Rosalia de las Pastelles, trabajadora

My host mom, Rosalia, is a professional cake baker. Like- that´s what she does. Bake cakes to sell around San Pedro. Last night I was at a birthday party for a jazz bassist I didn´t know (hey, it had a free bar) and one of her cakes was there.

There are many things that are awesome about this. Cake. The smell of cake. Frosting. Cake. More wonderful smelling of cake.

But one of the most interesting things is seeing Rosalia and her family work. There are days when she will have orders of 8 cakes. That´s a lot. She works hard for the money. Not just Rosalia, but her husband Juan and son Abner as well. It´s really interesting and comforting to see men here working in a kitchen. I don´t think it´s very common. These two will be up until midnight or later, working on cakes, and then get up at 6 am or earlier to finish them or deliver them. Keep in mind that Juan is also a teacher, and they get a lot of money (i´m assuming) from keeping three students in the house. They are definately a ¨middle class¨guatemalan family, but they work fucking hard for it.

People here work really hard. I was sitting talking to a gringo owner of a local restaurant (a lot them here are owned by gringos, for gringos. BGFG). We were chatting on the laid back nature of business here. He talked about how his restaurants in the US were STRESS STRESS STRESS, and not here. He doesn´t know the full names of his landlord, nor they his. And someone mentioned, "Everything here is so EASY." I think some things are really REALLY easy for gringos with money. And I think people here make it easy because when so many things are so HARD, you do your best to make everything as easy as possible.

Well, if you´ll excuse me, I have to hop into my limo and relax with some champagne, cuban cigars, and a private hot tub party. It´s costing about $10 an hour, so I better get on it.