Guatemala, long rated amongst the poorest nations in Latin America, is a giant recycling event in itself. 80% of the cars imported into this country the size of Tennessee are used. School buses from the United States are recycled and given new life as public transportation. The resale of imported used clothing and shoes, where there’s a population of over twice that of Tennessee (14.3M vs. 6.2M) is a thriving business. Everything gets recycled, one way or the other, over and over again. The empty jelly jar, a discarded wine bottle or the aluminum can: yesterday I bought a recycled automobile wheel.
No, I don’t have a car and for the last six months I haven’t had a barbecue: the previous mini-Weber type had rusted out and I didn’t want to go over the hill to Guatemala City for a replacement. I never go to the City if I can help it: twice last year was my limit. I’d seen and been told of barbecues made from various designs and ingredients, “oh, yeah...they’re in the Mercado but I don’t exactly remember where...maybe in the back somewhere.” This refrain was repeated over and over, by long-time residents who probably had seen ‘them’ sometime and somewhere.
The Public Market of Antigua is sprawling, chaotic and wonderful all at the same time: there are fruits and vegetables that you’ve never seen before; pirated DVD’s that you’ll never want to see and it’s easy to become disoriented (lost). Following the vague instructions given and a tickle of a memory from having some furniture made a few months ago, way back in the far corner, beyond the dusty parking lot where the ‘chicken buses’ park was a small assortment of barbecues outside of what may be called a hardware store, Guatemalan-style. Mixed in with plastic barrels and galvanized vents was an assortment of four dusty types: giant, big, medium, and a rusty wheel mounted on metal legs.
The price was right but I didn’t like the condition: for $13 or $15 USD, I expected better. Not that I’d ever priced recycled car wheels before but there was just some kind of nagging sense of fashion or care missing here. It became a ‘hasta la vista, baby’ moment.
On the way back and through the maze of the central market, I inexplicably turned left: past shops of shoes, dresses and freshly caught small shiny fish. There was a shaft of sunlight coming through the rusty corrugated tin that pretends to be roofing material and down at the far end of the aisle, standing all alone? The Holy Grail of BBQ’s, Antigua style: clean, painted in a barbecue-shade of dull black and fitted with a nicely made grill. It’s not a Weber or a Brinkmann, nor a Sear’s propane-fueled appliance with a hood and a thermometer: it’s the wheel from some unknown automobile that reincarnated a part of itself to my patio. Re-in-car-nation? It works just fine and I need more charcoal: is it really a wheel of fate?
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