A Very Important Advisory: I must recognize that one could easily read this post and believe that I am painting a picture of the customs of this culture. This is not at all the case. I’m referring to the “danger of the single story” (this statement borrowed from a Ted Talk) and I am not here to tell a Single Story of Guatemala. I want to tell several stories and still none of them will encapsulate this culture because stories are fixed and they are powerful, but a culture is ever-changing and cannot be captured in paragraph. Not to mention, I am not Guatemalan. I am a visitor. This culture has welcomed me with open arms and let me live in community with them, something I wish my own culture was more apt to do with foreigners. I am telling stories as an outsider and I cannot represent Guatemala from first person. I can experience it and tell you my thoughts and that is what I want to do. But at no point do I mean to take liberties and tell you “This is Guatemala.” No.. This is me: a foreigner in Guatemala with my own cornucopia of experiences in the context of my mind. In my two years here, my frame of mind will be challenged, my life will be changed. And this is one of many stories, one pixel in the picture of experience. 

I wrote the post below in November 2016 during training. Since then, my understanding of alcohol in country has evolved. During service so far I’ve heard little mention of drugs by Guatemalans, but alcohol and the way it’s effected marriages, social status, religious standing and place in society is a bleak reality. Alcoholism is a reality across country lines and societies, but the social stigma of consuming alcohol in this country is very defined.

By mere observation but little research, I’ve witnessed Host Country Nationals who drink and Host Country Nationals who don’t drink. There is a strong divide in the campo between these two groups. With my host family in Ciudad Vieja, alcohol was not anathema but here in the campo my host family does not drink alcohol, period. They would not be comfortable to know that I drink alcohol responsibly. Some volunteers who drink responsibly have to occlude this from their sites, their families and co-workers, because of the regard for alcohol here. In big cities, Xela, Guaté (I wouldn’t know because this area is entirely restricted) and Antigua, responsible drinking is more customary. It puts me in mind of the post-prohibition era where alcohol was taboo in parts of my own country. Surely there are still communities (usually religious or recovered, but not always) who don’t partake in alcohol. Naturally I think that people should be intentional about their use of alcohol, if at all.

I don’t know the reasons why it is like this in site, but I have guesses.

This is a difficult subject, but living in a new society in the 21st century invites these discoveries, questions and determinations. What I’ve seen is that there are “bolos” who are not functioning members of society. They spend all day and night in the cantinas, vomit in the street and stumble from A to B. Then there are town members who more or less abstain from alcohol. A town member recently died and my host mom told me she drank a lot. The implication was that she drank herself to death.

November 2016, San Marcos, Guatemala:

(S refers to the volunteer we visited in her site, T refers to the other trainee who visited site with me).

This is not a light and fluffy post.

Obviously I’m here in Guatemala to work, to fulfill a need (like every job). And like every country, Guatemala has it’s social and economic challenges. I didn’t come here because this country needs me, I came here because I needed somewhere to go with something to do. This story isolates one single incident simply because it affected me and it made an impression.

But I want to be clear: This story is not Guatemala, this is one man’s story in Guatemala. Wouldn’t we all agree that Donald Trump’s story is not the US’s story?

When we were in San Marcos for FBT (Field Based Training which just means volunteer visit), we went to a graduation ‘La Clausura.’

As we walked down a precarious stony decline, light brown and chalky, a man who we’ll call Randy was walking up the steps as we were headed down. S was dressed in traje for the ceremony. She immediately told Randy “Go to sleep” and pointed up the hill. He was wearing a blue t-shirt, docker type pants and white well-worn tennis shoes. He had a kind face with droopy eyes and was in a debilitated stupor evident in his slouch and slumbering face. He wasn’t kicking around, stumbling or unwieldy, he was just droopy. His skin was not clean, but he only smelled of alcohol, not body odor.

When I realized he was under the influence, instantly my guard was up.

Again S said “Go to sleep, Randy” (in English, even though they’re both fluent in Spanish). She repeated it several times as he persistently asked for money but he only continued speaking in a slow stream of consciousness and following us to the school. “I’m sorry, sorry. Sorry. Dollar. Puerto Rico. Excuse Me. Chapín” with one finger pointed at no one in particular. He kept following, no space between us, and no support from the people around us.

S whispered to me and T: “He’s bolo” and that simply means ‘a drunk.’ I could tell T was uncomfortable, I was too. I really had my guard up because he came in so close to our bodies. But Susy wasn’t threatened or even concerned, acostumbrada. From the casual annoyance of the locals, and the responses of the young female students who giggled uncomfortably and dodged Randy with arm in arm, I realized that ‘Randy’ was background noise. He was not harmful, not capable, and not a threat: he was acknowledged like tumbleweed.

But he was persistent tumbleweed that wraps around your ankles and gets in your way. He continued to follow me and T, asking for a dollar. S said, time and time again, “No dollar here. Go to sleep, Randy.” She wasn’t hateful or rude or even dismissive, but she was firm a la Your persistent badgering is not welcome here. I didn’t respond to him at all and I found this more effective to get him to leave me alone.

He came in the graduation hall, followed us, approached the teachers, and even tried to help us decorate. Scattering the pine needles along with me and T.

In a machista culture, I’m very surprised a man would not step in to defend us. But then, maybe that is exactly why a man did not step in. Because every community, including this one, experiences domestic violence, why should men step in to defend female strangers when it’s possible women they know have been abused?

I wondered: why did S talk to him in English? She told us he used to live in the States. Apparently he was saying he found his wife in bed with another man and that’s why he is bolo. I also noticed that S used the word “bolo” to contextualize Randy, to explain him. There’s a specific meaning around this word beyond simply “drunk.” It means outcast, molestón, a way to accept and work around their very existence. “Bolo.”

Randy stayed throughout the graduation. He wasn’t kicked out even when he started to sing along to the music disruptively, loudly. In the States this would never happen. But why kick him out here? It’s an open air multi-purpose space in the campo. He would just try to come back in so ignoring him was the least disruptive option. Randy was a quiet reminder of what these students are up against. He danced to the music, stood in place and kept time with the beat in his gentle stupor.