My new jobs and stuff

I’m gonna try and make time to write another post now, the last two weeks have been really busy so I haven’t had time to sit down to write anything and it looks like the next two will be a hell of a lot busier so if I don’t do it now you may not get another till I get to the US, so I’ll make my best effort to sort it out now.

Like I say, I’ve been extremely busy for about two weeks. Basically remember how I said they gave me like six jobs to do, if you didn’t read it then go back and read all the posts that you’ve missed out you rude, rude bastard, you should be keeping up, especially since it takes me so long to write new posts. Anyway, they gave me more, so now I have a huge list of jobs and I can’t actually remember most of them, but knowing how organised they are here they probably don’t know what I should be doing anyway. Basically the guy who run’s the restraint has finally sent me the Business plan for me to look at so while I’m here I have to try translating the thing to English so I can understand it. Once I’ve read it I’m not 100% sure what they want though, I’ll give you an example of they way they give me a new job here so you can understand that the reason I don’t know what I’m doing all the time is not all because I’m incompetent:

Maria (volunteer “organiser”): Hi Richard, I have something new I need you to do (In Spanish)

Me: Ok, what is it? (in Spanish)

Maria: Thathathathathathathatha (really fast Spanish, shes from Spain where they speak a

crappy type of Spanish)

Me: ( I look perplexed) Como? (basically means “what?”)

Maria: Ok, in Engilsh… Isaul would like you to write a business plan for Buga Mama (the restaurant the charity owns in town) can you do it?

Me: Well I can… but it’s not really my area, so I can only do so much.

Maria: That’s fine, just talk to Isaul about it. (translates as, I stopped listening after “I

can” and no longer care)

(4 days later in town)(everything else is conducted in Spanglish)

Me: Hey Isaul, Maria said you needed me to help with writing a business plan

Isaul: Hola Richard, yes we have a business plan, it’s nearly done, can you help us?

Me: Yea, I can help a bit

Isaul: Ok, good…

Me:…

Isaul: (looks like he’s about to wander off to do something else)

Me: Can I see the plan?

Isaul: Yes

Me: Where is it?

Isaul: I’ll email it to you

Me: Ok, do you still have my email?

Isaul: Ummm…. No

Me: Ok (I write down my email and pass him it)

Isaul: Ok I’ll send it on Monday

Me: Ok… wait no, the internet at the project never works, can you do it before so I can get it while I’m here. It would be better if you just put it on my Ipod now.

Isaul: Ok, I’ll send you the email (something tells me we don’t understand each other all

the time)

(1 week later, back in town)

Me: Isaul, I never got that email.

Isaul: Oh yes, we have been very bust with the restaurants

Me: Could you put it on my ipod now

Isaul: Yes I have another job for you (you’ll find out more on this later, so I’ll skip this part. In the end I don’t get it on my Ipod, he says he’ll email it again)

(1 week later, back in town)

Me: Hey Isaul, I still haven’t got a email from you

Isaul: Ah yes, can we have your email address (I write it again)

Me: It would be easier if you could just put it on my Ipod

Isaul: Oh, ok that would be easier (at bloody last)

Me: So what exactly do you need me to do?

Isaul: Help with writing it

Me: In what way?

Isaul: We need you to help write it?

Me: So you want me to write it?

Isaul: No, we’ll write it.

Me: Ok so what do you need me to do?

Isaul: Look at the plan and help us in writing it

Me: Ok (I still don’t know what kind of help they need but talking in circles tends to

make me slightly embarrassed, or at least frustrated)

So now, two and a half weeks later I have this business plan translated into English and don’t know where to start, there are a few problems but most of them cannot be solved by me as I don’t actually know what the “plan” they are writing is. I can tell them a few ways to improve what they have already written but we’ll see. Or maybe not, from the looks of the plan they started writing it in 2002 and stopped in 2006, all the deadlines in the target section are in 2007. In other words, it dosnt seem like they’re taking this too seriously.

The other job I was given has been fairly interesting, basically me and one of the students from the project go over to another town whenever a cruise ship comes in and try to sell the handycrafts from the communitys. They have to send me because cruise tourists seem to be under the impression that everyone in the world speaks English, the students can get quite distressed when the 20 stone wrinkly white people start having a conversation with them in a foreign language. And it isn’t that kind of “if I speak louder then they will understand me” thing. This is more like they will ask a conversation like “what is this made of?”, the student will then reply with something like “$6”because all they know how to say in the English is usually prices. The tourist then looks sceptically at the bowl/pot/bag/whatever the product is, as if they are trying to work out how you would make a bowl/pot/bag/whatever the product is, out of six dollars. Then instead of giving up or trying again, they’ll ask something else like “did you make this?”, the student will then look round frantically, not knowing what to say. Sometimes they will say “$6” again, but usually they’ll be to distressed and just want rid of the person, so they start talking Spanish back. This has one of two affects on the tourist, either they become terrified of foreign language and hurry away. Or they go on trying to talk back in English, as if it’s a completely normal conversation. Last time that happened to Byron, the student I work with, he pretended to drop something under the stall, crawled under and didn’t come out until I was free to divert the attention the persistent tourist.

When the job was proposed to me, in that conversation with Isaul, I was told that “you will got to Santo Thomas the night before the boat arrives, stay in a hotel for the night, don’t worry we will pay for all the food while you are away from the project, then you will get up in the morning and go to sell the things to the tourists and come back here in the evening.”

There were a few things wrong with what Isaul told me about the job.

1. HOTEL MY ARSE.

I became suspicious at first on the afternoon before leaving for Santo Thomas, I met Byron and he began referring to the “hotel” as a “room”. But I wasn’t worried, “how bad could it be” I thought. Anyway we got to Santo Thomas in the evening then ate, then we started walking down a dirt track and I was thinking, what kind of hotel would they have round here. Now don’t get me wrong, I have lived in Guatemala for a few months now and I don’t expect luxury from hotels, all I expect is access to running water and a bed with sheets on it etc. That’s all. Byron walked up to a gate and I heard two dogs barking, he opened the gate and went inside closing it behind him. I looked through the gate and saw him trying to calm down these dogs, one looked like Oscar the grouch on a bad day, but the other looked like the Hound of the Baskervilles on steroids. Byron beckoned me through the gate, I wasn’t worried because the dogs had calmed down and dogs don’t bother me usually anyway. After closing the gate I turned round and saw the bigger dog staring at me, then without making a sound it went for me, it nearly had my bloody arm, but I managed to stick the bag I was holding in its mouth before it got me. It spent a few seconds trying to kill my bag before the owner came out and called it off. The damn things name is Tyson, that just sums it up, although I think Kujo would suit it slightly better.

Anyway, we opened the door to “the room”, it was an empty room apart from one bare mattress on the floor, how nice, all that was missing were the spent syringes and tin foil covered spoons. The owner was kind enough to give us a second bare mattress, so at least both of us had the luxury of sleeping on a possibly bed bug infested mattress. Oh and mattresses in Guatemala don’t contain springs, so they’re more similar to hard duvets or something, not very nice to sleep on, even with sheets.

Also we had no access to running water, or water in general as it happened, the toilet didn’t have a functioning flush (obviously) and when I asked the owner he said, you need to pour water into the bowl. When I asked where to get the water he just shrugged. So you can imagine how pleasant it is staying there for the night, especially when you have to run across the yard inhabited by the man eating dog to get to the toilet or anywhere else for that matter as our door leads directly out there.

2. The trip there is a health hazard

Ok its not like Isaul said anything to the contrary but still I think he should have warned me that all the Lancheros between Livingston and Puerto Barrios are clinically insane. They are more mad than the Lancheros from the project, and these guys have more highly powered boats. Basically the lancha we set off in was about 16 feet long, the sea was extremely rough with waves that caused the boat to pitch 45 degrees upwards whenever we hits one, this meant that when the boat reached the top of the wave, the front fell about 10 feet back down to where the sea was, now if the lanchero was sensible then maybe we would have just felt quite ill by the end of the trip. As it was, the lanchero still thought he wanted to attempt the trip in 20 minutes, which would usually require a perfectly calm sea and a less heavily loaded boat. But this gut gunned it at 40 miles an hour or more, which is pretty quick for a boat, I swear we actually got airborne a few times. The front of the boat would fall and crash back into the sea then we would all fall after it back onto our seats, somebody was transporting desktop computers and you could hear all the boards inside smashing as they collided in mid air and crashed back into the boat while the deck was on it’s way back up again. Luckily my spine is still fully functional but I’m not sure if it’s gonna last me till April when Cruise season ends.

3. If when you say morning you mean 4am, YOU DON’T GET TO SAY MORNING

I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it 4am is still night for Christ sake, it’s not morning until the sun is out, and even that is too early.

I have to get up at 4am, evade the killer dog in the yard, wash my face in the one bucket of water that the owner might put out for us, if we’re lucky. Then try to get back to the room in safety, where I get the handy crafts ready to load into a taxi to get them to the port with the cruise ship for 6am. We have the stall ready before 7am and have to wait at least another 2 hours for any tourists to turn up. Guatemalans just seem to love getting up early.

The job is actually quite amusing, cruise tourists are strange people. Generally where our stall is only gets the older people because young people actually go out into the country. The complex we set the stall up in is only for the tourists who come off the boat, walk 20 meters to the building we are in, buy some local products, then head back onto the boat to play shuffle board or whatever. I’m not sure why they go on cruises because it seems to me they might as well just go on a normal holiday then shop at Oxfam when they get home, cos you can but the same stuff there and it would be cheaper than going on a cruise. The point is, they don’t actually see Guatemala, they see a port and a big room full of people trying to sell them crap that no one in Guatemala actually wants, like bowls made of crushed banana stalks and bags they claim to have woven by hand which fall apart within about 7 minutes of you putting anything in them.

The kind of old people are strange as well, there’s enough botox in that room to paralyze a blue whale, and enough hair dye to drown the bastard afterwards. Some of the old ladies look like aliens, they have eyes which are the size of grapefruits from the way they have been stretched out by the botocs. Also their faces don’t have a wrinkle on them as they are so taught, but then they decide to wear a strappy top or something and their all veiny and disgusting. Why don’t they just admit, they’re old and decrepit and aren’t young enough to dress like a 16 year old anymore.

Last time this guy came up to the stall in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and he actually had spurs on. What the hell is that about, who the hell needs spurs on a cruise ship. I know the ships are pretty big, but I doubt there´s space for a coral on there for Christ sake. You can imagine what the guys personality was like, so I won´t bother going into details, needless to say, he was an arse.

So anyway I planned to write more but unfortunately I have to go off to another cruise ship soon, so I´ll leave it at this for now and write more later.

Later Guys