My relationship with my Blackberry Pearl is on the rocks since we got to Guatemala. We don’t talk as much anymore- when we first started it was hard to tell my hand from its curvy little frame. Now I’m looking at other phones, I admit it, not just once in a while, but every time when we go out, I look at other mobile-users bending lovingly towards their iPhones, their Sidekicks or the new Ericssons. Instead I keep my Blackberry in my bag, buried beneath the lint, small coins and religious flyers deep at the bottom. I pick up my cheap Tigo phone on which I can listen to radio for free but have to write phone numbers down in my notebook.
It stopped being us against the First World, showing them who rules in this EDGE land of simple data transfer to Blackberry configured RIM networks and manual WAP configurations. But when I left AT&T’s data plan it was 12 hours of Tigo customer “support.” Back then I believed we could do it, we didn’t need to jail break each other, we could conquer the world, and not be afraid of PDOA (Public Display Of Access). Imagine a PDOA with an iPhone here on the street in Guatemala or on the chicken bus, riding through the smokey sunset. We laughed at them. But now I have to use the browser on my phone to get to my Gmail, my Twitter, my Facebook, my WordPress; things just aren’t the same without the shortcuts of love we had for each other everyday.
But today when the most competent of the Tigo guys I’ve spoken with all week said to me: “Seño, fíjese, que ya no podemos hacer nada ni AT&T ni Tigo ni Blackberry porque es el software de Blackberry y va tener que llevarlo a installer software para que trabaje con otras frecuencias.” Well, something broke. Shattered is really the word and it was my faith in the crackberry that has been my best friend for three years, three countries, three phones (the same model), just a different SIM card in each country and it was us and the open road. So I’m at a point where my friends are telling me, have you considered therapy? Have you tried time apart? Seeing other phones? I’m not sure I want to invest any more time in it but, I’m not ready to leave either. I mean we still look good together, but we’re more like friends. Just friends. Maybe it’s for the best.
The hardest part about getting to know Guatemala is the lack of signage and good directions. Going north is “para arriba” (you want me to drive towards the sky?), “recto” cannot be confused with “derecho” (as they say in Mexico) – a direction indicating you need to go straight, “para aya” could mean right or left, and “no esta muy lejos” could mean it’s 1 km or 10 km away. It’s also true, as our friend Rudy Giron informs us, that when all else fails, “just follow the hand” because words don’t often capture the complexity of gestured directions. Very few of the towns have names so you never really know when you’re there. The best signage I’ve seen so far besides Antigua is Jocotenango which has a wall painted with its name on the narrow left side of the street as your trying to swerve incoming traffic. Otherwise, it’s rare to see a city sign making it clear where you’ve just arrived. In speaking to a colleague at Namaste who lives near Santiago, I am informed, that it’s a larger problem with infrastructure and municipalities getting funds for things such as city and road signage. Some towns started hand painting their signs on cardboard, but when the rains came, well, it poured.
Knowing this we embark on our first “excursion” into nature since we got to Guatemala about three weeks ago (yes we’ve been working hard). We play it safe and head for Finca El Pilar for some hiking, bird watching and swimming. The hardest part, of course, is finding decent directions to get there. So we do our research in several guides, give the bird sanctuary a call (no one answers), the Antigua tourist directory, Inguat, read Revue mag’s article on Pilar (a map would have worked better than the vague directions at the end), but to no avail. So we take to the streets to pool the collective knowledge about how to get there. “Hay seño es para aya! Recto recto y despues sube!” For how many kilometers? “Hay, esta cerca.”
We do a few roundabouts near our house and we find out that it’s about a twenty minute walk through a cobblestoned road with greenhouses lining part of the path, wildflowers and finally, the finca itself which looks like the pedrería that it is. “They sell rocks here? Huh? I thought we were going hiking?” Brad says. That’s what the hand painted sign on the tall wall in front of us says, I tell him, and then we see the pools on the left and the tall looming mountain which I am well aware we’re going to climb. Brad doesn’t know yet, but he’s about to find out what 5 km uphill through fincas and a canopy of banana leaves feels like.
I’ve finally got my iPhone alive & kicking on a pre-paid Tigo chip! Yes, both voice and data. Why is this so kick-ass? Because AT&T’s international data plan is both limited and super-expensive, and the iPhone contracts available here in Guatemala aren’t any better. The whole country is on pre-paid chips, amigo- and you can be too, even with your super gringo phone. Here’s how:
1. Jailbreak and unlock your iPhone. Easier said than done, and step-by-step instructions are beyond the scope of this post. Don’t fear, a Google search will yield several decent tutorials for you. For my iPhone 3G, which is on firmware 3.0.1, I used redsnOw to jailbreak and ultrasnOw, downloaded and executed via Cydia, to unlock.
2. Insert a Tigo SIM chip into your iPhone. There is no “especial cheep” or some esoteric 3G frequency that only Movistar operates on- just put in a plain old pre-paid chip like you get at the Bodegona! It can even be a previously activated chip from another phone.
3. Power off your iPhone, click your heels three times, and then power back on. “Comcel_GSM” should display where the AT&T logo used to be, in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. You should now be able to make calls.
4. Call Tigo service at *611. Tell them you got a new smart phone and you need them to switch on the data functionality for your number. This is where it helps to speak Spanish. Anyway, they’ll be like, “Bueno dude,” and tell you to turn off your phone, wait five minutes, and turn it back on.
5. Turn off your iPhone, wait five minutes, and turn it back on. Sounds silly, but your phone needs to receive the new configuration from Tigo and this will only happen after it re-connects to the network.
6. Send an SMS message to: 102, with the body of the message: Tigo
7. Navigate to Settings/General/Network/Cellular Data Network and enter: broadband.tigo.gt in the Cellular Data/APN field and the MMS/APN field.
8. Launch Safari, check your email or watch babies dance on YouTube to verify that your iPhone is indeed receiving data on the Tigo 3G network!
Please note that jailbreaking your iPhone will void your Apple warranty, could possibly permanently damage your Iphone and God will kill a kitten. Maybe I should have put that at the beginning of this post. Anyway, buena suerte!
By some strange omen, I wake up to BBC TV advertising a new show called “Connecting the Dots” and I pause to look at the graphic of the world rotating and their reporters connecting across the globe in Africa, New Zealand, Asia. Synthesis, I think, ingesting massive amounts of noise and putting filters on it like your sink strainer to capture the gunk, that’s what reporters do. On Hablaguate and HablaHonduras, everyday I filter the noise of Tweets, blogs, newspaper RSS feeds, Facebook group invites, Skype chats, CNN, Telesur and radio streams galore. By noon, it’s time for a different kind of noise, so Brad and I head out on our first walk into Antigua, before the afternoon rains. It’s growing more humid by the hour so we walk quickly into the plumes of black smoke from the Pana bound buses. We’re combining exercise and one errand: to pay the electric bill. Seems simple enough, except it’s something you can only do in person because like many things in Guatemala, people don’t answer the phones. In this way I feel like I live a double life of efficiency and inefficiency.
Around midnight everyday I call the US using my Vonage to deal with fraud charges on credit cards, DHL shipping, Zappos return policy on overseas shipments, banking, loan deferments, everything one wants to do hand in hand with a midnight snack and feel productive for every calorie consumed. In one hour I get money back, have a credit for a pair of shoes when I get home and have two phones lines on Vonage fixed and ready to go. In Guatemala I am still waiting, 10 days after my 4 hour sunning session outside RENAP Antigua to get my identity – date and place of birth – to be added to the national identification database by RENAP in Morales, Guatemala. (I have a birth certificate, but it’s not valid anymore because the agency that issued my birth certificate is no longer an authorized legal entity because with the new national identification system, old municipalities’ power to legalize births is defunct as it were). So, Guatemala is in an identity transition, literally. So what’s the delay in adding my date of birth and confirming location of birth to the database, I ask my now good friend, Duny at the RENAP office in Jocotenango? “Señorita Andrade, nobody answers the phones there so we can’t request they add you to the national database.”
Can we call their supervisors to oversee the process, I ask? “No, porque no hay una linea, no hay un proceso que le puedo gesionar. Es el mismo sistema que no podemos avancar.” Meaning, there is no oversight or process that I can guide you through, but she has their cellphones (which she can’t share with me) so she will keep calling until someone answers. Does email work, I ask? “No señorita, they don’t answer those either.” I tell her there’s GChat on the RENAP Web site and that I just got on it and someone in Morales answered and said: “Try calling a different day.” She is confused, so she tells me the story of a man she knew who it took months for him to get his information online in their database.
“I think it was finally done because he went to Morales (7 hours away!) to personally request it. I would recommend you do the same thing.” I take this in and see her thinking behind it. Now this is balancing act, I tell her, because we want to model doing things the way that RENAP is trying to set a standard for right? By me going in person doesn’t it mean I am going back to an old model and undermining the newer, more standardized way of doing things? Silence. “I understand your point, señorita, but there is no other way.” I tell her we can blitz Krieg and clear the way for those ahead of me doing the same thing in Morales. I tell her I am patient and I will call her and all the RENAP folks involved everyday because it’s in my Google Calendar and the pop up window is irritating enough for me to call. I tell her I am a reporter and am not afraid to call over and over and over and over again. She laughs. One hour later as I am walking to Antigua, Duny, calls me again with good news: “You’ll be happy to hear that you’re online, señorita. On Monday you can go to Jocotenango and get your DPI.” Sometimes the gods punish us by giving us what we want.
As I walk into town with Brad the humidity makes the collar of my shirt like an old scratchy corncob. But I get into it, I’m from here, this Guatemalan body was made for walking, scaling mountains even back in the day of the ancestors. On 5th Ave I ask a few people on the street where they pay their electricity and they point towards the Banco Industrial hole in the wall entrance that only has an ATM and tunnel like passage with a defunct metal detector and a security guard with a an AK47. I tell him I am here to pay my “power” and not electricity (after being corrected a few times) and he scoots me over to one line. The line moves fast for the people with their paper bills, but I do not have one, I am paying our landlady’s bill and she lost her paper trail. I tell them her address and all the identifying info for her and they smile and shake their heads. “Disculpe, solo podemos utilizar el contador.” We can only use the meter number to identify her house and the bill. I point at their computers and ask if they can’t find her in the database. No, they tell me, those are only for keeping meters and costs incurred by meter numbers. “But numbers are made of people,” I tell them and ask is there no way to connect her to her address? Well, maybe they tell me, but I have to go to the BIG Banco Industrial and the MAIN Empresa Electrica. At this point Brad is about to take a Tuk Tuk home, but I ask him to go along with me so we can figure out how things are connected.
At the BIG bank we move through line quickly and we get to the teller and ask to pay the bill. “Do you have the meter number?” She asks. I sigh. “I had a feeling you’d ask me that.” She sends me upstairs, but before I go up we ask about where we can pay online so we don’t have to go through this again. She doesn’t have the Web address, but she informs us that as long as we have a Banco Industrial account, we can pay online. But what if you don’t I ask? She shrugs, we move upstairs as the storm breaks and the skies weep from the weight of it. Upstairs at the BIG Empresa Electrica, I expect a computer-lined hallway with massive databases. A security guard, also with a gun, greets me and so I tell him we need to connect a person to her address to get her meter number and then pay her bill. She walks me over a few inches to the phone next to him and dials customer support for the National Empresa Electrica. Brad sits down and watches the rain come down. I wait and wait and go through two attempts to connect her name to her address to her meter. “Favor de asegurar que ese es el nombre del la dueña.” But that is her name and that is her house and everything is under her name, I inform the representative. Well, I’m sorry, he tells me, but she does not exist in his system. I tell him, just try one more time, but just by street to find her name. “I’m sorry, señorita, but then you would get someone else’s bill and that’s private information.” Now, I tell him, do you think I would really pay someone else’s bill if you pulled it up and that didn’t match her name? I tell him to look one more time but just by her street name. He refuses. I ask him if he likes baseball. He says, yes, of course. Then strike me out, I tell him, give me three chances and if on the third try nothing comes out then I hang up the phone. Silence. “I’m sorry, I looked under her street name, and she is not in my system. I guess that means you’re out, too.” Yes, I tell him, fair is fair.
Sorry peeps, it’s just too damn hot to wear pants today! I apologize, but for the next 12 hours I will be exposing my sexy gringo legs, pictured below. Anyway I know it’s not kosher on this side of the border but hey what can I say- I’m one of those brash, iconoclastic Americano types. Thanks in advance for your understanding.
Lightning struck a big generator in Esquintla and that has caused the massive black out in Guatemala. We are down to 15 departments and some zones like zone 11 in Guatemala City have electricity. It’s nuts because my cousin in Chiquimula, there hours northwest of Guate City, is in the dark. I am definitely going to look into a generator after this. I also have many ideas for what to do with HablaGuate for power outage alerts and working with Radio Sonora. Back to my book, where is the backlight on my kindle!
There’s no signs of electricity for kilometers. Radio Sonora reports 18 departments in Guatemala are without electricity, including Guatemala City. The airport and hospitals are running off their own generators and all national flights are suspended for now. All traffic lights in Guate city are off in major areas so it’s chaos on the street, Radio Sonora advises getting on smaller streets. We have been without electricity the past hour in San Lucas. Course it’s just me, Lightnin’ Hopkins and my Macbook. Even the Tigo wifi usb has failed me. Might be time for a book or the next blackberry battery.
I’m from Guatemala, but I’m really not from here. I was born in Bananera– the United Fruit Company’s very own labor town– and spent some time in Guatemala City until in 1982, at the age of five, I joined the immigration tide of thousands of people fleeing Guatemala’s civil war, poverty, gangs and corruption to enter the United States illegally.
Twenty-seven years later, I’m back to find out what it means to live in Guatemala and to do my work as an online journalist setting up a citizen news site. My family doesn’t quite understand why I’ve returned after they risked their lives to journey to the United States. They don’t get this in the same way as they’re confused by people in Beverly Hills paying more money to live in the hills, in el monte, when people in Guatemala pay more money to get out of the hills for lack of electricity, access to food and livelihood.
What they do know is now that I’m here, I’ve become their bridge back– if at least to ask the bus prices, coordinate airport pickups, or provide updates on the violence, weather reports, and my latest bureaucratic hell trying to get a lease for an a apartment, getting a DPI or bank account. I remind them that I don’t know what it means to live in Guatemala than any other extranjero, foreigner, and living in Antigua makes me an extranjero twice over. The most common question from my family: “Why are you living in Antigua? No Guatemalans actually live there!” Safety and small town values, I tell them.
Regardless, my “Americanisms” (que gringa eres!) are coming out because I have expectations such as:
Things that are broken are fixed quickly or in a reasonable time frame. Why spend the time writing a sign for a broken door bell instead of spending the time to fix it?
Reason and efficiency conquers most problems
Internet is fast and steady and ubiquitous
Web sites make sense and at least have a “Contact Us” section for emails
People respond to emails within a few hours
“Yes” means “Yes” and “No” means “No” unless otherwise indicated
Prevention, prevention, prevention
When and where is my recycling getting picked up?
The information booth is clearly marked and evident
Customer service is golden and the customer is always right
I can just call or email to get my questions answered instead of waiting in line
Vegetarian means I don’t want more vegetables with my meat
When I order food I don’t expect two spoonfuls of sugar to be added
People will be able to tell I’m Guatemalan
There are so many more, I’m almost ashamed to admit them. While there are things about my looks and my personality that provide me with a-ha! moments reflecting upon the importance of nurture and perhaps even nature if you believe in culture genes being inherited.
In the past week, however, my inner chapina has also surfaced in negotiating getting an apartment (with a lease notarized and written by a lawyer of course), figuring out Telgua’s 2-year contracts for bundled plans (why in a communications company no one answers the office phone is baffling), and figuring out how to get my national identification card which helps me get my first bank account in Guatemala (“Sorry ma’am, the issuing agency for your birth certificate has gone out of business, so your birth certificate is no longer valid”).
Here are the things that my family and I agree are indicators of being a chapin:
Getting a “No” for a response means you’ve asked the wrong question or the wrong person
If you want to know what you need to turn in for paperwork, just ask the person in front of you in line
Why anybody does anything is a waste of time, just keep moving and do what you can do today and leave the rest for tomorrow
Dichos are your everyday guiding wisdom. “No hay mal que por bien no venga.”
Always smile, be cordial and very polite. Better to be nice and get what you need than be arrogant and get nothing
If you have a problem with something, just tell the person behind you in line
Just drop by, don’t worry about calling
Get there when you get there, people will understand
Ask a lot of questions and then ask more, someone will be able to help you
Never tell people where you live because you just never know
Just worry about it when it happens
Why do you want people to know you’re Guatemalan, nobody cares about Guatemala
Broad strokes perhaps, but I think the essence and a certain seed of truth useful for reflecting upon cultural identity can be found in somewhere in there. At the very least, a moment of reflection for how these things express themselves in a more mundane way. Odyssean and metaphorical journeys aside, this is how I find my way back to where I started. But then again, como La India Maria, I am neither from here, nor there, that space in between is my home.
Telgua is the national phone company– they’re the only game in town. So, when you complain to them that they never answer their customer service number, they really don’t care. Just one advantage of being a monopoly I guess. Anyway, we tried to get the representative helping us to give us his cell phone number in case we had any problems with our service in the future. In Guatemala, it’s pretty common for a salesperson, bank teller, dry cleaner or whatever to give you their personal cell number instead of their company’s land-line. Anyway, dude said they weren’t allowed to do that, because Telgua employees aren’t permitted to use their cell phones at work. He told us this as literally three different red shirts sauntered by his desk blabbing on their mobiles. Kara snapped this awesomely incriminating pic soon thereafter.
We had the pleasure of meeting Jeanfer today, once again through the cordial social network of the maestro. Jeanfer made headlines recently with his infamous tweet that landed him in the pokey. When asked about the conditions of jails in Guatemala, he simply states that there were a lot of dudes in there that you wouldn’t want to invite home for dinner. What a bad-ass! Anyway, the man is free today and back online- as proven by this totally staged photo I made him and Kara pose for:
In a new country, sometimes even small tasks like calling the operator can be a challenge. A little humor and a lot of patience can go a long way. FYI: 1524 is not the telephone number for the operator in Guatemala- it’s actually a diabetes center. Thanks @jeanfer for the info.
It’s 6:43pm in Zona Viva, Guatemala City and we’re getting nowhere fast. In fact, in the past hour we’ve advanced only a couple kilometers as we crawl back to Antigua after our security briefing at the American Embassy. More on that later- for now it’s the oh-so-authentic experience reminiscent of being shoved through a funnel with traffic cop glow sticks while listening to “Footloose” on the Crazy For The 80’s radio station. Note to selves: never attempt entry or departure into the capital between the hours of 5-7pm!
Initially this road blog was just that- a blog about our experiences along the the road(s) from California to Guatemala. OK, mission accomplished! But now that we’re here in Antigua, the question is do we continue to write articles and post pix? Or should we call it a day and simply revert newmaya.org back to Kara’s personal periodista site?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the internet does not need another blog. And it definitely doesn’t need any more “corporate” blogs, even though as a former agency-employed web designer I’m guilty of rolling out my fair share of these. But I digress- Kara and I have decided to keep our updates coming! We get about 100 hits per day so hey, somebody must be enjoying Brad’s allergic reaction and Kara’s haunted hat, and they’re hopefully getting some useful information about traveling and living in Central America- from the unique perspective of an Americano and Chapina married couple. Almost sounds like a sit-com, no?
So, thanks for tuning in and we promise to keep the content relevant and fat-free. Er, as fat-free as you can get here in Latin America, jajaja!
