The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Teaches Us...

This afternoon I attempted to change money at the bank. The bank itself is an experience. Every bank, major store and piece of important infrastructure has armed guards. These fellows like to flirt with the gringas and they tend to treat the barrels of their machine guns as extensions of their arms, gesturing here and there with them. Needless to say, this does not put the ladies at ease.

The wait at the bank, as with other institutions, is always extensive. Everything takes forever. I've developed a theory about this. I think that the overabundance of bureaucracy in Guatemala is intentional. It’s the opposite of the States. Everything is inefficient in order to maximize human contact. A half-hour wait at the bank is an opportunity to meet the next person in line and hear their life story, which most people will gladly give.

The bureaucracy here also seems to stem from a sense of national self-importance. For instance, institutions here are also very gun-ho about stamping. They stamp every single document with great zeal. At Celas Maya, every other page of each textbook is stamped with the school seal. Not only does the bureaucracy create jobs within organizations, it creates jobs for bureaucracy experts outside the organizations. People hire these experts for simple tasks, like registering cars and marriages, because otherwise they can take weeks.

Just as I stepped outside, the three o'clock afternoon deluge began. The rain here is nothing like that of Seattle. It begins abruptly, forcing everyone to duck for cover. Is has such intensity that you think the sky is going to fall down with the weight of the water. But it ends just as abruptly as it begins, everyone returning to their business. The sidewalks here are generally around three feet tall, and after the rain you understand why. The streets become rivers. This is a blessing because it washes all the garbage and excreta away, leaving the city feeling fresh. It’s also a curse, because, just like Seattle, cars drive through the puddles that accumulate at corners, resulting in a fantastic arc of water and an extremely wet passerby.

Eventually, wet and wary, I made it home. As unloaded by bag, I realized that my passport, which I needed to change money, was nowhere to be found. I turned the bag inside out and my room upside down looking for it, but it was gone. When I left the bank, I stuck my passport in the top of my bag, and velcroed and clipped it shut. Then I took off running across the park. Somewhere along the way it must have fallen out. Needless to say, I was a little hysterical. I retraced my steps to no avail. After an hour or so of hyperventilating, I resigned that it was lost, and resolved to stay calm and call the embassy tomorrow. I became more upset about the pretty passport picture, the assortment of stamps and the need to spend a day in Guate than the ability to actually reenter the United States.