Diabetes in two weeks...

I am posting this without photos because I think I can paint the picture with words.  I am embarking on a two week adventure with no vegetables because Guatemala is a country devoid of green vegetables and healthy eating.  The amount of sugar in EVYTHING is frightening; it is the one thing I can count on whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, most of which have been completely white meals.  Eggs and plantains in the morning - okay black bean mush is not white - begin the day unless I want to add to that the white bread that is also available.  Sugar is always on the table even when salt and pepper are excluded.  Yesterday we had chicken, rice and tomales for lunch, and the very, very large women had seconds of rice and tomales, washing it all down wi Pepsi.  In the evening we were fed another meal of chicken and rice, but because I am "vegetarian," I was given rice and fried potatoes instead.  I'm not complaining because they were delicious potatoes and lovely rice, but I abstained on the tortillas.

This morning we had omelets and white toast, but lunch mandated a chicken meal, so I watched everyone eat fried chicken, chicken wings, or some other form of chicken and rice; tortillas were on the side, but I noticed that the men wrapped their chicken inside a tortilla, including the man who ordered chicken wings, before eating it.  I ordered a tuna sandwich on "integral" bread, which is grain bread, but the sandwich arrived on not two but three slices of white bread, a side of fried potatoes.  

Our driver is from Guatemala City, and he eats bread all day long.  Someone suggested that he had diabetes and so he had to keep eating so he didn't get low blood sugar, but I noticed that he had a large bottle of coke in his car, and he seems to carry rolls with him so that he perpetually looks as though he has just popped a morsel or two into his mouth,crumbs often dusting his lips, or worse, a little chunk of bread dangling from his mouth.

The women are often overweight, and their eating habits are so unhealthy that I am certain that the diabetes rate must be skyrocketing.  It was interesting at the gay parade tonight to see many men dressed as women, thin, teetering on spiky high heels and wearing overtly sexy clothing that revealed most of their bodies, including some parts that were not their own.  I wondered as they paraded around the square what it meant to be a woman here, as the very heavy woman covered as much of their bodies as they could.  What is going on with gender?  With sexuality?

And how is a simple, heterosexual vegetarian woman from Philadelphia going to last for 2 weeks?