The Rules of Antigua

      We have to keep up with the dishes here because we only have one bowl and plate for each of us, and they have to air dry before the next meal (because we use tap water for washing). We discovered that Skyler is more than happy to wash the dinner dishes if we let him play 80s music while he does it! (Not sure this will still work when we get home.) Since we've been here, we've been watching a goofy show called "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" on Netflix. It makes all five us of laugh, and it's been the perfect thing to do at the end of the day in a place far from home. So the last dish-washing song we have to sing along to is the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn." I'm sure the neighbors love us.
      I think it was our second week here that the kids were kind of slap-happy at dinner, and I was adding to the list of Guatemala rules. Grace made it into a "Fight Club" list for us:

The first rule of Antigua is: You don't talk about Antigua.
The second rule of Antigua is: You don't talk about Antigua.
The third rule of Antigua is: You don't go alone. Always have a buddy.
The fourth rule of Antigua is: If it can be peeled, you will peel it.
The fifth rule of Antigua is: If it can't be peeled, you will not eat it raw.

      So, this last weekend we took a shuttle to Copan, Honduras, to see the Mayan ruins, and I didn't follow the fifth rule. Well, I did, and I didn't. We were at this simple but sparkling clean little hotel, and the lovely woman there gave us dishes of fruit with our breakfast. I was desperate for fresh fruit, and the papaya was peeled and beautiful, but it was mixed with grapes (not peeled), pineapple, etc. I not only ate my papaya, I ate everyone's papaya.
      The kids have gone along with our rules (brushing teeth with bottled water, not eating street food, etc.) but hadn't really bought in. When we went to bed Sunday night, I could tell not all was well in the land where the papaya went (tmi). Monday was miserable. The kids get it now. I told them I was the canary in the mine. Don't eat the raw fruit! (Much better now, btw. Sorry if you didn't really want to hear that little story.)

Typical Guatemalan breakfast: refried black beans, eggs, ranchero sauce, queso fresco, plantains (usually fried, these were boiled).

Our favorite bakery--San Martin.

Ginormous carrots from the big market. I've learned how to make mashed potatoes with just a fork, btw!

Our grocery store. Imagine cheesey xylophone music playing loudly. Or, occasionally, random songs in English. Like "Gangsta's Paradise." Haha.

Getting crazy ice cream at Sobremesa (strawberry parmesan, chili chocolate, fig & wasabi, etc.).

My new favorite cafe--Cafe Boheme.

Coolest apron ever. Though at home he has one with a ring on it that says, "One Cook to Rule Them All," which is now the second-coolest apron ever.

Another poem. This is sort of part two of the last poem I posted.

 ~ Cafe Barista

The woman with the shorn hair is back

wearing even less of a sundress than before.

She leans against a pillar

outside this cafe half-full of gringos,

sneers the English she knows,

twisting the word “shopping”

into a grotesque distortion--a child’s mockery

spoken by a spitting soothsayer in a Shakespeare play,

making the audience squirm

by knowing their fate before they do,

seeing the tragic ends of their greed and folly

and relishing the justice of the gods.

She is the Greek chorus, the jester

delivering the punchline: that we have doomed ourselves

and there is no undoing it.

I wait for her to reach through the window to my little table,

grab me by the hair, tell me what I don’t want to know

about myself.

But she leaves

and for a while

there is only the suave Brazilian crooning overhead

and the layered conversations--Spanish, English, a baby crying.

She returns silently, creeps in the door,

her head the scout,

her body hanging near the exit, ready to run.

But no one attacks.

She approaches the counter,

speaks with the manager quietly, sanely, it seems.

His face is open, professional. He listens.

She steps back, hovers for several minutes,

gazing through the glass case

at the pastries, the slices of cheesecake, the chocolate muffins.

The manager is relieved, laughing discretely with coworkers.

She left.

Of her own accord.

Without a scene.

She paused before she passed through the doors,

unselfconsciously looked at my tea, my laptop,

my eyes.

We smiled at each other, small smiles.

She was younger than I’d thought. And smaller.

Like meeting an actor backstage

after the show,

the bones of her face finer

than the mask she’d been wearing.

She had a dimple.

We were animals observing each other

for one . . .

two . . .

gone.

But it was enough.

We are the same species, after all.

We can drink in peace together

at the watering hole,

keeping one eye on each other, maybe,

but drinking, still,

the water that is life.