XelaWho Magazine: Musings

My Dog

by Elia Vargas

I have a dog here. Sometimes I forget which one it is. But I can hear him, in the morning, barking outside my house, and I can hear him, late at night, barking loudly outside my house.

Usually it sounds more like fifty dogs, growling, howling, and scuffling along cement rooftops. Barking at what I imagine are frivolous matters like, Hey! There goes that guy again, or stupid pigeon rat-bird!

I told you that Althusser's theory of the Ideological State Apparatus is a true structural analysis of society. There is a dog hierarchy too - roof dogs and street dogs - but as it goes here, there is really just one dog. I can't figure out how he does that. Multiplies, I mean. Oh the vertigo it causes me, but I revel in cross-eyed joy at its super-power ability to change shape, color, and size. Not unlike that of my favorite marvel heroes of old; or maybe they were the bad guys. I don't remember.

Usually he nips at my feet as I walk, trailing behind me half smiling/half begging. I forget which one is mine, but he will always be there, in that same spot, where coarse grass and stained cobblestone blur in dark splotches of...stuff; that small swirl of grass, grit, and garbage from which he has made himself a home - his love nest. Or I will find him next to that car that hasn't moved since I arrived, with an engine that I suspect blossomed during the ten years of spring.

I have seen my dog humping that other dog, and I have seen it suckled by its pups. Often I am startled by it, slightly afraid that the look in its eyes or its constant need to chase its own tail might be of concern. But then I see it happily scavenging through garbage or licking itself.

At times I find greasy, grimy trails of it leading back home, where it waits panting pleasantly, also licking itself, and I think two things: why does my dog still have its balls; and second, what would happen if I could harness the power of all the street dogs?

Diaries of a Hanger Around

Is it Still Called Traveling if I Haven’t Moved for Six Months?

By Lars Capozo

As for most, Xela was supposed to be a short stop on my journey elsewhere. I arrived the first evening to find that the weather was nice enough, so I stayed another night. On my second day, I tried a pupusa in the park and, afraid that they might not be as readily accessible in Lanquin, I stayed another week. Having spent far too much of my travel budget on other unidentified (but indescribably delicious) fried objects at the market stalls, I decided it was time to find a job, so I stayed another month.

Then it all becomes a blur. I’m not sure how it happened, but six months later I’m sitting in my apartment writing this while seriously considering settling down in Xela with the pupusa woman from El Calvario (oh, the things she can do with her hands). I guess I’m just hanging around.

The identity crisis started in earnest last weekend, when I made the mistake of traveling to San Marcos. While trying to enjoy the beautiful scenery, I was surrounded by a pack of super-flexible sociopaths intent on forcibly realigning my chakras. All I could think was “I want to go home”. I realized moments later that by “home”, I meant Xela. So where does that leave me? Us? The “hangers-around”? On the one hand, we’re foreign enough to be charged the gringo rate on a chicken bus, yet, on the other, local enough to sing along with the fabulous reggaeton selection they’re playing. We’re local enough to know the weekly schedule at La Parranda and Kokolokos by heart, but foreign enough to sometimes actually want to go. Who are we, these half-gringo, half Super Chivos who wander around Xela looking slightly more disheveled and/or busier than the average traveler?

To be honest, I’m not sure any of us can answer that question. We all, however, will probably have plenty more time in Xela to think about it. That’s right, whether we’re staying to complete our eighth month of Spanish school (“tomorrow I will finally go to class sober… Tomorrow.”), desperately committed to fighting poverty in Guatemala through our non-specific and usually redundant NGO of choice, or just curious about how many times you can postpone a ticket before the airline just gives up on you and cancels it, we’re not going anywhere soon. Besides, somehow and often in spite of itself, this town just grows on you. Be warned summer travelers… and start looking into apartments for the fall.