TILAPIA AND RED SNAPPER
We are hungry now. When we find a small restaurant right on the water to have fish for lunch, it turns out to be the highlight of the day. We order grilled Tilapia. I’d like to taste the fish in its origin. I hope it tastes better than it does in the US. As we are waiting for our ordered grilled fish, a young woman approaches us in her usual attire: Long striped skirt wrapped around the hips made of cloth hand-woven by perhaps herself, tucked under a waist band again hand-embroidered, hand woven; a blouse again hand-embroidered and a shawl across one shoulder that is usually used to carry their infants and other things. In her case, her textile is nested in her shawl. She must be a mobile vendor. Her eyes are innocent, mild, friendly, not pushy at all. Zeynep, at that moment proposes to get all of the gifts from Guatemala for my family in Turkey for my (now already completed) visit in September. What a fine idea, they will so appreciate it.
And we have this fine woman, now, whom we like instantaneously. We buy several items, and whatever she doesn’t have, she drops everything she is carrying at the feet of our table and runs like a doe; to her nearby store or house and in a minute she is back with more goods and Zeynep is happy to find the treasure she is looking for in her supply. We buy as many of our gifts as possible from her. Zeynep pays for all our purchase, she wants these gifts to the family members to be truly hers. When we are done with our shopping, I ask Shiri, that is her name, if I can take a picture of her with her textile. She agrees with a shy smile. Zeynep would like to have a picture with her as well. Shiri is delighted, they are like two pals, feeling so at ease with giving a hug to each other.
I ask her whether she has an e-mail address for me to send her these photos. She says she doesn’t. I ask her whether she would like us to send them to the restaurant owner. Her face is slightly clouded, she says “Esta bien” to the effect of “No, thanks, that is OK.” We smile, we understand, there may be cultural barriers, certainly. We thank her and she leaves happy, fulfilled. We are also very happy and fulfilled. The only worry we have now is whether and how we will be able to fit all that we have and will continue accumulating in our bags.
Another positive note is that the tilapia dish turns out to be the best dish we will have in our entire Guatemala trip. This reminds me of a red snapper dish Bill and I had had in Puerto Rico during our first trip there. We were spending our vacation in the Northeastern section of Puerto Rico. One day we had decided to go down south along the eastern shore. Around 11 am, we had arrived in a town called Naguabo. We stopped at a restaurant to have a cup of tea. As we were passing by the cook’s stand, who was frying fish in the rear central section of the open air restaurant, I was stunned to see a stack of fried red snappers, a foot high covering a window 2x2 feet in size. Curious, we had asked the waiter why they were frying so much fish with not many customers visible in town. Wait, he had said, in an hour this place is going to turn into a zoo, today is Three Kings’ Day. Certainly, it was January 6th and this eve kids in Puerto Rico would get their gifts instead of our Christmas. We decided instead of tea to order our lunch before the crowds hit. Sure enough, in an hour, it felt like all of San Juan had driven down to Naguabo to have lunch and picnic. That red snapper also remains to be the best one I have had so far.
Mid afternoon, we feel we have seen enough of San Pedro and head to Panajachel. Zeynep wants to show me the street market in Pana, as the locals call it, and I am sure she wants to explore it herself a bit more. Yes indeed, the open air street market in Pana is very big and full of variety. We find an ornate horse for my best friend Nukhet’s father Sadan Amca, whom I will visit in September (and, did he like it! He was so happy when he was proudly placing it in his cabinet where he has been displaying all the horses he has been accumulating for many decades now). To my surprise, I find a small rug for my house, which is now happily residing in the hallway leading to my bedroom. We sometimes feel this is getting out of control. I bought a Mayan blanket already in Xela, now the rug and lots of other textile in addition to all the “macramé” jewelry Zeynep has been accumulating. But, we are also so happy to get these unique items and be able to help these women, we don’t care. We both feel like teenagers in a way, and I let it go. It feels good from whatever perspective I look at it. Let it go.
After purchasing our tickets for the next evening to go to Antigua, we head back to our casa, on the same boat that brought us the day before, the same captain and his helper, Pablo. This time I get a spontaneous crash course on how sturdy the canvas above our heads is. It is loaded with boxes of a dozen of 2-liter soda bottles, at least a dozen of them. I get it, there was no way our luggage would fly off. We travel with two Canadian families this time. They are there helping locals build houses. One teaches engineering at a university, the other is an IT person. And they were there with their spouses and children. What a wonderful task. Out of religious aspirations (we don’t know for our Canadian friends at least) or not, a lot of people are doing such good in this country, I will discover in the next several days.
The next day, we will spend in SanTiago Atitlan, the most authentic town, we hear, around the lago, its namesake. We are a bit disappointed to learn that it is quite an ordeal to get there. But we feel like it is still doable despite the time crunch to catch our shuttle to Antigua from Pana. We get up early in the morning but leave only after enjoying the sunrise and the mystic beauty it brings to the lake nad the surrounding volcanoes.
Breathtaking beauty of the lake early in the morning
We then take a boat to SanPedro. We have to take a tuktuk to the next embarcadero, where we will take another boat to SanTiago. I hadn’t realized that SanPedro was so big it needed two docks for intercity transportation. It turns out to be a clearly two hour trip, door to door. We leave the touristic market behind quickly and head toward the real, authentic market. And, that turns out to be the highlight of SanTiago for me: This is where the local locals buy their food, their materials, their eggs. Eggs are abundant and it seems like their major protein source is eggs and beans. Fish probably is part of their diet, but most likely caught for the family by men, not sold in the market. Lots of bananas, oranges, amorphously shaped peaches, plums, avocados, a green vegetable that I couldn’t recognize, beans of various colors, potatoes, onions, tomatoes are some of the edible goods I could recognize.
Zeyno certainly adds to the beauty of the lake, doesn't she?
Times like this is when I feel part of a community. When I go to places where they eat, to places where they shop, to places where they hang out. I wish, I had had more Spanish skills to strike up lengthy conversations. Alas, not yet. We buy fruit and do something I thought I’d never do for fear of traveler’s diarrhea, but we do, we buy freshly squeezed orange juice filling a plastic bag and served with a straw. Zeyno has been seasoned with that and has no reservations for this daily tradition here, which eliminates my concerns, and one more time I let it go. Mmmm, it is delicious and so refreshing. I feel rehydrated instantaneously.
Never say never is my motto while traveling, you never know what you will do that you thought you'd never do like drinking handsqueezed orange juice out of a plastic bag!
Never say never is my motto while traveling, you never know what you will do that you thought you'd never do like drinking handsqueezed orange juice out of a plastic bag! 
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