Not in Buffalo: How many times can I say "no, gracias"?

When we spent any amount of time in central park in Antigua, Guatemala, I continuously needed to say "no, gracias" to the very numerous products and services being offered.  Americans are not used to being approached and often are either offended or nervous.  I felt bad saying no so often, of course.  Many of the items were total bargains, like necklaces or beautiful pieces of fabric for a dollar, but when you don't need something, you don't need it.

The experience made the family think, however.  We don't have commercial tv in the living room and no cable, so most ads we see are limited to online and billboards.  We have escaped the repetitious constant attempt to get us to want things we don't need.  Corporations get away with repeating messages with little effort or personal contact creating a sort of one-sided cultural dialogue.  In Antigua, where there are relatively few big box establishments and certainly not the large suburban type with big parking lots.  Small businesses and private individuals on the street rely on personal contact and expect some haggling over price.  This makes most Americans uncomfortable, but isn't it more authentic?  Isn't it more of a free market?

Anyone who wants to sell must have the guts to approach you and ask you to buy.  In return, of course, you should give an answer, even if it is almost always, "no, gracias".  There are also the businesses that can't exist in our corporate controlled environment.  We saw someone selling cigarettes one at a time, not much different than the odd person buying one off someone at a bus stop at home, but certainly, the regulations are set up to prevent an individual from carrying out such as a business in a more ongoing manner in the United States.

I am sure we haven't thought about the implications of all the differences, but clearly our trip has prompted more and more thinking about economics and marketing.  I think most Americans, and other relatively affluent Westerners, would benefit from embracing such travel experience rather than succumbing to fear.

Not in Buffalo: Skip the Book and Go to the Volcano

There have been a couple of other posts about our month in Antigua, Guatemala.  Here I would like to highlight our visit to an active volcano, Pacaya.  When we went there was no flowing lava only gas and heat.  There had been lava only about a year before, so we could see the black hardening lava and step into areas where we could feel the geothermal heat radiating from the magma still hot under the hardening top layer.  You could also see clearly the way it flowed from the crater to the pool of lava.  If this isn't the best way to cover volcanoes, geothermal heat, and even igneous rocks, I don't know the best way!

This seemed like our one opportunity.  First off, we were near it and it was active.  Secondly, this one was only a 2 kilometer hike after a 4 kilometer car ride up.  I, and others with health problems, could do the hike either by hiring a horse or by hiring a private guide for the day so that we could take as many breaks as necessary to make the hike.  Very little of it was treacherous, most of it was just a walk at an incline.  Still, if you are out of shape or have health issues, I recommend a private guide at the very least, if not the horse.  Obviously, this is more expensive, but for us it was the difference between being able to have the kids experience the volcano or not.  Here are some highlights:

The best part of melting marshmallows in hot spots in the hardening lava area and making smores:

Not in Buffalo: Getting Hands-on with Traditional Weaving

After our great experience last year with my friend in a different part of Guatemala, we decided to go to Antigua to explore more Mayan culture and, of course, some Spanish colonial history.

For a hands-on activity, the kids wanted to take a weaving class.  They took one last year, but wanted another.  This one was a little different because they made a smaller item, but followed the whole process start to finish helping the teachers place the threads on the looms before they got to take over the weaving.  The class was at a cool bar Tintos Y Arte .  We were tempted to have beer and wine while they did the class, but we were pretty full from breakfast.  Instead we watched the kids and took advantage of two hours of uninterrupted adult conversation.

The teachers were great and super patient with the kids.  I will let the photos tell you the rest:

Not in Buffalo: I think we've covered the Mayans!

After our great experience last year with my friend in a different part of Guatemala, we decided to go to Antigua to explore more Mayan culture and, of course, some Spanish colonial history.  After loads of church ruins and museums, we decided that we better hit some major Mayan ruins in case we are unable to come back to Guatemala.  Most people think of Tikal.  We thought about going there, but Copan is quite a significant site and closer to Antigua, not to mention being able to visit Honduras.

It was a great experience.  I will post many photos at the bottom of this post because I think it speaks louder than my descriptions.  First of all, there is nothing like being in a place like an Antigua for a month.  To me, this is the minimum amount of time needed to pretend to live in a place and get a real feel and familiarity for it as well as see the sites slow and steady without wearing out.  Secondly, it was fascinating traveling to Copan, only 5 hours away, but different.  The tipicas comidas were similar sorts of foods, beans, corn tortillas, queso, avocado, but they were prepared and tasted different than their Guatemalan counterparts.  Also, the weather was more humid, including an hour and a half of rain in the evening, something rarely seen in the dry season of the popular parts of Guatemala.  The border crossing experience was quite interesting too.  Despite the agreement between Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, you need to formally leave one country before entering another.  This is quite different than going to Canada from Buffalo, where you don't talk to any immigration officials until you are on the other side talking to a Canadian official.

We kept telling the kids how lucky they were to see all of it firsthand rather than simply reading about Mayans in a library book, or worse, a textbook.  Hopefully, they understand that most kids don't get to go to Copan or any other site.  For some it is money (outside of airfare, there are cheap ways to travel central america like a backpacker, also expensive luxury accommodations with many options in between) or time, but for others it is fear.  Regardless, nothing beats this most authentic way to cover the Mayans so well and to get a sense of native peoples generally.

Many things were interesting, but see for yourself:

Public Transportation Curriculum

When we are out and about late afternoon, it is difficult to fight the sinking feeling when I see the all too familiar yellow buses.  A little bit of the feeling is the resource intensiveness of the super security to go a short distance versus the relatively low economic resource levels of children in our city.  More of it, however, is the knowledge that those children, as well as those in the bubbles of their parents' vehicles, are missing the tremendous number of educational opportunities on the NFTA buses and metro rail.  Indeed, all cities with relatively significant public transportation systems have unique systems and environments for learning.

Some of it is what you expect, geography and timing, but much more of it is character and socialization.  Kids in cars have no real responsibility for their own transportation.  They can't because they can't drive.  Besides putting their seat belt on without being asked and not distracting mom and dad, there's nothing.  Students on yellow buses can make sure to be at the stop on time and behave, but nothing else.  My kids have to carry their own bus passes, get them out at the right time, not lose them, make sure they scan, pull for the stop at the right time, etc.  These are not tremendously difficult things to do, but they need to do the same things adults do in order to ride.  They get real responsibilities sooner.

There are many rewarding social encounters.  Often, someone sees us and alerts me to a good place to take kids or some event for them nearby that I hadn't heard about.  Sometimes they witness kind adults and teenagers giving up their front seats for elderly or disabled people.  This is something they are starting to do.  One time, my son chatted with a man who was impressed with a story he told and encouraged him to write a book.

There are also social encounters that just don't happen in other environments since there are so few other opportunities to be in close quarters with strangers.  Many are great learning opportunities.  We witnessed two men heckling a woman over her hat one day and the incident had many components including: how to behave in public, freedom of religious expression, the lack of correlation between religious beliefs and proper behavior sometimes, as well as the idea that sometimes even the truth need not be stated.  We discussed these things the best we could given their complexity and their current ages.  Another time, we met someone on the bus who clearly had a hard life and was facing several hardships.  The kids kept pointing out several ways she and I were similar.  When I talked to them later, I tried to make them understand that often the only difference between someone who is doing okay and someone facing hardships are a few wrong turns, some of which may be outside of their control.  I hope they are learning empathy and compassion.

The more of these encounters and experiences we have, the more I believe that the decline of public transportation is one of many reasons that individualism and materialism seem to be so high in our culture.  There is no longer a sense that we are all more similar than than we are different or that we are all in it together.  It is easier to see others as "other" or even less than human when you don't have to get close to them.  People can more easily be in bubbles: in cars driving from their homogenous town past those "other" kinds of people in those "other" neighborhoods.

Hopefully, I am countering some of this bubble culture with my kids.  Only time will tell if riding around on the bus is the answer to responsibility and character building.