How much time a week do you spend shopping? Food shopping, a pharmacy or convenience store run? A trip to Target? I probably used to go to Target at least once a week, Kroger two or three times a week, and maybe a trip to a mall-like place on the weekends. Raising a family, it seems like shopping is a constant activity, aside from being kind of a recreational sport. I knew what I was getting into. We all kind of know that shopping in other cultures is different. I even prepared by shopping ahead for a lot of necessities like toiletries and clothes in the next sizes for the kids. But reality is tough here when it comes to shopping. People are always asking what I miss from the States. And to be honest, as far as commerce goes I really only miss Target. One store where you can get anything you need in one place? Amazing. If only Target would expand to Central America.
It's not that we can't get American products here, or that we even want all American products: it's the price and inconsistency of retail stock that are the barriers. For instance, my $3 shampoo in the States is $8 a bottle here. (Thankfully my mom has stocked us up with months worth of Suave!) Peanut butter is about $7 for a small jar of Peter Pan. Things add up. Guatemalan brands of some products are perfectly fine, but sometimes the Guatemalan equivalent is a little weird or even non existent. And to the woe of ex-pat shoppers, what you find one place one week may not be there again the next week, or ever again. In the States, meal planning is its own industry! Here, you can make a list, but good luck finding everything you want. In a culture where many folks don't really know where their next meal is coming from, and most meals consist of vegetables, rice, and beans, maybe chicken or eggs, which are pretty affordable, meal planning as we know it is basically non existent.
We fortunately live very close to two grocery stores. It often takes a trip to both stores to find things I want or need during the week. The family usually decides what they would most like for the week, but everybody knows there's a good chance I'll come home with none of it. For two weeks, our local Paiz had cinnamon raisin bagels. Caleb was elated! Then there was a two month lapse before we ever saw them again. If you know me well at all, you know I love to cook. Cooking and adapting recipes is getting easier. Friends and family can bring us peanut butter, brown sugar, and chocolate chips, providing us some items we took for granted in our former life. And now I know weird things like that I find baking soda in the cleaning aisle. Thankfully, we really like Guatemalan food, and so I am learning to cook some things that are more local/traditional. (And local food is plentiful and inexpensive.) We also greatly enjoy the amazing fresh produce here. Avocados are the equivalent of 5or 6 for $1. The most delicious pineapples I've ever tasted I can get for less than 50 cents a piece. I can get a pound of cute little potatoes for about 30 cents. We can spend $10 or less and load up on delicious fruits and veggies.
We do have Walmart and Pricesmart (Costco). These help. We plan a trip about once a month to drive into the city and get things we need there. We're finding places where we can get clothes and shoes if we really need them, but for now, it's still a lot cheaper for me to shop online and wait until our next visitor can deliver our purchases. At least this forces me to plan ahead, so my Christmas shopping was finished in September! I've learned through much trial and error that there's no such thing as a quick shopping trip. I never plan more than one necessary errand or purchase per day. It's a trip to the hardware store, or the housewares store, or the craft store, or the bakery, or the pharmacy, or the soccer supply store, or Office Depot. You get the idea. This week, I would have been happy to find a pack of pencils at the grocery store. But no. Had to go to a little libreria to find pencils because I didn't have time to fight the traffic to get to the office store.
So, while I would love to park in one parking lot and walk around one store to several departments, buy everything I need and leave, I'm learning to navigate shopping here. And there is some really fun shopping here as well. Local markets, the Artisans market, specialty shops of all varieties make up some of the recreational shopping I was so used to. I spent 200q of my Christmas money (about $24) and enjoyed major retail therapy in Antigua. I bought some new pottery, a new scarf, and some pretty market baskets. I'm trying to let go of my American desire for efficiency and convenience above all else and embrace the Guatemalan lifestyle. And if all else fails, you'd be amazed what you can find at a neighborhood tienda! (There's gotta be a whole other post about that...)
Friday, January 24, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
A Guatemalan Commute
We recently moved from San Cristobal to San Lucas. It's about a 10 minute drive from one town to the other, or 15 all the way from home to school. I have likened it to moving from West Chester to Monroe. It's far less driving than I did in the States. Guatemalans, even some other missionaries, act like this commute is horrible. And most days I think it's really no big deal. But I certainly wasn't always this comfortable with driving here. If you know me, I'm an on-the-go kind of gal. I literally ran the wheels (and brakes) off my vehicles in the States. Before we moved, I was seriously upside down on miles of my leased vehicle. Surprisingly, the first six weeks we lived here, I would not get behind the wheel. It is a little crazy. Between the insanely dangerous chicken buses, pedestrians and animals all over the road, and a general lack of adherence to or enforcement of any traffic laws, I was terrified. At the time we were living in Antigua and could accomplish most anything on foot. But once we moved into the city, I realized quickly that I would have to suck it up and get behind the wheel if I wanted to feel even remotely as mobile and independent as I was used to.
The truth is even though I'm more comfortable driving here (I think of it as a video game: dodge the goat, swerve to miss a flock of 8 pedestrians), every time you get behind the wheel here, you assume a certain amount of risk. If my car breaks down, how will I handle it? If the police pull me over, will they be trustworthy or corrupt, expecting a bribe to let me go? There are numerous armed robberies on the roads here every day, especially in the city. What will I do if a motorcycle or suspicious vehicle gets too close? Aside from all this, my absolute worst fear is hitting a pedestrian. Only about 7% of Guatemalans own cars. Most have never driven. They have very little concept of the danger of proximity to a moving vehicle. Fatal accidents occur pretty much daily. What seems like public safety 101 to an American is simply an unfortunate matter of ignorance and is a fairly recent problem. So, it's a little noisy in my brain while I drive here.
My other greatest fear here is getting lost. Certain zones of the city would be very dangerous to be lost in. Roads aren't straight, Guatemalans give very vague directions, and half the time when I approach the place I'm looking for, I can't believe that this could actually be the right place (really? this muddy canyon is the road I'm supposed to turn down?). Fortunately we have Waze, which is a very accurate real time GPS and traffic app. Unfortunately, if I lose signal, I tend to panic. Unless absolutely necessary, I avoid venturing downtown by myself. So, if I stick to my familiar commute and my main commercial shopping areas, I'm pretty safe.The commute is gorgeous. It's all green mountain on one side and panoramic view of Guatemala City on the other. (Note to self: blog needs pictures.)I head up the mountain on one main road. If I can avoid the traffic at the major retornos (the turn around to get to the other side of the road. Intersections and traffic lights are RARE on main roads), and avoid getting pulled over at the two Puestos de Control (police traffic check points where you are pulled over and your vehicle searched), I can get home safely in 20 minutes. There are days when this is just not to be however. Today was the first day back for most schools, so the commute home was agonizingly double the normal time. (Note to self: car air conditioning needs repaired!) The longest it has taken is an hour when there was a major accident on the highway. And, even though it hasn't happened yet, when I do get pulled over, I have the American Embassy at the top of the contacts list of my phone.
The truth is even though I'm more comfortable driving here (I think of it as a video game: dodge the goat, swerve to miss a flock of 8 pedestrians), every time you get behind the wheel here, you assume a certain amount of risk. If my car breaks down, how will I handle it? If the police pull me over, will they be trustworthy or corrupt, expecting a bribe to let me go? There are numerous armed robberies on the roads here every day, especially in the city. What will I do if a motorcycle or suspicious vehicle gets too close? Aside from all this, my absolute worst fear is hitting a pedestrian. Only about 7% of Guatemalans own cars. Most have never driven. They have very little concept of the danger of proximity to a moving vehicle. Fatal accidents occur pretty much daily. What seems like public safety 101 to an American is simply an unfortunate matter of ignorance and is a fairly recent problem. So, it's a little noisy in my brain while I drive here.
My other greatest fear here is getting lost. Certain zones of the city would be very dangerous to be lost in. Roads aren't straight, Guatemalans give very vague directions, and half the time when I approach the place I'm looking for, I can't believe that this could actually be the right place (really? this muddy canyon is the road I'm supposed to turn down?). Fortunately we have Waze, which is a very accurate real time GPS and traffic app. Unfortunately, if I lose signal, I tend to panic. Unless absolutely necessary, I avoid venturing downtown by myself. So, if I stick to my familiar commute and my main commercial shopping areas, I'm pretty safe.The commute is gorgeous. It's all green mountain on one side and panoramic view of Guatemala City on the other. (Note to self: blog needs pictures.)I head up the mountain on one main road. If I can avoid the traffic at the major retornos (the turn around to get to the other side of the road. Intersections and traffic lights are RARE on main roads), and avoid getting pulled over at the two Puestos de Control (police traffic check points where you are pulled over and your vehicle searched), I can get home safely in 20 minutes. There are days when this is just not to be however. Today was the first day back for most schools, so the commute home was agonizingly double the normal time. (Note to self: car air conditioning needs repaired!) The longest it has taken is an hour when there was a major accident on the highway. And, even though it hasn't happened yet, when I do get pulled over, I have the American Embassy at the top of the contacts list of my phone.
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