Classic Guatemala

Nothing too good to report from down here. Just thought some of you might like to hear about a run I recently went on. It all started when I answered a phone call from a number that wasn’t saved in my phone. Francisco is a pretty smart guy. After realizing that most of his calls to me go unanswered, he came up with the perfect solution: payphones, the most recent advancement in Guatemalan technology. Francisco had recently passed me in a pick-up truck while I was out on a run and had decided that as a 40 year old man, it was time to get in shape. Frank is 5 inches shorter than me and 20lbs heavier, but he assured me he was up for it. A little skeptical of the whole thing, I almost called it off, but Frank did help me get involved with the local soccer teams when I arrived a year and a half ago so I figured I owed him one.  

It didn’t take long for Frank to reveal his real motive for joining me on this 5:30am run. I’ve heard it a million times before, “I need help getting to the states.” It always starts off as a minor favor.

-“Can you write a letter to the embassy inviting me to stay with you in the US?” 

“Frank, I am more than happy to help you out and write you a letter but a letter from me is not going to help you at all.” (They usually think I know the president, or at least, that I’m friends with the ambassador)

-“Okay, thanks man. Maybe you can also help me out with a little money. I only need about 7000 more dollars.”

After bursting out laughing, I explained to Frank that I have never even had $7000. I continued to explain the whole college loan deal in America and after a couple minutes he realized there was no money to be had. We ran on in silence as he registered everything I was telling him and then moved on to other conversations. It took him a few minutes to regroup and to mentally piece together all the intricate parts of his next great plan. 

-“Mateo, I know what we can do”, he told me. 

“Let’s hear it.”

-“Mateo, you can adopt me! And then I’ll be your son and you can take me back to the states with you.”

Brilliant. 

He didn’t quite grasp the fact that I couldn’t adopt him, apart from the fact that he is married with 4 kids of his own. He was not ready to take no for an answer, arguing that nobody would ever know that he had his own kids. I then pointed out the small issue of him being about twice my age and that I was pretty sure you can only adopt children, but that didn’t faze him. He told me about a volunteer adopting someone 15 years ago who was also too old to be a child. I asked how old and he told me,  “I don’t know, 9 or 11 I think”. Good ol' Guatemala.

Since I brought up running, I thought I might quickly tell you another fun fact about running in Guate. Most Guatemalans know at least one word of English and they love to practice when they see me. On the last run I did I had the following words shouted out to me as I ran:

"ALRIGHT"

"SHIT"

"CHICKEN"

"RAMBO"

"DOG"