Lisa goes South

cinderella in colonia libertad

2006-02-05T13:15:00.000-06:00

man, i'm not entirely sure how the time manages to fly by at an alarming rate. but that's just the way life goes. it's almost springtime up there. of course it's been warm with sunny sunny, bright blue skies in el salvador since november. you know the national anthem is right--el salvador does wear a blue hat, it's that amazing sky! i was shocked when i went to Tegucigalpa, Honduras a few weeks ago and it was cloudy and raining. the flip flops that i've been sporting for 5 months just didn't cut it. i had forgotten about all that rain stuff. i guess that's one good thing about deforestation--it keeps things all nice and toasty and cuts down on that pesky rain. so out of the fields and into the city--yet again. i finished my tour of duty in the community--and just in time too. i was so ready to get the hell out of there. and i think it was obvious--i gave my last class on a friday and saturday morning me and my fat backpack got on the bus to san salvador. you know i can complain about a whole lot of stuff that goes on in the U.S., but let me tell you that after 3 months in the el salvadoran campo the SEXISM was practically more than i could handle. not to say that sexism doesn't exist in the US, because obviously it does...it's more that it's practice in the campo is like SEXISM--THE EXTREME SPORT!! just huge and undeniable and in your face. it was the christmas experience that put me over the edge. at first things were super relaxed and fun--i went around to people's houses and ate christmas sandwhiches, chatted with the ladies, danced with the kids--a wholesome jolly experience. people go crazy with fire works for christmas, too. so beginning around sunset, there were intermittent explosions that steadily increased in frequency. around 7pm or so i was tantalized by strains of dance music coming from a neighboring house--so i went a danced with the younguns, whilst the older crowd sat around watching and chilling out. but little by little i noticed that the men and boys were disappearing...and the women too. but not together. all the "decent" women, girls and little ones go and lock themselves into their homes, while the men and older boys get drunk and set off fireworks, all night long. doesn't seem too bad, right? well, that's because our idea of getting drunk and the community's definition of getting drunk are two different things. see the women lock themselves away because the men use christmas as an excuse to get drunk and take out whatever aggressions they have built up, on women, or on generally whoever happens to be around. the women don't get drunk and party with the men, because it's dangerous and they can get raped or killed. so of course me, from the city and from the u.s., am used to partying with both sexes and celebrating and laughing and having a damn good time during the holidays. i wanted to hang out with the boys and set off fireworks all night long--not even drink--just participate in the festivities instead of going to bed at 9pm. sorry, not possible. and maybe it's difficult to understand my point--like who cares that lisa had to go to bed early on christmas. well, i had to go to bed because men prey on women in the countryside--becuase they know that they're stronger, because they can get drunk and take out their aggressions on people perceived to be weaker. because nobody's going to stop them. since this is a known and well understood fact, the women lock themselves away on christmas and don't open the door. nor do women lock themselves in and drink in safety: they don't drink. drinking basically means looking for trouble, being mean and getting into fights. so women don't drink. the same shit goes down on new year's too. for the women the holidays are a time to be very, very cautious, a time to worry about the welfare of your family and yourself. the holidays mean nights when it's difficult to sleep because of all the fireworks and drunken shouting. so, i had a relatively strong bout of man-hate going on around the holidays. sorry male readers, but it's the plain truth. there were a variety of other reasons that also contributed to me strong desire to leave the community, but that's enough for now. then i got back to the san salvador, decompressed, partied and went to Honduras to renew my visa. poor, poor honduras. the capital tegucigalpa doesn't even look like a city--just a sort of mismatched jumble of neighborhoods, scattered across a bunch of hills. there's no sidewalks in the city center--just tiny streets filled with taxis, buses, vendors and pedestrians all messed together. apparently after haiti, honduras and nicaragua regularly switch places for second most poor country in well--all of the americas. but i think of all the central american countries, you hear the least about honduras--it sort of doesn't exist in the world news. i went to the capital and hung out with jason and some of his pals from chicago, who were visiting some campesino communities in resistance there. then i went to the copan ruins--absolutely stunning mayan ruins. the center of an ancient city, with temples, a ball court, residences, stelas--covered in heiroglypics! gorgeous, but i also remembered that i hate tourism too. especially after seeing the extreme poverty that exists throughout honduras, being in this town literally called Copan Ruins (in spanish copan ruinas)--a town that was basically a shopping mall, with shiny pretty stone streets, dozens of stores and restaurants and white people walking around speaking english, gleefully unaware that the actual descendants of the mayans were living extremely close by, but in shack houses out of sight of pretty pretty copan ruinas. and these descendants of the maya don't get any of the proceeds from the ruins. it's ten bucks to get in. but let's get a little bit of monetary perspective: there's about 18 or 19 lempira (honduran currency) for each dollar. my seven hour busride from the capital to copan ruinas cost around 7 dollars (150 lempira). street food cost about 10 lempira. a banana cost 1 lempira. so ten bucks goes a long way, but none of it goes to the indigenous people whose ancestors built the city of copan. in fact these people have to pay to enter, just like everybody else. needless to say, that situation pissed me off. other big news: the longtime political leader of the fmln--schafik handal--had a heart attack and died while i was in honduras. there were a number of events around this. including a funeral procession with 100 thousand people from all over the country. it was amazing. just a sea of fmln red, with everybody chanting, singing, remembering and reaffirming the power of the movement. a few days later there was a march against CAFTA, put on by 8 separate groups (unions, students, religious groups, teachers), who each went to different parts of the city to voice their resistance against the free trade agreement with the US. i went with the students from the national university--it was fun and according to the peeps here, things went very smoothly. the crazy thing about central america is that i could literally participate in a political action somewhere in the region every single day. there's always strikes, marches, gatherings, what have you. the people are used to being organized, and it's very clearly seen. but i have to lay low, because if the government gets wind that i'm a leftist supporting the movement here, i could be deported for no other reason than being seen at a peaceful march. pretty crazy being on the other size of the fence! these days i'm living with some friends of ale´s, settling into city life again (which means meeting a bunch of people and partying way too much). i'm actually renting a room--a room built for the maid. it's totally wacked--the apartment buildings in my neigborhood have three bedroom flats. there's two apartments per floor, with all the normal apartment stuff. but these apartments also come with maid's quarters on the roof: a little tiny room, just four walls and a ceiling, near the sinks for washing laundry. this is where my room is. so when i need to go pee, i walk out of my room, lock it, go down a flight of stairs to the actual apartment where my roommates live, unlock the door and go to the bathroom. these days, people don't generally have maids living in these rooms. usually they're storage spaces or they get rented to poor students. but still--maid's quarters! it's nice and private. we painted it pretty colors and i can look at the sky when i step out of my room. i'm comfortable. can't really complain. i'm about to start my position coordinating the elections delegation and political school. i'm getting a serious trial by fire political education. i feel well adjusted and sort of strangely taken aback by how well adjusted i feel, considering i was just living in the countryside for 3 months. but i'm used to the city, so it's easy. plus i'm surrounded by good people. until the next episode: i'll be thinking of you when i look out from my rooftop, this cinderella in colonia libertad. love lisa

the bi-annual update

2005-12-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

well my friends and family, i have reached the 6 month mark. i celebrated it last week, december 8th. i'm still sane and free of all tropical-related diseases. and contrary to popular belief--i have never had a bad bout of diahrrea. all that "oh, you're going to die if you drink the water" business is bullshit. if you give your body time to acclimate to the new bacteria, nothing bad is going to happen. i've been brushing my teeth with "the water" since month one. i've been drinking it now for a good few months. one bit of traveling south misinformation put to rest. so i guess this is a good time to take stock of what's been going down. well, i'm a bit fatter, i can speak spanish (more or less) and i have a good idea of what campesino life in el salvador is all about. i also have a pretty good idea of what i want my life to be all about, at least for the next few years. central america/mexico solidarity work! clueing in people in the US as to what life is like south of the border and why life is like that. i get my first little taste of this world beginning february first. that's when i start my next volunteering venture: i'm going to help coordinate a US delegation to El Salvador. It's going to be a group of election observers to check out the 2006 elections in march. This new obligation will keep my in el salvador until april first. it's kind of funny: right now i'm a volunteer in el salvador and i find myself writing an application to be a volunteer in el salvador. but teaching computer literacy to campesinos is a world apart from coordinating a delegation. ooh, i'm excited. as to my world these days--in the past few weeks i've learned how to harvest beans, corn and coffee, without machines. i've got the several blisters to prove it. man, campesinos and campesinas are tough! malnutrition, lack of health care--whatever. i've seen 11 year old boys and 75 year old men haul 50, 60 , 70, 80, 100lb sacks of corn, beans or coffee down steep slippery dirt paths, wearing flip flops. women can do it too, except they wear skirts. and flip flops. i think i can do pretty much anything in flip flops these days--except haul a 60 lb bag of corn. my new trip is wanting to learn how to carry stuff on my head. it's a really useful skill. that's how women haul big tree branches, giant pitchers of water or baskets full of stuff. men use their backs. but imagine--going to the laundromat with a basket full of clothes on your head! tell me that isn't hot! it's my new goal. i've become slightly more integrated into the community too. i've been to a high school graduation and dance, a FMLN election rally, the fair. i'll be spending christmas and new years here too. apparently there's a big dance, a big dinner and lots of fireworks. i've told the women that i live with that i can adopt one, marry the other and carry one across the border in my backpack. you see, the el salvadoran dream is to get to the us. so i represent a whole bundle of stereotypes, hopes and dreams to people. i'm also going to assassinate the unfaithful husband of one of my friends for a basket of tamales, so she can get remarried. because for damn sure she doesnt have the $300 bucks to get a divorce. i think she makes $3 bucks a day, maybe. i've also caught the eye of the neighborhood hottie,(it's really not hard when you're the only "white" girl around) who's got designs on getting out of el salvador. little does he know that not only is he dealing with a woman of substantial emotional intelligence, but that i have sworn not to get involved romantically with anybody from the community. no matter how excruciatingly hot he may be. no, no my friends. never romance in the community, nor partying. no, that's what nicaragua is for. and that's where i'm going this very thursday. i've got some serious steam to blow, and a week to do it. then i return to my monastic and pure existence as an upstanding member of the organization and country i represent. here's to solidarity! and here's to nicaragua! but something else looms as well in my future--a glowing star beconing me, ever southward. the world social forum. we'll just have to see how that works out, but venezuela---oooeey! it just so happens that the little pause between my stay in the community and the start of delegation work fits nicely around the world social forum. if everything works out, jason and i will hit the streets of caracas with some hilarious street theater and party hardy with the reds of the world. i guess that concludes my bi-annual update. and i would just like to say that i really really really really miss everybody. i really really really can't wait to come back to the united states and see my beloved family and friends. it can be super difficult down here, feeling like there's nobody to talk to and that nobody understands me. but i know that i'm on a journey, and i like where that journey is leading. so i keep on trucking. despite the loneliness, despite feeling like an animal at the zoo, despite fighting the stereotypes every day. but all this is helping me to understand the flipside of life. for example immigration. i feel i have a much better understanding of what immigrants have to deal with when the come to the US. and that's valuable. so don't worry everybody, i am coming back. i'm no deserter. but for now, it's still on and i'm still learning. love you all. lisa

on the nature of natural disasters

2005-11-18T17:38:00.000-06:00

it's on. i'm on. i'm in and i'm damned excited. yes, yes faithful readers, the world has changed for me in the past few months--welcome to El Salvador. when we last spoke, i believe i was floating on a perhaps-i'll-get-me-to-Brazil cloud. no longer. i feel my feet starting to point in a different direction. or at least the feet want to point in a different direction, but the head's keeping things going south for a little bit longer. the head still thinks it knows what's good for the feet, the heart is a little bit divided. that's what the barrage of letters i've been sending is about--keeping the heart happy. okay, i'm ending the cryptic lyricism and beginning the facts. since i came to El Salvador on September 22nd, there has been: one hurricane, widespread flooding and landslides, a tri-national state of emergency, a volcanic eruption and three earthquakes. i'm still kicking. i think my favorite story thus far was my trip to the coastal city La Libertad. Marielle and i left on a thursday, it wasn't raining when we left. We got to El Tunco, the surfer beach, and hooked up with a Canadian pal from Guatemala. He gave us a nice and free place to stay with him. Marielle saw the Pacific for the first time and we posed dramatically on the black volcanic sand beaches. Then it started to rain. It rained thursday, friday, saturday, monday and tuesday. The little river by the restaurant where we ate a raw seafood cocktail (it moved when i squeezed lemon juice on it, but i ate it anyway and it was good. AND i didn't get food poisoning--sha-Bam!) got bigger and bigger, until it was hauling huge logs and the surfers got a line and surfed on the river. Then it was tuesday, the day i had planned on leaving, since i had a meeting with ale on wednesday. so i left. and when i got to ale's apartment, she wasn't there. i was rather confused--ale's really responsible and i told her i was coming back on tuesday after 5 pm. it's close to seven pm and i don't have a key...plus, it's like week 2 in El Salvador, and the random flashing images of my head getting blown up by a stray bullet while riding the bus hadn't entirely abated yet, so i'm still scared of walking around at night. and it's night. so i wait, for a good two hours outside the apartment. eventually, i knock on a neighbor's door and ask to use the phone. i call ale and she's all, "i'm at my mom's house. i didn't think you were coming in from the beach because of the red alert."

"what red alert?" i ask. i find out that i have been traveling on the bus during a hurricane after a state of emergency had been declared in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. well, we figured out how to get me inside and everything was all right, but shit--just goes to show you what happens when you hang out in a small surfer community during the rainy season in El Salvador. the surfers were just bummed that they couldn't ride the waves in the rain. it's like "dude, where's my state of emergency?" so then there was the very small hurricane relief phase of my journey, where i went to flooded out communities with a piddling amount of supplies. i sure have never seen houses submerged before. nor landslides, which were literally everywhere: landslides of neighborhoods, landlslides with buses and cars inside of them, landslides over neighborhoods in the country, in the city...everywhere. hundreds of thousands of people affected, thousands of people who lost there homes, or lost their lives. and then the awful truths about the completely unsafe building projects and poorly planned highways that led to all these displaced, homeless or dead people. for example, the government saw fit to put a bunch of highways to encourage foreign investment by providing solid transportation routes for products coming in and out of the country (to and from maquilas). i have driven on these highways, extensively. most of them have tall, tall walls of earth on at least one side, totally unsupported by concrete or any landslide prevention mechanism. this is how the government thought to develop the highway system in a country that has been more deforested than any other central american country, in a country where there is a 6 month rainy season. i 'm basically saying that all the crazy shit that went down isn't just because of a hurricane. Cuba is subject to hurricanes and tropical storms on a regular basis, and they haven't had not even one single fatality in a damn long time. now it's been a little while since this crazy hurricane business blew in and blew out, so people have probably forgotten about it. well, it's affects are still being felt. which brings me to phase 3 of my trip--the FMLN farming cooperative. right now i'm a volunteer in a tiny rural community. i live with everybody and eat with everybody and teach computer literacy to 6 women, who are members of this cooperative. first things first--what's this cooperative? well class, this cooperative consists of ex-combatants and current members of the Frente Farabundo Marti para Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), the former popular guerrilla army and current leftist political party of El Salvador. FYI: the civil war ended in 1992 when the US-backed corrupt and opressive salvadoran government finally decided they coulnd't beat the FMLN after 12 bloody years of war. so the government called a truce and gave combatants land rights. that's how many of the cooperative members got their land. back to the cooperative--it works as such: there is a revolving fund. at the beginning of each growing season, members can ask for a loan to pay for seeds and whatever they need to grow crops. at the end of the growing season, the members pay back the cooperative, at an interest rate of 10%. members can use the rest of the profits to pay for medicine or a new ox, or whatever. the interest allows the cooperative's fund to grow and accept new members. the cooperative started with around 30 members maybe 20 or so years ago. now there are 126 members, 90 of which are women. basically each member represents a family. back to the hurricane--around 90% of all the corn, beans and squash were totally destroyed by the rains. right now 50 members of the cooperative have nothing to eat. you see, not only are the crops a source of money, they're a source of people food, dog food, ox food, cow food, chicken food. i've finally learned the meaning of subsistence farming--it means you've got crops and that's all. back to the fund--70 members had loans of about $500. none of that money is coming back to the fund because there are exactly zero crops to sell. the cooperative is facing bankruptcy. but here's the kicker--even though this cooperative is totally screwed and a lot of the people have nothing, memberts send food to me. they send me food to thank me for the service i'm providing. they thank me for helping the community better themselves and get involved in the technological 21st century. these people show me nothing but gratitude and good-will when their situation is incredibly dire. there's no money and little food and they still give me anything they can. this about breaks my heart. so this has been a pretty serious entry. don't worry folks, i'll get into all the funny first world meets third world and hilarity ensues stories next time. but you've got to balance the gravity with the hilarity, otherwise the hilarity dies. so here's to gravity. i'll be in the community at least another six weeks--basically i do four weeks in and one week out, to decompress and revitalize my teaching battery. i'm in the capital right now, recharging. i'm going to spend another 4 weeks with the cooperative, then off the Nicaragua for a week, then back to the community to spend the holidays and a bit o' january. and then, well jason's been tempting me with the world social forum in venezuela...i must say it gets me hot just thinking about it. it'd be nice to get to visit a place where the people actually like and trust their government. in and out lovelies, we'll be in touch....lisa

third leg

2005-09-13T18:19:00.000-05:00

well, well. i just realized that's it's been almost a month since there's been any new word of me to my faithful blog readers. probably because my life has been roughly the same for the past month. i work still, but more as a day waitress than a cocktail waitress. i like that better. drunks are just too tiresome, especially when they know there's a possibility that they can dance with you. there are afterall salsa lessons at my restaurant, tuesdays and fridays. it gets old telling the same drunk, or a different drunk, no, no i don't want to dance with you. sorry, i have to work. i don't know how to dance salsa. sorry, no i have to do my job. no, it's not because i don't want to dance with you (blatant lie), i really just have to work. no, i'm too tired, maybe next time....and then some rude rude borracho grabbed my ass a few weeks ago and that really got me angry. so i prefer the days. 7a to 3p. better tips and i can read the paper too. but i'm rearing and ready to leave san pedro la laguna. it's time has come...and gone. i'm bored and there's too many people i know here. and what's worse, they know some things about me. i'm so ready to leave that i almost flew the coop, without my brain last friday. i was this close to relocating myself to a caribbean isle, off the honduran coast, for a scuba diving certification and (gasp of excitement) more waitressing on selfsame caribbean isle (roatan is the name for you geography buffs). my good good ladyfriend just headed off that way and i was that close to going with her until i realized that i may just make a long, long (2 days) journey through the entire length of a country i have to see, a country i want to see, only to locate myself on a very expensive caribbean isle, where i may or may not find a job, with only a month left before hurricane season begins. hmm, doesn't sound so good when you look at it that way. on top of that then i'd be on the opposite side of the central american isthmus from el salvador, which was where i had planned on going after guatemala. so i calmed myself down and reasserted the same old plan: on the 22nd of this month i head to san salvador, the capital of el salvador (less than a day's journey by bus) to hang out with jason's sweetie, alejandra. and maybe i'll even get to teach basic computer skills on a coffee collective in the el salvadoran countryside too. finally, some work i can feel good about doing! maybe maybe. but what i'm really looking forward to in el salvador, besides the change of scenery, is the food. papusas, you hear that kristen? when i sink my teeth into that first authentic el salvadoran papusa, i will think of you my darling. and after el salvador, who knows. i do know that the caribbean is in my future, but maybe the caribbean isles of nicaragua, and in february. i'm still thinking about returning to northern guatemala after el salvador, but everything is so so open. maybe i'll just keep heading south...my friend marielle is going all the way to brazil. she's gotten me thinking more and more about brazil too. so, braaaziil.....well there's a lot of space between guatemala and brazil. hate to leave you with a cliff hanger like that, but got to keep ya'll interested. love you much, i'm doing fine, learning all the time and still alive. le chaim!

waitressing...a piece of, uh what was that again?

2005-08-18T17:39:00.000-05:00

i have a job. again. i guess it was like what, 2 months without a job before i got one. wow, i didn't even know i was a workaholic. but working here is not like anywhere else. i work a chile's bar and restaurant, where there are salsa lessons every tuesday and friday night. so on tuesdays and fridays i get to dance. every shift i can drink, although i usually don't (unless i make a piña colada too big, oops, happened again!). my salary per 8hr shift is: 30 quetzales, dinner, two rum and cokes, and tips. what it boils down to is that i make 50 cents an hour. insane. but i must say, i'm a decent waitress...in english. in spanish, i suck. case in point: for some reason i have a psychological block between the numbers four and five in spanish. the word 'cinco' creates a particular image in my head, the image of four. cuatro is also four in my cerebral spaces. for this reason, i brought out 4 plates of speghetti to 5 spaniards from catalan the other day. later they bitched about the service at my restaurant while they were at a different restaurant, a restaurant that my friend works at. i then had the pleasure of knowing exactly what they said about me. so i have the reputation of being a shitty camarera in spain. nothing like being famous in places you've never been. well such is life. that only means there's room for improvement, right? i mean at this point i figure i'll be waitressing myself down the continent, so it's kind of nice to start a little bit lower on the ladder. then when i make it to south america, i'll be the best damn gringa waitress on the continent. got to have aspirations. the other funny thing about being a waitress is my last job. at my last job, i was a molecular biologist. now i'm a waitress, and not a very good one at that. just goes to show there are a million different kinds of intelligence: and i know for sure that one helps you be a good biologist and a completely different type leads to perfect waitressing. the other big thing that has happened here is i am now 27. my third birthday in a row away from home. but not away from friends. i've got a buddy, her name is marielle, and her birthday is august ninth. she came down to san pedro so we could celebrate together, and celebrate we did. another friend also came back to san pedro for my cumpleaños, megan from LA. we managed to turn it into a week. i'm still recovering, but i'm almost back to normal. for my birthday we all ate too much and went out dancing. i didn't get too plastered, since i had already thoroughly embarassed myself a few days earlier with quetzalteca, the local, cheap rotgut. then after the bar, in typical lisa style we managed to bother our hostel neighbors by laughing until at least 3am for 4 or 5 days in a row. as a result, we have decided to sell ear plugs at the hostel: we make the noise and you buy the earplugs from us. perfect synchronicity. at least with the ear plug business i won't have to molest anybody with my poor waitressing skills. and there will be work wherever i go! hmmm. the third big thing that has changed in my life is chess. i am an addict. the other day i played nine hours in a row. and like waitressing, it's something that can only get better. so hey,all you chess geniuses out there, send me your strategies! i need to get up one on marielle. we're both obsessed. and we're both bad waitresses in foreign languages--english is her achilles heel. and we share the same room in the hotel california, i mean hotel mendez. so you'll just have to tune in next time to see what more mayhem this dynamic duo is up to in beautiful san pedro la laguna. xxxxoooo lisa ps. hey, if you are up to it khamille, what about posting some of those pictures you developed to the blog? or send them to my email? even just a few would be lovely: the creme de la creme as it were. i would love to see them. and don't worry, more rolls to come. should i send them to ryan or to you?

infernal paradise

2005-07-27T19:02:00.000-05:00

a few days ago, when i was returning from the market i realized something. vacationing is synonymous with committing (almost) all of the seven deadly sins at once. a good five out of seven at the very least. what do we have: lust, greed, wrath, gluttony, sloth, pride, yeah there´s one more but i can never remember it. it´s really quite clear: the majority of tourists come to consume whatever is possible (lust, gluttony, greed), all the while holding on tightly to their national identity (pride), sometimes to the point of disparaging the vacation country for not having this or that aspect of ¨home¨ (wrath) and of course vacationers don´t work (sloth). i´m sure the elusive number seven fits in somewhere there. now maybe you´ve caught on already, but i too have succumbed to the unwholesome life style of the vacationer. i tell you, if you were here in san pedro, you would be doing exactly what i´ve been doing for the past two weeks...relaxing and enjoying the hell out of life. my hammock is my best friend! i never would have thought that it would be so easy to pleasantly pass time, doing absolutely nothing of consequence. maybe that´s a bit harsh. ok, i am doing something--i´m ¨processing¨. here in san pedro, lago de atitlan, guatemala, it has become abundantly clear that i could stay away from the united states for a very, very long time. if i get a job once in a while. i´ve met people here that have been traveling for years. and they live well. most of these career travelers sell their handicrafts on the street. and they just move around from here to there and settle for a while, then pick up and leave again. there´s about 7 people living at my hostel right now that have traveled for years, doing exactly that. hmm. it´s intriguing to me. i´ve met traveling artisans before, but i never lived with them. so the little wheels are turning in my head, and yep, i´m going to look for a job here in san pedro. in a bar, because all the bars want english speaking staff. it is a tourist town afterall. don´t worry, i haven´t abandoned my high minded aspirations to volunteer. i´m thinking if i get a night job, my days are free to do anything. there´s a children´s hospital nearby that i want to check out. and i was thinking about giving free english classes to whoever wants them. but i´m curious to see what will happen if i stay here for a few months. the place is amazing. yeah the lake is dirty, but the mountains and the sky...everyday i wake up and there they are. yeah, i´m stuck for a little bit. hopefully in a good way. more to come lovies, pray for my soul lisa

New Order in the New World

2005-07-11T16:34:00.000-05:00

I had a moment today. I was sitting in a cafe this afternoon, touching up the battery of questions i´ve developed to interrogate prospective volunteer organizations (including the castellano versions of "profit", "vague"--particularly necessary as the position descriptions tend to be textbook examples this term, and "electricity"), when strains of "bizarre love triangle" filtered into my consciousness. immediately i was assailed by visions of the fez ballroom, red lights, pabst, my beloved friends, random dancing buddy strangers, shaking my booty like a madwoman, and bothering the hipsters with my malodorous, sweaty presence. i almost cried. i guess that´s what home sickness feels like. this feeling lasted about as long as it took me to realize that new order wasn´t playing in the background, just some cheesy latin pop. nonetheless, the moment was real--i missed portland with every fiber of my being for somewhere between 20 to 30 seconds. we will dance again. so let´s get down to business, now that i´ve shared my moment. where the "$·%(& am i and what have i been doing? well, yesterday i climbed a volcano, the day before i had diarrhea, the same the day before that. for the past two weeks i´ve been in quetzaltenango, guatemala (xela). i still have yet to be a volunteer for anybody, but i have definitely been looking. see, the volunteer scene here in xela is big (hence the inquisition-like questionnaire previously mentioned), but it´s not as easy to find something as you might think. for instance, it seems very reasonable that if one is to work free of charge for another, housing should also be free. not the case. most organizations that place the volunteer with a guatemalan family in a pueblo (i want to work in the countryside, farming) require the volunteer to pay for housing and food, and some even charge additional fees. as such, i´ve had a bit of a rough time trying to find the cheapest volunteer position. a strange situation to find myself in. but i´ve decided that enough is enough. this searching crap sucks, so i´m just going to choose an organization, suck it up and pay to work for free. but i also think i understand why the volunteer scene is like this: guatemalans are POOR, especially the campesinos and indigenous people. this means that the value of my free labor, hours of hard work, is worth LESS than the cost of feeding me. in other words labor is cheaper than food. pretty fucked up. so i´m just going to pick an organization that passes my little test, and work somewhere in the countryside for a few months. next week. first i´m going to lago atitlan and check out the tourist-volunteer-job scene there. one more week of vacation before work, now that i have a plan. the lake is supposed to be gorgeous. and i´d like to spend a little bit more time with some of the friends i´ve met here before we all part ways. there´s some fabulous ladies here, traveling just like me. most of the solo travelers that i´ve met so far are women! ah, just one more reason why we rock so damn hard. yeah, i´ve met some great french, spanish and italian women who want to plug in the same way i do. and it´s been wonderful for my spanish, they´re great teachers. in fact, yesterday i learned how to say "i´m going to take a crap." can you imagine living life without knowing how to say that? yeah, it´s been tough. i´ve also met travelers from portland who are pretty rad, a few of them hooked me up with a free place to stay in the jungle of northern guate, but that´ll be in a few months. what else, oh yeah. free yoga in this city too. really intense acrobatic, aerobic yoga that screwed up my leg for days. man, xela is full of surprises, like the clandestine, illegal bars i went to last weekend. apparently the guate government passed a law 10 months ago which forces all bars to close at 1am, to cut down on crime. what a load of crap! it just cuts back on the guatemalan economy. so now there´s all these speakeasies that are open until 3am. but of course none of them hold a candle to our very own and very legal paragon. other big changes--spanish school, hell no! just a waste of money. i´m learning spanish just fine talking to peeps. so that´s the past two weeks in a nut shell. they´ve been a bit heavy on the thinking side, and yes, there has been a little bit of inactivity-related depression for me, but i have a plan now. i feel alive and ready, all over again. you know what did it? Santa Maria, the volcano that i climbed yesterday. i got to see flowers, native guatemalan flowers, in the lush semi-tropical rainforest of guatemala! plus it was a grueling, tortuous climb. never in my life have i ever said to myself "i can´t do this", but that´s exactly what i said yesterday during the climb. but i climbed that goddamn volcano, and now i´m ready for anything. Not only that, but the forest itself reminded me of where i want to be-- i need to get to leave the city. so that´s what i´m doing, tomorrow. there you have it, the continual evolution of my "vacation" in its latest phase. i love you all. and don´t worry, i´m not traveling to london any time soon. lisa

¡Zapaturistas!

2005-06-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

first off, thanks for all the love notes. i need them. this is sort of a difficult time for me, figuring out how to travel alone with my poor language skills. although my 5-day sick stint certainly put a dent in my efforts to meet people, i do have to come to terms with the fact that i have to sound like an idiot before i can sound not like an idiot. my language level is sort of like being mildly retarded, seriously. i can understand most of what´s going on, but can´t really contribute anything. i sit mutely, concentrating all of my mental capacities on deciphering what was just spoken, while someone says something else, really quickly. as a consequence, i generally speak in broken sentences and only when i am asked a direct question. plus the spanish i can speak in my head far exceeds (in grammatical appropriateness) what actually comes out of my mouth. all this adds up to one thing--lisa is QUIET in mexico! well, it really can only get better from here. as to my sickness, it wasn´t too extreme, but definitely unlike anything i´ve ever had before: bed ridden with stomach pains and headache for two days, then things steadily got better. i was so excited yesterday when it finally happened-- moctezuma deemed me worthy of solid secretions! now i feel all strong and ready to go to guatemala because, by god, it´s boring in beautiful san cristobal de las casas, chiapas. since the zapatista caracoles have shut down, all radical activity has shut down. there isn´t anything to do here, no projects, nothing, well besides being a zapaturista. nor is the city a hotbed of underground politics--it´s just a stepping stone to get to the jungle and the zapatistas. sure the city itself is lovely, but it is by far the most tourist-ridden city i have been to in mexico. since the zapatista take over of the city/establishment of autonomous region in 1994, the san cristobal has exploded with hotels, restaurants, zapatista gift shops, cybercafes, travel agencies, crappy bars, and clothing stores all owned and operated by internationals or white mexicans. a lot of the places don´t even allow indigenous people inside. it´s really quite disgusting. that´s why i´m off to quetzaltenango (aka xela), guatemala tomorrow. goodbye land of military/paramilitary presence, i will miss your truckloads of men in black uniforms carrying large rifles. but wait--i´m going to central america, oops! well let´s just say less mil/paramil presence. guate is really cool because the overwhelming majority of people there are indigenous descendents of the maya, like the peoples in chiapas. and it´s a gal darn load cheaper than mexico. in xela i´m going to check out some language schools and hook up with a buddy of contajus, and then head to Lago de Atitlan. i´m probably going to wait for the end of the summer to go to school--tuition decreases in the fall. not only that, but the school i think i want to attend (proyecto linguistico quetzalteco) is booked for the summer. that one´s really cool because the teachers are former guerrilleros and they´ll talk guate politics and history with you. plus, there´s a mountain school that´s about 2 hrs. outside the city, up in an indigenous pueblo. so what am i to do while i wait out the summer? i might be the gringa farm girl for some lucky guatemalan. this is what i have in mind: hot guate farmer--¨farm girl, fetch me that pitcher.¨ lisa--¨as you wish.¨ and then we fall in love. oh bliss. but i am just a poor american farm girl with merely a bachelor´s degree in biology--i have nothing to offer in dowry. so i set off to the open seas, to find my fortune in piracy and...we´ll see what happens. take care loves. and hey, if you want a freakin postcard, send me your freakin address (this means you ange and kristen and chelsea and chan when you get to germany). alright!kisses and hugs all around.lisa

oaxaco: perilous, pricey paradise.

2005-06-19T15:19:00.000-05:00

hola chingareros. i still haven´t actually heard anybody say that, but i like saying it anyway. thanks ryan. abby and i have been in oaxaca for about six days. and we didn´t actually hitchhike over here either. we were about to, but then it was early evening and all these men were eyeing us malevolently. then this guy was all, "hey, that´s a bad idea" and we agreed with him. so we took a bus--it cost 18 bucks, for an 8 hr trip. welcome to segunda clase. we had no idea the bus was 2nd class, until we get on and instead of a bathroom, there´s a little closet with shelves at the back. shelves for people! if you pay a bit more, i guess you get your own little shelf (1 of about 3), because it´s impossible to sleep otherwise. then, bienvenidos a oaxaca! land of kinda weird happenings. day 1)we happen upon a few friends of jason in the cafe that they started in oaxaca city. abby and i are going to write a book called "Activism: the gateway to freeloading". so right away we had a place to stay. and oaxaca city is absolutely beautiful: spanish colonial architecture all over the place, cathedrals, old stone streets. it´s situated at the head of two valleys, amidst lush rolling hills. people are way chiller here than in mexico city. they don´t look so stricken by life either. and there´s tons of indians that come down from the mountains to sell anything and everything. but it´s way touristy here. mostly abby and i wandered around parks and slept by fountains, trying not to eat all the little pastries, ice cream, tostadas, chips that were for sale everywhere. so back to day one, as we were walking up to the mirador, an overlook point where you can see the whole city, i got bitten by not one but TWO dogs in the space of five minutes. a little blood, mainly a big fat bruise. as far as i can tell, i don´t have gangrene. day 2) while waiting for the bus, i got flashed by the water man. abby was spared, but i was not so lucky. we were waiting on a dirt road outside the city, in a town called la raya. a nice little comfy town, with lots of burros, dogs, chickens, cows and friendly folk. that´s where emiliana´s mom lives, and where we stayed night one. then along comes mr. nasty pervert water man. and after we obviously didn´t want any of what he was offering, he drove by us again, and tried to talk to us. what they hell! we also spent hours looking for a collective house in the wrong neighborhood, but that´s sort of boring. and it´s just expected that you spend about 40% of your time lost when you travel. day 3) went nice and easy. day 4) we went to the beach! we didn´t have to hitchhike either. jason´s buddy patrick was heading to the beach, so we tagged along. man, if you think rt. 101 on the oregon coast is twisty, try 175 through the oaxacan mountains. every 100 meters or so a tight corner. for hours. but then at the beach, disaster struck. because of me, abby is blind! she lost her glasses in another big body of water:no not the toilet this time, the pacific ocean. i made her get on this rock in the middle of the waves and we got knocked over and pooof! glasses be gone. so she´s spent the entire time on the coast in a puffy cloud hazy paradise. she hasn´t killed me yet. day 3)medusas! we went to a different beach today, a calmer one without huge 10ft waves that want to kill you (after stealing your glasses), only to find tiny jellyfish that sting! ah paradise, always an unexpected pleasure lurking behind every corner. whatever, the sting only lasts about an hour. so now abby and i are spending our last day on the oaxacan coast, and tonight we take a first class bus to chiapas. san cristobal de las casas to be exact. as far as we´ve been told, chiapas is even more spectacular than oaxaca: all jungle and lots of rivers. and Zapatistas! we´ll see what´s up. love you all. and thanks for the messages. i´ll send you a postcard khamille! love to you mangelina! hey, i might be b ack sooner than i want: mexico may be poor, but it´s not that cheap. i still hope to get to guatemala, nicaragua and el salvador, but a year out of the country seems really unlikely at this point. love lisa

la vida loca just beginning

2005-06-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

hello hello everybody, everything's happening so fast, its almost impossible to keep track of it all. so today is...monday. i've been in mexico city since thursday. we planned on leaving saturday, then sunday and now here we are still on a beautiful monday afternoon in ciudad mexico. today we head for oaxaca city. but first, let me tell you how things have gone since last tuesday. tuesday: (i´ll pass on) el paso. i had a charming nine hour plane ride to el paso. i met abby in the airport and we had a simple plan--go to the greyhound station in el paso, take a bus across the border to the juarez bus terminal and get on a bus to mexico city. the el paso greyhound bus station was easy to find. so far so good. there were lots of buses to juarez that night so we decided to head over to a bookstore and use a guidebook to find a hostel in mexico city (see last blog re:preparation or lack thereof). this required a visit to the mall. easy as pie, right? but apparently, nobody knows anything in el paso. so numerous el pasoans sent us on a wild goose chase via bus to the wrong mall (there are two park malls) to a closed mall where neither of the two barnes and nobles bookstores were. as a result of the two wasted hours on the bus in a city where buses stop at 9pm, we never got to the bookstore. back to the greyhound station. due to a variety of consequences that were and were not directly related to our own incompetence, we missed all the buses over the border and slept in the grayhound station in el paso the first night. consider an atmosphere of squealing children, continuous announcements of departing and arriving buses over a distorted loudspeaker (in english and spanish), an impromptu accordian player and screaming religious fanatics and you might get a good picture of the station between 11 and 5 am. wednesday: juarez for about two hours. and the downright cushiest 24hr busride ever. seriously. at 5am, we got on the bus to juarez. i was really nervous to have my first spanish be used with a mexican border official, but all for naught. at the border, everybody on the bus had to get out, get their luggage off the bus, press a button (which turned on a green light that said "pase") and then get our luggage and ourselves back on the bus. that was crossing into mexico. i'm on day 6 in mexico and nobody's looked at my passport yet--kinda disappointing, but expected i guess for a gringa. at our sunrise jaunt through juarez, we saw buses full of people, probably heading to the maquilas. the streets were empty. but still i had this black feeling of downtroddenness and lurking evil--natural considering all the wage slavery, oppression and hundreds of murdered and disappeared women in juarez. we got on an 8am bus to mexico city and got the hell out of there. you know they even have bathrooms that you have to pay to use in the bus station? what kind of soulless greedy asshole thought that one up. but that's not just in juarez, it's in bus stations all over mexico. the next 24 hours were spent in a very comfortable, spacious, air conditioned and unbelievably quiet bus. time was split between leisurely dozing (we needed it after the el paso experience) and watching the movie that was mexico through the great big bus windows. there were also tvs playing american movies, subtitled in spanish. thursday: mexico city. pop. 25 million. its huge, somthing like 220 kilometers by 300. it took hours of driving through noisy city traffic to get to one of the 4 major bus terminals. from there we took a the metro (the best one i've ever been on:fast, clean, quiet and 20 cents a ride) to the city center. we found a cafe-hostel with internet, and a friend. our mexican friend lolo was looking to get a job in the hostel, but told us about a better cheaper hostel. he wrote down directions, address, phone #, all from memory. so we took his advice and found a place to stay in the zona rosa. we found out later that its where all the cute gay boys hang out. the hostel was great--free breakfast, private bathroom. nice. we spendtthe rest of the day being tourists. on friday we were tourists again, but this time we took a bus to Teotihuacan and two thousand year old pyramids that you can climb up. amazing. at the top of the pyramid of the sun you'll never guess who we found--a friend from portland! small world. he told us where the indy media center was in mexico city. and we visited the center. now that led to some craziness. in summary 1. a 4 hr direct action workshop, all in superfast head spinning spanish 2. guerrilla poetry readings at a local bohemian coffee shop. we all drank mezcal mixed with squirt and eventually got kicked out because Carlitos kept reading poetry from the balcony (even though he wasn't signed up to read) and Imanueel criticiezed all the other poets for being too soft and not having any substance to their art. he said all their poems were the same stupid meaningless drivel. you would expect us to get kicked out quick, but each time somebody would start going off, the cafe workers would come up and have a quiet civilized discussion with whomever was disturbing the peace. this happened 5 times. 5 times! because our radical mexican buddies had sound arguments and articulately presented them, and the cafe duedes agreed with them, we were allowed to stay for hours. shit, in the united states, we would have been kicked out in about 5 seconds. interesting. anyway, i have to get off. were taking a bus to a smaller town and hitching to oaxaca. it'll probably take a few days. we were supposed to get an early start, but of course it's one pm now and i've spent way too much time typing. i love you all and i´ll be in touch. and now you can actually post to this blog, thanks to khamille. love xxxooo lisa

state of readiness

2005-06-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

ahoy me maties, i've got a big fat frayed rope of loose ends that are slowly being dealt with: you can't quite moor a freighter with it, but i could definitely tow a car. of course there's only like 3 minutes left until i take that plane to el paso and meet st. abby (well, one day). provided the plane takes me. there may be a chan trip in the works from us west---at this point i've only been charged seven dollars to get from boston to texas. wish me luck. at least one loose end is taken care of with this blog. since i'll be paying for internet once i leave the states, i won't be on email as much. this will be an easy way to check up on me. make sure i'm not dead. find out the distance (in meters now, my pets) that my projectile diarrhea sprays. and how many people i hook up with in each country. the blog is cool 'cause you can reply to the entries, take a peek at what's going on at your leisure, blah blah blah. but feel free to email me anyway. we'll just have to see how loyal i end up being with this whole blog thing too. as far as what's up now, i've already managed to lose some possessions--my cds on the plane (recovered from jetblue, i guess i'll get them in guatemala) and my water bottle ( or should i say claire's water bottle) on the chinatown bus from nyc to boston. and that was in the first two days. looks like i'm in for a smooth, problem-free journey. so i face ever forward, head held high, suspiciously awaiting the troubles i'm about to get myself into. love you all, lisa