Love notes from Siel is a weekly newsletter from Siel, who’s currently on a Remote Year trip around the world. If you love it, subscribe for free.
Dear friend —
As soon as we arrived in Guatemala, we witnessed a death.
Or at least a probable death. Our Remote Year group had just left the Guatemala City airport on Saturday night when two guys on a motorcycle pulled up to the right of our van. For reasons unknown, they flipped us off — and in the process managed to crash their bike into the side rail of the freeway. Their bodies flew over the rail, head over feet, hurtling toward another busy freeway below —
Only one of the two was wearing a helmet.
That’s the last our group saw of them — their bodies hurtling through the air. We don’t know what the impact of their landing was because the van did not stop to find out. In fact, it didn’t even slow down. Some members of our group immediately started freaking out, but the driver just kept on driving like nothing had happened.
“The police are already on their way,” one of the local leader guys rationalized. “Punks.”
*
Despite this violent beginning, my time in Guatemala so far can only be described as peaceful. For one, I’m staying not in Guatemala City but in Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage Center famous for its gorgeous Spanish colonial architecture and cobblestone streets.
The place is popular with tourists and expats. The morning after my arrival, I woke up in a canopy bed in a spacious casita to trilling bird calls and a slow sunrise. Light streamed in from the skylight, warming the cool stone tiles.
The first thing I did was check the news, but I didn’t find anything about a motorcycle accident on the freeway. Was it realistic to think two men dying might make the news? Perhaps not…. Perhaps if ten men had performed a collective self-destructive swan dive onto the freeway —
Thinking along these lines reminded me of a short story by Dan Keane I’d read years before in Zoetrope. Called “AP Style,” the story features back-and-forth drafts and notes between an Associated Press string writer in South America and his editor, who continuously quibble over what’s newsworthy, what’s of interest, what qualifies as tragic. Here’s how it starts:
LA PAZ, Bolivia—Police say 24 people were killed in a tragic accident Monday when a bus plunged from a narrow mountain road.
MEMO FROM MEXICO CITY:
Not everything sad is tragic. Evaluate on case-by-case basis. More Bolivia context please.
*
What do most Americans know about Guatemala? I don’t know much — and to be honest I don’t know much about Central or South America in general. I’ve tried to remedy this ignorance by reading books set in Peru and Colombia the last couple months, but I have a long way to go. I would guess many Americans can’t readily distinguish the various countries — e.g. state with confidence what makes Bolivia different from Guatemala — let alone place them on a map. The news we get about Central and South Americas tends to lump countries together, so that we learn to think of our southern neighbors as one big mass — known for civil wars and general political unrest, as well as beautiful beaches and cheap vacation opportunities.
*
On the flight from Medellin to Guatemala City, I sat next to a man called Jorge, who’d been traveling for close to 24 hours, starting with a train ride in Germany. The train had arrived two minutes late, a tardiness for which Jorge said the staff had apologized profusely — everything was so proper and timely there, unlike in Guatemala.
Jorge told me he’d grown up in Guatemala — that was what he considered home — though he’d been living in Germany for the last six and a half years, having moved there to join some family members including his mother, who’d moved there many years before for her work as an engineer. Why had Jorge left Guatemala? There weren’t a lot of life opportunities in Guatemala, he said — opportunities for people to change and improve their lives. It sounded like he’d done alright for himself though: In Guatemala Jorge had worked in sales and distribution for Unilever. Now, in Germany, he worked in distribution for Amazon.
Things ran on time and traffic was very orderly in Germany, Jorge said, but this wasn’t because the people are different there, it’s because the laws are stricter. Apparently, fines for traffic infractions are steep, which keeps everyone in line. “But in Guatemala, you can do anything, and you don’t pay fines, so people do whatever they want.”
In one place you get more order, more safety. In another, more freedom, more chaos.
*
On Sunday night, a group of us went to a restaurant for dinner. That’s where I found out that the two motorcycle guys had indeed made the news — or at least made it into a post on a Facebook page called Noticias Don Justo SCP, self-described as a news publication. The post showed a photo of a nighttime traffic jam with emergency responders at the front. Bright red and yellow jackets, ambulances, and a couple stretchers crowded onto a stretch of a freeway.
Actual news was scant. The text read:
#URGENTE 🚨 PRELIMINARMENTE MOTORISTA Y U ACOMPAÑANTE CAEN EN EL PASO A DESNIVEL DEL OBELISCO QUEDANDO GRAVEMENTE HERIDOS EN JURISDICCIÓN DE ZONA 13 CERCA DEL RELOJ DE FLORES🚨👇🏻
Based on the comments on the post, someone at the table deduced that one of the two guys had died.
The restaurant overlooked an active volcano. Every fifteen minutes or so, it erupted and glowed red, and we’d all turn to admire it and take photos.
Love,
Siel
Three links you might love:
Want to read Dan Keane’s story “AP Style”? You can find it in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014.
Playing video games for millions of dollars isn’t exactly a dream job. A profile of a Twitch star paints a stressful picture.
People are quitting their jobs and announcing their newfound freedoms very publicly. “Work is the largest time block of the day, in a moment where we’ve all learned how precious time can be. People simply want to spend that time getting the dignity and respect denied to them for so long.”