Journal 2

Here ya go. I'm staggering it so you appriciate me more.

This is Father Ignatius, for all you peoples out there.
Journal 2
After getting up bright and early (6:30), we took showers and had a fabulous breakfast at the posh hotel. Then a van is rented and the elders get into that. Father Ignatius, our tour guide for today, has a VW something or other, and so Myself, Peter and Don, and later on Dad, cram into his car. Since this is the first daylight I have seen in Guatemala City, I will now tell of the surroundings. The buildings are mostly modern, since earthquakes happen regularly (every couple months). Typically 2nd or 3rd stories, with an occasional skyscraper. These are rarer than an American city; I’d say 20-30 in the whole city, but It’s hard to say. Guatemala City is chariterics include some amazing canyons, which split sections of the city apart from each other. Airport to Posh hotel as the crow flies is like 4 minute drive. As the car drives is like 35-40 minutes. All the way around. No bridges either since people live down there.

The entire city is plagued with buses. Big ol’ American School buses, brightly painted, emitting black gusts of diesel everywhere. (Note: there is no fuel filters for any cars. None. The Entire city is a dense smog magnet. If you’re lucky, a hurricane will come by and take it all away, but those only happen every couple years or so. Winds don’t do all that much, since the geography, the smog just gets caught in the lee of buildings and such.) Fr. Ignatius said that 25-30% of people own cars. The rest take the buses. Each bus driver owns his own bus, and they all are part of a union. Since such a high percentage of people rely on buses, the bus drivers go on strike because of whatever, not enough protection, not high enough rates (The City sets the rates of the buses), etc., When that happens, the whole City shuts down. They can’t just hire more drivers, because they own the buses themselves. So nobody gets to work. Nothing happens. UNTIL the Buses drivers get what they want. This power puts the up along side the Gangs and the Military as the three major power holders.

People drive insanely fast. Way over the speed limit. Passing people. Running lights. Yeah. All of the cars are stick. When there are traffic signals, people tend to just ignore them altogether. Somehow, amidst all the commotion, there is actually less honking, flipping off, road rage etc. then there is in big cities in the states. There just isn’t. People are nicer here. Aggressive drivers, but nice. And they all use strange blinker signals. Like both turn indicators at once means you’re slowing down really fast, Flicking your light on and off, means I’m going and all sorts of weird stuff. And Hand signals. Like waves and nods and things. At one point we were doing 100 kph in a 60 kph zone. People also don’t seem to think that It’s necessary for you to fix a car once you get a ding in it. I concur. Tons of cars with scratches and dents. As long as it runs, it’s not worth the money to fix it.

Father Ignatius drove in the typical Guatemalan manner. Let me say before hand, he was a 65-70 year old man, white hair, sucking some sort of candy popper. Driving stick. The sucker never left his hand. So we’re driving from church to church (13 churches and chapels in his “Parish” or 130,000 people), and he’s giving us a casual detailed tour in English (he grew up in Chicago). He is driving aggressively (you need to, otherwise you’d never get anywhere), passing people, well over the speed limit, Stick, sucking a popper, giving a detailed tour, gesturing with the sucker in his hand.
After we went from church to church. . .
More to follow, it's just that it's gonna be a long day and I need to go to work.