30.4.11

One Lucky Girl



Living on your own in a foreign country teaches you how to grow up and sometimes this simply means doing things that you always relied on your mom and dad to do for you. Here are a few embarrassing moments of 2011 that have taught me some lessons as well as reminded me of how lucky I am…These are also moments I generally keep to myself and avoid telling my parents about but like any embarrassing story, time has its way of making it not as serious and hopefully more entertaining.

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An Ode to Edgar:
My first story happened the day I flew back to Guatemala after spending Christmas and New Years in the states. Like always,  I arrived to Guatemala exhausted (mainly from trying to get my money’s worth of free wine in first class at 9am in the morning) and took the $10 shuttle to Antigua from the airport. I hopped into the shuttle and got out my computer to check my email. There were three other people in the shuttle that day and two of them were Peace Corps Volunteers, one of which I know. We chatted and I anxiously anticipated returning home and sleeping. When I got home I feel straight to sleep for a good two hours.

When I woke up I went to get out my computer to check my email and I discovered it missing. In my sleepwalking state I had left my computer on the shuttle. I had no way of contacting the shuttle; I had no company name or phone number. Moreover, since there were only four of us on the shuttle and I was the last one out it should have been obvious to the driver that the computer was mine.  However, I did over hear the driver tell his name to the front seat passenger: Edgar. So I had a name, that’s it. I was a mess, nearly in tears I had no idea what to do. I went straight to Chiqui, the owner of the home where I rent a room, and told her what had happened. She got out the yellow pages and started randomly calling shuttle agencies. I started thinking…and I remembered that I had stored the number of the shuttle driver of the very first shuttle ride I ever took from the airport to Antigua back in January 2010. Chiqui called him and he said he knew Edgar. Within minutes Edgar was at my door with my computer. I was speechless for a few reasons: 1. My Spanish was rusty after a 3 week hiatus 2. The way I got it back was pure luck 3. I didn’t know such honest strangers existed….

My Car Won’t Start:
One day my car wouldn’t start. Thankfully I was still in the house and could troubleshoot it for myself. I called over a friend to help me since I had no experience with corroded terminals. We watched a YouTube video and went to cleaning the terminals. Once we were finished the car still wouldn’t start. So we tried jumping the car. That didn’t work either. So then my mechanic, Gunther (yes that’s his real name), came over. Between me calling him and him arriving (15 minutes) we connected my plugged in the battery to a charger. When Gunther arrived he jumped in the car and started it. Just like that. We determined it was the battery and jumping it for some reason didn’t work. It was then I found out Guther is also Chiqui’s mechanic and he took a look at a car of Chiqui’s. Gunther didn’t charge me a penny.

Then the next day I drove to a community an hour away. Everything was going fine until we stopped for peaches. We bought some peaches and got back in the car to take a hidden short cut back to Patzun. The car wouldn’t start. Thankfully I was with a mason who looked under the hood and said my terminals were corroded. Since I didn’t have any tools, we called a father from a nearby school we had been working at and together they cleaned the terminals and the car started. Again, free of charge! But then I did the responsible thing and went back to Gunther’s and got them to clean and completely change the terminals for $10.

A Light-Up and Mooing Cow Serves as Comic Relief:
The other night I was driving a friend home at midnight. We were chatting and I passed a slow-moving police truck patrolling the neighborhood. Shortly afterwards the police truck turned on his lights and siren. There were four problems with this: 1. My car’s windows are very tinted 2. Therefore, we didn’t realize they were trying to pull us over until a good two or three blocks afterwards. 3. I wasn’t doing anything wrong to be pulled over. 4. We were in Jocotenango…and well Joco is scary.

When we finally realized we were the only two vehicles on the street and the pick-up filled with at least eight fully armed policemen were pulling us over I started freaking out. I haven’t been pulled over in Guatemala yet but I knew the situation I was in wasn’t a good one. So I kept driving, arguing with my friend about pulling over. Finally she convinced me to pull over. We were on a dark side street and when I stopped around seven armed policemen surrounded my car. It was scary. To make it worse, the main policeman came up to my window, didn’t greet me and demanded me to get out of the car. I asked why and he just kept saying “Get out of the car.” My friend said “Jackie we should get out.” So I stubbornly got out. The angry policeman told me to put my purse on the ground so he could search it. I told him he could search it but I wasn’t going to put it on the ground. My friend asked what they were doing or looking for and the angry man didn’t say drugs but put one finger to his nostril and pretended like he was snorting cocaine. Perfect. Then he went into my car and started ruffling though some maps I have and kept asking if I had drugs…though he never said the word “drugs” he just kept panamiming snorting coke.

I was getting super nervous at the non-traditional stop and asked Mr. Meany if he wanted to see my license and registration like a normal stop. He kinda waved his hands like “sure, whatever” and kept looking in my car for drugs. Like I said, it was a dark street and I needed to find my registration. Thankfully, one of the several thoughtful presents Joan brought me in March was a light up and mooing cow key chain flash light. So I used it to find my registration. The cop didn’t even look at the registration but started asking me questions about the cow. “What was that? Where did the sound and light come from?” ect…

Then he went over to my friend wanting to search her purse. My friend told him listen you’re not being very nice or approachable and I would appreciate if you would be a little nicer. The next thing I know he stepped back kinda apologized got back in his truck with the army and left. It was strange and I was shaking from head to toe. Very scary but I’m glad it turned out like it did.

Things like this really happen all the time but there are some stories one tells more than others. These would be the three more told stories thus far of the year.

In other news, I just got back to Guatemala after 11 fun days in Mexico. I was sick for about half of the trip but I got to travel to many places I’ve always wanted to go. Thanks to my wonderful mom and dad I had a new camera to capture the moments…. Enjoy J