Handlebar Time

For the last couple of weeks, it's been getting close, but this morning
(as I was playing with my moustache riding the Chicken Bus back from San
Jerónimo) it finally started to curl correctly.

I believe that this is Emily's favorite moustache permutation. Just a
little hint of a handlebar curl. One inebriated peasant stopped on the
street, stared, and laughed openly. I wasn't offended--better that than
a reasoned response to at least 100 years of American imperialism in the
region.

Along completely different lines, have any of y'all ever heard the
Ramones' "We're a Happy Family"? Terrible (but hilarious) lyrics:

We're a happy family (x3)
Me, mom and daddy
We're a happy family (x3)
Me, mom and daddy

Sittin' here in Queens
Eatin' refried beans
Wearin' (?) all our magazines
Gulpin' down chlorazines (?)

We ain't got no friends
Our troubles never end
No Christmas cards to send
Daddy likes men...

Not quite as terrible as "Mississippi Mud" with Frankie Trumbauer, but
pretty terrible... It does help one to understand how people abroad get
such ridiculous ideas about people from the states. The Guatemalans
aren't afraid of the states (nor should they be--they're far tougher
than the average Estadounidense), but the Europeans down here have no
problem with traveling around Guatemala City, but "Isn't it dangerous in
the U.S., with all those guns?"

At that moment, I'm always torn between giving them the correct answer
("Only if you meet a big-haired, blonde, Texas woman in a dark alley")
and really playing up the "tough American" role ("Yeah, but the big hair
don't scare me!")

Please forgive the Texas bashing, incidentally. It's the Ramones.
They're putting me in a goofy mood.

I'm going to get some Pollo Campero!

Rational Choice: Taking Over the World

And I'm not rooting against it...

I interviewed two forestry technicians at the local INAB (/Instituto
National de Bosques/--National Forest Institute) office in San Jerónimo
today--really nice guys. Soft spoken, and very knowledgeable. They
were also dressed and acted like they spend a lot of time doing hard
work outdoors, which I find encouraging. Stained jeans, faded shirts,
and work boots with worn soles.

Although they were trained in silvicuture, they were rational choicers
in disguise, explaining to me in detail how a series of forestry
incentive programs created by the Guatemalan national government had
made it economically desirable for campesinos to engage in forest
management and sustainable forestry.

They showed an understanding of the fact that peasants in rural areas
face strong incentives to heavily discount the future (their hungry
children, among other things, present an incentive to do something to
make money today rather than tomorrow). And they were aware that, even
when faced with government incentives for re-forestation activities,
there are still barriers to peasants' participation (like the fact that
they often lack title to their land, so they're not eligible to receive
subsidized seed and fertilizer).

This was a refreshing change from some of the interviews I had in
Uspantán, where individuals told me that peasants only failed to engage
in sustainable forestry practices because they were "uneducated" and
"ignorant." I'm the first one to recognize that education may play a
role in promoting good practices in forestry (and any other policy
area), but these individuals were unwilling to recognize that peasants
might have rational reasons for doing the unsustainable things they
do--reasons like feeding their families.

In fact, I would argue that the average peasant spends more time
carefully weighing the costs and benefits of his actions than your
average middle-class gringo, and therefore, is probably more "rational,"
in the economic sense, than me. For one thing, the utility associated
with a given unit of money is a hell of a lot higher when you make so
little--Q.5 (about seven cents) is worse than nothing for me, as I can't
buy anything with it, and it weighs down my pocket. For the peasant,
though, that's pretty close to buying the ingredients for a meal (not
one that I'd want to eat, but still...) and maybe enough for more than
one person. For another thing, because they typically make so little
money, their time is relatively more valuable than what they do own, so
they'll probably spend much more time thinking about how to spend their
money. That extra Q.5 I wasted today so that I wouldn't have to walk
down a half a block to another store where I knew the soda I bought
would be cheaper would be dearly prized by someone who makes less than a
dollar a day.

Kenny Rogers

Today was the third time in as many days that I've heard a van driving
by with loudspeakers on top (a la Jake and Elwood) playing Kenny
Rogers. And not "The Gambler," either. The first time, it was Kenny
Rogers doing "Me and Bobb[ie] McGee," and this last time, it was "Coward
of the County."

I can see why the Guatemalans would like that stuff--they obviously love
Ranchero music (it plays pretty much constantly on the Chicken Buses),
and that's also all about story telling as well. But even so, it was
unexpected.

But I have to admit that half the time, when I'm bouncing around on a
bus out here, I've got Waylon Jennings running through my head...

"...someday, the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will..."

To be perfectly honest, though, I could go for a little Jerry Reed.

I've been thinking about Alaska a lot the last couple of days, and
missing it. Not sure why that's going through my head now--there sure
are much more immediate things that I'm missing (like a good cup to tea,
for one thing), but hearing Kenny Rogers makes me think of Fairbanks (on
account of my favorite radio station--the Fbks. classic country station,
which forever seemed to be playing Jerry Reed and Roger Miller).

I used to get done with work or school up at the U. and drive out to the
cabin, listening to that station, singing along with Jerry or Roger, or
if it was really late, listening to Art Bell talk to nut jobs about
UFOs. I would pull off Gold Hill road onto the packed snow of the
unpaved roads around my cabin, and the moon would often be so bright
that I would turn off the headlights for the last half mile or so, just
to appreciate how beautiful it was, with the moonlight reflecting off
the road, and the snow piled on the black spruce trees all around.
Didn't matter that the light were off--you could see as well as in the
daytime...

Down in Southeast, Emily and I would go for a walk in about any
weather--if you waited for it to stop raining, you'd grow moss while you
waited--and I remember walking in the snow down lake street, or more
likely, walking through the rain. In the winter, when the ice on the
lake next to lake street froze, the whole community would turn out to
skate, and you could get your skates sharpened by the guy in the S.O.B.
truck (stands for "sharpens old blades," as he would tell you as soon as
you walked up), then go out skating with the kids in the high school,
all their parents and everyone you knew from around town. It felt like
you were living a Norman Rockwell painting, with prettier mountains in
the background.

Rain was often so heavy there that if there was a pinhole in your rain
jacket, you'd be soaked through in the twenty minutes it took you to
walk to the bookstore and back.

The most beautiful sunset of my life was there--the most incredible
purples, reds, and oranges reflecting off the clouds on the horizon.
Saw it right out Emily's window, looking out over the fishing boats in
the harbor and looking out over the perfect volcanic cone of Mt.
Edgecomb. Damned it I know if I'm spelling that right anymore, though.
It's been a long time.

Wouldn't mind getting back there, though. First think I'd do is finish
up the kayak that's half built in my folks' basement in CT, and the
second thing I'd do is buy a boat for Emily. Then we'd go paddling...

how come...

...people in the states don't walk around with machetes tucked into
their belts like they do here?

I should note that here in Baja Verapaz, there seem to be more people
with machetes in sheaths in their belts, and fewer people riding bikes
and holding the machete in one hand and the handlebars in the other.

When I was up in Uspantán, I got to witness maybe the most frightening
scene of my trip here, which was a little kid of maybe eight years old
twirling his machete around his fingers...

Good times. Good times.

San Jerónimo

Made my first visit out to San Jerónimo today, just to get my bearings
and take a walk around. It's a pretty little town with a pleasant plaza
and an interesting museum which is a former sugar refinery, and houses
the machinery for sugar refining, and also a reasonable display of Mayan
artifacts.

The municipal building is reasonably sized and a little run down. I
think that's a good sign--I get suspicious of shiny town plazas with
piped-in music (as I've noted, shiny means quality down here) when the
municipal per capita income is in the $1200 range.

There's also a hotel in town, with a restaurant, but it's a ways out of
the center. Looks very pleasant, but I took a look at a room, and it
doesn't have much on my room here in Salamá (though there is a swimming
pool), so I'll probably keep the room here, since this is Q85/night and
that's Q125. Probably cheaper for me to eat my meals out here, as well,
though of course it would be better to get more exposure to the town
itself. I'll just have to make an effort to spend quite a bit of time
out there.

Incidentally, I wish the Latin Americans would get their story straight
on what the central plaza is called. I asked for directions to the
"Plaza Principal" the other day in Cobán, and the guy gave me directions
to the shopping plaza which had Pollo Campero in it. I guess that's
where he thinks all the gringos want to go!

"Parque Central" is what I should have said, but Holy Crap, I wish they
could just pick a single term for the plaza...

Here: "Parque Central"
Mexico: "Zócalo"
Bolivia: "Plaza Principal"
Peru: "Plaza de Armas"

Okay, that's a little over-simplified, but you get the idea...

The last one is my favorite--a historical allusion to the fact that the
central plaza was where all the local men would gather with their guns
and lances when the town was under threat. Not a bad system, really.

What on God's green earth does "Zócalo" mean, by the way?

And what ever happened to the citizen militia in the states? The
benefits of such a system:
1. Cheaper to maintain a citizen militia than a standing Army.
2. A lot harder to get into wars when every male voter will be heading
off to fight the infidels, the communists, or the terrorists.
3. Gets around Maureen's point about the obsolescence of the 2d
amendment (only a benefit if you're a gun-totin', "bitter" resident of
rural America.)
4. I think there's something to be said about state-building and
citizen-building with such a system. It would be interesting to know if
I was right or wrong, but my suspicion is that there is something to a
social constructivist story about how military service promotes a
feeling of national identity.

And how come we don't build towns this way anymore in the states? I know
of a couple of rural places in Eastern Connecticut that still have a
town green surrounded by a grid (more or less) of streets, but how come
we don't follow that system anymore? Other things being equal, who
wouldn't prefer to be within a couple minutes' walk of a town common or
a Plaza de Armas? Preferably complete with a monument to (a) G.
Washington, (b) Simón Bolivar, (c) Justo Rufino Barrios, or (d) Jay
Hammond.

Salamá

After a noisy night in my (very nice) hotel room in which I didn't get
much sleep (I was within earshot of at least three evangelical
protestant services at one point), I decided that it was time to find a
new place to stay, and as long as I was packing everything up and
heading out of the hotel, I might as well just move on to Salamá, which
will probably be my base for my next case study, unless there's a place
to stay in San Jerónimo (the lonely planet book doesn't mention anything...)

So I packed up my stuff, and headed out to find the microbus station,
from whence I hopped on and headed to Salamá, about an hour and a half away.

I commented to the Peace Corps folks in Uspantán the other day how easy
it is to get around Guatemala. They looked at me like I was nuts, but
it really is easy to get around this little tiny country, once you
figure out how things work. The cities are really quite close together,
and even the really rural stuff is usually within a couple of hours of a
major town. You can't head out with a real stringent schedule and hope
to stick to it, but it really is remarkably easy to get from one place
to another.

I'm just glad that I only have a small backpack and a little shoulder
bag. When I head on to Bolivia, I'll also plan on cutting the size of
the baggage down. I've dropped some things along the way, but I'm
pretty sure I can go even smaller. Don't need as many clothes, among
other things. It's easy to get around, but it's a little tricky when
you're switching buses at noisy, confusing highway junctions when you've
got a bunch of luggage.

Incidentally, _The Simpsons_ isn't funny in Spanish.

Salamá is a nifty little town. It's a lot hotter here than in the
highlands--we're still surrounded by mountains here (really beautiful
ones), but it probably got up into the mid-80s today. And it's humid.
Amazing how, in just a couple of hours, you can go from sweaters to palm
trees. Noisy and

I had this really good taco-like thing tonight for dinner. It had this
thick, wheat flour tortilla, and it was filled with steak and cabbage.
Excellent, but I'm not sure if the cabbage was cooked or not. Hope it
doesn't make me sick.

Before my Cena Peligrosa, I took a walk up to this beautiful little
chapel on a hill which has really good views of the surrounding
countryside. Took a couple of pictures, which I'll put up when I get
the internet again (probably not for a while). The chapel is called
"Calvary." Appropriate, since it's on a hill, but it strikes me as a
little gruesome that the place the Romans used to torture and kill
dissidents and criminals has found its way into our culture that way...
"The Place of the Skull," if I remember correctly--that's what Calvary
means. Was that in Jerusalem? Can't remember.

Guatemalan Restaurants

I bash Guatemalan food a lot, but I have to say, the other day, I
ordered a breakfast with eggs that didn't come with beans, and I kind of
missed them. That's a little troubling, and I think I've gained a
couple of pounds this trip, in the process of getting used to refried
beans twice a day. I'll be glad to be in Bolivia, though, where
Salteñas are on the menu, along with yogurt and bread.

That said, my favorite restaurants down here to date:

1. Restaurante Nick's Place in San Pedro--best pizza I've ever had,
short of the Mexican place in Sitka, Alaska (with portraits of Emiliano
Zapata up all over the place).
2. The Bonanza (I think I called it something different before, but
it's the Bonanza) in Toto, where you can get my dream breakfast: two
pancakes, two scrambled eggs, coffee, and bananas.
3. Picadilly in Uspantán, where the "American" breakfast includes corn
tortillas.
4. Little coffee place in San Pedro up from the Pana dock that serves
you espresso in a paper cup, with coffee bushes in the backyard and
beans roasting out front.
5. Mi Taco Express in Usp., which the peace corps folks call "Fat Kid
Mexican." Seriously good stuff--and what a friendly family that runs
the place!
6. Sarita's, the Guatemalan ice cream joint. Love the banana split.
Not too many places where ice cream sundaes are that good, and they come
in a reasonable size for a change... Of course, if you show up on the
right day looking for cartons of ice cream, you just might be forced to
buy their entire stock, which consists of a liter and a half of
chocolate and strawberry.
7. And what list of Guatemalan restaurants would be complete without
that Scion of Guatemalan Exports, Pollo Campero? Where the mascot on
the sign seems to happily exclaim, "come on in and consume my brethren."

Moving on to Cobán

After a breakfast of pancakes (of course) at the Picadilly Café in
Uspantán this morning, I headed on to Coban, from whence I'll head to my
next case study, which I've decided is San Jerónimo, Baja Verapaz.

The day involved another beautiful microbus ride, complete with 22
passengers in a 15 passenger van, through some stunning country, and
past lots of landslides, due to recent rains. A muddy, slippery ride,
too, on a road that is still mostly unpaved.

Coban is an interesting town--it's becoming part of the Gringo Trail,
but it isn't as touristy as I had imagined. Some hostels and touristy
restaurants, but still mostly traditional Guatemalan comedores, and no
place with wireless internet that I've been able to find (I have some
work to do in the web). Also, a beautiful central plaza, though fewer
people here in traditional dress here.

I had a bit of a time finding a place to stay, but a local helped me
out, and I wound up with a pretty nice room, complete with TV, that's a
little ways out of the center, but otherwise a great deal. Q60 a night
(about $8) for a clean room with a balcony, TV, lukewarm shower, and 45
entertaining minutes of the owner trying to find the key to the room.

And I had the best tortillas of my stay down here in a café in town.
The coffee is great here, too. They all seem to be using local beans,
and the coffee here is less acidic than that in the highlands, and way
better than Nescafé, which is what you get at the Picadilly.

Still trying to decide what to do for tomorrow. I want to be in San
Jerónimo on Mon., but I might spend tomorrow here. The fair is here (!)
which would be fun, and I'll be spending plenty of time in San J. and
nearby... Plus, I need to buy a new umbrella, since my old one got bent
on the roof of the micro on the way here. No big loss. It was too big,
anyways. I'll make sure to get a smaller one this time. I could
probably get one in San J., but it'll be more fun to play the market
game in a big place like this.

Plus, there's a Pollo Campero here--and who wouldn't relish the chance
to eat at Campero for their succulent fried chicken, which (according to
another traveler I met) comes in two flavors--salty and saltier.

That's my kind of place.

WPPA

In a party caucus (Up With King Caucus!), the Wool Pants Party of
America has decided to back former president and imperialist James K.
Polk for president.

54'40" or fight!
Polk for prez in '08
WPPA
Cotton Kills

Methodological Crap

Okay Aubrey, I promise I won't blog about poisson or negative binomial
regression after this...

Zane mentioned that I should try to transform the DV by normal means by
logging it to see if that works--the reason I've been eyeing those other
wacky models, though, is that the transformation doesn't work. Too many
0's. So I started to wonder if poisson is appropriate--but it doesn't
meet the assumptions of the model, anyways. I'll play with it more when
I get back to the states and have Ying's notes on hand, but I'm really
not sure what to do with it.

It becomes normal if I log the un-recoded variables--but the problem is
that all the 0s disappear and become missing data. And if I recode the
data so there are no 0s (just add 1 to the variable) then the
transformation doesn't work. I get this normal distribution with a huge
spike way off to the left side. Wish I could post a picture with the
e-mail...

I've been thinking that this (poisson model) might make sense, because
at least one of the outcome variables--the number of municipal employees
in forestry--is count data, and the distribution resembles a poisson
distribution.

But basically, I'm trying to deal with this badly skewed distribution
that I can't log into Gaussian normality.

On another note, the size variable that I was hoping would work out
(that was significant before I did some data cleaning, and now is
insignificant again) has this very clear significant and positive
relationship with conflicts, with two huge outliers that make the
relationship insignificant again. The two cases have something in
common (they're different from the other munis because of size, but also
because of, among other things (a) climactic zone, (b)
narco-trafficking, (c) shady border-town operators, (d) number of
Zapatistas, and (e) frequency of Ninja attacks).

So, I've been thinking that maybe I should pay a visit to Melchor de
Mencos or Santa Ana, Petén.