Yesterday, no, the day before, I traveled from my little concrete igloo in Pachaj down to Guatemala City. I noticed, I guess like usual even though it always feels like the first time, all the people who board the buses to sell stuff. They sell food, drinks, notebooks, How to Learn English books, heart balloons, weird medicines - the usual. But there are also the handful of hurt and broken people to board to ask for money, somehow mostly men, who present missing limbs, deformed body parts, are blind and deaf, can't walk, and so on. These people are heart-breaking for the obvious reasons, I couldn't imagine not having full range of movement and my senses, but also because in Guatemala the reality is far more cruel than if they were in the States. Substitute "Guatemala" for any country developing and substitute "the States" for anywhere else. Since the average bus-goer in Guatemala doesn't have much disposable income themselves, the giving is light to these folks. The money in my pocket is plentiful at the moment having just finish my summer course, and I'm a chronic giver-when-I-got-it type of person. But the "Dios te bendiga" from a man with some kind of deformed too-small left arm and head tick is just too, too much for my measly donation of about 75 US cents. But I figure if I give more than Q5 - already an above-average donation - I'd be some wacky rich Gringa (ok, which may not be super far from the truth) doling out money. It's complicated. But it renews my dedication to doing whatever it is I can do to be useful in a moment, in an hour, in a week, whatever, and to acknowledge the struggle of people who were, for no good reason, born less fortunate than myself.

I'm hesitant to write stuff like that out in the open, but oh well.

Last night I was walking down 7th Avenue in the capital's zone 1. On my way to my favorite nighttime joint, Las 100 Puertas, I happened to look in the window of a Pollo Campero restaurant and I saw Don Reynaldo. In case you have a superhuman memory, yes it was the Don Reynaldo whose cowboy hat had a bullet hole in it and whose bag I pictured on this very blog. I met him, and another man also at Pollo Campero last night, during the mining delegation in April. I went in to say hello. After 6 years of being in Latin America, on and off of course, and some years previously in school, my Spanish is still pretty lame when it comes to being "cool". I tripped all over myself approaching the men finishing up their fried chicken but managed to get out the key words: visit, Graham (the leader of the delegation), Lote 9, village. With that much Don Reynaldo was like, Oooooh yeaaah. I shook their hands and wished them buen provecho and left.

Then as I entered Las 100 Puertas I saw the lead singer of one of my all-time favorite Guatemalan rock bands. And I only recognized him because I sorta-sorta met him a few weeks back because he happens to be pals with my co-instructor Juancho. But nonetheless I was stoked that within minutes I recognized all these folks, in a place I consider to be, well, partly weird still and partly "home". But to this guy I did not say hello - he's a rockstar!

I'm devouring a book right now which was recently issued as a "limited edition" (whoo) called Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny by Jean-Marie Simon. I picked up a tourist rag in Antigua the day my course ended and read about the re-release of this book into Spanish. The original edition came out in the 80s and in English. So this morning before going to the airport I stopped at a book store and dropped a cool stack of quetzales to have some airplane reading. And lastly, the Houston airport is as freaky as I remember. Well my port-of-entry would probably be freaky no matter what. Off to Brian's wedding in Sandpoint, ID!