Taken by the Wind » Guatemala

Auto Hotels and Love Hotels

Reannon Muth — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:30:46 +0000

Would you pay to have sex in a garage? No? Well if you lived in Central America you might.

Auto Hotel Constelacion in Villahermosa, Mexico

Meet the auto hotel. It’s Central America’s version of North America’s pay-per-the-hour highway motel, except instead of cheating spouses slinking off to Motel Six to do the dirty, they pull into a roadside auto hotel and get it on in a parking stall.

When I first saw an Auto Hotel in Guatemala, I thought it was some sort of overnight parking garage. But then it was explained that although the auto hotel is part-parking garage, it’s main purpose is to provide couples a discreet and private place to go for some alone time. Young people here often live in close quarters with their parents (even after marriage) and privacy is tough to come by.

How it works apparently (I haven’t experienced one personally so I’m not sure of the details) is that you park in an enclosed garage or a parking spot (where a curtain is drawn that shields your car from view). There’s usually a room connected to the garage or parking spot that includes the normal hotel amenities (a bed, a TV, bathroom and a phone) but sometimes there’s just a mattress on the garage floor. Your only interaction with the staff at the hotel is either via phone conversations or a slit in the wall, where the hotel staff place beer, food or condoms (which may or may not be included in the price of the room).

Although Auto hotels have a sleazy reputation because of the prostitutes and adulterers that frequent them, some of the auto hotels actually look pretty classy. And they’re cheaper than the average cost of a bed in hostel dormitory too. I was reading in the Lonely Planet though that if you show up in a group or with a member of the same sex, they might not let you stay. Mexicans, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans don’t use Auto Hotels for cheap travel accommodation, only for cheap sex.

Auto hotels are a lot like the ‘Love Hotels’ that you can find in Japan and Korea (it’s borrows the exact same concept except love hotels are more technologically-advanced and there’s not the same negative stigma attached). You can often pay for your hotel stay via a vending machine in the lobby and hotel rooms come in different themes. They even have a Christmas-themed love hotel in Osaka where your stay comes with complementary Santa pyjamas.

Hotel Little Chapel Christmas. Photo Source

You probably couldn’t find two places in the world more different than Japan and Guatemala and yet when it comes to creative solutions to the problem of live-in in-laws and thin bedroom walls, they’re surprisingly similar.

I’m Going to Nicaragua Tomorrow!

Reannon Muth — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:33:42 +0000

This is just a quick note to say that yes, I’m still alive (and I’m feeling much better, thank God) and I’m going to be traveling to Nicaragua tomorrow. Hopefully after two taxis, a night in a hotel and 23 hours on two different buses, I will be out of the rainy, cold highlands of Guatemala and sitting in a hammock here:

Photo by Osopolar

But then again, this is Central America so anything’s possible really.

Why It Sometimes Sucks to Be Female

Reannon Muth — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:33:06 +0000

The other night, at around 11 o’clock, I stood outside a karaoke bar and debated whether or not it was safe to make the block-long walk from the bar to the park. Even though I only lived five blocks away, I knew that walking on my own all the way home would have been too risky, but one block to the taxi stand? Surely it would be okay to walk along a well-lit street to the park and then have one of the taxis chauffeur me the rest of the way?

I took a poll of the smokers standing outside. “Do you think it’s safe to walk to the park to get a cab?” I asked.

“No way. Uh-uh. Don’t do it,” was the general consensus. Sighing, I went back inside and feeling embarrassed, asked one of my male roommates if he’d mind walking me home. I had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning and needed to get home and get some rest.

He was gracious about it and kept insisting that he didn’t mind but I still felt bad about having to ask him. One of the qualities I pride myself most on is my independence. I embrace the whole, ‘woman, man, fish, bicycle’ motto and have always done whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and never needed any male protection before.

Until now, anyway. Here was an example where being strong and independent wasn’t enough. Hollering “I am woman, here me roar!” certainly wouldn’t have scared away the rapists or robbers. But a six-foot-four male Englishman? Apparently that did the trick.

“I feel like you’re my babysitter,” I whined on our walk back.

My Spanish tutor is also a Tae-Kwon-Do master and in between verb conjugations and discussions about Guatemalan politics, he’s taught me a few of his moves. I now know, for example, how to break someones arm. What good this will do me if I’m ever attacked, is probably next to nil because I only know how to do it if the mugger attacks me from the front.

But it’s a start.

Is Working in a Developing Country Ethical?

Reannon Muth — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:07:48 +0000

I held a paid teaching position in Guatemala for exactly five weeks and one day. Although I quit for financial reasons, the fact that my other co-workers resented my presence didn’t help the situation any.

At first I thought I was just imagining their cold looks and silent treatment. And when they ignored me on the playground during recess or didn’t respond to my greetings of “Buenas Dias”, I honestly figured they were just shy and that they’d warm up to me eventually.

But then one morning, I innocently asked the secretary if I could have a poster board to make a calendar for my first grade classroom. Instead of answering my question, she continued to type as if I hadn’t spoken. And from the quick flash of annoyance she’d shot at the computer screen and the tense vibes she was giving off, I could tell she was pissed. Although at what, I didn’t have a clue.

“Um,” I tried again. “Yo necesito un papel grande,” I demonstrated with my arms, making the international symbol for ‘big’. Finally, she looked up and then said something in quick-fire Spanish.

“Huh? Como? Una otra vez, por favor,” I said, asking her to repeat what she’d just said because I hadn’t understood a word of it.

And that’s when she lost it. Standing up, she started to yell and point at the supply closet. I understood the words “Spanish” and “dont understand” and imagined she was saying something to the effect of “Speak better Spanish, bi-atch.”

“Yo quiero solo un papel,” I repeated, mystified. I only wanted a piece of paper. Why did she have to be so rude?

Later my boss explained that some of the teachers didn’t like me because they were jealous and fearful that I was there to steal their jobs. I could definitely understand why they’d feel that way.

Before I’d accepted that job, I’d been concerned that by doing so I’d be taking a job away from a Guatemalan. And with 30-40 percent of the country underemployed, the Guatemalans certainly needed all the jobs they could get. But I’d been assured by the school that they only hired foreigners to teach their English classes. Therefore I wasn’t stealing a job from a Guatemalan, because if I didn’t accept the job offer, there’d just be foreigner in line to take it.

Interestingly enough though, since I quit this past week, I’ve heard that they’ve hired a Guatemalan to replace me. Apparently they couldn’t find another foreigner willing to commit to working those kind of hours for such low pay. Go figure. So perhaps it’s a good thing I quit?

What do you think? Have you ever worked in a developing country? Would you?

I Quit My Job

Reannon Muth — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:31:06 +0000

Maybe this doesn’t come as much of a surprise to you. It certainly wouldn’t if you’d been around me the last few weeks and listened to my endless grumbles of “I don’t get paid enough for this” or “I’m not here to play Hilary Swank to a bunch of unmotivated, ungrateful punks.”

Because besides the fact that I was working 50 plus hours a week for the equivalent of 12 dollars a day, I was horribly stressed out. It turns out that International schools in Guatemala (or at least the one I worked for) are big fans of pointless paperwork. In addition to having to submit detailed lesson plans for review each and every week, I also had to submit weekly progress reports for each of my students and an up-to-date list of all homework assignments or tests I’d given that week. Which meant that I was often up late into the night typing up lesson plans or grading essays. It was exhausting.

But all of that would have been acceptable had the school been willing to negotiate my workload a bit. One afternoon, near tears, I confronted my boss about it.

“I can’t teach them. I just can’t.” I said, sniffling through my cold. I was referring to my sophomore English class, a group of disrespectful slackers who talked or slept through class, cheated on all their tests and never did their homework. I was the sixth teacher they’d had in four months and a month into the job, I held the record for one who’d held out the longest. Most of the teachers had quit after only two weeks and one hadn’t even survived two days.

I laid out my case carefully. I was a good teacher. My boss thought so. My students did. And I’d received a number of compliments from the parents. But this was just too much work for me to handle. I explained how I didn’t have any free time to study Spanish or volunteer or even do my laundry. I then asked if I could reduce my hours and only teach in the mornings. I enjoyed my morning classes (teaching first and second graders) but dreaded my afternoon high school classes.

“They don’t want to learn. I’ve tried everything…songs, games, movies. I’ve tried being fun, I’ve tried being strict. I just can’t get through to them.”

But my boss refused to negotiate.

And so I quit.