Weekend pictures

Cows on the farm (the one on the left was scratching his neck on some cement)

Sunset from the hotel Casa de Santa Dominga, Antigua

A marimba and its players, Antigua

When in Rome?....

Don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty firm believer in "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," but I'm also a firm believer in, and there's no quote for this, not apologizing for who you are (or the country that raised you) when you are elsewhere. For example, I spend quite a bit of time down here with a man who always attempts to take my hand as I get out of his car. Granted, it's a small two-door, and it would be difficult for anyone to get out of the back gracefully, but I have never actually needed help. Honestly, if I did need to grab something/someone, the open door would be a more stable choice. For a while, I said gracias and took his hand, but after a while that got really annoying (if either of us should be helping the other one get up, it should be me helping him), so I just said thanksbutnothanks and didn't take his hand. Apparently he found this quite rude, and thought I was being unappreciative and uncourtious. When the subject came up last night, we had an hour-long argument about it (I'm not normally so pugnacious...especially in another language...must have been the rum talking...). I (ever-practical), tried to tell him that I just didn't need help, but this argument totally didn't fly. (For better or worse, I am of the school of thought that if you want or need something, accept it, if you don't want or need something, don't accept it. If I'm not thirsty, is it really being rude to the host to turn down a glass of water? Maybe I'm just not very good at picking up on how people expect me to behave in certain situations. Whatever.) Anyway, he insisted that taking his hand was the courtious thing to do, and not taking it was rude. Now, if he offered his hand to everyone squeezing themselves out of the backseat of his two-door, that would be another issue. But it only gets offered to girls. Even girls who clearly don't need help, and, in fact, could probably break him in two with one swift roundhouse kick. Then, as the argument continued, the hand-offering was framed in the setting of "Latin culture," along with door-holding, etc. Hence, I was advised to do as the Romans do (ok, they don't reference the Romans in the expression in Spanish, but the message is the same). However, being the practical, independent, American female that I am, I took offense at the idea that because (and only because) I was female, I was a fragile flower (literally, those words were used). I mean, I'm not trying to be rude, and I appreciate gestures of hospitality and help, but where is the line drawn between adapting to local culture and compromising your beliefs and values to silently accept something you find offensive? Granted, it wouldn't kill me to take his hand, but having this argument with him (and kind of with another man, who piped in from time to time) really irked me. Am I being unreasonable? Should I just defer to the whole women-are-fragile-flowers-and-need-men's-help position? Am I being a rude gringa by sticking to my American guns? (and decidedly un-girly guns, at that.) Argh.

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Song of the Week

I've been listening to (and watching on DVD, and learning to play songs by) the Beatles a lot recently, so...here's a Beatles song. It's a nice one (not that all aren't).

My First Earthquake

Put that way, it sounds like a children's book. But a scary one! No, just kidding, it wasn't scary. It was just weird, having never before experienced the sensation of the earth shaking. What was weirder, though, is that no one around me (I was sitting with 3-4 people) acknowledged what was going on, they all just kept on chatting like everything was normal (I wanted to shout, "PEOPLE, EVERYTHING'S SHAKING!" but I kept my cool, a.u.). Then after a minute (or maybe after one of them saw my face), one person said, "it's an earthquake," and I said, "huh." (Interestingly, in Spanish a small earthquake is called a temblor, and a large one a terremoto. I tried to explain that English has just one word, and it didn't depend on the magnitude of the shaking. They were perplexed by this.) It lasted for what felt like a while, but was maybe only a minute or so. According to reuters (so it must be true) it was a magnitude 6.1 quake off the Pacific coast. The fun never stops down here...

Happy Columbus Day!

Or, as my dad put it, have a "very happy Columbus Day, with all the joys, responsibilities, fun and solemnities thereto appertaining." I'm celebrating by watching 'La ley y el orden: UVE' (not dubbed, thank goodness) and wasting time online. Not that I had the day off (they don't exactly celebrate Columbus down here). I hope everyone had a good day off! (If you were lucky enough to).

Pics from the weekend

Lake AtitlanSantiago de Atitlan

Lake Atitlan