Last night I slept with don pancho

“Not just a partial scholarship but a full one,” he said giving Herardo a manly thump on the back.

“Do you know how rare it is to get a scholarship that includes accommodation?” he asked with another thump.

Herardo, standing ramrod straight in his usual posture, nodded in acknowledgement, stoically enduring the attention. He was probably thankful Javier hadn’t asked him if he had a novia (girlfriend) like he usually did.

“People say he even looks like I did at his age,” Javier continued, speaking in English so Heraldo wouldn’t overhear. .

That was stretching the truth, I thought to myself. I had a hard time believing that Javier and Heraldo looked alike apart from sharing a dark complexion. Where Heraldo was tall and always wore a serious expression, I’d seen photos of Javier at that age and he’d been short and wiry, all sinewy muscle, much like Papa Challo. In the few school photos that remained of Javier, although he’d adopted the usual Guatemalan portrait pose – one where the subject tried to approximate as closely as possible the expression of someone who looked as though they’d just been advised by a doctor that they had the Ebola virus or something equally dire -- Javier’s official photos displayed a jaunty air that couldn’t disguise the fact that he was a jokester and a prankster no matter how serious he tried to look. The only other photo we had of him as a youth, showed him wearing a pair of diamond-patterned bell-bottom pants. It’s tough to be taken seriously when you look like an Italian harlequin.

In contrast, Heraldo was the conservatively dressed, perpetually serious sort. A person of few words, he nevertheless had the classic good looks that one couldn’t help believe he was destined for greatness and would eventually become a presidential candidate or a leading man in a western movie, a Guatemalan version of Cary Grant.

There was also the unspoken hope that he would be the one Sanchez male to step forward and assume the mantle of directing the ranch’s economic viability. At just fifteen, he already commanded respect from family members and was directing activities as though he were a decade or more older.

“If he’s going to go to school, it’s going to need a pair of good work boots, said Javier. It was also understood that the boots would be used to hold a pistol. In Zacapa it was customary to stash your pistol in the top opening of your boot, so as not be noticeable under jeans, or in your belt behind your back.

Alba and Javier decided that we should make an expedition to the village of Los Pastores so Heraldo could be outfitted for a pair of real working boot cowboy boots. We’d gone there in the past whenever Javier had needed new boots but this time I figured I’d get a pair of cowboy boots for myself so decided to tag along. We headed out early in the morning so we could make the return trip by nightfall.

Located twenty minutes north of Antigua just past Jocotenango, although economically-depressed and hit hard by floods, forest fires and other natural disasters, Pastores has managed to hold onto a certain charm. Surrounded by dark volcanoes, its scruffy-looking main street is lined with small shoemakers’ shops, each with pictures of botas or boots painted on the walls outside the doorways and tin roofs. The storefronts are in pastel colours of robin’s egg blue, coral pink and canary yellow and because on many the paint has faded or chipped away completely, the storefronts appear like a row of Easter eggs in a carton.

Many have been in business for decades, one generation of cobblers taking over for the previous. Some shops make boots while you wait, from preformed boots, while at others you have to wait three weeks for your order. Each shop offers different stock, with different types of leather - alligator skin, calf leather – in almost every style imaginable. No matter what type of finish, the boots were custom-fitted to your feet.

There are no display windows so the shopping process involved going inside each shop to see what was available that day and for what price. We stepped inside the doorway of Botas Carrillo, for no other reason other than it was the shop closest to where we parked the truck. The interior was dark, the only illumination in the front part of the building came from the street. In the back half of the shop, a light bulb illuminated a table covered in hides, boots in various states of construction, hammers, cutting knives and other hand tools and several benches. The not entirely unpleasant smell of animal hide, a musky odor of tanning solutions, saddle oil and male body sweat, hit my nostrils.

Javier headed to the back of the shop to engage in some hearty joking with the cobbler, who looked more like a wrestler than a shoemaker. I always expected the cobblers to look more like Mister Geppetto, the woodworker from Pinocchio, than the street brawlers. But with their arms stained with polish and muscular from decades of working their craft, they didn’t look like someone you’d want to get into a brawl with.

I browsed the shelves at the front of the shop. There were black boots with hand-tooling and some brushed suede ones, the colour of caramel.

“Try these ones,” interrupted a younger fellow, the shoemaker’s son I presumed based on the slight physical resemblance, holding out a pair of hot pink, snakeskin shortie boots with a 3 inch heel, the size of a tent peg.

“Better for ladies,” he said pointing to a shelf holding more ladies boots, some bootie style and an impressive pair of thigh-high white boots with stiletto heels. He was quite right, I couldn’t recall seeing any of the women in the village wearing cowboy boots. The only boots made specifically for women were geared to Latina fashionistas like Jennifer Lopez maybe -- suitable for going to a nightclub or on a special date.

. Not only would my size 9 feet never fit in such ladylike boots, but I was looking for something to walk in fields and along dirt roads. I needed a man’s boot.

“She wears the same size as me,” shouted Javier from the back. The son just looked surprised and shrugging went back to listening to his radio on a bench at the back of the shop.

Before long both Heraldo and I were seated on a bench, getting our feet measured and pulling on our respective boots.

“Make sure you get something comfortable. Don’t worry about the price,” he cautioned Herlando who, we could see, was going for the cheapest pair in order to save some money. I decided on a pair of black leather boots and Heraldo a whisky-coloured pair with a square toe. The total bill was 600 quetzals – around $65. No need to buy any conditioning lotions -- these boots were real leather and naturally waterproof. We also didn’t get shopping bags, receipts or any other record we’d been there. We just walked out with boots on our feet.

I hobbled out of the shop, trying not to trip on the cobblestones, my Sketchers under my arm, still trying to get used to the stiffness of the leather.

“Don’t worry,” laughed Javier. “You just need to wear thicker socks and they’ll be comfortable.”

When we got back to San Vicente, all the ladies had a good laugh at my boots, which looked even bigger than the size nine they were thanks to the pointed steel toe that protruded an additional inch beyond the sole of my foot.

I didn’t care. I felt like a real Guatemalan – even if it was a male version.

The next day, equipped with my new boots, we decided to take a trip outside San Vicente to hiking in the countryside and go swimming in one of the nearby rivers. It would be an opportunity to wear my new boots and it was a favourite weekend activity for the family from the city, who would pack up the kids and head out to one of the swimming holes for a day of splashing and picnicking. There were plenty of spots to choose from, but the one I was especially keen to see was Pasabien, a waterfall that cascaded into a series of swimming pools near Rio Hondo.

That swimming hole was at the top of my list, partly because I loved waterfalls, but also because the bathing spot was immortalized in “Soy de Zacapa” a song that Javier loved to sing at the top of his lungs when he was especially happy. Composed by Jose Ernesto Monzon, an accountant turned songwriter from Huehuetenango who wrote songs about several regions in Guatemala, “Soy de Zacapa” was by far his biggest hit.

Written in 1957, the boot-stomping ranchero tune became the defacto anthem for the Zacapa region. Even people from other parts of Guatemala recognized it and it evoked almost the same degree of nationalist fervour as el Himno Nacional, the national anthem.

There were more versions of “Soy de Zacapa” than a person could count. The original recording was done by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan from Mexico. It was followed by a meringue version performed by the rock group FM de Zacapa then several marimba variations. In recent years, I’d even heard a DJ Mix rap version.

Javier sang “Soy de Zacapa” so often and so loudly that our youngest daughter had the words to it memorized. It was a strange sight to see a little blond girl singing of a hometown in Guatemala. In English, the words went something like this:

Land of scorching heat

en donde sale primero el sol,

por esto tengo

la sangre ardiente

like the notes

in my song
Lindo el oasis,

que hay en la Fragua

por donde pasa

cerquita el tren,

el agua es fresca como el Motagua,

como los baños de

Pasabién.
The first time I heard the song “Soy de Zacapa” I vowed to someday see the swimming holes at Pasabien.

This trip was going to be my chance.

It was a Monday so much of the family had left for Guatemala City to get back to work, Mama didn’t want to swim (she thought 35C weather too cold) and Papa wasn’t in any condition to go, so we went alone. As we drove out of the village, there was no sign of the skinny brown dog. We crossed the San Vicente River and then the Huite River, skipping past the village of Huite.

“Huitecos are known for their wit and intelligence,” said Javier, who enjoyed providing a running commentary about the people and places we passed while driving.

Based on my recollection of the one guy from Huite I’d met, I had my doubts. He’d taped a .25 coin to his shoe to make sure he had money for a phone call when he travelled from Winnipeg to Toronto. It wasn’t as though he was crossing the Serengeti--it was a 2 hour direct flight.
The highway weaving through the lowlands belied its poverty. A local government official had managed to funnel money into capital projects such as highways and sanitation systems so a fully-paved asphalt ribbon cut through collections of ramshackle homes. We passed a water park, with waterslides and bathing pools, surrounded by a high security fence. Signs warned no armas – handguns allowed. Just in case you were thinking of tucking a pistol in your Speedo.

“Do you want to go and check it out?” asked Javier.

“No thanks,” I answered, hoping that Pasabien wouldn’t be like that.

The highway crossed another larger road which traced the route of Guatemala’s former national railway. Built between 1877 and 1908 and then taken over by United Fruit and abandoned in the 1950’s, it once connected Guatemala City to Puerto Barrios, the steam-powered locomotives feeding the economic powerhouse of trade in fruit, coffee and vegetables. Today, all that remained of the mightiest railway line Central America were a few tracks and the fascinating, but often overlooked Museo de Ferrocarril or Railroad Museum, located in the former main railway station in Guatemala City. We crossed a busy commercial area on Highway 9, with its collection of gas stations and continued along down a small winding road, past vendors selling pineapples.

Just past a sign marked Balneario Pasabien, we parked beside some comedors local food stands. None of them were open. We were the only car in the parking lot. The place was completely deserted.

I opened the package of quesadilla cake that Mama Tallo had packed and broke a chunk off for each of us, enjoying the perfect blend of sweet and savoury, while taking in the scene before us.

Although we were just minutes from the highway, Pasabien was an oasis. The river was wild, with tumbling and churning cascades of white water at its northern end where it spilled from its source in the Sierra de las Minas Mountains, into a natural rock pool.

The first pool of deep calm water was surrounded by large smooth boulders, which looked perfect for diving from. The river then made another series of drops, each creating mini-waterfalls which fed a string of peaceful pools. Each of the pools was surrounded by stones of different sizes and colours. It was a beautiful natural environment and I fell in love with it immediately.

We hurried into the change rooms to get changed and I was still pulling up my bathing suit when I heard Javier hooting and shrieking. From the sounds of it, the water was icy cold.

I ran to the river’s edge and jumped in up to my ankles, ready to paddle out to the middle of the pool where they were. I could feel the current tugging lightly on my calves. As icy as Lake Winnipeg in the spring, the chill brought back childhood memories. Each year, as soon as the ice had melted off the lake, my mother would plan our annual “freeze your butt off” picnic. We’d drive two hours north to Winnipeg Beach, where the weak winter sun had melted the frost off the rocky shore. Dad would find two big wooden picnic tables, drag them together and flip them over to create a makeshift fort to shelter us from the wind. Huddled under the picnic tables, we’d eat fig newton cookies and drink hot tea. The final part of our spring ritual involved rolling up our pant legs and dipping our bare feet in the lake. The water was so cold it made my legs ache and go so numb I couldn’t feel the pebbles under my feet. I’d wade deeper until my mother shouted “That’s enough” and it was time to pack up and go home.

The water in Pasabien was that cold.

“Fresh from the mountains,” shouted Javier who was thrashing about determined to show off his fortitude.

“No wonder the place is so empty,” I hollered back.

Javier looked more like an otter than a person - diving, ducking under the waterfall and sliding down the rocks.

“You should see it during Semana Santa (Easter),” he said coming up for air. “The water is as warm like a bathtub and is packed with people.”

I took a breath and dived in, falling in love with Guatemala all over again.

Like a burst of fragrance from a ripe lemon, the sight of lava spilling from Pacaya volcano as I hung laundry on the clothesline, the music of a street procession – each of these new experiences in Guatemala stirred something new within me. I could feel my old identity begin to unwind while the threads of new experiences became entwined with the old, like a new strand of DNA

I felt alive in a whole new way.

Chapter 24: Fear-factor dining

Not all Guatemalan food was delectable. When it came to nose-to-tail dining, Guatemalan cooks were masters. I dreaded a dish called revolcado (which literally means a mixture) which I quickly dubbed “revolting” due to its composition, pungent aroma and dark colour. As far as I could determine, Thelma prepared the dish by first boiling the kidney, heart, intestines and the entire head of a pig in a large pot of water. Once the head had softened somewhat, she sliced off the ears, snout and cheeks with a razor – not a sight for the squeamish. Then she returned the dismembered parts to the pot and boiled the entire contents until it became a greasy mass of soft grey bits. Cinnamon and cloves were added and almost but didn’t quite succeed in masking the strong meaty smell.

The boiling stage of the recipe turned me off most. Perhaps because it reminded me of my childhood when it was “Dad’s night to cook”, a culinary event which only occurred once a year but was so traumatic the memories lasted through to adulthood. Growing up in Winnipeg’s rough and tumble north end, my father was accustomed to rings of homemade Polish garlic sausage curing on a broomstick in the kitchen and the ritual of his father making Paprike, a spread created from congealed bacon fat. My Grandpa would cool the fat in the refrigerator (or on the back steps if it was winter) until it was a solid white slab, sprinkle it with paprika, cut it into slices and spread it on bread much like peanut butter. It was so horrible I thought my grandfather must have invented it but he was vindicated when I spotted the dish in Romania. Looking as innocuous as a piece of mozzarella, I watched a chic female journalist from New York City pop a slice of “cheese” in her mouth and saw her face transform in disgust as the fat melted in her mouth and her frantic hunt for a napkin to spit it out in.

Another culinary specialty of my father’s was to boil Polish sausages in their skins until they swelled to the size of a person’s foot. The links were attached together so when my younger sister speared one she got a string of a dozen pale grey missiles.

“What you take is what you get,” I’d laugh gleefully as she burst into tears. Looking back, I’m not sure what was worse: the quivering consistency of the boiled sausages or the colour.

Revolcado evoked the same involuntary shudder in me. Once the pig head had boiled completely, Thelma removed most of the bones and cartilage and added a thickening sauce of red tomatoes, onion, garlic, chile and toasted bread crumbs to the liquid. This transformed the liquid into a shiny chestnut colour like that of an Irish Red Setter. The stew was then served by ladleful atop white rice.

Revolcado was considered a treat by everyone in the family except me. Even market vendors nodded approvingly when Thelma told them what was on the menu. It was considered to be chock full of nutrients and a fortifying meal ideally suited for cold weather. Whenever I heard it was on the menu or worse, smelled it cooking, I begged off dinner, claimed a headache and stayed in my room watching the boxed DVD set of The Tudors. I even turned up the volume to drown out the smacking sounds of people sucking the meat off bones.
I wasn’t the only one experiencing culinary culture shock. Javier was also having a reaction to Guatemalan cuisine. His stomach seemed to have gone gringo.

His stomach problems began shortly after eating ceviche, a marinated seafood salad he’d purchased from one of his favourite street vendors on Avenida La Reforma. Guatemalan ceviche bears no resemblance to Pervian ceviche (a realization I made one year when I placed a large order for my parent’s anniversary party in Canada and was faced with an aluminum tin pan full of grey pickled fish and strands of onion. It was such a non-hit I’d even had to coax the cat to finish it off. )

Guatemalan ceviche more closely resembles Mexican shrimp cocktail, and is a mixture of seafood (usually plump shrimp), lime juice, a dash of Worcestershire sauce (or salsa Ingles as they call it), minced jalapeno peppers, liberal handfuls of cilantro, chopped fresh tomato and sweet onion. It’s served with saltines (usually in individual foil wrappers which blow away and join the rest of the street litter), lots of lime wedges and a small bottle of Tabasco sauce. It’s the absolute best thing to eat for a snack and is the top requested birthday dish by our youngest daughter.

It’s also a dish I eat with caution when I travel. If the vendor has poor sanitation habits, if the vegetables aren’t washed with microdyne (antibacterial iodine drops) or if the seafood isn’t scrupulously fresh or kept cold, it’s quite easy to get salmonella, e-coli or shigella. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health archives, a 1996 study of the incidence of salmonella contamination of 89 mobile ceviche vendors in Mexico showed a contamination rate of 20%. Which means you’ve got a 1 in 5 chance of getting salmonella with every order. I called it Russian roulette in a cup

On this trip, Javier had been running around doing errands when a pique of hunger hit as he passed by a ceviche truck. He’d been blissed out in happiness with the opportunity to be reunited with one of his fave foods from his university days and had ordered a combo of octopus, shrimp and fish.

His happiness was short-lived. Within hours, he was hooked up to an IV with a serious case of food poisoning. He lost 10 pounds and gained a new appreciation for my Canadian stomach.

His next experience was more mysterious. I had gone to Bolivia on a writing assignment for a month and when I called home mid-month he didn’t sound so good.

“How are things there?” I asked, expecting the usual cheery update.

“I think I’m dying,” he admitted. “Or else I really miss you.”

“Wow, what’s happening?”

“Every night my heart starts pounding. I feel exhausted. My whole body tingles with such force I have to crawl under the covers and pray. It feels as though I’m about to have a heart attack.”

I frowned in concentration. His symptoms sounded familiar. My mother had a food sensitivity known as the MSG symptom complex, which resulted from a reaction to monosodium glutamate. Her symptoms began with a burning sensation of the back of her neck, forearms, and chest, followed by chest pain, heart palpitations and upper body tingling and weakness so intense it felt like a heart attack. She told me that Emergency rooms even have a name for it – “Chinese restaurant syndrome.”

“What have you been eating?” I asked.

“My soup,” he moaned, with a pained expression. For a guy who’d had a finger ripped from its socket and his head kicked in twice with barely a peep of complaint, he was really working this illness for all it was worth.

“Soup?” I was still puzzled.

He admitted that he’d been eating instant Ramen noodles every day since I’d left Canada, thanks to a new recipe he’d invented.

“I take a package of noodles, add fresh shrimp and some chopped green onions, cilantro, some slices of chicken...” he explained, his mouth watering as he recalled his culinary creation.

I googled Mr. Noodle and discovered that the second ingredient was monosodium glutamate.

“Bad news. You’re going to have to lose the noodles,” I said. He’d developed a sensitivity to MSG with even trace elements setting off an allergic reaction. Many Latino food products such as seasonings used for caldo or bouillon were packed with it, so he often shook and shivered after eating a meal in Guatemala.

Now I wasn’t the only one with food challenges.

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