Safest Place on Earth

     In the movie  of the same name, "Crocodile Dundee" declared that since New York City had millions of people all living together, it must be the friendliest place on earth.  By that standard, Guatemala City must be the safest place on earth because there are armed guards every 200 feet.  That is not counting the police, these are the guards standing in the doorways of various businesses with their hand on their shotgun or pistol.  Reed noticed one of the guards had a 1911 pistol and wanted to see it in the worst way; since I could imagine the worst way, we just kept walking. It appears about one in every five people is working in some form of security, so this is also a good employment program for the country. 
     Other jobs with good prospects in Guatemala City might be selling razor wire or re-bar.  The tops of all the walls were festooned with razor wire, but Reed pointed out that a lot of it looked like surplus from WW2, so maybe that isn't a growth industry.  Selling bars for windows and doorways might be the more promising career field, those are everywhere.  Two other prospective careers in Guatemala are hair styling and shoe shining.  It is as if the entire country is in the army.  In the vicinity of our hotel, one of every six businesses was a hair salon.  Since everyone's hair is basically the same color, a lot of emphasis is given to cut and style,  unlike in my house, where the interest in those things is too minute to be measured by any known instrument.  Similarly, since we have had the same tins of shoe polish throughout our 33 year marriage, shiny shoes are not a priority here either.  Neither one of us even packed a pair of shoes capable of being polished.  This turned out to be a blessing because it made it easy to decline the many, many offers from the shoe shine boys, some of them darling four years olds.  Just in case you managed to avoid getting a shoe shine, there were buffer machines on every floor of the two hotels in which we stayed.
     The latter hotel was across the street from a three story mall which was full of hair salons (like I said), phone and computer accessories stores and a few clothing stores, although most of those were closed for Holy Week, and even some American restaurants.  What we never found, and believe me we looked for, was a drug store.  I ran out of foundation make up halfway through the trip.  That is not a problem here where you can find cosmetics in any grocery store and Walgreens type stores are scattered at regular intervals, but there is no Guatemalan equivalent, Guatgreens?, so I went without.  Nobody there knew me anyway.  After succumbing to "traveler's complaint" we were even more motivated to find a drug store.  We did locate a pharmacy but it didn't have what I was looking for and that  particular dialogue certainly didn't come up in high school Spanish class.  The pharmacy was designed like a jail for the pharmacist, who stood behind a barricade in the barred store.  Customers would request products and stick their arm between the bars, the pharmacist would take their money and hand them the products from behind his corner barricade.  Pharmacology would not be a good career in Guatemala for anyone with a fear of confined places.
     Another safety measure Reed noticed was that motorcycle drivers had a number either on their helmet or on a vest.  Apparently motorcyclists were pulling alongside cars in traffic, pointing a gun in the window and robbing the drivers.  Helmets eliminated the need to make a face mask, motorcycle maneuverability allowed a quick get away through traffic. Perfect.  Of course, if there is an entire family on the motorcycle, not uncommon, only one of them needs to wear a number.
     Oddly, the sensation of safety is inversely proportional to the number of safety measures, and I was not inspired to return to Guatemala City anytime soon.  But if 3.5 million people are willing to live there, maybe there's something I missed.