M is for Marimba

Here I am in Antigua Guatemala.

I wasn’t feeling very well just after my Spanish lessons started yesterday.  Not sure what it was.  Just a bit off.  Burpy.  Possibly nauseous?  I don’t know.  Off.  Unlike a regular class in which I could hide in back and pass the time, it was just me and the instructor sitting together one-on-one for four hours with a blessed half hour break.  I made it through, though, and trudged over the pretty cobblestones, past the enormous volcano with the setting sun illuminating the clouds around the giant Volcan Agua. 

I nestled into my bed beneath the tablecloth and wall hanging that I am using as spare blankets to ward off the chill in the unheated room.  I know it isn’t 20 degrees but even 50 degrees without heat at night is cold.  When I went shopping in the market, I couldn’t find a blanket I liked that I would be able to fit in my suitcase at the end of my time here, so I bought tablecloth and a wall hanging and stretched them across my bed.  They seem to serve the purpose though every evening I find myself climbing in the bed to ward off the chill and falling asleep between 8 and 10 before admitting that I’m asleep and getting up to brush my teeth and turn in.

As I snuggled into my bed, I knew that I would regret waking up and having to drag myself off to some restaurant for dinner.  One of the downsides of my current adventure is always having to feed myself.  Even though the food here is probably the best vegetarian eats I’ve ever had while traveling, it is still a pain to always be thinking about when I will eat next and where I will go and how much it will cost.  At the very beginning of my trip to Guatemala, TSA confiscated my jar of emergency peanut butter from my carryon baggage, holding it high for all the other passengers who had passed security to see, lifting it in the air disdainfully.  I felt embarrassed, as though I was the sort of traveler who had forgotten she was carrying a gallon jug of water in her belongings.  Peanut butter?  How was I supposed to know that peanut butter counts as a liquid?  The agent asked me snidely if I wanted to leave security and check my bag so that I could hang onto my peanut butter.  I gritted my teeth, thanked him for coming to work without pay, during the government shutdown, and continued on my journey.

I knew that after my nap, I would have to drag myself off to find some food, but I assured myself that I could grab some chips or something at the nearby tienda.  I managed to ignore the intermittent fireworks that had punctuated the whole day.  These, I had learned, were part of the celebration for Cristo Negro, black Jesus, who was important in a church in another part of Guatemala.  January 15.  Black Jesus.  Check.  Guatemala is still celebrating Christmas, too.  When I asked, I was assured that the giant nativity scene at the school would be taken down on February 2, which seemed to be an important holiday.  I assumed it wasn’t Groundhog Day.

I slipped underneath my bedspread, tablecloth, and wall hanging and drifted sweetly off to sleep for a few minutes.  And then I heard the marimba. 

It wasn’t so much hearing the marimba as feeling it as the sound system amplified the giddy notes so that they carried across courtyards and entered my bones.  Most structures in Guatemala are set up with rooms around a central courtyard, and any noise carries.  But with the marimba, I felt the meaning of surround sound in a way I have never experienced in any theater.  The glorified xylophone with its sound permeating the air was punctuated by the toc toc toc of some kind of percussion.  At least xylophones serve the important purpose of representing the X word in alphabet books.  What possible purpose does the marimba serve?

The marimba, it turns out, is the national instrument of Guatemala.  There are times when I wonder how the United States can be so confident of its superiority, but then there are other times.  Jazz, I thought.  Rock and roll, I thought.  Marimba, I endured.  

The song never ended.  Once it galloped its way through one tune, it looped into another, never quite changing tempo.  And just as I felt I had made peace with the incessant optimism of the notes and had been able to concentrate on something else, there would be a giddy key change that would demand my attention.  There was no tuning out the marimba.

At this point it was only around 6:30 pm.  I felt a little better after my nap, at least I think I did (it was hard to tell with the racket), and I wondered, dreaded how long the marimba would last.  Surely, you don’t hire a marimba for a mere half an hour?  I had some hope, though because it wasn’t the weekend; it was only Tuesday night. 

I forced myself to go out for a tienda dinner, planning to visit the convenience store to scrounge something up.  From the shiny packages of potato chips and cookies, I selected a bag of pretzels, which seemed somehow healthier, but once I got back to my room—and back to the pulsing marimba—I realized that I had chosen a “Conga Mix,” an unfortunate combination of pretzels, raisins, plantains, peanuts, and corn chips.  My nausea returned.  I had tried a yoga class earlier in the day and now my back hurt.  The fireworks continued.  The marimba player took a break, and now the Macarena blared instead.  I stuffed in my ear plugs and laughed at their uselessness. 

Soon I laughed at my whole day and thought about how much I love to travel.  Despite the fireworks of black Jesus, the brutal marimba, the queasiness, the back pain, and the Conga Mix, I felt glad to be here.  Mercifully, the party ended at midnight.  Then, I slept.