This may be my last post for a couple of weeks, for Byron and I, some months back, bolstered by a few shots of whiskey slammed down during a State of the Union address (by the end, we were channeling David Byrne, chopping on our arms, and slurring, “This is not our beautiful country”), decided to take Wee Niblet and Girl to
well,
yea,
*Guatemala* for two weeks.
Really, what better place to let The Kiddles have their first international adventures (not counting Thunder Bay) than a country recovering from a civil war? If they’re going to make it in this world, they need to know early and young that good coffee comes from countries where indigenous people have been “disappeared” through guerilla warfare.
Last weekend, for further preparation, we took them to see Mel “I hate Jews, but only when I’m drunk” Gibson’s APOCOLYPTO. There’s nothing sweeter than hearing my three-year-old son’s voice, piping up in the darkness: “Mommy, what’s a human sacrifice? Is that like the time I lost my Martian Manhunter action figure?”
All right, so actually we’re planning a rather-benign family vacation to visit my sister, who teaches at an “American-style” Guatemalan school in Guat City (“So, as long as we’re reading Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse, would anyone like fries with that?”). We’ll travel to a waterpark, a volcanic lake, and the town where my sister gets her eyelashes tinted. I predict, as well, that many a local market will benefit from our desire for gorgeous, colorful fabrics and folkart.
Along the way, I’m sure I’ll take a header into some lava or mangle my Spanish attempts and end up asking a waitress for “more green knuckles in my shoehorn”; in short, when I get back, you can be assured of a few new Jocelyn As Traveler Dork tales.
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