Days 17-19 June 8-10
Spring Hotel
Upon our return to Guatemala City, Alvaro left for school in
Madison, Wisconsin. Roberto would soon take off for Urbana-Champaign.
During our rest period before Tikal, we stayed
at Roberto's house; now, only Madjid and
I remained. We decided to find lodging in Zona Uno, the commercial
and busiest part of town.
For the remainder of our visit, we stayed in the "Spring Hotel", an odd mixture of colonial and modern architectural styles. Our room was as high and spacious as a cathedral. But there was certainly nothing holy about the bathroom, whose "western saloon" style door did nothing to keep out the humidity. Since we showered each day, our room felt as damp as a rainforest, and the cool weather only made it feel worse. But we were young, bachelors, and not willing to ascetically suffer indoors, even during our first night. Searching a local newspaper (I think it was the Prensa Libre), we fished out the address of a fancy-looking club nocturno called the Casablanca. We arrived by taxicab at a large residential-style building near the Zona Rosa, the most reputable part of the city. The interior was luxuriously furnished with several sofas and a grand piano. Romantic latin music-- interrupted by the occasional gringo hits --filled the rooms. Sporting neatly-pressed suits or elegant evening gowns, the nightclub's clients could have easily felt at home even in the fashionable districts of Madjid's beloved Paris. They had predominantly European features, which were a mild shock to me after our extensive tour of the countryside. (Guatemala in 1989 was still at least sixty percent Maya.) Drinks were six quetzales or about three US dollars apiece, and all major credit cards were accepted. For a moment, I wondered if I was still in the same country. The alchohol vastly improved our Spanish-- so it seemed to us then-- and I was soon having an animated conversation with Linda, a heavenly apparition who hailed originally from neighboring El Salvador. Evidently, her Spanish conquistador genes had "conquered" any Indian heritage she had; I thought that she resembled the singer Madonna (in the natural brunette state) a good deal. Linda was smart, vivacious, and curious about foreigners. She was also a terrific chat partner and an unabashed flirt. When my vocabulary ran out on me, I resorted to the old palm-reading tricks, which greatly amused my audience of one. And when all the palms had been read, I simply ordered more drinks for both of us. I did not ask her what she was doing in Guatemala, but it was not hard to guess. Hundreds of people had fled the much bloodier civil war in El Salvador. Guatemala City itself was second home to many refugee Salvadoreños. The Salvadoran version of a tortilla, the pupusa, a thicker corn cake often stuffed with onions and a little meat, was as common as tacos on the city's streets. We talked about many light and humorous topics, which made it much easier for my arm to find itself around her shoulders. It was all very beautiful, but after a few hours, we had to leave. This was a tough decision to make. My budget, I was ashamed to admit, had been bled dry. During all this time, Madjid had not remained idle, but then found himself in a similar predicament. We were, after all, also impecunious graduate students who still had about a week of surviving left to do in a foreign country. |
Since we arrived in the country, Roberto had been badgered with requests to give "math seminars" on
specialized topics. Apparently, his college chums believed that US graduate students -- even
perfectly undistinguished ones like us --possessed some higher kind of knowledge which
we were obliged to share with the less fortunate. Roberto thought that his specialty, analysis, was too well known.
So, he asked, could either Madjid or I expound on some exotic topic in probability theory (Madjid's field)
or mathematical logic (mine)?
Madjid wisely denied any acquaintance with the Spanish language. As I could not do likewise, by default the burden fell on me. So before leaving, Roberto arranged for me to give seminars at the Universities of San Carlos and del Valle. The talk was titled "Algo sobre la Inteligencia Artificial" ("On Artificial Intelligence") and sponsored by the Grupo Tao (as in the Tao of Chinese philosophy, believe it or not), of which both Roberto and Mauricio were members. I had a feeling that I was not communicating very well with my rudimentary Spanish. However, there were none of the snickers I sometimes get as a teaching assistant in Illinois because of my accent. My Guatemalan audience was impressively attentive and well behaved. I actually talked about recursion theory, not artificial intelligence, but then, I had to give them something more substantial! |
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