Chilaquiles, the Police, Marches, and More!

Last week was productive in terms of work, and fun outside of work. One evening was spent eating a feast of Pollo Campero (Guatemalan equivalent of KFC but better) with my housemate and his friends and I also ate dinner at the same tapas restaurant twice in three days (they have really delicious garlicky mushrooms, what can I say). Last Thursday I went to (a portion of) a march to celebrate the Day Against Homophobia (May 17^th) which was a well-attended and high-spirited event despite the afternoon rain (photos from the march below).

This past weekend, I learned two major life lessons:

1. Guatemalan work parties are entirely more entertaining than those in the US 

2. If you need to resolve something like a car accident, don’t expect the Guatemalan police or your insurance company to help

Regarding the first point, this Friday I attended a going-away party for a coworker who is switching jobs. The party, which was scheduled to be a late lunch starting at 3pm actually started around 5pm, and went until almost 1am. We drank caipirhinas (among other beverages), ate delicious chilaquiles; danced merengue, bachata, “hip hop,” and some sort of Peruvian dance involving the waving of paper napkins; and closed the night with some passionate group renditions of ranchera songs, my favorite of which, entitled Rata de Dos Patas (Two-Legged Rat), can be seen here, accompanied by some hilarious English-language translations.

Awkward family photo from work party

Regarding the second point, E and I spent Saturday and Sunday in Antigua, a gorgeous town about 45 minutes from Guatemala City. E was about to go to a lunch with classmates from her MPH program at Universidad Rafael Landivar and I was preparing for an epic market shopping trip when E, driving a 1994 Mercedes, began a three-point turn on an un-crowded side street. She had pulled forward between two motionless cars at which point the large pick-up truck in front of us began to reverse. And then kept reversing. Right into E's stopped car. E honked right before the driver hit her car but it was too late. Even though the truck was reversing slowly, it did some damage (see below). 

The next two hours were spent talking to the driver of the truck, the police, and E's insurance company trying to resolve who was at fault. Here is a summary of how this conversation went down.

E's/my argument: As a driver, it is your responsibility to look behind you as you are reversing to make sure that you don’t run into anything, like a small child, a dog, a mailbox, or a car.

The other driver’s argument: As a driver, it is your responsibility to make sure, even if you are at a complete standstill, that other cars do not back into your car. This is especially true when you are driving a “very small” car, such as E's (refer to above photo).

The police’s argument: As the police, we are certainly not in the position to decide who is legally culpable, but we are glad that no one was hurt. We are not sure what the traffic laws are, and since both drivers believe the other was at fault, it seems like the best thing would be for you both to come to a friendly agreement, especially because we are ready for lunch and would like to leave as soon as possible.

The insurance company’s argument: We are also not sure what the traffic laws are, and since both drivers believe the other was at fault, it seems like the only option is for E to drop the issue and pay for repairs out of pocket because they will cost less than the deductible (this was the final resolution).

All in all, I was impressed with how E (and E's posse of MPH friends who came to help) handled the frustrating situation. See below for a photo of E discussing matters with the cops.

Otherwise, we had a lovely time in Antigua shopping, eating, walking around and hanging out with the MPH crew. Here we are at MonoLoco in Antigua sharing some liters of beer.