Aw my gawd!

What do you get when you mix one part paranoia with two parts valium and five weeks of Spanish classes?

You get Ken, a forty-odd year old American who loves the local hot springs, "natural" Navajo cigarettes and likes to do good things with his money and wants everyone to know it. Lucky for the people of this country, he has chosen Guatemala as the location of all his future good deeds and financial generosity. However, the current economic situation in the USA is putting a damper on his parade. He stands to lose A LOT of money and is in daily contact with people in the secret service and family members that are high up in the government. Word has it that all the banks will fold and he has Trustafarian friends that have lost hundreds of thousands already.

The situation is dire and requires that he run around flapping his arms, speaking loudly in Spanglish about how much money he will lose and that he take more valium than usual. Unfortunately, mommy's little helper seems to have lost its effect. He also had to get up yesterday during a routine class meeting to apologize for freaking out and for offending people by speaking about mucho dineros. Ken's dinero is not for him though, he added while choking back tears, it's for the children he was going to educate at the escuelas he was going to open. I had to stuff my face with nachos to keep from bursting out in a howl. None of the teachers even raise an eyebrow anymore...or maybe the crazy doesn't translate into Spanish.

It seems that his Guatemalan girlfriend tried to cheer him up by putting a rat tail made of green yarn in his hair. To help with his luck she added a dreamcatcher contrapion at the end of it. I think the fact that she speaks no English and he speaks no intelligible Spanish will keep these two together for a long time and, who knows, perhaps I will witness a traditional wedding ceremony during my brief time here.