Cold Weather
14 March 2008
Over the past five months I have, several times, made the ignorant mistake of poking fun at the perceived idea of ‘cold’ here. Coming from Minnesota, land of ‘the nation’s ice box’, where just a couple weeks ago it hit a record low of 40 below, before wind-chill, I have a different mentality of cold than someone from a not-so-northern state, who might put on a winter jacket when the weather hits 60, when we don a t-shirt come spring when the thermometer notch reads above freezing. So, when traveling to places in Peru and now Guatemala, that are known to the locals as unbearably cold, I simply laugh and say, ‘I’m from Minnesota, I think I can handle it’.
And, of course, I can- because I have a heated room with hot water and warm blankets to go home to after the day’s work. It has taken me five months to realize this, and I feel so foolish for my delay. Choosing where to live in the ‘developed’ world, based on weather conditions, has always been a question of simple taste. Do you like snow? Do you crave the sun? Do you love the water? Do you need the openness of endless plains, or the distraction of the mountains? But not here. A few days ago a Guatemalan woman asked me about my home. She was intrigued by the weather of Minnesota, trying to picture that much snow or that amount of cold. But she had a confused look, and asked, very awe-struck, what we do for food during the winter. Because certainly, crops can’t grow like that. I had no idea how to answer that. The simple answer of ‘we drive to the grocery store just like we do in the summer’ didn’t seem to be appropriate, so I rattled something off about cows and pigs and chickens being okay in the cold. I felt my ignorance rising up inside, and made an unsuccessful attempt to explain importing food from other regions not burdened by the cold, but realized I had no real idea what I was talking about.
The cold here, when you have no heat and holes in the broken walls of your house, is lethal. Thinking about it made me cringe with sadness for the homeless in Minnesota, too. I can’t imagine. I have been cold before, truly freezing, with icicles forming on my eyelashes, but I have always done so out of free will, with the option of running back inside to the warmth and security of a heated home full of blankets, fireplaces, and hot chocolate. And here, if the cold doesn’t kill you, it kills your crops, your one hope for an income or nourishment for your family. I wonder if this fear is present for farmers in the ‘developed’ world, when I read about an early unexpected frost.
I’m slightly embarrassed it took me this long to see things a little more as they really are. I wonder what else my ignorance is keeping from me…
15 March 2008 at 6:00 pm
Maren, I have just invested in two more FriendshipBridge loans, the descriptions of which can only be your prose!
I will soon be quite near to you. Where will you be the last week of March?
Please email me: themisslena at gmail punto com
Great to read you again!
‘Lena
15 March 2008 at 6:04 pm
Oh, and another way to find me:
The travelogues blog is at http://thetwogringas.blogspot.com
and my personal blog is at http://galenaalysoncanada.blogspot.com
I hope to hear from you soon!
‘Lena
16 March 2008 at 1:48 pm
Great post Maren, but I wouldn’t be too tough on yourself.
Joking about the weather is universal. Humor helps us deal with it.
I’m sure you were sensitive in your joking and I suspect the people who were curious about Minnesota in wintertime found comfort learning there is a harsher climate than their location high in the Andes or in the mountains of Guatemala.
We all need to believe there is worse weather than ours.
I know this because I live in Buffalo NY, where no one wants to be in the winter.
Keep up the good work and great reporting.
30 March 2008 at 5:58 pm
Hi Maren,
I have been reading your posts and keeping up with your travels. I’m interested in becoming a fellow this year in South America and I’m about to send in my application. I have a few questions for you about your travels, the people you’ve been working with and your overall feelings about being a fellow. Please shoot me an Email when you get a moment.
Thanks,
Nicole
8 April 2008 at 4:37 am
I suffered -48ºF once in Mountain Iron, Minnesota in Winter 1974-75. I lived way up on the Iron Range, in a small beautiful town called Mountain Iron, close to Virginia. I arrived there as an exchange student trough a wonderful organization called AFS from the South of Chile where I was raised.
Your intercultural memories remind me also of an experience I didn’t share with may mates then, but I want to share it with you now. We had this very demanding American Literature teacher, who read with us “Grapes of Wrath ” of John Steinbeck. It is a vivid description of the Great Depression of years 1929-32. What no one of the class could imagine, was the fact that many of the facts, tools, home appliances, stoves, 1929 cars, were actually part of my daily life in Chile. The only car my dad could afford to buy then was a 1929 Ford, it means, our home car was more than 40 years outdated in 1974. For my mates, they were reading “Grapes of Wrath” as literature. For me such book was a just a recall of my daily life, that had just a break for a year while taking my Senior Year in Minnesota. A warning message to do not forget my origins.
Today, I am 50 (2008) and keep fighting to raise the cultural, social and economical gap of people born at the same time in mankind, but some still live on their own Great Depresion.
A lot of success to narrow such gap, dear friend.
16 April 2008 at 11:52 pm
Teo, thank you for sharing your memories from the Iron Range and Chile. A good warning message and encouragement to keep fighting for awareness.
Nicole, I’d love to answer your questions, but there is no contact info included in your post, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write! You can email me at maren@kiva.org. Hope it’s not too late! Good luck!