A typical day in Guatemala

Today was a normal day not overly exciting. I woke up at about 6:30, laid in bed daydreaming until 7:00, at which point I got up to study K’iche for a half an hour before I ate breakfast with my family. I’m not really a morning person so breakfast usually is eaten slow, slow enough to allow me to wake up all the way. My parents wake up at around 4:30 to start running the corn mill, which is right next to our house and which occasionally wakes me up earlier.
Breakfast like all meals and drinks is served hot. The food is really simple; sometimes we just have a pair of hard boiled eggs; luckily we can load up on tortillas to make up for any lack of food. This morning we ate a type of vegetable soup with a small piece of meat. We are usually served one of two types of drinks Pinol, or Atole (and on a rare occasion we have a cup of milk). Pinol is a like a type of herbal tea, and Atole is a sweet drink made by mixing corn dough in water and adding sugar. It’s been hard for me to adjust to simple tasting food; I can’t even describe how much I’ve been craving a fast food value meal! Even when compared with the food I ate while in Mexico this food is still very simple.
It is interesting to make the comparison of Guatemala with Mexico, because I always thought that Mexico was really poor, but being here and reflecting back on the economic situation in Mexico I realize that as bad as Mexico is it’s considerably better off than Guatemala. You can tell just by looking at the diet of the people here. My father on a good day will earn about $3.50 from his mill. He also works at a school watching the main gate so the students don’t leave every other week, but I’m not sure how much he makes there. Having me here certainly helps the economic situation for the family; all of the BYU students pay about 30 dollars a week for room and board (200 Quetzals).
After breakfast I wash my dirty clothes by hand, a very laborious activity. Luckily however I’m a veteran at washing clothes by hand, and received plenty of practice on my mission. I only wash clothes once a week, and when I finished today I went and studied until lunch. I’m getting exposed to all the major Latin American Authors from the Spanish conquest to the present day, and looking for Pre-Colombian indigenous influence. I’m also reading various translations and original texts of Pre-Colombian texts.
We eat lunch around 1:00 pm and as soon as I’m finished I hit the books again. This time I review the materials I have on narratology, which is the main thrust of my Honors Thesis (A narratological analysis of the premier Pre-Colombian Maya literary text). In case you’re unfamiliar with narratology it examines the broad structure of stories, and how they’re told. After I study for a little while I head out to meet with some people from the community to do some interviews and to practice my K’iche. I’m trying to get as many interviews as I can, to record people in the community telling stories. I’ll save an explanation of the purposes of these interviews in my research for another blog entry.
Today like every other day it rains in the afternoon. Instead of having a four seasons here there are only two, rainy season and dry season. It’s not overly warm because we are in the highlands I’m actually not very sure what the exact elevation here is but I’m pretty sure it’s higher than Utah, and it counteracts being as far south as we are. By about 6:00 I’m back home and today I’m going to watch some soccer, it’s the American Cup right now, and US just lost their first game to Argentina, but Mexico beat Brazil so I’m still feeling pretty good. I really like Soccer a lot!! It’s a sweet sport; I really need to go see Real Salt Lake. I actually watch the soccer games on a channel that is broadcast from Logan and Salt Lake (I think it’s the Univision Spanish channel there), I’m not sure quite how that all works but during the breaks I watch all these commercials intended for the Latin population in Utah!! They actually always make me really homesick, which is something I never thought a Wells Fargo commercial could do.