The Incident With the Chickens

I probably shouldn't be writing this. I'm going to offend someone or reveal some hideous character flaw in myself. But I need to talk about it and I think it is relevant to my blog's theme of living as a foreigner in another country.

I will start my story by saying I had the worst morning EVER. Willow peed on the floor upstairs and it leaked thru onto my head as I was sleeping. Gus broke a flowerpot that wasn't even ours. Two of the foster puppies found their way into the bathroom and tore open bags of used toilet paper. As I was putting the garbage out, all the dogs escaped, and I had to let the three adults go -- Sassy, Gus, and Calvin -- in order to make sure all the foster puppies stayed in. I hit my head on the mailbox. I got a copyright infringement notice on YouTube. And then after all that, the garbage truck had apparently already gone by, or never showed up, cuz my garbage didn't get picked up.

That was before 10 am.

I had a coffee and decided that I wasn't going to let this day be ruined. I was going to pick myself up and accomplish things! (Including making plans for a fenced partition around the gate so I wouldn't have to wrangle dogs whenever I wanted to leave the yard.)

I got off my sorry butt and went out and ran some errands. Gus and Calvin came back on their own, and Sassy's former owner messaged me to say that she was over at her old house. I picked up food and went to visit Bert where he is housesitting and spent some nice time with him and the doggies. Things were looking up!

But when I came home, my neighbour approached me as I was walking up to my gate. She told me a black dog had attacked and killed two of her chickens. I told her I didn't have a black dog. She said some other stuff I didn't understand, and then her daughter said that the dog that killed the chickens had come back to my house. I repeated that I didn't have a black dog. I had a "tigre" dog and a beige dog. I opened the gate and Calvin poked his nose out. The woman pointed and said it was that dog that killed her chickens and she wanted Q250.

That's when I got upset. Up until she said Q250, I was just mildly irritated and focusing more on figuring out if it actually was my dog. But Q250 for two chickens?? No freaking WAY.

This is where the "stranger in a strange land" thing comes in. Because I am living in Guatemala, because of the way the majority of Guatemalans have treated me, I immediately distrusted this woman. I didn't for one second believe that two chickens cost Q250. Why? Because the majority of Guatemalans have been ripping me off -- or trying to -- for the three years I have been living here. Scamming me, lying to me, begging for money from me...because I am white. A gringa. Una extranjera (foreigner).

The other day, I went to the market and bought a pineapple. I gave the man Q10. He took it, fumbled with his money for a bit, then pocketed it all and started talking to his friend. I said, "Disculpe?" (Excuse me?) He looked at me. I said, "Mi cambio?" (My change.) Then he gets all, "Oh, sorry," and fumbles out his money and gives me my Q5. I know how much a pineapple costs, you idiot!

In my last blog post, I mentioned how I was glad that Walmart had prices on the items. It's so true. Every single time I buy something, I wonder if I'm actually paying the correct price or if it's been doubled or tripled because I am a foreigner. I hate bargaining. I hate discrimination. I hate liars and I hate greedy people. And this country is FULL OF THEM.

Yep, I just said that.

Back to the chickens.... When the lady asked for Q250, I got mad. I told her to wait one minute, went inside my gate, (shutting her outside), and went upstairs to my computer to Google how much a live chicken should cost. On OLX, which is an online marketplace kinda like craigslist, egg-laying chickens were going for between Q40 and Q50. Meat chickens were a bit more. But there were NO chickens that were over Q100 apiece.

I went back outside and gave the woman Q100. She started saying something and I just didn't care. I spat out, in English, "You can buy two chickens with Q100." I went back in my gate and slammed it shut.

Then I cried.

Then I got on Facebook and asked my friends how much a chicken really costs. Turns out, a few people corroborated that around here a chicken would be about Q80, mas o menos (more or less).

By that time, it had started raining and gotten dark. I pondered my dilemma. I had been warned about my neighbours. They had broken into this house when the last person was living here and stolen her computer. The landlord had put bars on the windows and installed bigger fences to prevent a reoccurrence. Even the gardener when I first met him had told me that the neighbours were ladrones (thieves).

Was my neighbour lying? Should I have asked to see the dead chickens? Should I pay more? Should I hope she just lets it go? Is it really worth it? What if she throws poisoned hotdogs over my fence to kill my dogs? (And the puppies!!)

"It's just Q250," you're thinking. That's like $40. Well, I had just shelled out Q1000 to pay all my bills and had spent quite a bit of cash on my trip to Xela. Q250 is no small change.

Anyway, as it stands now, I will go tomorrow and apologize and give her another Q100. I don't doubt that Calvin killed her chickens. He's killed things before. He was out running free today and had ample opportunity. The neighbours probably really need the money, even more than I do, and I don't want to make enemies. All of this points to forking over the cash and just resigning myself to eating pasta for a week until another paycheck comes in. (Sigh.)

I will say one more thing about this situation. When I was crying, my overwhelming feeling was, "I want to go home." Would this have happened at home? Maybe. But it wouldn't have been as stressful. I would have been able to communicate properly in my native language. I would have been able to speak my mind and understand what my neighbour was saying. Perhaps the police would have been involved or the Humane Society. Perhaps neither her chickens nor my dog would have ever been running loose in the first place. It would have been a problem, for certain, but not like this.

But I don't really want to go home. (I mean, I do, but just to visit. 😊) I don't think I can go back to that lifestyle -- the hamster wheel, the daily grind. I've become accustomed to working part-time and getting to spend more time doing things I enjoy. I might go back and live in Canada one day but it won't be because of some dead chickens and an irate neighbour.

Now I need to go practice my Spanish. Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment. Good night.