and let us out without charging us for the
ride, and told us the grua was down that road. With very little
humor, Matt and I joked as we trudged up the hill, that the taxi
driver had not robbed us himself – he had just sent us to his brother-in-law's
house to get robbed. I can imagine the cell phone
conversation: Hey, chulo! I sent you some juicy specimens!
We finally got there and met the owner of the towing company.
He was a short man, a little over five feet tall, had a huge belly
and a fat head. Perched on top of his head was a shock of
grizzled hair that had been carved into a wide Mohawk. The skin
along the sides had been shaved, leaving a couple of moles protruding
out of the side of his head.
We approached him, and he looked up, a little surprised at the
appearance of a couple of gringos who were obviously out of their
element. We explained the situation to him, and Matt asked if
it was possible to do it the way we needed – tow us to the
border for the paperwork, and then back to the capital. While
towing the car backwards to avoid further damaging the
differential. I interjected with one of Matt's pithy sayings
– "This is Guatemala! There is always a solution!"
Don Oswaldo shook his head. "Here," he said,
"here there is always a solution. But those guys down
there," he pointed down the road where another tow truck company
was based, "they would just be scratching their heads. But
here, we can do it!"
He bellowed at the kids to pull this thing and push that thing and
disappeared down the road in a tiny Nissan truck (bumper sticker in
the rear window – Los Ladrones Prefieren Victimas Desarmadas --
Thieves prefer unarmed victims) hauling a small trailer. We sat
for about half an hour and waited, occasionally trying to make sense
out of the confusing array of events that confronted us by asking
questions of his son (also sporting a Mohawk, but one that was not so
tightly trimmed). He explained that we would be towing it with
this truck (pointing to a Toyota 4-runner) and not the Nissan, and
that we would be hauling it backwards. During this time I
called MARI to begin breaking the news to Will that I was in need of
more money, and I found another piece of jade, right in front of the
house. Finally he speeds up the hill with a slightly larger
trailer and slaps on his brakes, sliding to a halt in front of
us. After a few minutes of beehive-like activity, the trailer
is attached to the Toyota, a small girl comes out and feeds him a
huge pill with a large glass of water (he's on meds? High blood
pressure? Bipolar? Narcolepsy? Should we be
worried?) and we are off.
We get to the car and spend another half hour backing it onto the
trailer using methods that would not be endorsed by even a 19th
century version of OSHA. After he bellows instructions I cannot
understand in a dialect I don't speak, pointing to things I cannot
see, Matt steps up and tries to translate the bellows into some
semblance of order. Finally the truck is straight on the
trailer, and is trussed up, complete with ropes tying steering wheel
to frame; the chains used to secure the bumper are, in turn, secured
by strings to hold them up off the ground. And we are off to
the border, Chevy Blazer in tow, two teenagers holding on through the
back window of the 4-runner.
He proceeds to tell his life's story, full volume mumble, to Matt in
the front seat. I am in the back seat with the engine noise and
hear little and understand less (how does he manage to project such
an amazing voice with no enunciation whatsoever?). But the
story Matt later relates to me is pretty astonishing. Since
becoming a Christian, he no longer robs, murders, rapes or assaults
anyone. He turned down a drug-running deal (he would have
received a woman, money and cocaine in the deal) from the local
organized crime syndicate and they are extorting him for 300,000
quetzales. If he doesn't pay, he dies.
Hence the Mohawk, to scare off ladrones and to show them he means
business. And the weapons? They are to kill any member of
the mafia that comes to pay a visit (no 'turn the other cheek' in his
Bible). He tells of how he hasn't had a drink in 8 years,
hasn't smoked or chased women in all that time.
He then proceeds to relate how God is rewarding him for his good
behavior, that when he needs money, God sends him someone who needs
his services (he must have really needed money on Wednesday).
We get to the border, and, as I related before, the process went very
smoothly. On the way back, both Matt and I slept. Over
lunch, Don Oswaldo relates that he sometimes gets sleepy while he is
driving, because he is a diabetic (he lifts his second glass of
Kool-Aid in salute before draining it). The diabetes, he
explains, is because he drank fourteen bottles of Pepsi every day
when he was a young man. His diet confirmed that it was the
Pepsis that got him, and not the fourteen tortillas and four glasses
of Kool-Aid and rice and pasta and&ldots; well, you get the
picture. His statements were all bellowed at full volume and
without the least concern for whether we would be able to
understand. At one point, he bellowed at his nephew and his son
that "They don't understand Spanish!" I felt like
asking if he spoke Spanish, but for once in my life, I held my
tongue. I think it was the Mohawk that convinced me.
We were on final approach for Guatemala City, with the car on an
overwide trailer with no reflectors. It is at this point in the
narrative that Matt spotted two motorcycle cops eyeing the
operation. They seemed particularly interested in the presence
of two gringos in the cab of the truck. Surprise, surprise,
fifteen seconds later I was pulling out my vehicle
registration. And passport. And picture ID
(driver's license will do). And the title. And I listened in
fascinated silence as he asked me, in perfect English, what had
happened. I am not sure he entirely believed what sounded like
a cock-and-bull story about breaking down, but was enough impressed
by our ability to tell a good story that he let us go. As we
started to get into the car, he said "After all, it is our
obligation to serve you."
We got to the capital without further incident, arriving at about
6pm, a mere 12 hours after beginning the trip. We paid for the
tow (1600Q) and left the car with the only mechanic open at that hour
in that neighborhood. The mechanics watched in astonishment
when we chugged into their driveway. One mechanic whispered to
Matt "I can't believe you survived the trip".
By now it was dark, and we waved goodbye to our Mohawk and our money,
and called a cab. Matt and the owner of the mechanic shop
started talking about work that both had done in Petén,
Guatemala, swapping stories. In passing, Matt also
(smoothly, I thought) mentioned that he was looking for a place where
he could bring his Toyota – a semi-subliminal message inviting
good treatment in exchange for a future relationship. They accepted
it in stride, and seemed ready to have a new customer. We'll see what
the result is when I get back from the US.
The taxi arrived and we climbed in, waiting to finally get back to
the apartment. The taxi driver was entertaining, and over the
last hour of our long day, we learned first that Don Oswaldo had
vastly overcharged us – a 500Q charge would have been more
appropriate. We later found out that it was a fair price -
Alejandro finally realized that we had not just been towed back to
the city, but to the border and then back to the city. He
laughed at the antics we had to put up with, but then asked how we
had come to decide on that mechanic. We explained that Oswaldo
had suggested the mechanics barrio in Zone 13, and that we had
circled until we found one that was open. Alejandro then told
us that we had chosen well (got lucky, is more like it) --- a regular
client of his took her car there, and was always treated fairly.
And when we finally got home, Ingrid had already made dinner for
us. All things considered, if we had to have bad luck, we had
the best run of good luck to accompany it we could have. We
found a great character who towed us around the entire countryside
for a fair price. We found a mechanic who has the reputation of
fair treatment. We got jade, and we got home. A few hours
more than we expected to spend, but not too bad.
Second bit of bad news on the grant front: I found out about
the Sigma Xi grant, but I didn't find out much. Using a typical
form letter, they announced that I was not to receive the grant
because of one of the following reasons: (and then listed the most
general reasons why people don't get the grant). Who
knows? I have not found a good reason why they would give or
not give a grant. All I can do is guess, and reapply next go
around. The good news about the grant is that I am waiting on
the third pitch. If it comes in positive, that will be a bottom
of the ninth grand slam to win the game, and the first two missed
pitches are quickly forgotten.
On another note, my uncle Paul spent two hours trapped under his
flipped tractor. He has large areas of second degree chemical
burns and his two legs were pinned, cutting off circulation. He
was unable to move either leg when he was admitted to the
hospital. This morning, he has regained some movement in one
leg, and is frustrated that the other is not responding. They
will be putting him under anesthesia so they can clean his burns
later today. Now, a day later, his kidneys have also failed and
he has had the legs cut open to reduce swelling. A really tough
situation. Please keep him in your prayers.
Crorey
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18 April 2005 |
18 April
Today's journal entry is about some heroes that I have recently
encountered. The funeral was quite lovely. People came
from all over to say goodbye to my grandmother, and to reconnect with
the family she left behind. It was a happy affair, with people
laughing and smiling, and with remarkably few tears. She was a
wonderful woman who lived her long life in a very moral and upright
way, and everyone who knew her respected her. Her death was
seen as a blessing and her life something to be rejoiced over.
I also learned a lot about bravery and heroism over this very long
weekend. While we were burying my grandmother, we were also
worrying about my uncle Paul, who was trapped under his tractor for
four hours during the reception. His son found him and lifted the
tractor from off of him, and the two men who stopped to help slid
Paul out from under the machine. What followed was a grueling
three days in the hospital, where they treated him for his chemical
burns (2nd degree burns over 60% of his body) and for his legs (the
tractor cut off circulation from his legs for the entire four hours,
and irrevocably damaged his muscle tissue) and his hands (he actually
lifted the tractor off of his legs, twice, but could not pull himself
free from underneath the machine) and for failed kidneys, which were
simply not up to the monumental task of removing toxins from his
system. Despite horrific pain, despite a prognosis that never
used the word "hope" and despite the fact that he would
likely never walk again if he survived, Paul actually echoed the
words of my late grandmother: "Let God be glorified."
And Grandmama met him yesterday, the 17th of April, when he died,
leaving behind a widow to run his farm, and four adult children:
Ellen, Casey, Cody and Ashley.
Through all of it, all of us in the family prayed for miracles.
We did not get the one we were earnestly praying for – the
return of Paul to a healthy state. But we encountered a quite
different miracle, in the form of a hero and warrior named Paul
Ledford. Paul showed such strength. He did not ask for his
life, although we begged God to spare him. He did not request
healing, although we were begging and pleading with God that it
occur. He also did not appeal to God that he be allowed to stay
alive for his wife and kids. Instead, he placed his trust in
God and prayed that the events would be used to glorify his creator.
Wow. It makes me rethink the whining I did about orals.
It makes me rethink my "bravery" in the face of a cut on my
finger (but it hurt!) It makes me rethink the griping about every
little thing that came my way, and the very public moaning I always
engage in, at length to anyone who will listen, about the agonies I
am going through – emotional, academic, physical, social.
It puts my disappointments in a very concrete perspective.
I know nothing of bravery, or of a stoic face when facing peril.
I simply have never been tested on any level like that.
Anything I have ever learned of heroism, I have learned by reading
stories about people like my uncle Paul. But I have never seen
anyone who actually did it.
His family is showing the same kind of amazing fortitude. Beth
is strong, of that there is no doubt. She is, like her late
husband, a farmer. And she is weathering this adversity like
she has others in the past, with good spirits, pluck and
determination to make it easier on everyone else.
I was also indirectly introduced to some other heroes this
weekend: the amazing nurses that cared for Paul in the burn
unit in Augusta, Georgia. They have the worst job in the
world. You think your job is terrible? You know
nothing. People don't go to the burn unit unless the situation
is grim. Most who come in are almost certain to die. And
while never giving up hope on the patients that come in, they have to
personally despair because of the bleakness that they are surrounded
by every day. These people are heroes with courage to face what
I could not. And face it every day.
The nurse who had been caring for uncle Paul, after a twelve-hour
shift, turned to my aunt and said "Mrs. Ledford, I'll be praying
for you." She then turned to Paul, who was at the time
unconsious, in, I believe, a drug-induced coma, and grabbed his
hand. "Mr. Ledford," she said, "I am praying for
you, too."
Then she turned to the nurse who was taking over the shift, and began
informing him about the different complications, the different
patients, making sure his information on everyone was
up-to-the-minute. And when the conversation was over, my aunt
heard her say to him, "I'll be praying for you."
And he replied, "I'll be praying for you, too."
And suddenly, there is no question where the strength to do the worst
job in the world comes from. These people are faced with
tragedy, every day, and face it with a fortitude that is simply
amazing. I am a Christian. I pray. I was raised in
a family where prayer was part of daily living. And yet I tend
to turn to talk to God only when I am in anguish, fear, despair or
terror. I do not make it a daily thing. These amazing
people have strength to do what they do, serving those in pain, those
dying and grieving, because they pray for one another. Even at
the end of the day, when they go home to their families, they their
God to be with both the people that they served that day and for the
next set of hands that will be helping them.
Perhaps that is the secret to their peace.
Please pray for this family. Paul was not a young man, but he
was much younger than his years. His family is grown, but they
are still in need of his presence. They face a difficult road,
and they face it with a very conspicuous absence in their lives.
They, and the people that love them, will need those prayers.
Crorey
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23 April 2005 |
23 April 2005
At the outset of today's entry, I want to thank you all for your
notes. The outpouring of support from my family and friends has
been amazing, and the sharing of the load has made a difficult
situation easier to bear. Thank you.
The week has been pretty uneventful. No word from NSF. It
could be as much as six more weeks – at which point I will have
no hair left and by body will have been dumped into a ditch by
roommates who are tired of my whining. Lithic analysis is going
well. Matt has been working to obtain permits for our work, and
has been talking with officials and politicking and smoothing
feathers and forwarding requests for paperwork. He is also
working with friends of mine from Earth Search to set up a pilot
project for the underwater archaeology we want to do at the site.
At Trinidad, we have a port site, a harbor, and a lot of
long-distance trade goods coming into the site along a lake that is
known for a few things: (1) being a place for shamans to see visions,
(2) being a nexus for trade across the region (and Trinidad is
located at the easiest overland route away from the lake), and (3)
having rough waters in the afternoon (at least one local family has
died when the afternoon winds capsized their boat). And the
combination of the three elements puts forward the possibility of one
really good thing.
Lots of loot, just right off the shore.
Excuse me. What I meant to say was, there is an excellent
possibility for obtaining evidence of long-distance exchange from
good context immediately adjacent to the site of Trinidad, with
concomitant data concerning the site's importance in a regional
politico-ritual hierarchy, while establishing economic importance as
an independent variable in the&ldots;. (This comes from the
right shoulder. I just told him to hush.) Lots of loot, just
right off the shore.
Lago Atitlan, here in the highlands, has been subjected to underwater
survey, and the results are staggering. Part of the ritual of
scrying involves chucking (that's the technical term) offerings into
the lake in exchange for a vision of future events. The number
of whole vessels they pulled off the bottom of the lake was
astonishing. We are hoping that they did the same thing at Lake
Petén Itzá. We are also hoping (wishful thinking)
that there is a possibility of finding capsized watercraft like those
depicted in art from Tikal. One of the pieces from Tikal even
shows the boat capsizing in rough water. Add that to the trade
route we believe was coming through Trinidad. Well. Lots
of loot. Just right off the shore.
There are a few snags. The first of which is to put together a
team of divers that can do the archaeology we need done. That
involves mapping and underwater survey. Insert Earth
Search. Jill Yakubik and Earth Search have just, in the
past year, begun to look toward the water for more business.
Two (maybe three, now that I am no longer on the payroll)
archaeologists with underwater archaeology experience have been
hired, and others are training for the work. The exposure that
would result from doing a project that recovers material like the
stuff we are hoping to find, well, let's just say it would not be bad
for business, not to mention fun.
So now we are trying to make sure that the permits that have already
been submitted can have the sub-project (insert chuckle at bad pun)
added and also that we can actually get the equipment. So
yesterday, Matt and I went to Guatemala City with a dual purpose: to
retrieve my car from the mechanic, and to check out prices for scuba
equipment rentals.
Around noon (morning traffic in the capital is horrendous) we grabbed
a cab driver that Matt had used before and headed off to get the
car. The address we had was pretty clear: 5 Calle 6-09 Z.13
Pamplona. I have now been through the capital a few times, and
I have to say that "pretty clear" in terms of navigating
the capital is difficult, at best. But, if you are a taxicab
driver in Antigua, it is a pretty safe bet that you know the grid
system of Guatemala cold. After all, most people take a tuk-tuk
or walk for travel within Antigua; the majority of fares for cab
drivers involve travel to the capital. Bet on it.
We lost that bet. The driver got us to Guatemala City into Zone
13 (that is the Z13 part of the address), then stopped and asked
another cab driver how to get to the Pamplona area. He followed
the convoluted instructions (involving U-turns and New Orleans-style
left-hand turns and one tunnel) and promptly got us to where we were
going. And just as promptly failed to recognize where he was
(to be fair, we didn't either, but when we had arrived at the
mechanic's shop it had been dark at the end of a hellacious day –
see previous journal entry). And then he turned one block too
soon, and two left-hand turns later crossed back over the divided
road and quickly entered Zone 12.
You will note that the above-mentioned address did not have the
designation Z12. Matt and I conferred while the driver,
unconcerned, took us through the un-scenic tour of Z12, stopping to
ask for directions three times. Each time he headed off in the
wrong direction, and I would ask him: "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
The directions are pretty straightforward, as I learned after he
finally let us out. The streets are numbered in each zone, N-S
Avenidas and E-W Calles. The address we had was Calle 5 (just
one block from Calle 4, which we saw as we were leaving Z13), between
Avenida 6 (that is the 6 in the address) and 7, nine meters (thus the
9) from the intersection. Seven sets of hand gestures later, he
stopped to ask directions without recognizing that we were across the
street from our destination. We did, however, and got out,
paid, and walked across the street to the garage. Did we vow to
avoid his cab for the rest of our natural lives? "Absolutely."
When we walked into the garage, the guy greeted us and immediately
showed us the car, which had responded well to surgery. The
rear axle had been replaced, and he offered me the still-usable
catarina (whatever that is) to take with me if I wanted. I
politely declined, and then asked the all-important question:
"You guys do accept credit cards, right?"
Nope. Cash on the barrelhead, only. We waited until the
boss arrived, and he confirmed the bad news. Cash. 5,600Q
(~$675 – not bad for replacing a rear axle on an imported
vehicle) in cash, please. But he was willing to take us to the
ATM, so that we could pay him – we could use it as a test drive
for the car, to make sure everything felt right.
ATMs, of course, allow you to pull a maximum of 2000Q at a time –
a little less than $300. Matt and I both pulled 2kQ and, after
a few stressful moments, combined our spare change to make up the difference.
We then hit the scuba shop down the road (Matt navigated us there
without a single stop for hand gestures – but he had lived in
this zone for one field season, a number of years ago.) We got
out, and Matt asked if I wanted to roll up the windows. While
he went into the shop, I hopped back in and proceeded to do that, at
which time the driver's window escaped its moorings inside the door panel.
This has happened before. Numerous times – I essentially
spent all last summer in New Orleans without a working window or air
conditioning. Three days before we left New Orleans, I had
finally called the autoglass company, and they came out to fix the
problem (all my previous fixes had been very temporary, but much
cheaper) and I could, at long last, roll down my window.
That happy period lasted five days – just enough to get us
across the border. From that point on, any time an
official stopped me to ask for papers, I had to open the door.
Startling armed officials by swinging open the car door is not good
policy, so I figured out a way of holding on to the window while
rolling it up and down so that it stayed in its track.
Inelegant solution, but preferable to being shot.
But in the week since I had last driven the car, I had forgotten
about holding on to the window, managed to get it thoroughly jammed,
shook it loose, and accidentally yanked it loose from its tracks.
No problem. I simply have to remove the panel from the door,
reach in and guide the glass into the tracks, and roll it up, this
time holding it while doing it. In the glove compartment I have
a screwdriver. Scratch that. In the entire car I have no
tools whatsoever – they are carefully cached in Antigua to keep
then from being stolen. After trying to guide the window back
into the tracks without removing the door panel for 10 minutes, I
headed inside to borrow a screwdriver. The guy who loans me one
follows me back out (protecting his investment, I am sure) and starts
to help. After another 15 minutes, Matt finds me, completely
excluded form the process of fixing my car (gringos, as you know,
cannot fix anything mechanical), while two Guatemaltecos are
jockeying for position through the open window. They tug and
push and grunt and order each other about. After waiting for a
while, I tell them thank you, replace the door panel, the corner of
the window sticking out like a compound fracture, and drive off.
Predictably, it starts to rain.
I have never been to Beijing, I have only stopped at the Sao Paolo
airport, and I have not even been to Mexico City. So my
knowledge of the grime associated with big cities in other countries
is limited. But Guatemala's capital is nasty, reminiscent of
(sorry, Aunt Esther) Cleveland. You don't want to breathe while
you are there. Massive black flowers blossom from behind every
brightly colored bus, exhaling toxic, foul-smelling perfume that
hangs like a miasma over the entire city. It makes me need a
shower when I arrive back in clean (albeit dusty) Antigua. All
of that smoke settles on the ground, and the first rain of the rainy
season (today) loosens the oil, pitch, gas, and diesel from the
surface, making the road as slick as owl turds. Traffic between the
capital and Antigua presses you from every direction, and then stops
abruptly behind a stalled car or bus stop (placed conveniently at the
termination of each blind curve). It is dangerous, treacherous,
and mostly, scary. I saw one woman getting out of her car that
had a rock wedged under her car as the fulcrum. Nothing else
separated her from the 500' drop below. She had skidded (been
pushed?) off the road and driven up on the 3'wide shoulder. As
my dad says, "That sure is a funny place to park."
And I was driving in this, in a place where traffic rules are, at
best, suggestions, and where the sidewalk is an acceptable and even
preferred place to pass. Add an open window quickly soaking me
with water, and, well, I was not happy.
But we got home without incident, I dropped Matt off at the internet
café, and proceeded to take off the door panel, make two small
adjustments, and slide the window back into place, five minutes
before the arrival of the rain. I had just enough time to lock
it up tight, grab my stuff, get inside and pour myself a very strong
drink before the first thunderstorm of the year descended on us.
And watching a thunderstorm from the open window in Antigua while
drinking bourbon is not a bad way to spend an evening.
Crorey
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