Maybe McCain would be skin cancer?

So I´m sitting in the Internet room at the language school, having just lost a game of foosball by one point.

Stayed last night at Las Casas de las Amigas, and would recommend to anyone. The Americans that stay there tend to be sort of annoying from what I could tell, but the people who run the place are great, and it´s laid back and guests have access to a stove. Spent much of the evening yesterday dining and talking with the Joshua Tree-burnout set, which was taxing. You know, the people who wear bells around their ankles, and talk all the time about how terrible American politics are but refuse to actually follow politics or even read a newspaper, and criticize everyone for their livelihoods, and think that Guatemalans need to stop drinking Coke right now because it´s just not sustainable? Those people. Fortunately no trust-afarians. (Shout out to Eric.)

At one point this guy said that voting in 2008 was like choosing between cancer and AIDS, which seemed like a really bizarre metaphor. If you read a newspaper you would see that it was choosing between a guy who wants to occasionally talk to Iran and someone who sings songs about bombing Iran. I´m not sure which of those viewpoints counts as cancer and which counts as AIDS? Or maybe abortion: pro-life is cancer and pro-choice is AIDS? Stem cell research? Evolution? Maybe some things don´t need to be metaphors, and can actually just be Obama versus McCain? Anyway, I can see why you would want to look at the world in simple terms if you secretly feel guilty that you live off your rich ex-pat parents´money and pretend to be ¨helping the Guatemalan people¨all the time, when you´re actually just drinking for free at your girlfriend´s uncle´s bar. Different strokes, I guess.

Had a really interesting conversation this morning about the political situation in Guatemala, with a woman named Ingrid who runs La Casa de las Amigas. She was explaining how there is no viable leftist political party in Guatemala, and that after the peace accord in 1996, the guerillas were not allowed to become a legit party, as the FMLN did in El Salvador (or sort of like Sinn Fein/IRA in Ireland, or maybe like what Hamas is trying to do in Palestine). She said four groups did unite under the banner of leftist URNG, but that this party has no money. She also said that there all of the newspapers in Guatemala slant to the right.

Ingrid was incredibly tolerant of my abysmal Spanish. I asked about her German name and she said that her grandfather was from Germany. I guess lots of Germans came here after independence from Spain, in the late 19th and early 20th century. She said she didn´t know why. I don´t know why either, but I´ve read about it before - I guess they left their mark architecturally. I asked a couple Germans that I met here about it, and they said they don´t know but they intend to find out. Anyone know about the mystery Germans in Guatemala?

I think the beer here is basically German as well. One in particular, El Gallo, is also owned by one of the seven families that is said to own most of Guatemala. Or so I heard from an American. I´m guessing it´s true.