Bob and I float on Lake Péten Ítza on the isolated upper peninsula of Guatemala on the Mexican border, contemplating. (Yup, it’s so quiet and deserted we can do that.) The water is warm and crystal clear. We look through it, on it, above it to nothing; no boats, no fish, no animals, no people, except for guards and dogs protecting the concrete-walled compounds of the rich and powerful on the shoreline.
What used to be in the middle of Mayan civilization in Central America, was first deforested by the Maya themselves to build their cities, grow their maize, build their highways, and much more recently has become a hotbed of clashing Mexican and Guatemalan drug cartels, death squads and another huge deforestation, pesticide proliferation from cattle ranching, and the looting and selling of ancient artifacts. All very lucrative for the drug lords.
La Danta largest pyramid in the world
I love artifacts. It’s so exciting to find bits of antiquity and begin to understand how people lived and how the world has changed. I don’t sell them, but I like to collect them. I could appease my conflict by joining the non-profit Global Heritage Fund and Network which includes Tikal, its neighboring temples. El Mirador, possessing the largest pyramid in the world – La Danta – is now thought to be the cradle of Mayan civilization, and is largely unexplored. With my background in science and my record volunteering in primitive areas of Africa and Central America, this could be my next volunteer adventure!
I sit and reflect at the Aurora airport in Guatemala City waiting to fly back home to San Jose, Costa Rica. My dreams are filled with climbing pyramids of stairs, wild headed Mayas dressed in feathers and loin clothes standing guard above all they rule; looking down on their realm surrounding the great lake Petén Ítza. What now appears a typical campo of maize fields and cattle ranches sequesters the final great empire of Kan Ek, hidden from the outside world yet thriving in the lost jungles of the northern peninsula of Guatemala for almost 200 years after the fall of the other great Maya civilizations of Tikal, Chichin Ítza, Cobán.
I always wanted to be an archaeologist and am a treasure hunter at heart. It all started growing up on the Myakka River, where we found ancient giant shark’s teeth and spear points from the indigenous Indians.
The first archaeological site we visited, Tikal, was one of the largest and most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya. It’s hard to visualize coming from 2012 perspective. The Guatemalan countryside surrounding Tikal and numerous other ancient Maya cities is low lying and has been denuded of jungle to make way for modern civilization. The vast clear lake of Péten Ítza, now devoid of life because of pollution from human and animal intervention, was large enough to support many great cities with its supply of fish, water for drinking and irrigation of crops.
Tikal Acropolis
Through a great old friend Ian we were turned on to this beautiful isolated spot on Lake Péten Ítza, Gucumatz B&B run by Ian’s cousin Moya and her two boys. What a great hostess! She picked us up and drove us everywhere. In between we walked to a primitive village San Pedro and took the motor taxi to San Jose, a village built into the hills and maybe over another late surviving Maya enclave. It is the last bastion of some 3-4000 Ítza speaking Mayas, their original language.
From Wikipedia, “There was a pandemic of rubella between 1962 and 1965, starting in Europe and spreading to the United States. In the years 1964-65, the United States had an estimated 12.5 million rubella cases. This led to 11,000 miscarriages or therapeutic abortions and 20,000 cases of congenital rubella syndrome. Of these, 2,100 died as neonates, 12,000 were deaf, 3,580 were blind and 1,800 were mentally retarded. In New York alone, CRS affected 1% of all births. In 1969 a live attenuated virus vaccine was licensed. In the early 1970s, a triple vaccine containing attenuated measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) viruses was introduced.”
Staring at myself in the mirror, tears running down my spotty face, getting rashier by the second. I call Ray. “It’s German Measles”.
“Don’t get upset. It could be something else. Let’s get you to the doctor. Then check at school and see if any kids have it.”
I scream, “It’s fucking German Measles!” My mind empties. I can’t focus. My heart slams against the mesh of my lungs, vibrating the rash all over me, burning my skin, my eyes. Sucking my tears dry. I wade through the weekend making calls for help. Nobody can. The principal says “your student Bobby’s sick. His grandfather, who’s a doctor, said he’s come down with Rubella.” I moan. Why did he have to be in my class, the only pregnant teacher in the school?
”The base clinic says, “Come in Monday for a Gamma Globulin shot. It’s all we’ve got.”
I reply trembling, “Let’s do it.”
I sit in the waiting room. Looking up, away from myself, I see several obviously pregnant women surrounding me. A scene from a recent “Monkey Virus Infects the World” movie flashes before my eyes. I jump up to the desk. “I can’t stay here.” I whisper. The whole place ‘ll panic. I’ll get stoned. I mouth “German Measles.” They grab and isolate me in an examining room. Typhoid Mary! Another blow. They jam in the needle of gamma globulin. I cry, “What good will it do?” They don’t know. Maybe stop the rampage? Maybe nothing?
I falter, check into abortions; only legal in two states, New York and Arizona. I can’t do it. I’m too late, too far along, too far away. The doctors try to be reassuring, “all the big stuff is developed by three months, except hearing.”
Living on base, finishing out the school year, preparing to leave Ft. Bliss, all is a blur, a void. My first child, that happy experience we haven’t really planned for, has taken a turn of foreboding.
Ray studying the stock market at Ft. Bliss
It’s 1967. In the next few months our lives change drastically. The first decision is Ray’s. Taking the lead from my father, a very successful investor, he’s been studying the stock market, during his years of armed service preparing for a short internship on Wall Street and the ensuing SEC exam. A family friend has offered him a job in Daytona Beach, Florida with the prestigious firm, Merrill Lynch, pending his successful completion.
A bout of morning sickness makes me fully aware of my pregnancy in all its glory and distress. Being of strong body and positive nature I keep my apprehensions at bay and concentrate on a healthy beautiful baby. After a short visit home with our families on the Gulf Coast we cross the state to begin our new life and find a sweet house in a family neighborhood half a block from the beach. I find an OB/GYN who tells me not to worry my pretty little head about the German Measles epidemic. Everything will be fine. I want to remain in the sheep-following stage of the 50’s, wanting to believe the “Doctor knows best”, and ask no more questions.
Cars on Daytona Beach
Although student protests are beginning, first over segregation, then over the war in Viet Nam, Texas and Florida lag behind. The schools in Florida are just beginning to integrate. The medical community lags too. At Halifax Hospital where my son is born on Oct. 21, fathers aren’t even allowed on the Obstetrics floor. They have to wait in the lobby downstairs. I’m given a shot of painkiller as soon as the labor is strong and regular. No one asks me if I want it. Natural childbirth is out of fashion with the advent of strong painkillers. My one question about the possible damage to the fetus is answered with, “We’ll do a hearing test along with the other birth assessments.”
I’ve started a memoir Life and Deaf and thought if I put excerpts on my blog I might be more apt to keep up with it and maybe even finish it before I either lose my mind, my life or my urge to write. Here goes:
Feeling flushed I get up to look in the mirror. Spots. Couldn’t be. Don’t want it to be. I lean closer. My heart pounds in fear. The sight swells around me rushing blood and adrenalin through my body and before my very eyes the spots multiply all over my face and neck like in a horror movie. German Measles. There’s an epidemic raging. This is a mild disease when kids get it – a little rash, a little fever, runs its course in a couple days. But in pregnant women, especially first trimester, it attacks the fetus and destroys the cells of whatever isn’t fully developed by then.
I’m three months pregnant with my first child. I grab at impossible straws. I want to believe I already had them as a child. My mother would know. I call her.
“Mom?”
“Hi Jill. How’re you feeling? You over the morning sickness yet?”
“Yes. Much better. I wanted to ask you? Umm. Did I have German Measles as a kid?”
“What? The epidemic! Oh no! Oh yes, I’m sure you had it. Oh my God! Do you have symptoms? I’ll have to find your health records. Don’t worry.
I’ve been hearing about it on the news. Biggest epidemic they’ve ever had. Already affected ten thousand babies in the US.
“I’ve got a rash spreading over my face, throat, and chest. I’m going to the doctor tomorrow, but as soon as you find anything please call me back.”
“Is it going around your school?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
“I love you. Try not to get upset. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Ft. Bliss El Paso Texas
Two years married, but still so young, my husband and I are in stage two of our lives together. Phase one ended with our graduation from the University of Florida, me with a degree in English/Biology and Ray in Business, neither of which we’ll follow for awhile. The military has recruited us to Ft Bliss, Texas where Lt. Ray will be a fixed wing pilot. That doesn’t sound too bad when we get here, but now the winds of war are blowing stronger as the first U.S. combat troops have been sent to Viet Nam. They don’t need fixed wing pilots. They need more helicopter pilots, but that’s an easy transition. The helicopters are easy targets as they hover over the killing fields picking up the newly dead.
Martin Luther King Jr. being denied entry to the whites only Monson Motor Lodge restaurant by owner Jimmy Brock. Current site of Hilton Hotel.
Ray’s best friend Mo is one of the first to go. It cuts us to the core. Pushes me left of center. Makes me remember my first SDS protest that had filled the Gainesville streets; the redneck cops walking the edges of the crowd joyously wielding their billy clubs. Florida hasn’t had protests like this since the civil rights Sitdown in St. Augustine a few years earlier. The cops in gleeful agreement with the leashed dogs, barking and slathering wildly to fulfill their training and ‘kill them niggers!’ And I was there, but horrifyingly on the wrong side with my husband’s racist relatives cheering, egging the armored men on to attack these defenseless stool-sitting black lunch counter patrons who had been denied service only because of their black color. I was mortified, back away. So this is the other side of the ruling gentry that treats their “help” well by giving them the leftovers of their lives. We’ve left the herding instinct of the 50’s. The 60’s bring a new war of no good purpose with it and the young and newly educated begin to rebel. We’ve been spouting ‘Make peace not war, man! Make love not hate!’ Now we have to do something about it. Protest. Nonviolently. Throwing flowers as we go.
Teetering on the brink of shipping out to Vietnam, a doctor friend of Lt. Ray’s returns with a purple heart, a shrapnelled ass and a belief in the injustice of this war. He gives Ray a medical reprieve from helicopter training. No Viet Nam. We’ve settled into life on the base, Fort Bliss, close to El Paso and surrounded by desert and mountains. Ray takes care of courts martial and the mess hall. I’m just finishing my second year teaching in an elementary school close enough to the Mexican border to have a cafeteria with Mexican food so good you wished the other two days of the week they didn’t serve American.
It’s my first day that Free to Bloom is FREE on Amazon Kindle. I’m monitoring the statistics and my progress. I really had no expectations on the low end, but I also had read Cheryl Tardif’s book How I made $42K in 1 mo. on Kindle Select about all the money she made and had twinges of possible sales. That remains to be seen, but I’m thrilled so far.
Here are the first statistics:
150 books ordered free.
#1607 Free in Kindle Store.
#1 in Kindle Store Travel Adventure
Wow. Better than I ever expected. Now I’m monitoring more closely. Two hours later I can’t stay away from the computer. Second statistics:
200 books ordered free.
#900 Free in Kindle Store
Still #1 Kindle Store Travel Adventure
Moving right along. I’m smiling. At 7:30 this evening, still the first day and I have 2 more days to go:
255 books ordered free.
#755 Free on Kindle
#1 Kindle Store Personal Growth and Inspiration
This is fun. One of my goals as per Cheryl Tardif is getting on the top 100 Free on Kindle. Maybe there’s a chance. I’ll check in with you tomorrow. Wish me luck.
First a little back story. My computer guru son Ray gave me the tip to join Amazon Prime and KDP Select, an author’s subsidiary of Amazon. He told me of the perks, I joined and read ‘some’ of the fine print. I found out I had to sell my book exclusively on Amazon. Free To Bloom was listed on Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. I’d only had a couple of sales. I was doing much better on Amazon. Even taking my book off of a site is difficult for me and I hate reading directions, but I finally did it. I took advantage of some other KDP Select/Prime offers and uploaded Cheryl Tardif‘s How I Made $42K in 1 Month Selling My Kindle ebooks. Thank you so much Cheryl for getting me off my butt. I followed her directions and figured out how to offer my ebook free on Amazon.
So here it is. From June 28-30 Free To Bloom by Jill Green is FREE. Please check it out, order it, tell your friends, and if you feel up to it write me a review. A description of my book follows:
Through eleven partially linked chronological stories we follow Danielle as she splits from a long-term marriage to find her way as a single woman living alone in a foreign country. Her search for both physical and emotional contentment and independence leads her to take risks in life and love from jumping off waterfalls, to discovering a gorgeous young caveman, and learning the art of marijuana growing and harvesting. Follow her journey as she intertwines intimate personal insights with wild adventures.
Dave Eggers has taken a day-by-day account of the life of a Syrian immigrant Zeitoun, before and after the 2005 massive Hurricane Katrina that destroyed New Orleans and turned it into one personal tragedy piggy-backed atop another. A man filled only with the need to help others worse off than himself stays in his devastated neighborhood paddling his canoe to rescue dogs and neighbors from the rising flood waters, bring food and water to those stranded and help in anyway he can to alleviate pain and suffering.
Zeitoun is an upstanding and longterm businessman, contractor and family man who takes pride in and loves his adopted city New Orleans. He stays too long in the evacuated city after the hurricane and is ultimately arrested and jailed along with a few other neighbors who have stayed to protect their properties, by the very forces who have been sent in protect and save people. Anarchy ensues and the area descends into lawlessness making it doubly hard for a Muslim man to be treated fairly.
Eggars’ first person account beautifully and clearly expresses just one of the myriad stories of devastation, but he takes it two steps farther. He helps start several non-profits to aid victims and gives all proceeds from the book to those in need. Yea Dave, a true artist with a conscience!
Wow! Just leaned another new computer skill. I can now take a review from Goodreads and post it to my blog. Onward and upward.
