Word: hereness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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By asking for advice from taxi drivers, hotel clerks and a few fellow travelers, I directed myself through the two day journey to Comitan. The three plane flights and four hour bus ride transplanted me into an incredibly foreign environment. I am as far away from the high-powered connection...
Comitan doesn't attract tourists. The flocks of Europeans (there are conspicuously few American sightseers in Chiapas) visit the colonial city of San Cristobal or the ruins at Palenque. They usually just use Comitan as a stop-off point to obtain a Guatemalan visa or to take a colectivo to...
There are ways, however, in which Comitan is like life back home. I exercise daily at a gym; I eat Quaker Instant Oatmeal; I can have my photos developed in an hour; I can check my e-mail daily. American marketing is everywhere. Coca-Cola (a.k.a. "Coca") and Pepsi have...
Nevertheless, the deep structures of social inequity persist. One of my first days here, my supervisor at work said to me, "Americans have the time to worry about everyone else. People in Comitan can't be bothered about events happening half-way around the world; they need to worry about...
What has hit home the most for me was befriending Chelie, a 15-year-old girl who lives in my boarding house. She left school a few years ago to earn money for her family and is up at dawn each day doing domestic chores until late in the evening...