Guatemala: Tikal and Extreme Poverty

Nerves were high on the ship as we entered Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.  One of the few free websites on the ship is WikiTravel, which details activities and general information about a country. Under Guatemala safety the first sentence was, “Please be aware that the security situation in Guatemala has deteriorated dramatically since the beginning of 2009 with 40 murders a week in Guatemala City alone. Tourists are directly targeted, robberies are common place and travel to Guatemala is strongly discouraged until the situation improves.”  Awesome. So we’ve all been a bit on edge.  For the most part, students were actually safe in Guatemala, although there were several incidents of robberies and a few of holdups. My Guatemala experience was dominated my Semester at Sea trips.  This means that for all of Guatemala, I was in a group tailed by an armed guard. 
Aside from the safety issues, Guatemala was a beautiful country. I’m so jealous of my friends who were able to hike volcanoes – they were actually able to roast marshmallows over flowing lava – so cool.  Instead, I traveled to Flores to see Tikal, which is a complex of Mayan ruins, dating back to 500 B.C.  My last day, I was able to get a more tragic view of Guatemala through a service visit to Camino Seguro, which is located near the Guatemala City dump.  People live and work in the dump. I’ll go into more detail in my day to day, but the project is important enough that I wanted to mention it straight away.  The school is for children whose parents scavenge the dumps for profit as well as food and housing materials.  These were the worst working conditions that I’ve seen anywhere in the world.  In 1999 Hanley Denning from Yarmouth, Maine came to Guatemala to learn Spanish – she was then a Head Start teacher in North Carolina and wanted to be able to better communicate with her students, many of whom only spoke Spanish.  She was convinced by a local to visit the dump and after seeing the conditions, felt compelled to stay in Guatemala.  She sold her car and her computer and with a friend, she cleaned out an old church outside of the dump.  She started with about $5,000 and supplied 40 kids per week with food and a place to be children, not workers.  Hanley was killed in 2007 in an automobile accident, but her vision lives on – Camino Seguro (a.k.a. Safe Passage) now provides meals, education, and playtime for 600 children per week.  There’s a 2008 Oscar nominated documentary made about Hanley’s project called Recycled Life. There are now permanent employees as well as probably around 50 volunteers at a time, many of whom are from Maine and knew about the program through Hanley’s family.  It was so surreal to be discussing the greatness of Big Daddy’s (the world’s best ice-cream place) while in Guatemala.

Day 1: Katie, Andrea and I disembarked to look around the port a bit before our trip left at two.  We were required to take a shuttle to the edge of the port – due to safety issues SAS had sponsored shuttles throughout our days in Guatemala and had given us a mandatory 11pm curfew should we be returning to the ship.  We got to the port edge where there supposedly was a little village of shops and vendors to explore.  We took one look at our surroundings and realized it was yet another market for tourists. At this point in the trip, none of us have any interest in bargaining for non-necessities.  After a few minutes, we returned to the ship to eat lunch and meet our trip for the two-hour ride to the airport.  Our buses were met by an armed police car, which followed us to the airport.
I suppose due to the danger of the actual Guatemala City airport, we were taken to a small private airport where SAS had chartered four jets to take us to Flores.  Andrea and I ended up sitting front row on a 19-passenger plane.  The pilot never closed the cockpit drape (yes drape, not door), so we were able to watch them take off and land, which was pretty cool.  We arrived in northern Guatemala forty minutes later, where we were met by vans that took us to our hotel.  We had a terrible dinner that night at the hotel, so we ended up at “Rodeo Bar” across the street, where we got margaritas, chips and meat salsa, which was surprisingly good. The night ended relatively early with a group of us back at the hotel chatting and reminiscing over the countries we already miss.

Day 2: The morning began at 6am with an early breakfast before departing in our vans to Tikal.  Tikal is comparable to Angkor Watt in that both complexes are largely still undiscovered and maintained by governments too poor to expose more of the ruins.  In Angkor Watt, 95% of the complex was yet to be uncovered.  In Tikal, 80% was still underground.  They call Tikal the “Skyscrapers of the Jungle,” and it definitely lives up to that title.  From one temple, it is easy to see the tips of others, peaking out from the vast Guatemalan jungle.  Our tour consisted of a hike in hopes of seeing animals (we found spider monkeys – it was awesome) and experiencing a bit of the flora.  What I had not expected was the amount of walking the day would entail – our guide told us 3k, not to mention the hundreds of steps we were climbing to reach the temple peaks.  My favorite temple had just a giant, probably around 4-story ladder to climb to reach the top. The temples are made of huge stones, some as old as 500 B.C.  I marveled at the Mayan capability to build these structures.  The strange thing is that most were purely ceremonial.  There are some housing complexes, but the tall five temples were only used for special occasions.  Tikal was once a city of 100,000 people.  The complex expands far further than the bit that I was able to see.    We spent the entire day at Tikal, and flew back late that night once again in tiny chartered planes.  I went with the boys to get Pizza Hut before our flight.  Its so strange how nice Pizza Hut is outside of the USA – in both India and Guatemala, I went to Pizza Huts that were really clean and looked like nice places to go.  They even gave us mini cups of Fanta while we waited for our food.  Although many of my friends headed to Antigua with Andrea, Katie and I stayed behind, as we had an SAS trip the next morning.

Day 3: After a two-hour bus ride, a group of about twenty SASers had arrived in Guatemala City.  None of us were really sure where we were going until the buses stopped in the middle of a graveyard. There we were told to wait for our local guides to arrive.  Staff from Camino Seguro, Also known as Safe Passage, arrived and led us through the graveyard.  I looked up huge black birds swarming.  They were flying in large circles and resting on trees – I knew we must be near the dump.  We arrived to an edge overlooking the dump as our guide began to explain what we were seeing.  The Guatemala City dump is where everything goes.  This includes food, paper products, glass, medical waste, and even dead animals from the city zoo.  The best word choice I can think of is infiltrate – the smell infiltrates and it took me a few minutes before I could focus on much else.  Within the dump, there was a line of yellow trucks, which Ben, our guide, tells us are privately owned and rented by the municipality.  When a truck prepares to dump it is just a split second before a row of hands hits its side.  The dump is not just for trash – it also serves as a livelihood for several thousand people.  These men and women live and work the dump.  Although they are no longer allowed to live there, their houses remain on the outskirts and are created out of dump materials.  Their clothes are things that they’ve found there, as is their food.  They find left over pieces of pizza, bread, meat, and will either eat it straight or cook it, in hopes to not get so sick.  The only money they make is by selling to recycling companies anything they can find in the dump.  The problem is that the workers never know what will be bought.  They could spend days drying wet cardboard, making it good enough to recycle just to find that the companies want glass that day.  The dump is its own society.  The workers know which trucks come from which districts and will run to the ones with potentially better materials.  One incredible detail – the dump functions on an honor system.  The workers touch a part of the truck and whatever they touch is theirs to sort through.  Workers will sort and leave their piles unprotected, knowing that no one will touch it.  Although there is some gang activity within the dump, it is generally people just trying to support their families. 
So here’s where Camino Seguro comes in.  The people working the dumps have children – between four and eleven, so Ben says.  The children fall into the cycle of poverty because although Guatemala does have a public school system, the parents cannot afford the uniform or school supplies.  The children end up staying at home to help their parents sort garbage.  They grow up with no skills but working at the dump.  Camino Seguro provides schooling, one healthy meal per day, and a safe place to act like children.  It began in just an old church and now has a preschool and secondary school location.  They kids can be kids and learn skills that help get them out.  They recently had a student who dreamt of being a pilot.  The program was able to find a scholarship for him to flight school.  They are attempting to break the cycle the only way it can be broken, through education.  Hundreds of children will grow up better educated, healthier, and with dreams outside of the dump, all because of one woman from Maine.  It’s an incredible story.  I asked Ben about safety for the 50 or so Caucasian volunteers.  He said that they’ve had very few incidents because their purpose is humanitarian.  “I take care of MS-13’s kids.  They want me around,” he says.  We were able to play with the kids a bit and I believe that every girl bought jewelry made by the parents – Camino Seguro also started a mothers and fathers school, eventually providing a sixth grade diploma for them.  With that, one mother is now studying to become an accountant, and another group has started a jewelry co-op.  The money that they make will allow them to not have to work in the dumps. 
After an afternoon visiting Camino Seguro we rode back to port, where we swiped our cards and got onto the ship for the last time.  It was a sad moment for all of us.  This wasn’t my favorite country, but I’m going to miss being in constant motion like we are here.  My days on the ship may include some downtime, but to be in motion towards something new everyday has been the best feeling.

A Brief Glimpse of Americana

Hawaii was such a relief after ten days without seeing land. We’d seen albatross, whales and dolphins, but the ship was beginning to feel quite small after those days between Japan and Hawaii.  The big news out of this blog is that I went skydiving.  It was just such a rush.  My group was really lucky because they day before everyone was canceled due to strong winds.  Aside from that Hawaii consisted of beach time and Americana, which was in some ways, much missed.

Day 1:  At 6 am, the bell noise came over the ship’s loudspeakers. Great. We’d been warned we were getting an early wake up call.  American customs wanted face to face time with each of us before the ship would be cleared.  So the bell sounds, and then the speaker experiences a few seconds of scratchy silence before we are officially woken up by James Brown’s “Living in America” blasting through every cabin and corridor on the ship.  Although I am notably not a morning person, this morning I woke up laughing.  It was around 7am when I realized my cell phone worked.  I was apparently one of the last to realize this as every deck on the ship was filled with students using their cell phones when I got out there around 7:30. Once docked in Honolulu, I disembarked immediately with Katie to go for a morning run.  Katie hadn’t run in a while, so it wasn’t quite as successful as I would have liked. Still, it was great to be on land and running off of a treadmill. 
After our run, we headed out for a day of beach and Americana.  We ran into Jana, who joined us as we walked towards the mall.  We made two stops at Starbucks before finally arriving at the mall where I had Mexican food for lunch, which was positively thrilling.  Katie left Jana and me there while she went and did errands. 
Hawaii was exciting to us for a number of reasons, but one of the huge ones was that our cell phones worked.  For the first time during SAS, I was able to call Andrea to ask where she and Trish were on the beach.  Jana and I took a city bus to get to Waikiki Beach.  From there it took us another hour to figure out where exactly our friends had stopped.  Finally we found them, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach reading, resting, swimming, and using our cell phones for the first time in three months.  It was exactly what we all needed. We went back to the ship to get ready for our night out in Honolulu.  For the second time that day I had really yummy Mexican food. It was so so good.  The only trouble with Hawaii was that it was the first port where my age actually mattered.  On the ship, my closest friends are 23 and 22.  Out of our family bubble, Trish and I are the only ones under 21.  We planned on going out anyway, and being what we liked to call the sober sailors for the night.  This would have worked fine, but Trish forgot an I.D. and thus was unable to prove she was even over 18.  I was happy to head back, as I had big plans for the next morning.  The best part of the night was definitely when we stopped at Baskin Robbins. I have yet to see Cookie Dough ice cream outside of the United States.  It was so exciting to be back in the land of Cookie Dough and Mexican food.

Day 2: I signed up to sky dive in Hawaii before I left Charlotte to go on SAS.  There were groups on facebook who were coordinating trips in Namibia and South Africa, but I knew that if I were to jump out of a plane, I wanted American regulations on that experience.  I had hoped that by the time I got to Hawaii I would be prepared for the experience.  I’d also decided that it was better for my family not to know that I was doing this until after I survived.  I had texted one friend the name of the skydiving company to make sure that someone outside of SAS had some information.  The thing about the constant travel of SAS is that we are forced to live each day on land to the full extent of its potential.  That sentence may not make sense, but what it comes down to is that I felt ready to skydive. 
That morning I woke up at 6:20 to meet Trish for a run at 6:30.  We ran about four miles before I came back to the ship to shower and give Andrea her wakeup call.  I didn’t mention that – Andrea had been borderline about skydiving since South Africa, and she finally allowed me to sign her up for my timeslot.  It was so nice to have a good friend with me.  We decided that we survived a safari in South African and Varanasi, India together – we could do this easily.  Andrea and I met at exactly 8am to meet the Skydive Hawaii shuttle.  An old man in an Air Force hat approached the open door of the shuttle and started talking to us.  He wanted to know why we were skydiving, to which neither of us had a great answer on the cuff. He said, “Well. People will ask you, ‘why jump out of a perfectly good plane?’  The only answer you need to tell them is ‘because the door was open.’”  We both laughed and listened to him talk about the rush of open air – he had obviously done this before. 
The shuttle ride took about an hour to get from Waikiki area to the North Shore, which incidentally is where the tv show Lost is filmed.  The majority of the skydiving crew had stories of being extras or stunt people for Lost. Within minutes, Andrea had bonded with our shuttle driver over their mutual love of reggae music.  I laughed and tried not to think about what I was about to do.  The shuttle arrived at a grassy area, a bit smaller than a football field adjacent to three huts and a plane landing strip.  Almost immediately I was able to look up and see parachutes open, preparing to land on the grass space. 
We were both a bit nervous as we signed our lives away – on the bottom of every sheet in the skydiving contract was in bold, capitalized letters. “YOU COULD BE SEROUSLY INJURED OR KILLED.” I looked outside in time to see a few more students land.  This was just something that I needed to do.  We waited for half an hour for our names to be called.  A man called out, “Taylor?” I looked up, and there was my new tandem master, aptly called Big Jim.   Big Jim is probably in his late 40s and is a somewhat stocky man well over six feet.   He wears his sandy hair in a loose ponytail and smiles enthusiastically as he tells me in his husky voice what to do when its our turn to jump out.  He told me to keep my arms crossed on my chest until he tapped me.  “Um, is there anything else that I should know?” I asked.  “Rock out, dude!” He told me, both hands signaling “hang loose” in traditional chill Hawaiian fashion.  This sounds sketchier than it is – each tandem master is required to pack his own parachute.  If my parachute didn’t open, he’d be a goner with me, and this was his fourth jump that day.  Also, to be a tandem master in the United States, one must do 500 jumps per year for three years.  These guys are experienced.  Soon, Andrea and I were suited up in what looked like rock climbing equipment with shoulder straps.  Our guides motioned over to us and we followed them to a small plane that was just landing.  I walked over talking to my adorable photographer.  I asked him about speed.  Apparently the freefall would be somewhere between 100 and 120 mph and once the parachute opened we’d be moving at about 40 mph.  There were nine of us jumping on this trip up.   Andrea and I were the last two to enter the plane. 
As we rose into the sky I laughed, amazed at how small everything was suddenly.  I’ve obviously been in a plane before, but it’s a different feeling when you know you aren’t landing in it.  When we ascended through a layer of clouds, my heart was already racing and my mind in ten different directions.  Soon Big Jim said, “Okay Taylor, our turn.”  I followed his directions and he began to attach my harness to his backpack and harness.  Once we were all locked in he showed me each of the caribeeners, proving that each were locked securely.  This may have helped a normal person, but at that point I just figured my life was in his hands anyway.  It was then I realized – “what – are we first??” Big Jim grinned, “Hell, yeah!!”  Awesome.  So we scooted over to the opening on the side of the plane as the altitude reached 12,000 feet.  I looked down to see the open ocean.  The water was so clear I could see coral growth beneath the surface. I looked out from the side of the plane for one last glimpse at the water and the beautiful Hawaiian mountains. Big Jim told me to lean back, cross my arms, and “don’t forget to open your eyes.” Before I could say anything else he’d pushed us off.  We flipped in the air several times before coming into a bellyflop position.  He tapped my shoulder for me to open my arms to feel the 100-120mph winds that were tearing at my body.  The wind was amazing and such a rush.  I was descending fast, but my stomach never dropped.  It doesn’t feel like a rollercoaster.  Its too fast for ones body to really adjust.  The air was peaceful almost.  The wind rushed until 4,500ft, when Big Jim pulled the shoot.  The parachute arose and suddenly we were floating.  It took me a second to allow my pulse to slow and adjust to my new surroundings.  I was floating just a bit above the mountains inland, but still quite near the water.  Big Jim let me “steer” for a bit as we began the slower descent.  We moved back and forth: one second over land, the next once again over ocean.  Eventually, Big Jim told me to keep my feet up as we landed because he thought that due to the wind we would probably only be able to land straight on our butts. 
I called my parents afterwards and they both thanked me for not telling them beforehand, as did my sister.  The only time skydiving made my stomach drop was much later that evening when I’d looked at photos. 
After skydiving, Andrea and I changed clothes and met Katie for lunch at Hooters. Yes, I went to a Hooters, and I am embarrassed by that little fact. However, Andrea and I felt that we deserved really good burgers. 
Next on the agenda was Pearl Harbor.  Pearl Harbor was a huge complex with a museum that would have taken much more time than we had. We watched the 45minute video on what happened and visited the Arizona Memorial.  I was so impressed with how very fair the video was.  It explained the Japanese choice to attack in the exact same terms as I had seen at Hiroshima just over a week prior. The USS Arizona Memorial was very well done.  It’s a bit intense because oil is still seeping up from the ship.  A few parts of it are visible above the water. 

Hawaii ended way too soon without enough beach time or exploration. I could have stayed here much longer and am curious to explore other islands.