Seatbelts and Such

Two days ago, after a 10 HOUR MEETING of our Presbytery in San Antonio, Suchitepequez, I actually got to ride in the front of the truck with Angel, my host dad (this is rare since I usually sit in the truck bed). I reached for my seatbelt and realized it didn’t work. He said, “Oh, it doesn’t work, but you don’t need it. It’s safe.” HA. My dad (in Shreveport) would have freaked out at that point, as I wanted to, too! Driving in Guatemala doesn’t seem to involve important things like laws, insurance, good roads, or patience…. Oh, did I mention Patrick let a 13 year old kid drive him up a mountain the other day? AND, he has pictures of another bus driver driving with his eyes closed!!... But anyway, on the way home from the Presbytery meeting, Angel accidentally hit a man on a motorcycle who was coming from oncoming traffic! I had been sitting on a wood plank in the bed of the truck with the 2 youth who were with us, so I didn’t see it coming. Luckily, no one flew out of the truck, and the man on the motorcycle was ok. Of course like 8 cars stopped to argue the situation- that’s how they decide who is going to pay- and then 8 police showed up in 1 truck, which was a little unnerving since they will sometimes just throw everyone involved in jail until they can figure things out…. And then yesterday I got in another car where a man told me that seatbelts weren’t necessary in Guatemala and I informed him that I’d been in 2 wrecks in the past month, so I’d be using mine, thank you very much! I wanted to ask him where exactly he thought seatbelts WERE necessary, but I thought that might come out a bit rude….there’s no point to this story at all, except that I’m getting a little more nervous about transportation here, especially since there have been 2 accidents in the past month where busses have slipped and fallen down mountains!!


Oh, one other funny thing- in addition to my real jobs here- teaching and working with youth and little kids- I’ve found that I have many unexpected jobs in my community as well. For example, Angel has brought me his cell phone 3 times this week and asked me to fix it because he can’t get calls or messages. It’s like he thinks I had a previous job with Cingular or something. He stands over me and waits until I fix it, too, even if it takes like 30 minutes….. my second odd-job is American T-shirt Translator. There are like a billion used American clothing stores in this country, so EVERYONE is walking around with t-shirts that say things in English that they can’t understand. For example, “Jesus is the MAN,” “Senior Party 1987- Middle of Nowhere, Iowa,” “Don’t You Wish Your Girlfriend Was HOT Like Me? (the best is when you see extremely unattractive people with shirts like that)…. The list could go on and on, but I’ll spare you until I see any particularly hilarious ones. But people are always asking me what their shirts say and it’s really great when I get to let them know that they’re wearing something ridiculous!