Museum of Natural History Take Two

Because we were unable to capture these memories with pictures and because all three of us seem to think it is really important to convey the full aesthetic of this museum to you all, the blog will contain three posts on the museum of natural history. Here is mine (Jess'):

Xela- I am not sure I like this city very much... it is really polluted, the street dogs are mangier than the average mexican street dog, the colors duller... its hard to explain or put a finger on what bothers me about xela- maybe it is the fear of running into Steve Mullaney around every corner, the excess of Minnesotans at the hostel (like... fifteen or something...) or the fact that I am dying of the swine flu... who knows. However, I think the Museum of Natural History might have begun giving me the tools necessary to process all that is Quetzaltenango.

The museum started out as a boring collection of artifacts and historical furniture and docuements of famous Guatemalan people, none of whom I had ever heard of and the captions did nothing to explain. We were all sort of wondering whether this museum would be worth our 6 Quezales. There was a room filled with a collection of less-than-remarkable artifacts of outdated technology (computers from 1980, 90's cordless telephones juxtaposed next to cell phones, vinyl records, type writers, a cool old adding machine, etc.) Beyond that was a room filled with trophies and old black a white photographs from xelan sports teams, soccer and basketball and the like. The old pictures were kind of cool and some of the trophies looked really old, which was kinda cool. The next room was crowned with an old photo of a marimba rockstar with his toothy smile and sequin (sp?) embroidered jacket with Quetzals on it. He was quite fabulous. All the walls were lined with marimbas through the ages... it was pretty sweet.
The museum then led people uptairs where we were met with ases filled with a pretty stunning collection of old pottery and mayan artifacts. It was all displayed in a pretty non-chalant manner. One of the big rooms upstairs seemed to be devoted to products producted in Guatemala and contributed to Guatemalan industry, though my lack of understanding may have lost the meaning for me... Some of my faorite display was the one on how chewing gum is made, including all the examples of local chewing gum brands and the display of vintage Guatemalan soda and beer bottles. There was a display of chemicals found in Guatemala- one of the bottles in the display had actually exploded and lye was spilling out around the edges... In fact, everything in this museum seemed underwheling and badly preserved. The walls were lined with different species of dried leaves and plant matter, i assume all native to guatemala. It also had a rock collection of different volcanic rock. Since Xela is surrounded by semiactive volcanos, the museum devoted a lot od shelf space to photos of volcanos, volcanic rock, grade-school-sciece-project-esque panoramas of volcanos... The sign above this room said (in spanish) "Couples Please Show More Education" with a sticker about erectile disfunction. I think it was trying to make a statement about PDA, and was extremely tempted to get a shot of Shannon and I making out under it...
Ok- but the last room took the fucking cake. It was filled with stuffed animals. Now I know what you are thinking- "I've been to the Bell Museum and seen their beautiful displays of all-but-alive-looking taxodermied animals in panoramas of their natural banitats- how could a room full of taxodermy be creept, exciting or in any way worth writing home about?" Two words for you: amateur taxodermy. The first thing I saw was a display of snames, giant spiders, centepides and other creepy insects preserved in formeldeyde. In addition to that, the display had a bunch of dried up looking huge snakes with decaying eye balls and scales. Gen immediately got freaked out by all the dead snames so we moved on to the centerpiece of the room: a family of lionswith sticking-out bright red pleather tongues, more decaying eyeballs, the male had an equally bright red penis and all their coats looked decrepid... The whole display looked so little like actual lions that I couldn't spend too long examining the atrocious taxodermy job... The next thing were little catullus cats, one with a dead looking yellow bird in its mouth and the other with bird feet sticking out of its throat... come on, guys, cats don't eat birds whole. At least aside from the prey in their mouths, these cats weren't actively decaying...
The next display hit me right in the stomach- something about seeing an 8 week and 4 mouth fetusus preserved in formeldehyde all white and irredescent, leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Now don't get me wrong, I am not one to proport the superiority of the human race over other animal species, but to see a display of human fetuses right next to fetuses of cows, cats, dogs and goats seemed a bit inapproproate and jarring (no pun intended). Gen says it hit her right in the stomach- me... it hit me in the gut.
Just beyond the fetus display case was the googly eyed birds of prey display. Giant, decrepid looking eagles and owls that looked like if you coughted on them too hard, their wings might just disattach and fall to the ground. A few of the taxodermists had had the good sense to remove the eye balls, others had replaced the eyes with halloweeny-looking googly eyes and others just left the eye balls intact to decay in the display.
Other highlights were the toothy monster squirrles, the deer with its head reattached with packing tape (seriously), the crab with a greet painted peach-pit turtle riding on its back, the 12 foot long alligator skin nailed to the wall and a whole assortment of taxodemied siamese twin animals (the goat with two heads, the dog with one head and eight legs awkwardly jutting out of its body...) all these atrocities tightly packed together in only semi-coherant displays...
Off of this room was another packed with Noram-Bates-style taxodermied birds. Most of them looked as dead and decaying as the rest of the animals, though at the head of the room was the king of the museum- a beautifully done Quetzal with its tail feathers crowning its glass encasement- the national symbol of Guatemala. It was probably the only expertly done example of taxodermy in the whole museum.
When we left the museum, Gen, Shannon and I sat on a bench in the Parque Central and laughed and cried, rambling incoherantly as we tried to process all that we had just seen. One this is for sure- I don't think any of us are got to forget that museum any time soon...