When I moved to site, I treated myself to my first ever bluetooth, wireless speaker. I’m not one for keeping up on technology trends, not until they aren’t exciting and new anymore, then I consider buying them. I don’t own an iPad. I’ve never owned an iPad. I don’t want an iPad, sounds like an electronic sanitary napkin. Regardless, I got myself a beautiful blue wireless speaker by Logitech. It crowns my 90s white shelving unit with dignity and holds dominion over broadcasting sound by the push of a button. It was an excellent purchase: it enhances my podcast consumption and accompanies my isolated Friday nights in my home sweet apartment overlooking calle principal. I cover it with a sweet little swatch of fabric so dust doesn’t destroy it.

I’ve knighted one of my jóvenes with the nickname “Sonido.” I noticed in the first weeks of school that he was always in charge of the sound system. And for every event in Guatemala, there will always be a corded microphone, with music and an orator. And while every educator worth their salt will tell you it’s low-key bullying not to acknowledge your student by name and thusly affirm their identity (they’ve got four names offering you a buffet line of options), I call him “Sound” just the same. “Adios Fernando, Sis, Antonio, Sonido..” and leave them in a wake of laughter. It’s a failsafe way to make them laugh, including Sound Himself, so I have assessed that he is cool with it.

I’m nostalgic for the sound of a washing machine, I realized yesterday.

Even in my rickety, pot-fumey, mildewy drippy digs in Southeast Alaska, I could summon the sound of washing without a single intervention by my hands. A sophisticated metal box that douses, cleans, rinses and drains your clothes with the simple push of a button is a far-off magical mystery contraption to me now. You mean I don’t have to fill up a bucket of water at any point in this process or wring anything dry with my hands, leaving my hands leathery and taught from the soap? I recall that some of these wonder machines even sing when the load is done! Some emit colored lights into the atmosphere! And you can unplug them to save energy when you’re done. But the machine has made people lazy, they do not unplug them. Why go backwards?

And what made me nostalgic for the sound of a washing machine was the rain. I hadn’t made the connection before, I associate the sound of rain with the sound of washing machines. Maybe because folks opt to toss in a load cuz they’re not going out? Maybe the sound of the cycle is comforting accompanied by the rain soundtrack.

BUT NOW I associate rain with not being able to wash anything because nothing will dry. Did you know that wind does not really dry things? Wind just moves wet things around. It’s the sun that’s responsible! (call me crazy for never considering this, I grew up around clothes’ dryers in the suburbs of Tampa). If it’s a windy day with cloud cover your clothes are as good as drenched hanging on the clothesline, WISH AS YOU MIGHT for your sleep pants to dry.

Currently my dirty clothes are stacked high in my laundry basket: a wool blanket, all my socks except for my sleeping pair, I repeat, all my socks, most of my underwear (the sassy ones are still clean because WHO FEELS SASSY LATELY?). Normally I hand-wash everything and I am going to be honest, I used to throw shade on volunteers who took their clothes to the cleaner. If I lived in NYC I might, but I live in Guatemala. I can use my hands, there are pilas DESIGNED for hand-washing your clothes. How bourgeious are you? But now that its raining and there’s construction being done on my house, I trek through wading puddles and dodge wooden beams every 2 feet on my way to the sink, to the bathroom, to the outside world. The construction is at the phase where it lets all the rain in but no sunlight to evaporate it, and the puddles sit to rewet my feet just after they’ve dried. So I thought about it for the first time. But the clothes are still at home in my laundry basket.

I can deal with wearing the same pair of pants for an ungodly amount of time except in the case of fleas. I was questioned left and right when I began to wash my heavy bed linens. “Natalia- why didn’t you do this yesterday morning when there was sun? Why are you washing these now?” And I lift my shirt to exhibit the constellation of flea bites across my waistline. I have to wash my bed sheets because I’m getting eaten to death by fleas. Mmmk? Sin embargo: “Natalia, these are never going to dry because there is no sol!” And I repeat: I understand, however, I must wash them now. I cannot sleep in these again. “But Natalia… they’ll never dry..” Sigh. We’ve come to a laundry impasse. If they don’t dry I will sleep without sheets over enduring another sleepless night with the invisible flea crawls. The problem is, while I can FEEL THE FLEAS and see their effects, I’ve never spotted one. And no, I can’t do the black poop to red test to prove their presence, but don’t tell me what I don’t know. They’re goshdarn fleas and they’re eating me for refa. And it’s my fault. I should have washed the sheets before the rainy season. Add it to the list of things I didn’t consider before rainy season.

Speaker systems on shop corners, blasting music and advertisements at 10am, or the credit agency advertising their services with a dude on the mic pitching sales at passers by. And my favorite guy: The Pollo Guy. He sits, mic perched in hand, while his fingers involuntarily rearrange the sound system knobs. Music Music Music Fade-out Chicken offer chicken offer chicken offer Buenas Dias Santa Clara La Laguna We’ve got fried chicken for you! Music fade-in Music Music Music Music Fade-Out “Hello” he says in English as I pass him by. If I’m in a good mood I respond with “Hello” back. Actually even if I’m not in a good mood, I respond. I’m under a microscope, can’t be salty.. End of conversation. No chicken has been purchased. Music fade-in. Yes, the pueblo chicken shop hires a DJ to advertise ofertas del dia.

The plight of the traveling salesman is still alive and well in Guatemala, Willy Loman. Every day at 9am: Hay co-co! Hay co-co! Hay co-co! every 7 seconds. This isn’t just in the market, this is throughout the pueblo. He walks up and down the streets carrying his cocos on his back or in his costal, advertising his coconut collection. I’ve never seen the man but I know his voice. Hay co-cooooo!

Who needs an alarm clock when the roosters have vocal warm-ups at 1:30 am, final dress rehearsal at 4am and a knock-down drag-out performance at 5? The garbage truck (which rolls through on Mondays) has chosen an emergency siren to announce their presence. Take heart, no one needs CPR, it’s the trash truck, which anyone in this country will tell you is never an emergency, hardly a priority, here. Trash scattered everywhere like civilization ended at Y2K.

I always note the rhythms of each announcement: Hay chuchitos para el frío! Hay chuCHEEtos con CHIle para el frio! Repeat repeat repeat, like the sound of the plastic blades – ChuCHEETos! – repeating the wash cycle- ChuCHEEtos! – in the washing machine. I wonder how his chuchitos are, never tried one. I’ll check Yelp! (definitely joking).

There are pick-up trucks that wind from town to town advertising their wares over megaphones attached to the top of their trucks “Colchónes!” or the guys who pass through town selling traje típico. Corte corte corte corte corte corte corte! repeated rapidly like the words are hot potatoes. Corte corte corte corte corte corte corte! The dude is trying to sell corte to people who are already wearing corte. But supply and demand is for a different post. There’s even a guy who dispatches the word of God on his portable megaphone/evangelism booth as he walks through town: Salesman of Salvation.

Earplugs for Sleeping are listed on the Peace Corps Guatemala packing list and they weren’t kidding. I personally do not sleep with earplugs, but I’ve downloaded a sound machine app that I turn on to dull the roar of the greasepaint. I used to use one of those white noise machines when I was in high school, you know the ones you see outside of therapists offices?, but who needs white noise when you ARE white noise in your site every time you walk down the street? Bad race pun BUT I HADDA DO IT. If I wasn’t called “gringa!” from the mouths of small babes and tots alike, maybe it wouldn’t be so apt. But like the mattress man advertises mattresses en masse or the bus ayudantes announce Sololá Sololá Sololá Sololá Sololá to publicize their destination, I announce “No me llamo Gringa, Me llamo Natalia.” And they yell back “Adios Natalia!” 17 times in my wake making me miss the word gringa.

But what I’m hoping to echo is the culture of sound in Guatemala (and maybe all of Latin America, but I can’t speak to this). I’ve learned something about being US American that I never knew. Silence is a matter of respect in my homeland whereas it is the opposite in Guatemala. You stop when you’re speaking on the phone to dar saludos “Buenos Dias” even if the person is deep in conversation or talking on their cell phone. You’re expected to interrupt the conversation to say hello, and your own conversation too. You don’t leave a person to eat alone. You talk, you tell them stories (at least my host family always does). You fill the silence with sound.

I’ll never forget the second day in-country when our working country director, at the time, stood in front of a powerpoint and spoke over the fireworks going off outside. He didn’t acknowledge them at all, wasn’t phased: “So during your time in service” snap snap snap snap bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang “you will be evaluated on your performance” snap snap snap snap snap bang bang bang bang bang bang “at mid-service and before you have your” bang bang bang budop woppppp “COS ceremony.” And I don’t mean some far-off 4th of July celebration, I mean it sounds like some rowdy kids threw fireworks into the bathroom sink 15 feet from us. And mucha bulla– noise- never. goes. away.

You know when you’re facilitating an important business meeting in Suits (or maybe it’s just me having traumatic flashbacks from my former life) and you hear someone laughing loudly in the hallway or yelling on their phone to their business partner or rattling around in the corporate kitchen, you quietly slip out into the hall and ask them (politely) to park their sound party elsewhere? That would, first of all, go over like a streaker in Mass here and also garner zero of the desired outcome. Quiet is not a sign of respect here, it is a sign of emptiness. You don’t ask the kids in the hallway to pipe down, the mother with the crying baby to reassign her position or the kids to stop lighting firecrackers. Or the chuchos to stop barking at 2am.

Sound is is a sign of life, happiness, worship to God, resources (like chuchEEEEEtos) within your reach or offers on fried chicken. So I must remind myself of this when the evangelical worship team dishes up mediocre tunes with the same flat notes delivered by the same set of vocal cords blaring through the mic, Tuesday after Thursday after Sunday nights, on repeat like an endless wash cycle that will never drain and rinse and announce that your clothes are clean with blinking lights and a happy little ditty (depending how modern you are and if your machine is made by Samsung and is styled after a Suburban).

Though it’s annoying, and my sitemate Abby gets hit a lot harder by all the noise: she lives near a cantina blasting drinking tunes into the night, and shares a wall with an evangelical church, I repeat: shares a wall, bless God, Bless God and Bless Her, it is life.

This is a loud country, it is a festive country. And I live here.

When I got to country, I had to learn not to flinch at firecrackers. As the sounds of bombas went off behind me, around me, next to me, just on the other side of the wall during lunch, at the ungodly hour of whenevertheheck, I wondered: in a country with a 36-year Civil War that ended not long ago in ’96, WHY ARE THE SOUNDS OF BOMBAS THAT SOUND LIKE ACTUAL GUNFIRE SO POPULAR? And perhaps it’s an appropriation of sound. Or maybe I am thinking too much.

I might guess that sound has been the biggest adjustment next to fleas. Granted, all of your senses are tested when you move to another country: how close do people come to touching you? Greet you with kisses on the cheek? Cold pila water after 5pm, the disappearance of sunlight during rainy season, the sight (and smell) of chucho or horse poop on your walk to anywhere all invite a curation of your reality. Dust on cold tile floors, mountains everywhere I look in site (which is such a welcome difference from the paved roads of I-75), and my favorite sound: the clapping out of tortillas just before they cook. I will NEVER besmirch that sound. 

But actually, I can’t isolate any particular sense and say which has been the most disrupted of the senses. Digestion is not a sense, but service has made me think it should be it’s own. Perhaps The Sixth Sense is not Prescience, it’s Poop. And Prescient Poop, That’s Real Transcendence. The Poop that you sense is coming. And I’ll leave it at that.

It occurred to me today that my beautiful blue speaker is one of the few sound-producing instruments, other than my mouth and my digestive tract, that I have control over (and my iphone, thank God for that!). And perhaps booming sounds and a life-giving bout of laughter and pressing pause on a great podcast that you want to savor, sentence by sentence, is so life-giving because it is a way of holding dominion over the elements that surround you. It’s a matter of control. I can control the sounds and voices and thoughts and ideas and the timing of my bluetooth speaker. And I don’t have control or familiarity over much on days when fleas attack or rain falls or bombas go off just behind me. And maybe that’s why I love the thing so much.

And maybe that’s why service is so influential on personal development: there are new elements that I’m used to being able to control, turn-off or tune-out, and now I am the one who should readjust and accept them in.

 

Oh yeah, my corte/skirt almost fell off of me during a presentation to teachers and students on Friday. It was cool.