I commuted from San Marcos for my first half week of work,
delaying my move to Tzununa because I met a beautiful woman and
wanted to stay nearby to her. By the time Saturday came, I was ready
to haul my shit one village over and see how things played out with
the girl having a bit of distance between us. There was certainly
already some distance between her mindset and mine but that made it
interesting.
My first night in Tzununa was awful. Thinking back on my worst nights from all my time spent traveling, this was up there in real shitty ones. It commenced while I was reading in the afternoon. I started Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which I would recommend to some of my male friends and Michelle Railsback. Music began to blare. There's a church next to the hotel. In preparation for the band a couple hours later, they played song after song way too loud. They had mounted a bullhorn-looking speaker, as if the rest of the amps weren't enough, on the church roof pointing at the center of town right through my hotel room. I read for a while and was actually able to get into the book. Loud music. I took a long walk, bought groceries, and came back. Loud music. I cooked dinner, ate, and cleaned up. Loud music. I read more and got tired and fell asleep. As soon as I got under the covers, I became allergic to the bed. There's two blankets but no sheet. Nothing seems dirty, in fact, I'm not sure anyone's ever stayed in this room, but I would really prefer a sheet.
I woke up at some unknown time later. It was obviously still dark, The music was still blaring. My nose is an itchy, snotty mess. I'm groggy and very unhappy. A bare bulb burning out on the porch feels like an arc welder against my retinas as I search for something to blow my nose into.
I realize when I step out to the toilet that it's no longer the church next to the hotel but the church behind the hotel. I don't know which way their speaker is pointed, but I'm sure their wall of amps is facing me. It's far too loud.
I don't have any tissues, so I use the toilet paper in the room to angrily wipe the snot from my face. My nose will fare worse for this. Calm down. Be angry but wipe your nose gently. It's rough toilet paper. But if you don't wipe with some force, most of the snot remains on the face and mustache. There's no trash can in this horrible room, so I fling each saturated clump to the wall forming a pile that will further depress me in the morning.
This sucks. This reminds me of the torture scene in Zero Dark Thirty. If anyone ever wants to torture me, use the music and I'll probably break. At the end of each song, I pray it was the last, but for hours on end, my prayers have been shat on. OK, what can I do? I don't know why, but that light is killing me. I would certainly trade in the fancy one-way mirrored windows for some regular windows and a curtain. I string up my towel and that's a big help but unfortunately that's it for improvement. It's funny to think about what would happen if I went over to the church and asked them to turn their music down, or off, because I'm trying to sleep and also I'm not feeling 100%.
There's one other hotel in town. Not a hotel like in a hotel sense with reception, etc., but a few extra rooms at a family's house where you can stay if you give them money. Walking up there now, where I'll still be able to hear this music, if not as loud, at this unknown hour on a Saturday night seems out of the question.
Then there's the bed. I can't just become unallergic to this bed the same as the mattress won't magically become thicker and more even. I posit that if I put a couple shirts on and keep the blankets near my waist, it may ease the reaction. It helped enough to fall asleep after a while.
I woke up a bit after sunrise and reveled in the lack of blasting music. I opened up my book and read a few pages when the music started up again. Luckily, the responsible church was off in the distance and the music came in at a now seemingly amateur volume.
Back to work tomorrow. Thursday, we erected the scaffolding using bamboo and wire. There are two crews on site: Walter's and Santiago's. Walter is doing the bamboo so I'm with him and Gerson has been brought in specially by the architect Charlie for his bamboo experience. In places, two horizontal bamboo rods side by side will have a plank laid over and screwed in to form a decent platform. Gerson wanted to walk across one of the single rods that spanned about 10-ft between two platformed areas. He simply walked across. If he fell one way, it would be 20-ft down to hard, sandy, rocky earth and if he fell the other way, it would be 16-ft down to a stone stairway. He made it each time he did it.
Walter really welcomed me into his group right away. He's the 23 year old crew chief who wear s a neon green tank top with “Nudist on Strike” painted on. He involved me and the rest of the guys soon followed suit. It also helped that I joined in hauling bamboo. They help out when I need it, kind-spirited and eager to show off their talents and skills. I hear a lot of “Cuidado Maximo”.
The guys start at seven and take a half-hour for breakfast at 10. Their wives, or maybe mothers, sisters, aunts, or cousins bring their warm food to the site sometime before. It's always a stack of tortillas and something to put on them. We've been breakfasting standing up around a 55-gallon drum and everyone shares. The first day I couldn't scrape much together so I only brought cold tortillas. Walter wouldn't allow that as cold tortillas need either be heated up or given to the chuchos, so I shared in warm tortillas topped with various ramens, spaghettis, black beans and even a bowl of shrimp in tomato sauce. Day 2, I brought some leftover pasta and before I knew it, forks were flying over to give it a try and I felt officially in.
I was hoping working the construction gig would include built-in Spanish practice, but unfortunately for me, it's mostly Kaqchikel spoken on site. Kaqchikel is difficult and almost completely unwritten. I can't repeat a short phrase correctly. I try to repeat the sounds that seem like the important ones to me, but the breathy noises and different mouth action sounds carry great importance as well. I'm not sure how to jump into Kaqchikel but I wish I did. Luckily, the local children are happy to repeat a phrase as many as 16 times in a row finding great entertainment in my repeated, failed attempts to pronounce correctly. We worked with trying to nail down the names of two villages above Tzununa up in the hills: Sanxshjomelxsh and Pajomelxsh.
Back on the site, I experienced sheer horror after we hoisted a 7-meter bamboo to stand vertically atop the 2nd level scaffold. Now out of our reach, Walter and Samuel hugged their bodies into the beam and the beam it would be wired to. I craned my neck looking upward remaining ready to dive out of the way as the rod swayed this way and that in the wind. We don't have a crane or anything like that. We do have a drill. A drill and wire snips and a handmade ladder. It's good to be working again, half days of course.
My first night in Tzununa was awful. Thinking back on my worst nights from all my time spent traveling, this was up there in real shitty ones. It commenced while I was reading in the afternoon. I started Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which I would recommend to some of my male friends and Michelle Railsback. Music began to blare. There's a church next to the hotel. In preparation for the band a couple hours later, they played song after song way too loud. They had mounted a bullhorn-looking speaker, as if the rest of the amps weren't enough, on the church roof pointing at the center of town right through my hotel room. I read for a while and was actually able to get into the book. Loud music. I took a long walk, bought groceries, and came back. Loud music. I cooked dinner, ate, and cleaned up. Loud music. I read more and got tired and fell asleep. As soon as I got under the covers, I became allergic to the bed. There's two blankets but no sheet. Nothing seems dirty, in fact, I'm not sure anyone's ever stayed in this room, but I would really prefer a sheet.
I woke up at some unknown time later. It was obviously still dark, The music was still blaring. My nose is an itchy, snotty mess. I'm groggy and very unhappy. A bare bulb burning out on the porch feels like an arc welder against my retinas as I search for something to blow my nose into.
I realize when I step out to the toilet that it's no longer the church next to the hotel but the church behind the hotel. I don't know which way their speaker is pointed, but I'm sure their wall of amps is facing me. It's far too loud.
I don't have any tissues, so I use the toilet paper in the room to angrily wipe the snot from my face. My nose will fare worse for this. Calm down. Be angry but wipe your nose gently. It's rough toilet paper. But if you don't wipe with some force, most of the snot remains on the face and mustache. There's no trash can in this horrible room, so I fling each saturated clump to the wall forming a pile that will further depress me in the morning.
This sucks. This reminds me of the torture scene in Zero Dark Thirty. If anyone ever wants to torture me, use the music and I'll probably break. At the end of each song, I pray it was the last, but for hours on end, my prayers have been shat on. OK, what can I do? I don't know why, but that light is killing me. I would certainly trade in the fancy one-way mirrored windows for some regular windows and a curtain. I string up my towel and that's a big help but unfortunately that's it for improvement. It's funny to think about what would happen if I went over to the church and asked them to turn their music down, or off, because I'm trying to sleep and also I'm not feeling 100%.
There's one other hotel in town. Not a hotel like in a hotel sense with reception, etc., but a few extra rooms at a family's house where you can stay if you give them money. Walking up there now, where I'll still be able to hear this music, if not as loud, at this unknown hour on a Saturday night seems out of the question.
Then there's the bed. I can't just become unallergic to this bed the same as the mattress won't magically become thicker and more even. I posit that if I put a couple shirts on and keep the blankets near my waist, it may ease the reaction. It helped enough to fall asleep after a while.
I woke up a bit after sunrise and reveled in the lack of blasting music. I opened up my book and read a few pages when the music started up again. Luckily, the responsible church was off in the distance and the music came in at a now seemingly amateur volume.
Back to work tomorrow. Thursday, we erected the scaffolding using bamboo and wire. There are two crews on site: Walter's and Santiago's. Walter is doing the bamboo so I'm with him and Gerson has been brought in specially by the architect Charlie for his bamboo experience. In places, two horizontal bamboo rods side by side will have a plank laid over and screwed in to form a decent platform. Gerson wanted to walk across one of the single rods that spanned about 10-ft between two platformed areas. He simply walked across. If he fell one way, it would be 20-ft down to hard, sandy, rocky earth and if he fell the other way, it would be 16-ft down to a stone stairway. He made it each time he did it.
Walter really welcomed me into his group right away. He's the 23 year old crew chief who wear s a neon green tank top with “Nudist on Strike” painted on. He involved me and the rest of the guys soon followed suit. It also helped that I joined in hauling bamboo. They help out when I need it, kind-spirited and eager to show off their talents and skills. I hear a lot of “Cuidado Maximo”.
The guys start at seven and take a half-hour for breakfast at 10. Their wives, or maybe mothers, sisters, aunts, or cousins bring their warm food to the site sometime before. It's always a stack of tortillas and something to put on them. We've been breakfasting standing up around a 55-gallon drum and everyone shares. The first day I couldn't scrape much together so I only brought cold tortillas. Walter wouldn't allow that as cold tortillas need either be heated up or given to the chuchos, so I shared in warm tortillas topped with various ramens, spaghettis, black beans and even a bowl of shrimp in tomato sauce. Day 2, I brought some leftover pasta and before I knew it, forks were flying over to give it a try and I felt officially in.
I was hoping working the construction gig would include built-in Spanish practice, but unfortunately for me, it's mostly Kaqchikel spoken on site. Kaqchikel is difficult and almost completely unwritten. I can't repeat a short phrase correctly. I try to repeat the sounds that seem like the important ones to me, but the breathy noises and different mouth action sounds carry great importance as well. I'm not sure how to jump into Kaqchikel but I wish I did. Luckily, the local children are happy to repeat a phrase as many as 16 times in a row finding great entertainment in my repeated, failed attempts to pronounce correctly. We worked with trying to nail down the names of two villages above Tzununa up in the hills: Sanxshjomelxsh and Pajomelxsh.
Back on the site, I experienced sheer horror after we hoisted a 7-meter bamboo to stand vertically atop the 2nd level scaffold. Now out of our reach, Walter and Samuel hugged their bodies into the beam and the beam it would be wired to. I craned my neck looking upward remaining ready to dive out of the way as the rod swayed this way and that in the wind. We don't have a crane or anything like that. We do have a drill. A drill and wire snips and a handmade ladder. It's good to be working again, half days of course.
