It felt like the gate of an airport.
Children milled about. Some scurried; others cried. Parents fed them cheetoes and seven up to quieten them down. A line of about 40 snaked around the room until those at the end seemed to clump tgether in an indistinguishable morass of bodies and conversation.
The wait seemed interminable. I asked a few of those around me if it was always like this.
"Mondays," they said. "We talk about papers and such."
"Ah," I said.
Not, of course, that they weren't already staring. That I was not Guatemalan was painfully obvious, and I haven't felt so conspicuous in a long time.
But most people had more important business to attend to, and this manic Monday was fraying everyone's nerves. I had an appointment with the consul. Perhaps they did as well.
We were prepared to wait. If this was an airport in training, our flights had certainly been delayed.
Few wanted to talk. People stared ahead in a daze, the purgatory of waiting affecting their ability to be present and gregarious. Ten a.m. quickly became 11, 11, 12. My appointment had come and some times over, but a miniscule number had left the room.
I had to go and come back. It would be the only way. I made a tentative appointment with the consul for Wednesday and took a stash of brochures from every catgory available.
I paged through a pamphlet describing the consulate, another explained "gonorrea" while one delineated the attorneys available to those with linguistic or national status limitations. I pocketed business cards and packets, postcards and inserts. I hoped these would give me a clue into the city's Guatemalan community--into the concerns they had, the issues they dealt with and the internal communication they sustained.
Wednesday: I called the consul.
"The consul is busy," Teresa, the receptionist, said (now, I say receptionist, but that place was chaos. "Receptionist" implies someone intercepting communication in an organized manner in a presumably organized institution). I could not speak to him.
"May I speak to the vice-consul?"
"Absolutely."
I called back, and he could not come either. I called again, nothing. And again...nothing. But Teresa was friendly. Frustration. And I had spoken to no one in depth Monday.
This is not a top-down story...but I think it's important to talk to someone who knows general statistics and demographics and make-up and logistics from within who could presumably give me a better idea of where this could be headed, what does it mean for whom, how, when and why...
I will persist.
Children milled about. Some scurried; others cried. Parents fed them cheetoes and seven up to quieten them down. A line of about 40 snaked around the room until those at the end seemed to clump tgether in an indistinguishable morass of bodies and conversation.
The wait seemed interminable. I asked a few of those around me if it was always like this.
"Mondays," they said. "We talk about papers and such."
"Ah," I said.
Not, of course, that they weren't already staring. That I was not Guatemalan was painfully obvious, and I haven't felt so conspicuous in a long time.
But most people had more important business to attend to, and this manic Monday was fraying everyone's nerves. I had an appointment with the consul. Perhaps they did as well.
We were prepared to wait. If this was an airport in training, our flights had certainly been delayed.
Few wanted to talk. People stared ahead in a daze, the purgatory of waiting affecting their ability to be present and gregarious. Ten a.m. quickly became 11, 11, 12. My appointment had come and some times over, but a miniscule number had left the room.
I had to go and come back. It would be the only way. I made a tentative appointment with the consul for Wednesday and took a stash of brochures from every catgory available.
I paged through a pamphlet describing the consulate, another explained "gonorrea" while one delineated the attorneys available to those with linguistic or national status limitations. I pocketed business cards and packets, postcards and inserts. I hoped these would give me a clue into the city's Guatemalan community--into the concerns they had, the issues they dealt with and the internal communication they sustained.
Wednesday: I called the consul.
"The consul is busy," Teresa, the receptionist, said (now, I say receptionist, but that place was chaos. "Receptionist" implies someone intercepting communication in an organized manner in a presumably organized institution). I could not speak to him.
"May I speak to the vice-consul?"
"Absolutely."
I called back, and he could not come either. I called again, nothing. And again...nothing. But Teresa was friendly. Frustration. And I had spoken to no one in depth Monday.
This is not a top-down story...but I think it's important to talk to someone who knows general statistics and demographics and make-up and logistics from within who could presumably give me a better idea of where this could be headed, what does it mean for whom, how, when and why...
I will persist.
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