Death to the Department of Weights and Measures

Ask a Guatemalan man how tall he is, and he'll respond in meters and centimeters. Ask a Guatemalan woman how far she drove, and she'll use kilometers. Ask a Guatemalan child how much water is in the bottle he's holding, and he'll use milliliters. Turn on the TV, and the weather report will tell you the temperature in degrees centigrade. The metric system is alive and well in Guatemala.

Until, that is, you drive by a gas station and see the prices per gallon of fuel. Or when you're discussing physical fitness and a Guatemalan tells you that he needs to lose 20 pounds.

The Guatemalans have adopted a strange mishmash of metric and imperial measurements, and it has led to a great conversation with my landlord. Before I describe that conversation, however, I should repeat as reference a conversation I had with my Moldovan host mother years ago:

Me: In America, we don't use kilograms. We use pounds.
Maria: What? But how do you know how much to get at the market?
Me: We just use pounds instead of kilograms and everyone understands.
Maria: So let's say I go to the market and want a kilogram of beef.
Me: You say, "I'd like two pounds of beef, please."
Maria: Hmmm... (with a look on her face that told me that she disapproved of this entire concept of pounds)

Now flash forward to 2009, when I talked with my landlord, Irwin.

Me: So Guatemalans use pounds here?
Irwin: Yeah. But in the U.S., you use kilograms, right?
Me: No, in the U.S., we use pounds, but most countries use kilograms. In Moldova, for example, they use kilograms.
Irwin: So if you go to the market and you want a pound of beef, they don't understand you?
Me: No.
Irwin: But then if you ask for a kilogram of beef, that's too much.
Me: Well, you could ask for a half-kilogram of beef.
Irwin: No, (smiling) that's too complicated.