Bang

In my three weeks in Guatemala, I've had to adapt very quickly to two Guatemalan tendencies: the number of heavily armed guards walking around, and firecrackers in the morning.

It's nearly impossible to walk a mile in Xela without seeing at least one gun, and I'm not just talking about handguns. Criminals use much stronger stuff than just handguns, so security forces, whether they're police or private security, have had to upgrade as well. The strangest example is at banks, where the man who opens the door for you, smiles, and says hello is also holding a shotgun. Similar situations happen in malls and outside electronics stores, and in nearly any location where a store is receiving a shipment. Shotguns are nearly universally preferred over automatic rifles, which worries me; if the goal is to be able to shoot a particular thief, a shotgun, which is designed to spread its fire across an area, seems to be the worst possible weapon. If I were a security officer, I wouldn't be able to fire my shotgun at a thief because I would worry about hitting innocent bystanders. Evidently, that's less of a concern here, or maybe they're just hoping that the shotguns are enough of a deterrent themselves that they'll never have to fire them.

Another Guatemalan custom sounds like gunfire, but is in fact just firecrackers. Every two or three days, I am woken up by firecrackers around 6:30 in my neighborhood. This is how many Guatemalans celebrate birthdays. Why? I have no idea. I suppose it's safer than shooting guns into the air. But right now, I'm making an official request: On my birthday in three weeks, I'd much rather have a phone call than firecrackers. And the phone call doesn't need to be at 6:30, either.