The Cleanest Restrooms
in Central America
I
have been told by connoisseurs of fast food that Burger King is, generally
speaking, a finer restaurant than McDonald’s.
Whatever the merit of that evaluation, I can report with confidence that
the McDonald’s restaurant of Antigua Guatemala is not only far superior to the
Burger King, but that it must surely be one of the world’s finest examples of
that great standard-bearer of Americanism.
True,
the Burger King’s “King de Pollo” sandwich is more filling, but the quality of
the ingredients and most definitely the skillfulness of preparation of both the
“Sandwich McPollo” (unfortunately more expensive in Guatemala than in the
United States) and the “McNifica de Pollo” must be considered the finer.
Burger
King’s location in Antigua is a definite advantage, being less than a block
from the Plaza Mayor, while Mickey D’s is two blocks further away from the
center of town, but it is both service and ambience that set the quality of
Antigua’s McDonald’s apart from not only BK, but from all other fast food
restaurants at which I have dined, and I will say that my culinary experience
in this regard spans three continents.
This includes, of course, sampling the cuisine at Guatemala’s own
fast-food chain, Pollo Campero, the chain now invading the United States in yet
another outrageous example of Guatemalan cultural imperialism. The Guatemalans seem to want to jamb their
chickens down our throats and to undermine our indigenous culture, but we’ll
show them! The next time the government
of Guatemala does something offensive to the people of the United States,
rather than having to travel all the way to Washington, D.C. to demonstrate in
front of the Guatemalan embassy, it will be far more convenient for us to
simply run down to the nearest Pollo Campero and smash a few windows.
But
to get back to the subject of McDonald’s: as I said before, it is the quality
of service and the ambience that set Antigua’s McDonald’s apart form the
competition. It’s a fairly large
McDonald’s, and new, with a playroom and a large enclosed garden with a
fountain and tables under a porch roof and more tables under a tent roof, and a
big bench with a statue of Ronald McDonald seated in the middle of it with his
arms around the backs of whoever might sit beside him on the bench. But what’s special about this place is that
it’s so perfectly, sparkling clean.
This is not something to be encountered all that frequently in
Guatemala.
I’d venture to say that Antigua’s
McDonald’s has got the cleanest rest rooms in the entire nation, perhaps in all
of Central America. Of course, that
wouldn’t be saying all THAT much. Some
of the public rest rooms outside of the urban centers are pretty grim
places. Most of those inside the urban
centers aren’t all that great, either.
Rather than focus any descriptive energy on them, I think it is probably
best to let that subject pass with no more than the observation that by North
American standards the condition of the majority of Central American rest rooms
is best summed up by the word “appalling.”
Not
at McDonald’s, though. In Guatemala,
Mickey D’s is a more upscale sort of place than it tends to be in the USA. The high price of dining at the fast-food
restaurant definitely serves to keep out the riff-raff. When the minimum wage is about thirty quetzales
per day, the twenty-quetzal price of a cheeseburger Happy Meal is going to
be a pretty daunting prospect for a working-class person, even if he’s making
more than minimum wage. This goes
double if he’s got kids to feed on that working-class income. There are little mom-and-pop operations that
charge only about half as much for a meal as do the fast-food places, but
eating out at any sort of restaurant at all is just beyond the means of most of
the working class. Most members of the
working class who dine out in the city sit on the sidewalk or the curb to eat
lunches served on a tortilla by a street vendor.
Anyway,
it’s not really because of the upscale clientele that McDonald’s is so clean
and tidy. It would still be clean and
tidy if Attila the Hun and his army were to hang out there all day. What keeps it nice is that the kids who work
there continually scrub everything down with a brightly cheerful but almost
maniacal energy.
Now, most
Guatemalans seem to take a rather unhurried approach to physical labor. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they appear
to carry out physical motions – picking up a shovelful of earth, moving a rock,
brushing some dust into a dustpan – only at such time as the spirit moves them,
but they do seem inclined to stop and think a little about each move before
carrying it out. They just don’t seem
to be sped along by the sense of drive and pressure that many northerners seem
to feel. Some of this may be the result
of insufficient caloric intake, but I think the main part of it is
cultural. The perky, smiling,
hard-working kids at Mickey D’s have quite deliberately and eagerly embraced a
new culture – the Protestant, capitalist, optimistic, can-do culture of the
United States. And they’ve embraced it
with a vengeance. They’re more North
American than North Americans.
The paper
placemats at McDonald’s display the photo of a smiling young woman in a striped
McDonald’s uniform over the words: “We greet you with a smile, we attend to you
quickly and amiably... the value of our service is unsurpassable.” This is true. It’s hard to imagine how a fast-food joint could be any more
well-managed than this one is. Whoever
runs it has apparently convinced the employees to really believe in this stated
ideal. Of course, the manager here has
good material to work with – hungry young Guatemalans.
The greatest
manager ever to graduate from Hamburger University would probably never be able
to completely overcome the attitude of North American kids that working for
McDonald’s is a job for losers. But for
the kids of Guatemala, this is a way they can attach themselves to the great
economic and cultural engine of the North without having to emigrate. For them, McDonald’s is a respectable career. They are proud to wear that corporate
uniform. ( I do have to say that the
tropical version of the uniform, or the Guatemalan version, or whatever it is
that I’m seeing is sure a lot spiffier-looking than the nerdy red-and-white
striped version pictured on the placemats.)
Since so few young Guatemalans who graduate from high
school or college find any sort of salaried job with a reliable employer, the
kids at Mickey D’s have got to be very glad that they were selected over the
other what I am sure were very numerous applicants. The kids have got to be very glad they’re not squatting on a
piece of corrugated cardboard in the market, weighing out little portions of
black beans and trying to interest passers-by in strings of garlic. They have got to be glad that they are not
out on the street hawking armloads of cheap jewelry and hand-carved souvenirs
to tourists. A career at McDonald’s
holds out for them the hope of a dependable paycheck. It holds out the promise that they will not have to raise a
family wondering each day whether there will be enough food for the children
that night.
Beneath a photo
of a Big Mac, the placemat goes on to describe the institution’s pillars of value:
“The quality of our products and the care that we take in preparing them with
the finest ingredients form part of the value of McDonald’s.” Well, I guess so. I’ve already given my opinion on the relative merits of the
food. I think it’s the extra-crispy and
fresh-tasting crust of the McChicken sandwich in Antigua that puts it ahead of
BK’s or those McChickens of the home country of the corporation.
The third
pillar of McDonald’s value according to the placemat is cleanliness: “We want
you to feel good in a place that is clean and healthful; the value of our
cleanliness is our great pride.” Well,
there you have it.
Here in the third world, these corporate goals and
ideals are taken a lot more seriously by the rank and file than they are back
in Mickey D’s homeland. I don’t think
that the reason for that is that the folks here just don’t know any
better. Just stop and take a look the
next time a cheerful, eager young face asks you if you’d like an order of fries
with your chocolate sundae. What you’re
seeing is an expression of faith and hope in a materially better future.