What shall we do with the drunken sailor?

The weather this week has been great: cool, light rain in the evenings, mist on the surrounding mountains. Sometimes, I celebrate it by leaning out our tiny window admiring the green valley spread out below me- the pine trees, the fields of new corn, the serpentine strip of gravel we call a road. I could see Francisco’s straight-body flatbed truck turning around in the wide spot below our house; not an easy task. “I probably ought to get off my lazy ass and go jogging,” I thought to myself.

Jogging here is great, if the weather is cooperating. The road winds up and down through amazing scenery, and you’ll only encounter two or three cars in an entire half-hour jog. Kids smile and call out my name as I run by, and I respond with that strange sound the locals make to acknowledge a greeting: “eeyooooo!!” About five minutes into the jog, though, the 8,000+ feet of altitude start to work on me and it’s all I can do to weakly wave at them in reply.

About halfway into my jog, Francisco’s truck passed me. He’s a pretty nice guy and we did him a favor a long time ago, so he usually offers to give me a ride into town. By now, though, all the drivers know that if I am jogging I don’t want a ride, so he tapped his horn as he passed.

The countryside continued to unfold before me, donkeys braying as I pass. What luck that there isn’t any rain! The road gets pretty slippery and treacherous when wet, and a torn ligament usually means the end of Peace Corps. Before I knew it, I was at yich k’isis, a set of beautiful old cypress trees that is a local landmark. There is a tienda (general store) there, and the road is a little wider… and Francisco’s truck was sideways again, moving back and forth to get turned around in an impossibly small space. Perhaps he forgot something?

As I normally do, I ran up to the rolled-down window to greet him. “Francisco! Watx’ mi hak’ul?” I asked.

“Jaime! Buenos dias!” Nas Palas responded cheerfully. That was a surprise! I knew both the guys in the cabin. Francisco just looked at me kindof funny.

“Tz’et che yunej?” I asked him. (What are you all doing?)

Nas made a funny gesture with his hand, a sort of “Y” with the thumb pointing to his mouth. Oh no.

“We’re drinking!” Nas said. Franciso’s eyes came into focus on me, his tongue lolled out, and he added a slurred string of incomprehensible stuff in Q’anjob’al.

I backed cautiously away from the truck. “Don’t you think it might be a bad idea to drive while you’re drinking?” I asked. “You could go right off a cliff or something.” I am embarassed to say, that was the best deterrant I could think of in the moment.

Francisco’s head rolled to the side, and I could hear the truck’s gears grinding. The clutch popped, the tires spun a bit in the gravel, and they were off, lumbering back down the road the way they came. Did I mention that it was Francisco driving?

I continued my jog, bemoaning the way the locals deal with alcohol. I post about it more than I want to, and less than my encounters would indicate.

Since our valley has one dead end road, there isn’t a way to plot out a nice circular run; every time it’s a there-and-back proposition. As I made my way home on the final leg of the jog, I passed a relatively new tienda. One that I didn’t know until today sells beer.

“Jaime!” Nas called out from the tienda. Francisco was standing next to him, penis in hand, peeing on the side of his truck. I saw some beer cans on the counter, apparently they were refueling for the long journey home. “Come over here, have a beer!”

I thanked them for the offer, but explained that I would puke if I had one while I was jogging. Francisco seemed pretty insistent that I join them (he bear hugged me and said several more unintelligible sentences), but Nas was very understanding. I had a beer with him once before, and it was a culturally important thing to do at the time, but he knows I don’t get drunk. He led Francisco aside and I jogged on, making my escape.

I see so many people sabotaging their own lives here. It’s depressing. I want to help, and perhaps a more aggressive person would lecture with fire and brimstone, but I know the hard sell just alienates everyone. So I watch these things happen, put up a quiet word of caution, and get off of the road.

Postscript:
A funny ending to a not-so-funny story. When I returned home, there were a dozen people sitting around in my front yard, most of whom I know… including Manuel. “What’s up?” I asked.

“We’re going to have a family meeting,” Manuel said.

“Are you waiting for Nas?” I asked.

They nodded. “Yeah, he always does the speaking at these things,” they replied. We made small talk for about ten minutes, told some jokes, and then Lina (Nas’s wife) came up and said some stuff in Q’anjob’al. It seemed that no one knew where Nas was.

“I know where he is,” I shrugged. Everyone turned towards me.

“Why didn’t you tell us you knew where Nas was all along?” Manuel asked, mildly annoyed.

I know I shouldn’t have said what I said, but it was like Odin open up the clouds and commanded me to say it in retribution for two years of suffering this peculiar Guatemalan mode of communication.

“You didn’t ask me.”