Character Profile: For the Love of a Bucket Girl

In general, each camioneta has an average of 18 rows of seats on both the left and right side of the bus; seating approximately 108 people while still having an unlimited standing-room-only section that have riders dripping with sweat in the summer and providing an awkward but warm, natural heat source in the winter. But there is one seat that isn't accounted for: the bucket seat.

Now, this bucket seat isn't the colloquially known 'bitch' seat we have in the states---you know the awkward third seat in the front of a pick up or the tiny, sometimes non-existent middle seat in the back of a sedan.

This my dear reader, is an actual bucket strategically placed between the driver, the stick shift, and the camioneta door. And despite the seat being a large paint bucket rather than a cushy worn-in leather padded seat, this spot is a coveted one. The woman sitting in this seat then, is (socially) someone to envy.

How does one achieve bucket seat glory? Easy: Become involved with the driver or the ayudante (Note: I did not say 'are married to' or 'are engaged to').

Now, many women who are 'normal passengers' are bothered by this favoritism or what this seat stands for--infidelity, extramarital ties, etc.

But in a way, this seat is a position of strength. The bucket girl does not pay a fare, holds the men in power (the driver/helper) by their figurative balls and receives other tangible perks (jewelry, clothing, etc).

Heck, I've even seen a bucket girl stop a camioneta three times for her own personal needs and no one was allowed to speak a word.

Sure, the bucket girl/driver (or ayudante) relationship becomes a little awkward when there are very salacious feeding sessions going on (ex: shoving phallic looking food items in each other's mouths and subsequently grinning with joy), but I say do what you have to do.

In a community where women are seen solely as baby factories, house wives, or sexual play things (even without consent), I give a virtual high five to the bucket girl. You're playing in a man's world and using your wiles to go somewhere... even if it is just the next town over.

Image source: teksandwich

Hey Babe, I've Got a Package for You

Here's one thing we volunteers look forward to: packages!

So when I noticed that my name was on the 'package log' at the Peace Corps office front desk on Tuesday, my hands were jones-ing for some U.S. swag similar to the way I imagine Lindsay Lohan itches to be that cute red-headed-and-like-able-Disney star she used to be.

I waited a minute to ponder what I might be getting, digested the idea and readied myself.

But when the package finally reached my eager hands, I began to notice some things. First thing: the Target bag speckled with the red and white logo. The next thing: the name written on the package was 'Belinda'. Umm... 'Okay', I told myself as I found it odd that Target could ship all the way down to Central America and then get my first name wrong. But after some coaxing from Abra and one of the staff members, I opened the package.

It was:

a baby towel with a cute little giraffe on it. Well, that's odd. But maybe there's some prank-like message on the receipt to explain the package, I told myself.

Then, I saw the receipt. It detailed that the sender was from Ohio and that the package should have gone to a place called 'Guatemala Place' in Virginia! How exactly does a package that was meant to just cross a couple of states, get all the way to Guatemala (another country)?

I sure as hell wasn't sure, so I took Abra's advice and wrote the couple who was supposed to receive this package a note on the receipt. There is a modified picture of it below.

So Jerry and Belinda L. from Virginia... I hope your package finds you!
And hello from Guatemala, Central America.
Love,

Linda L.

A Little Advice for Future PCVs

This is a little advice for future generations of PCVs in order to avoid screwing over the people who will either be working after you or with your counterparts:

1. Don't sleep with a work-partner/counterpart
2. Don't party with a work-partner/counterpart 
3. Don't take your job lightly
4. Do your FUCKING job

Now these four suggestions come after a pretty horrific work meeting Abra and I had a few days ago with a few gentlemen who will remain nameless.

From the first minute we were in the room with Señor Big Creeper and Licenciado Bad Mouth (Clue: These are made up names) there was enough sexual harassment going on that a boss in the U.S. would immediately file a harassment suit for us. And before anyone starts blaming, I was still depressed over my dog (heck, my eyes were still red) and Abra was still being supportive... so there is no possible way to be sending mixed signals to these men who we would have to work with over the next two years.

After more body-on-body-touching attempts and a slew of weird sexual compliments, then came the comparisons:

"Pcv Hoo-Hah was really nice and went out on a date with us (there was even a few mentions of PCV Hoo-Hahs chest in this conversation)"

" Pcv Boing-Boing takes longer in the schools and accepts everything we give, even alcohol"

Etcetera... 

I completely understand if you just want to be seen as one of them, want to build rapport in an easy manner, want some local booty or even want to accept free things, but honestly, you are screwing it up for the rest of us who are truly here to do a job. We are professionals and want to be treated as such-- not like women who drop their panties for a shot of tequila. No I don't want to drink at 7 am and no I don't want to sleep with you because you would be something I would want to experience.

And for the record, I can understand spanish and did understand your backhanded comments when we refused you... along with those lewd comments you shot at us from the front seat of the car. And we still don't want to sleep with you. But see you in a month for the next workshop, okay! Oh and please remember to keep your penis in your pants, kthnxbye!

The Girl Who Cried 'Dog'

[Warning this post is graphic, so if you don't like talk of death, blood, etc... just skip it entirely]

I know I haven't written in a long, long time and I apologize. I had a cute and spunky update post written up a while back and I was going to publish it whenever I had access to an internet connection, but other things came up a few days ago.

So since the last time I blogged, I was gifted a puppy (named Canela: Cinnamon) from the same family who gave me my kitty, Frijolita. She was friendly, lovable and got along with my cat so well that she believed herself to be one! She snuck some cat food, played with the cat toys, and eventually began to climb roofs.

Her roof prowling became so out of control that one day I heard her barking so far away that I went up on my roof and found her about 5 or 6 houses away lounging on a neighbor's lamina roof. That's when I decided to tie her up.

Since my house is a pretty decent size, I tied her with a leash/laundry rope combo from one of the iron poles sticking out of my roof (which Guatemalan home owners keep exposed in order to expand their house after a few years) so as to give her enough room to run around my whole house and maybe jump around one or two houses directly around me.

This plan worked for a couple of days... she would roam around, still wrestle with my cat and managed to make it into her faux dog bed that I had made when she first arrived.

Then Tuesday Arrived. I came home to an unusually quiet house and thought my dog had escaped and wandered off to another roof. Instead, I saw my dog's rope strewn past the stairs leading to my roof and the dog toys across the floor. I mentally compartmentalized it and headed toward my bedroom.

The nook between my stairs and my bedroom is where I found her in a way that only brought back visuals from hundreds of horror movies I had seen in the past. I really don't want to scar others but I can guarantee that you will only be able to imagine a quarter of what I saw when I discovered my puppy. She was lifeless and she was bloody.

Now, she was just a memory of what Canela used to be. I screamed a silent scream that soon broke loose  into a sound that still haunts me along with that scene.

I left the house immediately in a fit of hysterics. I began calling everyone I knew in town and no one was in town or picking up their phones. All I wanted was for someone to release my dog from its current position (that still haunted me as I hyperventilated around town) and to help me remove her from my house since I would be unable to do both.

Soon I was wandering aimlessly, crying my eyes until Abra called me to tell me that I might get some help from the Centro de Salud. It turns out, all they were interested in was mocking the fact that I was crying about a chucho (street dog). I tried to explain why I couldn't just grab a trash bag and take him to the barranco (trash cliff), but they just rolled their eyes and kept passing me around every office in the center so that everyone could enjoy my suffering. After I passed by the last office, the gentleman behind the desk brushed me off by saying that the Municipal Building might have an idea of what to do with a dead chucho.

I ran to the Municipal Building, pausing occasionally to burst into tears and finally managed to compose myself by the time I reached the front office. Once again, I explained my story between heavy breathing and just had all the older men laughing while the secretaries were yelling around the office, "Can anyone help this Gringa, her chucho died."

It wasn't until I was loosing it in the office that one woman in the office took pity on me and accompanied me out into town to find some help. Eventually, about thirty minutes or so of asking random guys to help, we managed to find the people who clean the city. With some promise of money, the head cleaner agreed to help. This turned out to be a huge mistake.

The older gentleman who was now following me back home began cracking jokes about dead chuchos, kept asking if the 'mutt was warm blooded or long gone', and then kept saying what a long walk this was going to be with a dead dog strapped to his back. And all I wanted him to do was shut up and perform the task at hand.

We got to my place and things became exponentially worse. My dog was still there where I had found it and the older man stood in front of my dog and sighed. "Wow what a big dog, I don't know if 10 Quetzales will cover this. And I don't know if I want this thing on my back." I began to cry, in my living room, as I offered him a higher price, gave him a costal (huge, woven bag) and some scissors to let go of my dog. And the horrific jokes kept coming along with a few actions (including calling me outside to watch and consult) that made cringe while being two rooms away and yelling 'Stop it'.

After the job was done and my dog was in the costal outside my house, the older man once again mentioned how heavy this was going to be when he had to 'dump the mutt on the trash cliff' and how the money was not worth it. Being desperate and still unable to form a proper sentence, I pulled out my wallet and slammed every Quetzal I had in my wallet into his hands as I called for a tuk-tuk (mini taxi). Then I saw him throw what used to be my dog, pretty forcefully, into the tuk-tuk and drive off. That was the last image of my dog... being treated like any other street dog and being driven off by a greedy, tactless dickhead.

Unable to go back into my house, I continued to cry around the corner, on the floor. Teenagers passed by laughing and pointing while men paused to enjoy the show. I was a miserable wreck.

Sure, the shock of finding my dog in such a way was painful and still haunts me (during the day and night), but what was worse was the way I was treated in a place I took comfort in. Professionals thought my problems were trivial, laughing as I was writhing in pain. Jokes were made and people ignored me.

I understand people in Guatemala don't really have pets and constantly kick/beat/run-over animals for fun, but what about the human aspect of this dilemma? I am a person. I was going to dozens of people across town and all they would do is laugh me off at best. I had nowhere to go when my house was still a real-life haunted house and I can't understand why.
How could the human connection be so lost?