Una Visita

Yesterday for my first excursion outside of Santa Cruz Del Quiché, I went to visit Brenda in nearby Chiché. I met Brenda at Katie’s going away party. She’s a free-spirited, redheaded artist from Colorado who has come to Guatemala on an art grant. I caught up with her in Chiché’s library painting the three-foot by two-foot pages of a giant book meant to tour various towns and villages and enrich the lives of children. I would have taken Mike, but when I saw him that morning, he looked positively pale. Mike’s been under the weather since her arrived a week ago from Xela.

Brenda took me to the house where she’s staying and we made a lunch of eggs, pasta and veggies and discussed what it means to be a foreigner in Guatemala and what it was like for us back in “The States”. I learned that Brenda has it pretty hard being a single white woman in the small town of Chiché. She daily endures catcalls and whistles from charming local gentlemen as well as nasty rumors of extravagant moral transgression. To make matters worse she hasn’t gotten on well with either of the hosts she’s had and cites theft and obsessive compulsion among their faults.

Before leaving I helped Brenda run a few errands including dropping off the book pages to have grommets put in them for binding and transferring some data from a net café to the library via sneakernet. We said our goodbyes and I was on my way. Back in Quiché I caught a ride with Jesus to Cargo Expreso, the courier who has my computer. Apparently they opened the box in Guatemala City and there’s an extra fee I didn’t pay for sending electronics. I sure hope it makes it to Tennessee in one piece…

Oh, one more tidbit... Here is a fun lil interactive map of Guatemala with locations to know and tell that pertain to my visit here:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117702813592369502039.00044d3db59b242f29658&ll=15.037643,-90.96405&spn=0.928375,1.51062&z=9

You can check it periodically for updates.