Guate Rock

Despite the frantic pace of our lives as we try to get things sealed up here, I had to take a trip this weekend to go visit Dan. He’s the last of my friends that I’d promised to visit, and we’re about out of time.

Traveling by myself in Guatemala is kindof strange, since Emily and I go almost everywhere together. This was the third time I’ve done it in our entire service, and I have to say, it was sortof fun. Like us, Dan lives “Hue, Hue out there” and the trip involved three different busses and about 9 hours of travel. The roads are not direct: I had to go over the Cumbre then back though Todos Santos, and it’s quite a haul. Out of curiosity, I checked on Google Earth to see how far apart we REALLY are, as the crow flies. The answer?

Thirteen miles. 13. I can’t get my head around that.

You could probably make that hike in a day, if you knew the way and your mountain legs were up to it. And to give you a better idea of how powerful and effect geography has on human culture and development, bear in mind that if you walked that journey, you’d go through four different ethnic/linguistic regions: The Q’anjob’al speakers (where we live), the Chuj in Coatán that we see across the valley, the Mam people all around Totos Santos, and finally the Poptí in Dan’s site.

I’m glad I went. His site is beautiful, and he gets even fewer visitors than we do… he said I was the second in two years. Speaking of years, Dan is the one person in our group that is going to extend his service for the extra year. He’s got a lot of good stuff going on in his site: the mayor has asked him to start an Alcoholics Anonymous program (very badly needed!!), he’s working on a SPA project, he’s the goalie on his town’s soccer team, and he’s the lead singer for a Guatemalan heavy metal band.

Which brings us back around to the point of this post.

Dan’s been cooking up this idea for months, to bring his band to play some metal at the annual All-Volunteer Conference and 4th of July Party. He called me up a month or two ago, and it went like this:

Dan: “Hey.”

Me: “Hey.”

Dan: “My band is thinking about playing at the 4th.”

Me: “Sweet. Do it.”

Dan: “You once told me you played bass in a band back in the US.”

Me: “Yeah, I played with The Hoot Hoots. Why?”

Dan: “We don’t have a bass player. You know any Metallica?”

So, basically, I was hooked. I like heavy metal, but I don’t have a lot of experience with it. The good news is that metal bass lines are pretty easy to learn, and the people running the party are only allowing bands to play two songs each. His band is into Mexican speedmetal (um, what?) but also likes Metallica, Twisted Sister, and Black Sabbath/Ozzy. This week was our dress rehearsal.

Dan’s band practices in a creepy little concrete room beneath a darkened bus-repair garage that smells of mildew and used engine oil. This tiny acoustic burial vault is packed with amps, equalizers, microphones, speakers, audio cables, mixing boxes… and instruments. This is good, since I left my bass in the US when I came to Peace Corps. “The ex-mayor lets us use this stuff. I have no idea where it came from.”

As the amps started warming up the damp, chilly cell, I was introduced to his VERY youthful band. Handshakes and smiles all around, then we got down to business. As best we could, anyway, in a room that small packed with a dozen teenage fans that follow the band to every performance and rehearsal. “They’re pretty stoked to have a bassist,” Dan shouted in English over the din of guitars tuning. “Lucas says that metal without a bassline is like a softdrink without the sugar.”

I couldn’t agree more. And I am the Sugar Daddy.

Pedro, the drummer, hammered away like he was the happiest person in the world, and Lucas picked out the riffs like a good boy should. Dan, for his part, growled the lyrics to a wide range of metal tunes, showing off the special skill that sets him apart from every other singer within a day’s drive: he speaks English. We rocked the evening away, until everyone went home with bleeding eardrums and smiling faces.

Despite how much fun it was, it’s probably good that we only get two songs; most mortals have a limited tolerance for heavy metal. In fact, Dan was worried about scaring off the audience. “I’ve been thinking maybe we should learn a Beatles song. Twist and Shout?”

“Yeah, that’s a crowd pleaser,” I shrugged. “We used to play that with the Hoot Hoots, and it got people dancing. Sometimes girls threw underwear.” After a trial run with his boys, though, it looked like Twisting and Shouting was out of the picture. Mexican speedmetal doesn’t do 60’s Fab Four.

“Maybe we should just do two Metallica songs?” I suggested. “Your band seems to like them the best, and those are the ones I’ve been practicing. That, and if the audience is going to hate it, a Beatles song at the end isn’t going to change their minds anyways.”

Dan nodded. If you are going to do a thing, you have to do it all the way. No prisoners. Heavy metal style. “OK. I’ll get the wigs ready.”