No Middle Road

Climbing Volcano Pacaya was like a Sunday walk in the park after Volcano San Pedro, but it was a whole different experience. Our guide, Ronny, was a rather humorous fellow and mentioned that we couldn't climb all the way to the top because the ground on the way up is not firm and you could fall through into the volcano. Fine, he said, if you like marshmallows. Ha ha. Seriously, you could not pay me to climb this thing any higher than we did. As it was, we were scrambling over lava so fresh that it was melting our shoes and impassable unless you ran in some spots. People were literally pointing and commenting to each other about my choice of footwear: Chaco sandals. Those were fine for me, but what I have been lamenting is not bringing shaving cream, but as Jon mentioned, I could just singe my leg hairs as he did. I have footage of this thing spewing out some rocks that created small avalanches on their way down. Apparently, last week some tourists only escaped being hit by boulders "by sheer luck." It was very mellow for us today, thankfully. But if you are not worried about being robbed at gunpoint anymore there, you are concerned you might sink through into the hot lava or get hit by a rock, or worse, get buried under another eruption (the last one was two years ago.) I have to laugh at my safety-paranoid American mentality. There were so many tourists up there with us, so it can't be that dangerous, but then again, couldn't it be? I wonder how much of a warning they get before an eruption happens... Is it like an earthquake where you have time to evacuate? Something to ponder.

One of my many revelations yesterday on the ride to Antigua was that my dad's cows are the luckiest cows in the world-- grazing happily on fresh green grass in the summer without a care in the world. Some of the things I observed on the drive: A group of guys picking up their motorcycles and shaking off the pain of a collision, two dead dogs in the road, the saddest cows I've seen tied up by the roadside in the strangest of places, two kids riding double up a massive hill on a bicycle in jeans and t-shirts, and whole families strolling through beautiful countryside with loads balanced on their heads in obscure parts of the highway. There is a lot more, but the bottom line is that the Highlands part of the country is truly caught between worlds. If the first one is the Latino culture and the second one is the Mayan culture, then I think I would like to make a motion to add a third world: it is us. The traveler, the "gringo" (I hate that word), the ones with loads of money and expensive gear. How are we changing this place? What is the hidden cost of tourism?

Down here back in Antigua, I feel like I am looking into the future of Guatemala, with nice paved and cobblestone roads, hip restaurants, and painted buildings. The difference is that very little of Guatemala will ever see the money this place sees. My perspective on this town is drastically different from when I first arrived. Then, I saw a place that was trying to be posh but still developing. Now I see luxury all around me. What has changed? Perhaps it was a month in a Mayan pueblo that made me see life through a slightly new lens. I miss the friendly greetings from everyone up in the mountains but I am basking in the glow of development. Will you hate me for loving my hot shower last night and Thai food today? I feel so conflicted, but that is nothing new. What I want to buy most of all is a bar of natural hand-made soap I found (a diamond in the rough here) that costs 30Q ($4). I could buy a meal for that, or a night in a hostel, or a 4 hour bus ride. I want to buy it to send the message to keep producing things like this. Supply and demand will eventually bring the price down, right? It makes me feel like I am 20 again to struggle with such a decision. In reality, my actions here should reflect my ethics almost moreso than back at home. I am going to buy the darn soap. Better that the person who made it by hand gets the money (and the water stays chemical free) than giving my money to a factory process.

Buena Suerte

Graduation took place at the school today for the four of us who are departing after about a month here in San Pedro. We had to prepare a ¨discurso¨ upon receiving our certificates, so I rambled on for a few minutes in Spanish. I felt true sympathy for the folks who were shaking up there while reading their papers and simultaneously felt grateful that at least I´m accustomed to the miserable feeling of standing up in front of much larger crowds than this. The general form that the speeches take is to thank everyone for the great adventure, which I did. But I also felt compelled to appreciate the structure of the school because it provides the opportunity to learn the language through immersion in the culture. The experience exceeded my expectations by far, and I recommend the San Pedro Spanish School to anyone interested in similar experience.

My housemate, Jon, and I also received diplomas for our volunteer work with the students this week. It was all very formal, considering the unstructured nature of the week. Three young students stood up and individually thanked us with a brief speech, and then implored us to talk too. We felt very emotional about the whole thing for a second, but I guess they do that every week. Jon bought them a soccer ball to replace the ragged one they played with all week. After a rocky start on Monday, we quickly developed a rapport with these students and I was again reminded of why I love what I do.

There are so many times when I wish my camera would upload its contents and today is no exception. With the 18 students, we collected 10 large bags of trash yesterday on the way to a nice swimming beach. The kids cheerfully carried the bags back to school after swimming and listened attentively as I described to them what happens to plastic in the environment. A friend once told me that many people here just don´t realize yet the difference between the things they threw on the ground in the past (biodegradable) and the things we manufacture now. The whole concept that something will not biodegrade is new within the past few generations and they just need to understand the affects of plastic and other materials on the environment. I asked them to please tell their family and friends how much easier it would be to put the stuff 

in the trash in the first place rather than collect it later. The kids were so enthusiastic about the process that a man came down from his house to thank us for our work. His words were this: ¨I don´t know what you did, but I´m watching the same kids who would normally throw trash on the ground searching for trash to pick up. I guess I was pessimistic. I thought it would take three generations to change things, but here you are making it happen today. Thank you.¨ Of course I told him, ¨Yes, we are making it happen in this generation.¨ What more could I ask for?

There is only one day left in San Pedro and a relaxing night across the water, and then it´s time 

to face the open road on a chicken bus. These things are really wild... old school buses painted in much nicer colors than yellow and with absolutely no exhaust regulations. I´m distributing my stuff into different bags and pockets so that I won´t loose everything if one item gets snagged. I don´t like thinking that way, but I´ve heard too many stories. This time next week, I hope to be surfing in El Salvador, but we will see! The phrase of the day seems to be, ¨Buena suerte¨ as we all say our goodbyes to people we may never see again but have grown to consider friends. Now that I feel equipped with the language skills to navigate this adventure, I guess the rest really is up to luck, which I feel is on my side.

Contamination

So remember how I described all of the women wearing purple in the market in Santiago? Well as it turns out, the use of these colors were born out of something much less festive. I am beginning to wonder: is there any part of the culture here that really belongs to the people and is not tainted by blood, sweat and tears? According to my teacher´s account today, the colors originated when the Mayan first became slaves of the finca (farm) owners. They were set to work in separate villages, but as you can imagine, some tried to escape to other nearby villages. Then there were disputes about which finca owner that person belonged to, so the owners started to color-code their workers, so to speak. The people of Santiago wore purple, the people here wore white, other villagers, red, yellow, green, and so on.

Like so many of the aspects of society that were forced on these people (take Catholicism, for example) they adapted the rule to make it their own. They added adornments, like embroidered flowers, birds, and other colors that signified something to each other. Now they cling to this traditional clothing despite its colonial origin. Most of the women up here in the highlands wear the traditional skirt and blouse with a belt but the men generally wear jeans, slacks, t-shirts and jackets. Supposedly, this is because the men tend to work outside the house and travel around more, and they do not want to face the ridicule and discrimination that the traditional clothing draws. Furthermore, traditional materials are very expensive because they are hand woven and sewn locally, so they reserve these items for festivals, church, etc. Another mystery unraveled... at least the first layer.

The work with the children in the school was a bit disastrous Monday. It was better not to write then. But the past two days have been excellent, with the students enthusiastically participating and learning a bit of English along the way. Yesterday we had them draw a tradition that they participate in her in San Pedro and then explain it with some basic English words. Today they had to draw the village of their dreams, complete with their chosen types of transportation and buildings, and sources of water and food. Then they explained what they had drawn in English. To finish, we discussed the lack of trash in their pictures and why we will go to pick up trash tomorrow. For some incentive, we will finish up at the lake tomorrow with swim lessons and soccer! I just hope we don´t all get sick from picking up the trash... I´m confident that latex gloves do not exist here. Wish us luck!

Now I have to go conjugate about a thousand verbs until I finally get it right! Yipee!

Fire in the Belly

The trip up the volcano here in San Pedro was a nice little excursion into the countryside of Guatemala. The landscape stands in contrast to the open spaces where we hike in the US in that it was dotted with agricultural crops growing amidst the naturally-occuring plants. We passed through large stretches of coffee trees and then sugar cane on the lower portion of the hike. After ascending up through the agricultural area, we began to climb unrelentingly uphill for the next two hours. There were literally no flat areas until a five minute portion about thirty minutes from the top. The terrain there was a lot like the rain forests of our Pacific Northwest, with all types of algae 

growing along the paths and trees. 

The most remarkable site was a massive cluster of caterpillars on the trunk of a tree next to two slug-like critters. I could not get close enough to check them out more, but their color was a brilliant green. At one break spot, we could not help but feel a little silly slumped in the shade as a man around the age of 55 hunched by with a load of firewood on his back bigger than he was.

What should have been disappointing weather was invigorating for me; the top of the volcano was socked in by a chilly mist that obstructed the view completely. Somehow the cool, damp air made me feel a bit more alive. After journeying back down, some friends joined me at the solar thermal pools for a muscle-relaxing soak. The weather cleared and the hot water was a treat after a series of chilly showers and the exerting exercise. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed some drinks on the terrace of a nearby restaurant where they cook pizza in the belly of the laughing Buddha made of adobe. A bit controversial, but nice ambiance. A girl from California played guitar and sang all of the songs that I know so well. I knew she had to be from San Francisco. This is eco tourism alive and thriving in Guatemala and bringing with it all of the mixed sentiments of a rapidly changing culture and economy.

Tomorrow my housemate and I begin lessons with the local children. Our theme, ¨¡Que Paso en El Lago?¨ (¨What´s going on in the lake?¨ but maybe in broken Spanish) should tie together the themes of geography, mathematics, English, and environmental issues, all in a format that should suit these elementary-aged kids. Our hope is to get them thinking about the relationship that they have with the travelers coming here, their natural environment, and their traditional Mayan heritage. We are shooting in the dark, not knowing what level math they have, how much they know about the geography of the globe, their control of English or what they have already learned about the natural world in school or at home. That is not even the most unnerving part though... it´s that it all has to take place in Spanish. Ahhh....! I´ll report back soon! 

Define ¨Very Difficult¨

Yesterday in my lessons I tried to make myself feel better about not having done enough homework by explaining how difficult it is to balance what I want to accomplish down here with the fact that I am on vacation. ¨It´s very difficult to find a balance,¨ I said too many times. Then I used some lousy mountain metaphore to explain the lingual plateau that I´m on this week, and my teacher graciously drew a mountain and explained how she would help me climb to the top over the course of the next week. I´m a bit nervous, but it may just work. Monday, I begin morning classes from 8 am- 12 pm and return to volunteer with the local school children from 3-5 pm. (Yippee! We are going to start by picking up garbage and learning why-- that is for sure.) Then I have conversation club from 5-6 pm, followed by the evening´s lecture, and dinner back at the house with the family. No time for English, you see?

The complimentary event at the school last night was a lecture by a war survivor. As he described his capture at age 16 by government soldiers, the torture and execution of his fellow Mayan villagers, and his excruciating journey back home after having been shot twice, he kept saying, ¨It was very difficult at that time. Very difficult.¨ The war in Guatemala, some say, is still going on, although it ended decades ago and peace accords were signed ten years ago. Many people say that the agreements are not being upheld. It sounds exactly like all of the treaties the US government signed with our indigenous population, all the way up until the time that we forced them into reservations or sent them into extinction. Very difficult times...

My teacher brought us to the market in Santiago today. The town is much bigger than this one, and it is the victim of a landslide in 2005 that buried 200 residents alive while they slept. Today you would never know that such tragedies as the war and the landslide and disappearances of people each week had taken place. The color that the women wear in Santiago is purple, and many shades of it. Perhaps it was strategy and not luck that put my teacher in a red shirt so that we were able to stay with her as we wound our way through the beautiful booths of weavings, fresh foods of all kinds, and unending rows of shops. Despite the gruesome stories of the past and the hardships that these people still face, I am continually impressed by their gentle spirit, openness, and kindness.

Walking on The Left

People in San Pedro generally step to the left to pass oncoming pedestrians. It is something that is easy to notice after repeated awkward moments in the street, trying to get out of the way. Today I finally embraced it and actually started to pace out the way to the gym on the left, and I found it very liberating. Perhaps it was only because it was different, but it seemed better over there, until... ´round about the time I encountered some travelers like myself. What a mess then! We didn´t know what to do. I mean, I was going left, they always go right. I was bumping into this whole crowd of tourists. The whole thing was awkward. But give it a try sometime. Go to the mall and walk on the left side of the median and see what happens.

Salsa lessons tonight followed a somewhat predictable format. I should tread lightly, but I probably will not know how: The, eh hem, shorter men from around here know how to dance but it just does not work with a girl who is a foot taller, and the taller men are generally other travelers and do not really know what they are doing. So I mostly watched tonight as some seasoned salsa dancers lit up the place. It is a whole different language out there on the dance floor, and they were fluent. Some day maybe... at least I can dream.

Last night I watched The Motorcycle Diaries about Che Guevara´s life. I saw the film a few years ago on a frigid evening up in Telluride, Colorado and remembered loving it. This time, I enjoyed it in a whole new way. The scenery in South America is stunning and lures me south, but not this time around. I was saddened and enraged by his encounter of the same old story that we see all over the world: indigenous people being kicked off of their land and treated in inexcusable ways. The capacity for humanity´s cruelty is disheartening, but we can at least be inspired to combat these inequities in our own lives, no matter how small the impact is.

I´ve booked the thermal pools for a group of us who are hiking the San Pedro volcano 

Saturday. We will begin ascend the 4,500 feet up the volcano at 6 am and return before lunch. The warm pools are solar heated and cost less than $5 for as much time as you want to spend in them gazing out at the lake (and the volcano). Tomorrow I am also going to try out the yoga class down on the lakefront at 9 am, so I need to go rest up. I stayed up too late swaying in the hammock last night because it was one of the first really warm evenings here.

Mayan Market?

The market we visited today is like nothing I have ever seen. The colors were stunning and the sheer volume of woven goods was completely overwhelming. And... I bought a belt. That´s it. What struck me was that booth after booth was selling all of the same items, but they were all ¨hand woven¨ and all of the stones in the jewelry were ¨from Guatemala.¨ How dumb exactly do I look? I´m going to go to a market that is a bit smaller and with actual local goods that are hand made by the artists selling them. It seems that is the only way I can ensure that the artist is getting the money and not some factory. The experience was still fun. I paid too much for my belt, but how can $4 be too much? The bartering thing does not come naturally to me.

Tomorrow will be the beginning of another week at school. It has to be working because I found myself translating for the group of English speaking friends who were with me at the market. Hopefully this week will be equally as fruitful, but first I´m going to enjoy another dinner with the English speakers tonight in a little restaurant that overlooks the lake. A glass of red wine is in order after yesterday´s adventure, which included paddling accross the lake in waves bigger than I usually kayak in on the Pacific to get to a small town on the other side. It was glorious for me, but unfortuatley we got split up a bit and some of the others did not enjoy the experience 

as much. I had the very important job of keeping the cameras dry (what idiot brings their camera on a trip like that? Oh, me, and the lady who capsized... glad I took her bag for her!) so I felt a bit bad about paddling away from everyone. But in the one moment where I got slightly distracted because I thought I saw a shark fin (forgot where I was I guess) a good sized wave came over and filled the boat. Never turn your back on the ocean, or lake in this case. So I paddled fiercely to the shore and helped the others find the way after the cameras were safe and sound, while our guide escorted one kayaker back to town. The instructor in us never sleeps.

I hung my head in shame as the local men loaded our five kayaks into the shuttle boat and we hopped in and rode home like that, 

with boat bows popping out of every window and me gripping onto the one on the roof so we wouldn´t lose it. Gringo move, or what? Too bad I cannot upload that picture. There are many observations I´ve been making about the Americans traveling here, but the one that bothers me a lot is the lack of spacial

 awareness. Every time an American moves, it seems like he or she is bumping into someone, blocking the path, or whacking an old Mayan lady carrying a load on her back with something dangling from their backpack. And they don´t even notice it. We have a lot of space in the US, I guess. Well, cheers to all of your Sundays!

Windows and Doors

There is a weight that lifts when you laugh for the first time in another language. I mean, the laugh itself doesn´t change, or at least that is a level of comfort that I have not yet had the privilege of attaining. But there is a little glimmer of hope when you first hear something funny and manage to make people laugh with you for the first time. The subtleties of the language are hard to describe, and I am sure I would just leave you all shaking your heads if I tried. But one thing is clear: geekiness follows us fluidly through the door that leads out of the terrain of our mother tongue. My joke was grammatical today, but at least they laughed. Perhaps they were laughing at nuances beyond my reach, but I don´t even care. It felt so good to laugh.

The last few days have been incredibly full. The school that I am attending offers many activities outside of the classroom context, so I have taken a salsa lesson, stumbled through an explanation of renewable and non-renewable resources with my limited vocabulary, watched Indiana Jones in Spanish, and learned about the education system in Guatemala. As far as I understood, their system is a lot like ours in its structures. Students attend school for 12 years, receive grades like ours, and have many of the same classes. The fascinating part of the lecture this evening was that the ideology of the educational system neither matches the reality nor serves the people in the way that it should. According to the laws, each child has the right to go to

 school, but not every student can. (Sound familiar?) And the school provides an education that advances the student through each grade, but it does not take into account teaching standards or the needs of the individual student.

Through my questioning of various locals, it seems that the local Mayan language, which is spoken by almost every adult here as the first language, is endangered, so to speak. The children can understand it because it is spoken in the classroom, but not all of them can speak 

it fluently. Many of the Mayan traditions are passed down through this language and are thus in danger of being lost with the language itself. But since Spanish is more effective worldwide, most schools teach with it. The students in this area are therefore combating an additional barrier by speaking one language in the home and being expected to excel in a different language at school. It reminds me of the immigrant children in the United States who are at a similar disadvantage when they learn to speak Spanish in the home but have to learn English in school while also learning all of the topics that each student is taught. If they manage to make it through all of that, I suppose they reach an advantage later in life by being bilingual.

The speaker´s criticism tonight of the Guatemalan school system is that it is too rigid and does not honor the ethnic diversity of a nation that houses four major ethnic groups. In this area, it has always been the tradition to attend school from February to November and then have a 

break during the coffee picking season.... You are catching on? It is crucial for the local economy to have the labor of the students during the harvest, but the national system does not take these kinds of local issues into account. There are also many holidays that are celebrated nationally but that are not relevant to all of the citizens, but the calendar lacks holidays for key 

Mayan holidays. Certainly there are a lot of common concerns in our own country. Of course, this information is all what I have come to understand with my broken Spanish, so take it with a grain of salt. I will keep asking questions and finding new sources of information to paint a balanced picture. For now, it is fascinating to look through this lens. The school offers the opportunity to volunteer with local children to enhance the effective outcome of the educational system, so I may participate in that when I can communicate a bit more.

Be sure and laugh a few times today. It is easy to forget how important it is. Here´s a little help for those of you who know how to count to five in Spanish: What do you call four bullfighters in quicksand? (Scroll down for the answer.)







Cuatro Cinco... Get it cuatro ´sink-o´? He he. Some of you can guess who told me that one!

The Sun is Shining

Okay, so the pictures are not actually gone, just lost. I half knowingly erased everything from the little memory card because it had all been infected, as far as I could tell. But everything is still there on the camera so I'll be able to transfer them to a computer once I get home and have access to the chord. So... as long as I retain the camera itself (everyone knock on wood) I will still have the pictures. These internet cafes are a prime spot for getting viruses, on you equipment that is, because so many travelers use them. So, lesson learned. Nonetheless, it seems wise to approach the whole operation with detachment.

It's like the world becomes this amazingly friendly place as soon as the sickness lifts. I'm figuring it out, slowly but surely. Lots of doses of vitamins are involved, and I'm just going to eat very little in general. It's a diet imposed by exterior circumstances. It helps that the sun actually came out a bit yesterday too. I'm heading to school to pay for my second week of classes and some salsa lessons tonight. Then I'm trying to choose between two totally different weekend adventures: A Saturday spent kayaking over to a quiet Westernized holistic community across the lake followed by a Sunday up in the mountains at the area's biggest artisen market, or getting on a bus Friday and heading up to Tikal for a long weekend wandering through Guatemala's Machu Pichu. Both sound great in different ways, so I'm going to look into costs and waiting to see how the stomach is doing... Thanks for all of the emails and comments on the blog! It's great to have all of the support as I fumble my way through my first solo trip abroad!

Pliers, Vices, and Oars

Today I watched a man pull a battery out of a rickety old truck and put it into the motor of a ferris wheel and then get all of the overhead lights going, one by one, with some loose wires and a pair of pliars. Naturally, I then paid 5 Quetzales (about 70 cents) and got on for a ride. It was a lot faster than I would have anticipated, considering the circumstances, and I couldn´t keep myself from thinking up various emergency action plans in the event that some part became unbolted. It was a great view from up top, and I could see that the town is much smaller and less intimidating than it first seemed. We gain perspective from the strangest of things. Last night, I embarked on a somewhat frantic quest for chocolate. My humble stash of nuts and chocolate from the US ran out only yesterday, but it was only because I was really putting some effort into making them last. So at last I have turned to local forms of these items. I paid 10 Quetzles (about $1.30) for a roll of chocolate. What´s a ¨roll¨ of chocolate? Well, it´s about like a bar but in the shape of a cigar. All wrapped up in beautifully colored tissue paper, I felt like I was carrying around elicit drugs but I suppose the locals probably don´t think of it that way. It was better, by far, than American chocolate, but what was I expecting?

On a walk around town today with my teacher, we came upon an interesting looking plant. As it turns out, it was the tree of my beloved beverage: coffee! That deserves an exclamation point. Decaffeinated coffee really does not exist here, and since it´s grown all over town and in the hills all around here, I have to drink it, and I have to drink it with caffeine. (Sorry for those of you who will have to suffer through my withdrawals yet again.) The taste is great, but they brew it at about half the strength I would... the french press mug was something I couldn´t justify bringing. For someone who studied anthropology and believes firmly in the posibility of enculturation, I am having a tough time letting go of some of the comforts of home. But alas, that is why I am here in the first place-- to push myself out of the comfy complacency that threatens us all.

Another 10 Quetzales went to an hour in a kayak today on the lake. It was so refreshing to get some oars back in my hands and get out for a nice view of the area. The lake was sadly polluted and if I didn´t know how deep it was, I would think it was also suffering from eutrophocation. Either way, today was not the day for swimming, even though I was able to get pretty far from town and the rivers of garbage flowing down into the lake. It gave me the feeling I had while riding here from Antigua on the smog-

filled roads. The image I get is of two wheels turning on the same axis. The inner wheel, representing ¨progress¨ and development, spins clockwise. The outer wheel spins counter-clockwise and represents all of the backward movement society makes while it progresses toward what we consider a higher standard of living. In other words, society is benefiting from cars and breathing in the toxic fumes at the same time. We have more food available, but the wrappers end up in our waterways. None of these thoughts are new; they are the very concepts we teach every day out on Catalina. Somehow, it is striking to see the problems up close-- to see them affecting entire societies in different ways than we are affected at home. It will certainly make me return with fresh energy for what we do.

P.S. This was written yesterday. At various points in the night I came to a few different decisions as the grip of unknown bugs tightened around my stomach again. The first was that I´d get on the next flight home and straighten this whole stomach thing out with a good dose of American food. The second was that I´d stick it out but just fast for the next five weeks. Any ideas out there from folks who have been through this? Of course I´m doing the standard stuff, including drinking only bottled water, but maybe I need to give up all uncooked foods too? Oh, and I just lost all of my photos to a virus, so my new camera is sick too. Any suggestions with avoiding that in the future? I really had wanted to put up some nice pics of the lake, but such is life. The approach here has to be of detachment-- to any given state of being, to belongings, to people and cultural values. I think I´ll try to hold on to my human values for now though.

Does anyone live here?

It is probably starting to look like no one actually lives in San Pedro la Laguna because my pictures are so barren. This is not the case; there are about 10,000 inhabitants of this lakeside town and there is hardly a moment when I am alone. My conditions is somewhat of aloneness in these first days, but more than that, I cannot tell who might be offended by photographs. Plus, I´m timid. Pictures of people will come, I promise. But today was really a different kind of day than the kind you may all be celebrating on this festive American day. There is indeed a festival going on here, complete with parades, arcade games where the little children in traditional clothes get to practice shooting an evasive enemy, and two giant ferris wheels. But climbing the stairs last night was mysteriously difficult, and this morning I found out why. Anyone who has traveled in this region knows what´s coming-- I´ll call it ¨traveler´s stomach¨ to be discrete. So, after spending the early part of the morning in the bathroom, I spent the later part in bed and very thankful for sleep. The afternoon was not much better, but I managed to make it to my lessons before sleeping some more this evening. It´s really not the most glamorous part of traveling, but the body asserts it´s needs, and I would be lying if I said every day was fabulous in every way.

For the part of the day when I managed to muster the energy for my second lesson in Spanish, I was once again like a kid in a candy store. It is a beautiful thing to have a dream for such a long time and to see it materializing right in front of your eyes. The sickness brought about a great opportunity to just sit and talk for a while with my teacher. We walked down by the lake and talked about the school system here. The children in grade school attend classes in the morning and the children in middle and high school attend classes in the afternoon. This works well for a town without sufficient room for their classes, and it serves a second purpose that may simply be a result of the system. In the house where I´m staying, there are three girls, ages 1, 11, and 13. In the mornings, the 13 year-old looks after the baby while the 11 year-old takes over in the afternoons. Their mom is at home then as well, but it frees her up to sew the shirts that she sells for profit in her mom´s shop downtown. The whole family structure is different here. It is common for children to stay living in the home until they marry an move in with a spouse. We also talked about politics. Guatemala just had their first female candidate for president who is also Mayan, which is important in a country with an indigenous majority. Presently, South America has more liberal presidents than ever before. And how interesting is it that the United States is only now close to accepting a minority candidate for president? Well, on that note, happy 4th of July, my fellow US citizens!

Children Running for Gym Class

First Night Out

Stree in San Pedro

Last night provided my first exposure to night life in San Pedro. The small bars in this area are completly filled with travelers, whereas the local bars are up on the hillside in an area I may have stumbled upon today while looking for the bank. They are somewhat separate worlds. The family who is hosting me is also hosting another student who showed me around last night. We ended up at a place called Buddha Cafe where they supposedly cook pizza on the rooftop on a Buddha belly. Hmm... The Guatemalan beer is called Gallo (pronounced guy-o) and comes in ¨small,¨ which looks like a normal beer to me, and in a ¨liter¨ bottle. That´s a liter of beer. Did I really need a liter of beer last night? Of course not, but it was ordered for me, so I accepted it, drank it, and slept well. Sometime around 5 am, the sound of howling dogs woke me up. It was like a row of dominos being triggered-- one dog started barking and then the next, all the way through town. At that point, I decided ti was time to take my first picture in San Pedro. It´s pretty lousy, but it shows you the lovely hammocks that the family put up yesterday on the patio outside of my roof-top room.


Rooftop View at Sunrise



Rooftop view of Volcán San Pedro

So Much Like Home

Zipping accross the lake today was so much like returning home, except totally different. And riding throught the mountains was like a day trip on Catalina, but with a wild driver, many dogs, green plants, no ocean, a different language, oh, and no work. Unless, of course, you consider learning a new language and navigating a new country ¨work.¨ In anticipation of the 4 hour journey to Lake Atitlan and the town of San Pedro la Laguna, which actually took 6 hours, I deprived myself of water. ¿Baños aquí? Oh, no no, gringa. One would be a fool to count on bathrooms at any point along the way on a journey like that. In reality, the drive was not so bad, except for the self-imposed dehydration. The area outside of Antigua was shocking-- smoggy, dirty, chaotic-- after the tranquility of town. More on that later. The countryside was striking, with deep ravines plunging in between tall volcanos. Don´t worry, most of them are dormant. It drives me mad not knowing what each plant is. I´m certain I saw avacados growing out there somewhere, but it´s possible that I was daydreaming.

Arriving in San Pedro was a breathtaking experience. The lake is large and surrounded by lush mountains and volcanos. The town itself is set on a hillside, and in my efforts to escape the multitude of people trying to sell me something upon disembarking, I wandered off in the general direction of my school. On the map, it looked something like a quick left, then a right along a path, and then some confusing winding way to the lakeside school. That worked. I found my way but not without a little stress from meandering along the charming pathes through what felt like people´s back yards. Once at the school, my heart rate resettled as I set up afternoon classes (yes! I can stay up late and rise late with no regrets for four weeks!) My host sister greeted me and walked me home. So cute. I only have Meagan to thank for the fabulous host family. The welcome here was very warm and comforting.

Everywhere I step, I´m surrounded by other foreigners speaking English and helping me out, not to mention friendly locals. So even though my inner world is dramatic as always, the outer world feels rather well-traveled. That´s just fine for now. The road less traveled by is for peole who speak Spanish... and that´s me in a few more weeks.