Volcán de Fuego

DAY 1

I’ve come to chase volcanos and chew bubble gum; and I’m all outta gum.  Because they don’t sell gum in Guatemala.  They sell… hay.

But HAY!  I’m in fucking Guatemala.  So who needs gum?

I never thought I’d make it here.  After two Guatemalan-related news stories I had been working on forever both fell through, I didn’t see too many other ways to get my foot in the door.

And then the appropriately-named volcano, the Volcán de Fuego started spewing ash and lava and killing people and shit, and I got that call that I was hoping for:

“Darby.  Your AIDS test came back negative.”

FUCK YEAH.

And then I got another call immediately after:

“Darby.  You’re going to Guatemala to cover the volcano story.”

DOUBLE FUCK YEAH.

Guatemala was a place that I became hellbent on going to about two months ago.  It wasn’t a place I would likely go on my own—like, I wouldn’t put a vacation there over a vacation to Jamaica, or Moldova, or Fiji, or the Isle of Dogs, but if my company is paying me to go out there and cover some news, uh, why not??

And to my amazement, in the one day I’ve been here, it’s far surpassed anything I imagined.  It’s a beautiful, lush place—minus the volcanoes, which are death-dealing murder mountains.

It feels small, and that’s because it is.  I’ve been here just about 24 hours now, and I’ve already seen the President of the country.  Not just seen, but been within 100 feet of him.  The guy is an ex-comedian, by the way.  And his entourage, or his version of the Secret Service, all wear white dress shirts, like they are working in a Chinese restaurant or something.  Maybe it’s a prank that only a comedian could pull off.

This presidential encounter happened at a command post ran by CONRED, who is the local government bureau entasked with all things disaster-related.  So you can bet they have their hands tied with the situation now.

And the situation is, at present, this:

99 people dead due to volcanic eruption.

We don’t know how many of those people were incinerated, or how many were buried by a pyroclastic flow of mud and lava, but it seems like most people succumbed to being buried alive.  Two cities near the foot of the volcano, San Miguel Los Lotes, and El Rodeo, both in the Esquintla prefecture, were both completely wiped out.  There are still a lot of missing people, and we don’t even know if that number is 200 people, or 2000 people.  The information is trickling out ever so slowly.  Which is going to lead our news team staying here longer than we expected.

We’ve had our hands tied ourselves ever since we got out here.  Today I interviewed a pair of volunteer fireman, who had been working in search and rescue since the first eruption on Sunday, in grueling shifts from sunrise to sundown.  Both of them told me the same thing: bodies.  There have been lots of bodies, and there will be lots more, once they can get some heavy machinery in there to break through the debris.

We weren’t allowed to see the aftermath firsthand, but I think we have a good chance of tomorrow morning.  Only 100 members of the press will be allowed in, so we’ll have to go early to reserve our spot.  But not before doing a live shot with Tokyo from CONRED HQ at 7 AM.  Which means I won’t be sleeping much again.  Hardly slept today.  Or ate.  Coffee works miracles.

Also it’s been raining ever since we got here.  Which means that the chances for of us getting caught in a mudslide, or for something to go seriously wrong are greatly increased.

In other words, I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, I just know that it’s going to be insane.  And I’ll be prepared to see bodies.  Lots of them.

 

DAY 2

In in El Rodeo right now, an aldea that was supposedly wiped up by the volcano.  The shabby structures are still standing with the same tenacity of the people, of whom I see plenty out and about.

A pick-up truck just drove by and asked me and Pedro if we needed water.  Adults driving, and kids in the truck bed standing over a big blue barrel filled with plastic water packets, ready to distribute.  Just before that, a massive bus stuffed with donation items passed by the opposite direction.  Volunteer bomberos.  CONRED and their shelters filled with cots and tents.  The amount of socorro here is astounding.  Sebastian Junger was right; in his book Tribe, he says that a disaster resets everyone’s social roles.  There are no longer the rich and poor.  There is only the tribe.

I wonder what the team is seeing right now.  Have they seen bodies yet?  Am I disappointed that I couldn’t go to the hardest hit area, and that each press outlet is only allowed 2 members of the team inside?  Sure.  But this is nice too.  To sit in la sombra with Pedro, and… not talk to each other.  Sorry, I never mentioned who Pedro was.  He’s the muscle.  They guy we hired to make sure nobody fucks with us in Guatemala.  We have a cameraman, a reporter, and a producer (me) from LA, and a local “expert”, a driver, and a security guy.  We are rolling deep.

I need to meet some ladies while I’m out here.  Shouldn’t be too hard.  I’m popular on Tinder in Guatemala.  Heh.  That’s would be a great line to add to your profile.  Tinder tells me I have “10+ likes” in Guatemala.  Which means more than 10 people thought I was cute?  I didn’t even know that that number went that high.  In LA, my profile always just said I had “3+ likes”.  Which made me realize what a waste of fucking time Tinder is in LA.  Oh, that reminds me, I need to buy some condoms.

Is it possible that being here has made me miss life in Latin America?  Aspects of it, that’s for sure.  There exists a certain beauty here that I’ve yet to see anywhere else in the world.  Even through the crumbling architecture, dilapidated schools, ugly and drag color patterns, haphazardly painted walls, blend of glass and bottle caps in the grass, and objectively bad men’s fashion, Latin America has a charm about it, that begs a second look.  Maybe that’s why I hated Colombia after living in Bogota a year, but loved it after I visited Medellin on vacation a year later.  Or maybe just because Bogota sucks?

Remember how pleasantly surprised I was by Mexico City when I went there my first time last year?  How it was way more modern than I was expecting?  Guatemala City may even go a step further.  And all you hear about these places is, “It’s dangerous!  It’s dangerous!”  And granted, I am sitting next to a hired bodyguard.  But I don’t feel danger here. I don’t even feel like people are watching me.  I feel content.  Comfortable.  Happy to be in a country mid-development, while still retaining it’s indigenous charm.

I wonder what this neighborhood was like before the volcano hit?  Looking around and seeing people driving by on motorbikes smiling, passengers in trucks and total strangers who are waving at me, it’s hard to imagine that this genuine-ness/ity ISN’T a part of the Guatemalan spirit.  This sense of embrace, of welcoming.

Uh-oh.  I just heard from the driver Carlos.  He’s coming to pick me up and bring me further up the mountain to meet with the rest of the team.  Let’s see what news awaits me…

DAY 3

It’s 1:37 in the morning, and I just got dropped off by a couple of Chileans, who not only brought me home but footed my bill, when I could only pay $75, and the bill was $120, which now that I’m thinking about it, why the fuck should anything ever cost that much in Guatemala?  Lord almighty.

Tonight I went to a place called Retro Bar, and I brought a date, but sadly my date brought a date, another girl, who was there because when my date said, “Can one of my friends come along tonight, or do you want it to be just us?” I went with, well, the wrong answer.

I was meeting them both for the first time.  And when I got into their car picking me up in front of the hotel, I was like, “Hey, these girls seem just wonderful.”  Because they did.

My date—whom told me her name was “Ale Castillo”, and that she was a was a model, and was half Colombian and half Guatemalan, and knew a lot of people around the city—seemed like she’d be the right person to spend my final night in Guatemala with.  And she was, for an overwhelming majority of the night.  She didn’t speak English, but I didn’t care.  We spoke Spanish only, and I was able to use all of my Colombian-isms that most other Spanish-speaking countries don’t get, and we took lots of pictures together, danced closely, got all touchy, and received some pecks on the cheek and some light spanks on the ass.

BUT!

According to Jessica, the Chilean Zumba instructor who just dropped me off, my date was full of silicon, and that everyone knew based on looks alone that she was Colombian.  I mean, I guess now that I’m thinking about it, her T&A were a little ridunkulous.  Maybe I looked like a sucker when I rolled in with these two prostitute-looking ladies.

But I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.  There was a live band.  The band was great!  Uh, Warrior?  Gangster?  Whatever they were called.  And that excellent rum we were drinking.  What was that called?  Carmen’s?  Calazones?  I don’t know.

Then it came time to pay the bill.  750 quetzales.  Or 118 dollars.  I could pay in either currency.  But I’d only have to pay a 1/3rd of that, right?

Ale the Colombian looked at me once the bill came out and I was like, “Uh yes?”

“Eres el hombre, no?”

This fucking entitled bitch expects me to pay for everything?

I said no.  Hell, I’d pay half.  A little more, even.  I told the girls to go get $25 bucks and we could continue our journey to the next spot.  They left.

And didn’t come back.

I didn’t run out on the bill.  I just felt like doing the honest thing for once.  The bar held me up and were like “You are responsible.”  And still I stuck around.  Waiting.  Thinking that those girls would actually come back.  But they didn’t.

And at the end, at 1 AM, as the lights came on and everyone was going home, some fucking random guy just paid for me.  A good samaritan.  Which restored my faith in humanity.  You know what?  Everyone here in Guatemala has been so nice.  Such excellent people.

Minus that fucking Colombian.  I have the photos.  I can prove she existed.

I hope I made clear to my server and staff, that they should never let those girls in there again.  “Semi-regulars,” according to the staff.

And Tinder?  I don’t know if I could trust that shit ever again.  Might be time to hang the ol’ boots up.  I might just have to revert to real life social skills to meet people.  Even though I had 10+ likes in this country and matched with a few of them.

So minus that little moment with the bitches—sorry, the filthy whores at Retro Bar… today was a very interesting day.  It started off with me waking up late (no 5 AM filming like yesterday), going to the hotel pool and hot tub, and then beginning the work day by filming a piece at Anacafe, the national coffee institute of Guatemala, where we interviewed an English-speaking guy about how much coffee-producing land was affected by the volcano.  1.3% of that land is fucked, so far.  Certain parts of the soil will be ruined forever by the lava, and farmers and their farms had their lives claimed.  5,000 coffee families were affected.

After the interview we went into the basement and filmed coffee beans being ground up, or roasted, or whatever those swirly-bean machines do.  And then they gave us all free bags of the highest quality of coffee, the second time in as many days that I was awarded with free bags of coffee.

I didn’t mention the free coffee yesterday.  Nor did I mention what happened after I went an area that was roped off just down the street from the village of San Miguel de Los Lotes, the village that was hit the hardest by the eruption, and now looks like a desolate wasteland.  As I was waiting there outside of the police tape, there were a couple guys from a neighboring village who knew all about San Miguel talking to a crowd of people, and I overheard some shocking details.

San Miguel, a small village of only a few hundred people, was actually a larger village of a few thousand people.  This directly contradicted what the government stated.

“The government lies,” they said outright.  Was there a conspiracy here?

I think that was all confirmed in the second interview I conducted today.  But let me not get ahead of myself.

That interview took place in Antigua.  We arrived there two hours before the interview and had some time to burn.  We got to explore a bit, and holy shit that place is cool.  It’s a UNESCO world heritage site.  I bought some jewelry, and some condoms that were made of chocolate, and there was even a Wendy’s there built in the colonial structure that all buildings are mandated to be.  Then all 6 members of our team went to a restaurant for some tipico food, where I got carne de res, rice, beans, and some sweet mole with plantains.  I was full, and I was ready to do an interview.

The interview was at the place where all of the bodies recovered from the disaster zones get sent to.  It was going to be an interview about—you guessed it—dead people.

The doctor was late as fuck, but he showed up eventually.  I sat down to conduct the interview, which would be entirely in Spanish.  Sometimes I get a bit nervous when I have to interview someone in another language.  As long as it’s on the shorter side of things, I’d be fine.

The interview took 53 minutes.

Luckily, I understood everything this dude said.  My Spanish was on point.  I don’t know if he was speaking slowly to me or whatever, but the guy was great.  Minus the fact that the guy was long winded as fuck, and just spoke forever.  And then I had to do a transcript for the whole interview in the back of our van while stuck in a hideous clusterfuck of traffic, crunched into the backseat with the computer bouncing off my lap all over the place, while buses and trucks were crashing all around us.

Transcripts are the bane of my existence, even more so when it’s in a foreign language.

It took me the entire 2 hour car ride to finish it, but I finished with the last sentence just as we pulled up to the hotel.  And then I went to shower and that’s when I went out with the whores.

Will we return ever, to Guatemala?  Will I return, to do a story there?  Would I even come on my own for a vacation?

Yeah!  I think I would.  This was a great experience, I gotta say.  And I felt warmth from all of the people.  And I even sympathize with the guys from Retro Bar who were like, “You gotta pay this bill!  Or you gotta leave your phone with us.”  Like, I get that.  Nigs gotta pay their bills.  And some guy just came and paid that shit for me, a complete stranger.

Man.  Things work out.  Always.

It’s not even 2 in the morning, and we’re flying home in a few hours.  I get back into LA on Saturday morning, and still get the chance to see my sisters who are visiting from Chicago for just this weekend.  I didn’t think I’d be able to make it back in time.  But as always, things all work out.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention: according to the forensic doctor, once we finished the interview, he told us off-camera and off-record, that there are indeed thousands of people lost, and that death toll is going to way higher than the official number at present, a mere 111 people dead.  We all knew that, but this just solidified that.  Our suspicions were confirmed, no—our suspicions were aroused yesterday when the numbers didn’t add up.  Fucking A.

And now CONRED, the national disaster prevention agency, is getting sued by congress.  For ineptitude.  And we are leaving in a few hours.  So we have no idea how this story will end.

The crazy thing is, I met a chick today with a personality that was right up my alley.  Vivacious.  Loud.  And a body that was a maybe just a little too nice.  But I loved it, because I loved the girl attached to it, loved her outrageous demeanor, and minus the finale to our night, everything was rockin’ with this girl.  Was I suckered?  What was her story?  Did her and her friend have a plan to scam me?  Did they actually intend to go get money—$25 bucks each—and then crash the car while they were traveling to the bank?  What the fuck happened?

I’d love to have the answers, but what I’ve found is, in a lot of these situations—or in most—you don’t get answers.  And that is life.  Just like the families of the hundreds, nay, the thousands who are still missing, who just want to know, who want to hear that their beloved ones are dead, but can’t.  Who want to know that they were killed by aphyxiation on pyroclastic gases, or that they were killed by lahar, a tidal wave of mud and lava, or that they were hit by a hot vapor which turned them into statues instantly.  Those people will never have answers.  And we will never have all of the answers.

But that’s life.