You Know You’re in Guatemala When:

1. Pedestrians do not have the right away….and you could definitely still be smashed into bits by a bus careening around the corner at 60 mph while standing safely on the side of the road.

2. There are pigs and dogs leashed in the front yard.

3. There are payphones on the street corners.

4. You pass the police with 15 people in a 5 passenger car and they nod, “good morning”.

5. There are chickens instead of squirrels circling the trees outside.

6. When it’s so cold at night you have to wear long underwear to bed but are desperately trying to air out your pits by 2pm because the sun is so strong.

7. Grilling is actually over an open fire.

8. When the “sports” section of news consists of 100% soccer, all day, all the time.

9. On that note, when you can find soccer on no less than 2/6 channels at any given moment.

10. It constantly smells like weed outside but you know it’s just the burning trash.

11. When you can count on receiving a snack and/or a glass of Pepsi/Coke at every single house you visit!

12. You can buy 8 avocados for under a dollar.

13. Juice is actually made with real fruit…by hand.

14. You’re on a bus and no one is talking to one another except the foreigners, who are generally really, really loud.

15. When someone can call someone else “fatty” like it’s a nickname. “Fatty are you ready?”

16. When you’re standing on a bus and everyone else’s arms are stretched straight to reach the upper handrail and your arm is at a 90 degree angle.

17. When the second verse to Happy Birthday is “We want cake, we want cake, even though it’s probably a small piece, we still want cake!” It’s my new favorite verse!

18. If you’re choking, someone slaps you SO hard across the back of the head in an effort to save your life.

19. You do a double take when you seen a person with dyed hair because everyone has their natural color.

20. When your Saturday morning priority is waiting for the garbage man to pass so you can chase him down with your bag of toilet paper and empty bean cans.

21. A joke never, never, never dies and you end up retelling it for the next eight weeks.

22. Someone can blatantly tell someone else that their ponytail is ugly, that they don’t like it and the person should take it down…and they do.

23. You can call out to random people on the street using physical features. For example it’s perfectly normal to say “darkie, white girl, curly hair or chubby lady” in place of “excuse me”, “ma’m” or “hey you”.

24. When people enter a room while you are eating dinner and expect you to shake their hands (and then pick up your tortilla and continue eating).

25. The accepted way to let the people know the bus is leaving is to either honk the horn repeatedly or turn on the car alarm for no less than 15 minutes prior to departure.

26. Your name is proceeded by “the” and suddenly you are “the Yuna” or “the Shetoria”

27. When you are flying down the mountain at 60 miles an hour and there is a man with a giant woven basket full of heavy things pitched over his shoulder, climbing a ladder up the back of the bus onto the roof…as you fly down the mountain…and then he climbs down the ladder and swings into the back of the bus through the back door.

28. Pepsi, Coke, Sprite, 7Up, Orange Crush and other pop is referred to as “agua” or water.

29. When you see mothers feeding their babies bottles of orange crush instead of milk.

30. When people you don’t know kiss you hello (I really like this one : 0)