It's been a year since I was in Guatemala, and a lot has happened since then. I won't try to recap everything that's happened in the interim -- it's been an eventful several months in the immigrant community in New Bedford and that really deserves its own blog post -- or two, or three.
The first several days I was in Antigua -- instead of spending a day or two in the capital to get oriented (and get in a few good runs on relatively flat surfaces), I went straight from the airport to La Antigua, since I was one of the organizers of the Guatemala Scholars Network conference that was set to start on Thursday July 6, and I wanted to make sure I was there early to see if there were any last-minute details that needed my attention. I hadn't been involved in the logistical arrangements for the conference -- those were handled primarily if not entirely by the people on the organizing committee who actually live in Guatemala. And there were a lot of logistics -- we were using a location (a space belonging to the Ministry of Culture and Sports, and part of the facilities of the Museo Nacional de Arte Guatemalteco or MUNDAG) that was only offering us the space. We had to rent tables, chairs, sound equipment, screens, and projectors. Although the space was free, the costs for all the set up ended up being quite high, and so we had to cut back on things like the coffee breaks and a dinner for participants.
The conference normally takes place every two years, but because of the pandemic, there was no conference in 2021 (the last one was 2019). In 2021, we held some virtual panel discussions, but it had been a long time. The years that the conference takes places (odd-numbered years) I plan my trip around the conference, since it's an opportunity to hear what people are working on (often scavenging ideas for my own research), network, see old friends/colleagues, meet new people researching similar topics, and so forth. Since it's not a large conference (usually around 150 people), it's more intimate and easier to schmooze and chat. I usually try to plan it so that I have at least a day on either side of the conference to enjoy Antigua -- a bit of a guilty pleasure, as one side of Antigua is geared toward tourists, so there are conveniences like upscale restaurants with many vegan or vegetarian options, yoga classes, massages, manicures and pedicures. Outside of Antigua, Guatemala City, and Xela, it's hard to find many vegetarian or pescatarian options other than eggs, beans, the occasional mojarra frita (fried sea bream -- usually the only kind of fish available), occasionally pupusas. I am not strictly vegetarian but I rarely eat meat, so I end up eating a lot of scrambled eggs with tomato and onion (a typical breakfast dish) when I am in "la área rural" -- literally, the rural area, but it refers to basically anywhere outside of the tourist towns of Antigua and Panajachel, the capital city, and Xela. So 90% of the country is, from the standpoint of the capitolinos (residents of the capital) and the upper-middle-class, the rural area. Even relatively large cities like Huehuetenango and Cobán are considered part of the "rural area" as they are located a great distance from the capital, have a majority indigenous population, and are surrounded by rural, largely indigenous small towns, villages, and hamlets.
I found a new yoga studio just up the street from my AirBnb, so I was able to take a couple of classes before and after the conference (since the conference started pretty early in the morning, I couldn't take classes during the conference because I felt responsible for being on site as much as possible -- even though I wasn't technically one of the main organizers of the conference. I'd co-organized the 2019 conference, which meant that I (along with my co-organizer) was supposed to be an advisor to this year's organizers. However, I ended up doing a lot of work on the program (reading individually submitted abstracts and grouping them thematically as best as possible into panels, assigning panel moderators, and figuring out the schedule). Once having committed that much, it was hard to let go (I did force myself to arrive later on the second and third days).
I won't go into much detail about the conference -- there were some really interesting presentations, but as I was still writing my own presentation in a scattershot fashion throughout, there were undoubtedly some fine points that I missed. But overall it was very successful. One important marker of success was that there were a lot of presenters who had not been to previous GSN conferences -- people who weren't necessarily academics but involved with NGOs or community groups.
After the conference ended, I treated myself to a wonderful meal at a new vegan restaurant called Once Once (Ohn-say Ohn-say --which means Eleven Eleven). I'm not a vegan but the menu looked very inventive and based upon actual foods, not highly processed fake meat. When I go to Antigua, which is nearly every trip to Guatemala, there are several restaurants that I almost always go to -- Luna de Miel, which has a vast menu of crepes; Tartine, which has a terrace overlooking the Cathedral and the ruins behind it; sometimes Rainbow Café, a hippie-ish hangout (they have a very good falafel platter which is what i usually get); Fernando's, where I get my coffee beans, occasional lattes, and artisanal dark chocolate for gifts. My favorite little hole-in-the-wall, La Canche, closed since its proprietor, an older woman nicknamed La Canche (the blonde one), died not long ago. I didn't poke to find out whether she died from COVID or something else, but the restaurant (if you can even call it that) is no longer. Eating at the same places is a form of settling in, but since there are always new places, this time I decided to venture a bit, so I did not eat at Rainbow or Tartine (although one of my first meals was at Luna de Miel). In addition to Once Once, I tried Kombu Ramen (also very good), and a Middle Eastern restaurant called Toko Baru (also quite good -- it wasn't my first choice but Petra, which was my first choice of a Middle Eastern restaurant, was closed the day I tried).
Part of the reason for my indulgences is that I knew that once I was in "the rural area", my food choices were going to be much more limited. I travel with my own travel coffee maker and purchase freshly ground coffee and powdered whole milk, so as long as I can get boiling water, I can make my own coffee. When I stay at people's homes, or an AirBnb or guest house with kitchen access, I make oatmeal for breakfast, and if I'm staying somewhere for several days -- especially with friends -- I'll do some cooking. But other than that, if I'm in a town where I'm at a hotel or guest house with no kitchen, it's a lot of eggs and tortillas. My rule regarding meat is, if I'm at someone's house and they kill a chicken in my honor, I'll eat the chicken.
Sunday, my only full free day, I went for a long-ish run. Running in Antigua is challenging. The streets are paved with uneven paving stones, the sidewalks are narrow and often broken, and on many streets, the sidewalks -- are interrupted with deep cuts for driveways. Since the sidewalks are narrow and the houses butt up right against the sidewalk (there are no setbacks), the driveways are only about two feet long and so they are very steep. Hence a deep cut in the sidewalk, which means a big step down and a big step up when you come to a driveway. Then the roads outside the town are very narrow also, and the shoulders are also narrow, and there is often a fair amount of vehicular traffic including buses and trucks, so you have to be very careful running. And it's hard to run in any one direction without hitting an even more heavily trafficked highway. So I settled for two hours of running instead of 2.5, and then treated myself to a pedicure, a nice lunch, and later a hot stone massage. And then the ramen restaurant -- a bowl of vegan ramen with an egg (since I'm not a vegan, and they didn't offer tofu as an option for protein) with a small glass of sake. I also don't really drink any alcohol except when in a major city. For one thing, there is rarely any decent wine available. For another, a lot of the people I know don't drink alcohol, and for a third, especially in a small town, I would be highly visible as a foreign woman. So unless I'm eating out with friends and others are drinking, I won't indulge.
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