liquid / vapor | bullet \ tapir

After more than three months in Guatemala, I am two days away from going to the field, where I’m planning to stay for about two months. My duties will be as follows: go to study sites in cloud and pine-oak forests, download data and change batteries, analyze data, change faulty sensors, and, at some point, collect allometric data. Though the sites are a bit remote as long as the road remains out, this will probably only require two or three days a week, leaving me time to hike around the Sierra—if my local guide indulges. I’m eager to walk through the elfin forest, a conglomeration of wind-stunted trees on the saddle below the Sierra’s highest peak, and climb El Volcán Las Palomas, a non-volcanic cone heaved up when the Cocos and Caribbean plates collided and formed the range.

The department of Zacapa has a four-fold reputation: hot temperatures and tempers, beautiful women, and the best rum in the world (now produced outside Guatemala City). My social interactions will occur in the largely Evangelical town of Santa Rosalia, the Guatemármol mining camp, and in the forest, where my guide and I might encounter poachers or illegal loggers. I have no specific expectations other than that the immediate future will be a sharp contrast to the immediate past. So before I leave for the tierra caliente, here’s my capital-city communiqué.

El Mirador beyond allegory

Last week, I went with coworkers from the Institute for Agriculture, Natural Resources, and the Environment (IARNA) to the late Pre-classic Mayan city of El Mirador, just south of the Mexican border. Excavation has only been way for a couple decades, spearheaded by archaeologist and Apocalypto consultant Richard Hansen, but the enormity of what lies buried can be sensed in the presence of near-mountains in an otherwise Nebraska-flat expanse of forest. To Twitter-educe the experience:

After walking across dead lagoons through aromatic eddies of hot air for 25 km, I climbed one of the largest structures of the ancient world.

The end of those lagoons appears to explain—at least partially—the collapse of the Pre-classic (circa 150 A.D.) Mayas, whose diaspora led to the flourishing of the Classic Era in places like Tikal.

We were fortunate enough to have as our guide Ing. César Castañeda, a retired agronomy professor who has studied the vegetation around El Mirador in conjunction with the work of the archaeologist Hansen. Ing. Castañeda explained how the first settlers arrived to a land of vast lagoons, where they remained for the wealth of flora and fauna and then began to farm, later learning to extract lime from limestone over fires of specific tree species. Mixed with corn, lime enhanced these early Mayas’ nutrition by liberating niacin locked in the kernel; mixed with water, this new material formed the bricks that built the city’s great pyramids and the panels worked into ornate frescos. While deforestation for firewood and extensive corn production led to topsoil loss, Ing. Castañeda explained that the movement of large volumes of human waste into the already ecologically mature lagoons was likely more significant in the city’s decline. Inputs of nutrients led to eutrophication (e.g., the worst problem in the Gulf of Mexico prior to the oil spill), and the lagoons became land. From atop the city’s unfathomably large La Danta (tapir) pyramid, sharp boundaries can be discerned between the once-inhabited “high forest” and the “low forest” that temporarily returns to its aquatic origins during the rainy season.

Ing. Castañeda pointed out that, in explaining the Mayan collapse, academics tend to latch onto a single factor, even though multiple causes were certainly at play. I also sense the drive to reduce human lives and decisions into an allegory with some modern-day implication: environmental neglect brought down the Mayas, or the peasantry rose up after centuries of repression. Perhaps laborers revolted after the priests and kings, managers of scientific and mathematical knowledge, failed to “bring the rain” one too many times—this explanation is particularly interesting when projected back onto the present day. We can’t be blamed for oversimplifying: apart from the archaeological setbacks such as loss of material evidence to graverobbers, the matter is rife with an all-too-human inclination to impose meaning on a given subject, be it an Intelligent Design proponent explaining why dinosaur bones were buried beneath the earth or a permaculturalist claiming that, on principle, Mother Nature never wastes. The meaning of ant colony intelligence. Of wave-particle duality. Of rhizomes. Or, as for the Mayas, the meaning of a solar eclipse, of quetzal feathers, of jade. It once occurred to me that the cloud forest exemplifies vegetative communism, wherein scarce light and overabundant water lead to ubiquitous yet stunted growth, but this was a constructed meaning I didn’t know what to do with, so I returned to thinking of the cloud forest as the apolitically beautiful provider of the more easily comprehendible benefits of water and biodiversity.

La guerrilla cervecera

I came to Guatemala with one mission in mind and will leave with two in progress, both of which are fueled by scheming with my boss and friend, Juan Carlos Rosito. First, continue researching a number of scientifically and societally relevant issues in the cloud forest of the Sierra de las Minas. Second, mount la guerrilla cervecera, convincing one Guatemalan at a time that they are paying far too much for a beer that is not actually la mejor del mundo, as claimed by the Castillo family that controls the market. As in the US, the major national beers are lagers, mostly pilsners: the difference is the absolute absence of ales in Guatemala. That is, until a couple weeks ago, when we bottled our first batch of pale ale into Gallo bottles. In primary fermentation, a Belgian ale is letting out the sigh of revolution.

During the most disheartening phases of constructing the sap-flow sensors—inhaling solder flux vapor while the thermocouples fell apart—I kept my spirits up by contemplating the limitless possibilities and liberating consequences of making beer in Guatemala. I devised a chart of possible local inputs, from medicinal herbs to ingredients too exotic and marketable to disclose here. Later, in response to the incessant claims of our friends and family that homebrewing is illegal in Guatemala, Juan Carlos and I found a copy of the most recent (1981) law on alcoholic beverage production and identified loopholes. The law does not prohibit production of alcoholic beverages per se; rather, it outlines the hoops one must go through and hints at the control the establishment surely maintains at each point of the process. For example, all alcoholic beverages must be aged for one year—an unreasonable expectation for brewers of beer—but pre-existing producers are exempt from the new criteria.

Looking at Guatemala through a different sort of beer goggles, I’ve learned a good deal about flora and microfauna, corporate buyouts, and the hopes and hesitations of a postcolonial society. I’ve learned the brief history of failed microbrew ventures and seen some serious opportunities, which I plan to pursue further if I return to Guatemala for continued research.

El discurso de la playa

On Saturday, I saw the infinity of the Pacific from the black sand of the southern coast. Estuardo and Melissa Mendoza, the wonderful people I live with in Guatemala City, had invited me to the resort town of Monterrico for the evening. We stopped en route to say hello to their father at his vacation home in Likin, a walled-in matrix of canals and swimming pools to which the country’s first millionaire class was expected to flock some twenty years ago. Then, after arriving in Monterrico as a downpour subsided, we searched for a hotel and settled on a single-bed, single-hammock room in a hostel for $25. At about 11 pm, we stepped onto the beach.

The bars weren’t offering the ambience my friends had had in mind. It was a night of reggaeton and the kind of people that don’t hesitate to shoot if you naively dance with their girlfriend. We instead bought a couple liters of Gallo (see above) and found a relatively tranquil patch of sand. Talking with the Mendoza siblings was much more worthwhile than enduring the heat and danger of the discoteca; they both have fascinating experiences to share and can put the kind of perspective on things that ever-so-slightly shifts your paradigm (an ability Estuardo uses in his poetry). I explained how the production values and soundtrack of Jersey Shore transmit some latent intention—something meta—that is far more complex than Snookie’s smoosh-drive, and Estuardo dubbed it el discurso de la playa (the beach discourse). Me llega.

But the beer ran out, and we were suddenly more disposed to dance. After traversing the strip, we paid the costly cover at Johnny’s Place and each found a dance partner. Maybe thirty minutes had passed when I heard what sounded like a capgun and everyone scurried like it was the final game of freeze-tag. The cops showed up after a healthy delay, and we called it a night. The next day, Estuardo told me he had heard that the man fired the shot into the floor to send a message to his coked-out girlfriend. What an absurd manifestation of machismo: change the circumstances, and it isn’t hard to imagine how he would’ve handled waking up on Christmas morning to find out Mami didn’t get him the latest soccer cleats. In three months, I’d call it luck that this is the only encounter I’ve had with explicit danger.

Much of my experience remains unwritten. For now, I will post pictures to compensate, but many ideas and impressions will likely continue to mature after I’ve left for my homeland in mid-June.

First trip to the Sierra

Because Guatemala City is too dangerous to walk around with a computer in my backpack, I couldn't upload these pictures I took a couple weeks ago on our first trip to the Sierra de las Minas until just now.

The micrometeorological station in the pine-oak forest had lost contact with the university, so we had to move it to a location with better cell reception. After spending a day on that, we hiked 6 or 7 miles along a road damaged by Hurricane Agatha to the station in the cloud forest, where we installed a horizontal rain gauge and some other sensors.

View of a landslide from the pine-oak forest

As of now, the plan is to return to the field at the end of this month to install the sap-flow sensors we're currently constructing at the Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala City. I'll stay in the field to download data and replace failed sensors for the months of March and May, returning to the capital or traveling during April

Wildflower in the pine-oak forest

Seismological station used to triangulate disturbances throughout the country

Dawn at the Guatemármol marble mine

Road outage

One of the broccoli-shaped oaks of the cloud forest and a Podocarpus, if I remember correctly

Epiphytes. Every plant in the cloud forest is covered by more plants.

Rosito and Drimys Granadensis, an ancient angiosperm with medicinal properties

El atardecer

Realistic magical realism

I began my six months in Central America with a visit to Honduras, so here’s a very superficial comparison of Honduras and Guatemala, based on a little over a week in both countries:

Hondurans (los catrachos) speak fast and eat their s’s, while Guatemalans (los chapines) sing their words at an intelligible rate.

Honduras undulates between forested mountains and valleys—the word itself shares a root with “undulates”—and has virtually no volcanoes.  Guatemala, on the other hand, has the highest density of volcanic sites in the world. Its name comes from an indigenous word for “the place of trees,” though this word could just as easily refer to Honduras.

Both countries have been militarily and economically subjugated to the United States and its corporate affiliates.  On both sides of the border, I’ve been told not to lay all the blame for the resulting violence and delayed development on my government because preexisting corruption made it possible to buy out local politicians in the first place. In addition to bloodshed, the legacy of coups has included bitterness, disillusionment, and more extensive corruption.

For whatever reason, Guatemala is seen as a more violent nation than Honduras. One individual (a catracho if I remember right) attributed the greater violence and machismo found in Guate to the influence of indigenous culture. As a foreigner, I don’t think I’d ever be able to test that hypothesis, let alone after two weeks. 

This debate is a distinction of frequency, as these days instances of senseless bloodshed occur in both nations. The most gruesome story I heard before crossing the border concerned a Honduran national who had earned a Ph.D. and started a family in Norway and then returned to show his wife and child his homeland.  When he parked on the outskirts of a small town to take a leak, he was gunned down for his pocket change, his wife and daughter witnessing the murder from the car.

Then I got to Guatemala, where gangs recreationally kill several scores of busdrivers annually. In fact, ten minutes after we stopped at customs, I was involved in an act of bus-related violence (ok, it was an accident but horrific nonetheless). I had shelled out for a tourist-favored luxury bus and expected to confront my sleep deficit and wake up in Antigua Guatemala 8 hours later. Not only were we delayed, a man was seriously injured—that is, if he survived. Rolling into a small town, we came to a halt with the sound of shattering glass. I looked out the window and saw a heavy-set man spitting up blood and struggling to breath on the side of the road. The drivers went out and scratched their heads around his body; those of us watching anxiously from the bus were advised not to get involved because of liability, which was probably the reason for the drivers’ inaction. Five minutes later, we moved to the police station, where the bus parked and we disembarked. We subsequently learned that the man was brought down from the telephone pole where he was doing cable work when our bus ran over a stray cable hanging in the road. His body slammed into the side of our bus, sending a Dutchman flying across the aisle onto the feet of John the Irishman and Sparkle the Brit.  With these latter three and two more Brits, I killed the time with my first experience of the Guatemalan beer monopoly until our replacement bus showed up. All I know of the injured cable guy is that he wasn’t taken to the hospital for about two hours and was somehow at fault because he had a purchased driver’s license.

The dark magical realism of my entry into Guatemala hasn’t really diminished in the last week, though it has become more indirect, channeled through stories rather than personal experience. Many of these can be traced to Gerónimo, the professor I commute with from La Antigua to the capital everyday at 5:05 a.m., or to Juan Carlos, my boss here. Negotiating the afternoon exodus from the capital, Gerónimo has told me about Cash Luna, the aptly named Evangelical pastor that milks his congregation for all they’ve got; the origin of the phrase panza verde (“green belly”—residents of Guatemala’s third capital who resisted the mandatory move to its current location following the earthquakes of 1773 fled to the surrounding wilderness where they lived off herbs); and loads of anecdotes on gang violence, presidential corruption, and Catholic miracles. Juan Carlos explained how the absence of the state outside of the capital has its roots in the colonial-era reliance on priests as local governors and how only 2 percent of murders lead to prosecution.

Through the gate of the old national prison

These glimpses of absurdity have led me to think that magical realism did not require much of a stretch of the imagination on the part of Asturias or García Márquez.  On a daily basis, I come across at least one or two characters that would feel at home in Macondo. Take, for example, the daughter of my landlady who studies interior design and lynched some twenty stuffed animals on the walls of my apartment, or the transvestite prostitute who chased me through the streets of Antigua while on my way home (I was later told my experience was nothing special, that it has happened to everybody at some point).

From left to right: teddy bear, teddy bear in lederhosen, teddy bear, poodle.
All really dusty and glaring at me from all angles.

I’m not sure if I’ll get around to making any sort of narrative out of these experiences. Maybe after I finish reading Gravity’s Rainbow I’ll give it a shot. In the meantime, I’ve been spending the few hours I’m not at work or in transit schmoozing with expats in the fine establishments of Antigua or messing around with the guitar I acquired from a father-son artisanal instrument workshop on the outskirts of town. If I record anything worth sharing I’ll put it up here. And of course after my field work starts this week I'll get into the substance of what I'm doing down here.