Notes on Guatemala
By Hannah Brookes
What follows is just some meaningless personal thoughts and observations about Guatemala, where I recently spent time travelling, working, and living.
I admit that this post is mostly written for selfish reasons, as a record of my musings for my own personal reflection and memories. Usually these ponderings make it into my diary and no further, however it occurred to me that there may be a couple of people out there who might find this of some slight interest. (Perhaps only my family and close friends to whom I have not managed to find time to speak to for a few weeks (time differences are a pain in the arse!)). I also recognise that this post has nothing to do with sustainability nor education but…. indulge me.
Firstly, volcanoes are visible EVERYWHERE. Guatemala really is the country of volcanoes, there are 37 in total and you literally see them poking through the clouds from the airplane! In five weeks I never got used to seeing a volcano just chilling at the end of the street. I think it would take more than a lifetime for me not to think that that is cool.
So. Many. Dogs. Especially in Guatemala City. My Guatemalan friend was telling me that sometimes the government drive around the city with megaphones telling everyone to keep their pets inside for the day, and then they go through the streets of Guatemala City and euthanise all the strays. This is tragic to me but I guess it’s better than thousands of dogs starving or dying of disease. I wish I could adopt them all!
Everything is SO colourful. The buildings especially. You’d be hard pressed to find a single building in a muted tone. It makes England seem so grey in comparison!
All the buildings are very low, only one or two storeys. I’m not sure if this is because the construction is not very structural and can’t support more than one floor, if it’s just because of the age of the buildings, if it’s to protect against earthquakes, or if it’s just how they prefer to build here, but outside of Guatemala City (where there are are few tower blocks) I didn’t see a single building more than two storeys high. It makes the streets feel very open.
Following on from that last point, almost every single building has a roof terrace. I LOVED this about Guatemala; it provides the ability to get a view of a volcano and watch the sunset no matter where you are. Because there are so many of them and they are all the same height you can also look across to all the other terraces and rooftops and people watch (one of my favourite activities). I once watched a wedding reception whilst having a pint – dreamy.
Still on the Architecture, everywhere you look in Guatemala are beautiful courtyards filled with plants and colour. Sometimes they have fountains in them, they always have plants and flowers. Usually they have some kind of covered veranda surrounding them, with the internal spaces leading off. It’s unusual to enter any building and not find a courtyard somewhere within. I guess the climate in Guatemala allows for this more open style of Architecture, which I don’t think would be possible in England (too cold and too wet!) but it is beautifullll, especially they way it allows sunlight to penetrate every space. It’s not uncommon in Guatemala to walk past an unassuming doorway only to peek through and see the most intricate and peaceful courtyard within, filled with plants and flowers and beautiful slivers of sunlight. There are too many to explore but I enjoyed catching glimpses into the magic beyond the blank front walls.
Chicken busses (old American school busses that have been repurposed for public transport here and are extremely colourful and notoriously crazy) and tuk tuks are everywhere. That style of bus will forever make me think of Guatemala now.
The cobblestones of Antigua. These are the old roads of the city, and would always wake me up every time I was driven through Antigua. Only one time did I manage to sleep through the drive through Antigua and I was astounded at myself – I must’ve been bouncing around in my slumber but somehow still not woken up.
Antigua is FULL of backpackers and tourists. Because it’s such a small city (with a population of only 46,000) the tourists are condensed into the centre and it makes the city feel very much like a tourist spot (surprising as I previously thought that Guatemala was a bit off the beaten track for tourism still, although I guess I forgot how close it is to the US!). Everywhere you look you will be able to see a backpack, and this gives a feeling of security and safety. Actually in general I found Guatemala an incredibly safe and friendly place to be as a solo female traveller, not once did I feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
Public affection is much more acceptable. I’m not sure if this is a Guatemalan thing or a Latin American thing or an England being frigid thing, but in Guatemala it felt like everywhere I looked was a couple embracing or kissing. Even within my host families the love and affection between all of the couples, even the older ones, was palpable.
Following on from that point, they also seem to be generally much more in touch with their emotions. At church almost every person cried, and it was not abnormal for me to see my host family crying in the house either. At first I found this very overwhelming (I guess because as my Mum pointed out, in England something really awful must’ve happened to make a whole room of people cry and therefore it provoked a strong emotional reaction in me too) but I learnt to embrace it.
Guatemala is extremely mountainous (not necessarily with lots of huge mountain ranges, but more with lots of steep slopes everywhere), and there isn’t much flat land at all. On the drive between Guatemala City and Antigua there were several roadworks working on securing the mountainside after huge parts of the cliffs had collapsed onto the road in landslides. Apparently in the rainy season this stretch of road is extremely dangerous and often impassable. They are also incredibly resourceful with the land. Slopes that are so steep that in England they would be left as unused cliff or grazing land is somehow still used as productive farmland. I saw people doing farm work and heavy manual labour on slopes that to me seemed sketchy to even be walking on!
The driving in Guatemala is awful haha. Not only are their actual driving skills dubious, it’s also normal to not wear a seatbelt, and every single person who drove me anywhere spent the entire journey messaging on WhatsApp (the universal communication method). I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to text and drive in Guatemala but that certainly doesn’t stop anyone. It’s honestly a miracle I didn’t end up in any kind of accident, especially given how many I witnessed!
Guatemala is a very religious country. Saying grace before dinner and going to church once or twice a week is the norm. I also happened to be there during the lead up to Semana Santa (Easter) which only made the religiousness of the whole country even more obvious to me.
They call all soft drinks ‘agua’ (water) and actual water ‘aguapura’ (pure water). I’m not sure if this was just my host family but I found this really interesting. I noticed also that they only really drank coke and coffee (because normal tap water was not really safe to drink where I was), so maybe it’s not surprising that ‘water’ meant coke to them.
Talking of water, they used SO MUCH water. Despite being a country that experiences dry seasons there seemed to be no concern about conserving water. Often my host family would turn the tap on full and then walk away from it for half an hour or more with no worries at all. This is so foreign to me – I don’t even let the water run when I brush my teeth or shampoo my hair!
I also found the lack of concern for the environment shocking and distressing. Perhaps they are just not bothered by the mixing of plastic and nature, but they literally treat road verges and their own flowerbeds as rubbish bins. At first I thought this was maybe because there wasn’t a proper waste disposal system and they didn’t have a choice, but having lived in one place for a month I know for sure that they do have regular bin collections, they just genuinely don’t seem to mind their flowerbeds being full of plastic. This is a pattern I’ve noticed in most developing countries; just a general indifference to plastic, which I think is really interesting (and obviously problematic).
Life is slow paced in Guatemala. I’ve noticed this in many countries outside of Europe and think it probably has something to do with the hotter climates. Coming from working three jobs in England, where hustle culture is queen and there don’t ever seem to be enough hours in the day, this took a bit of getting used to for me. It’s interesting how it seemed to be almost the opposite of back home, where the less money you have the busier you are because the more you need to work and the more demands you have to juggle, and the luxury of the rich is the ability to spend time doing nothing. In Guatemala it seemed the more well off you are, the busier you are.
Table manners are very different. At least in my host home, it was normal to begin eating as soon as you’re served, and not to wait for everyone to have their food. It was also acceptable to leave the table before everyone was finished, as long as you’d said ‘muchas gracias’ or ‘buen provecho’ to every single person at the table before leaving (not just the person who had cooked the meal as I would at home).
One quetzal or unit of tortillas is four actual tortillas. Don’t make the mistake of ordering five tortillas to have with your dinner only to end up with twenty to get through!
Lastly, the people. The Guatemalan people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever known (competing with the Nepalese and Indonesians). Even in the cities everyone greets you (London could never) and people are always keen to talk to you, give you advice or help you out. It’s one of the countries I’ve felt safest in and it is a pleasure to travel through, not just for the insane landscapes and experiences it offers, but also just for the kindness of the people who fill it.
I hope someone enjoyed these muddled thoughts.
Really liked this hannah. Dad xxx