I'm Still Here

Well it has been awhile, but it's not that I didn't want to write, I really did, but I was just so busy.
So now, an obscenely long post. To help you there are 6 sections, feel free to jump ahead.

"Daily Routine"
"Where I've Been"
"A note on Chicken Buses and Homemade Liquor"
"The Mennonites Made Me Do It"
"Random Pics with Caption"
"Coming Soon"

Daily Routine
The past two weeks I get up, get dressed, eat beans and eggs and tamalitos (like a tamale, but smaller and with no filling, or with herbs mixed into the masa or tortillas, and walk to school. All of this by 8am. And it is a 15 minute walk to school. Then I practice Spanish and learn more vocabulary and grammar one-on-one with my teacher until noon. After class I walk home, review my notes, eat lunch, and turn around to be back at school by 2:45 where I volunteer until 5. On Mondays there is a volunteer meeting in town (about a 15 minute walk from school) from 5:30 to 7. Tuesdays is movie night at school. Wednesdays is cooking class from 5:30 to 7:30, again at school. Thursdays I catch up on studying. Fridays we go out dancing. Saturday to somewhere around here. Sunday to rest and review what I learned during the week.


I was trying to squeeze internet in somewhere there, and it wasn't easy. This is mainly because it was not at my house. I had to go to an internet shop and there wasn't one between my house and school. The closest was on the long-way between school and the house which is about 25 minutes each way. Or about a 20 minute round-trip from my house to the internet place. This was a problem because I was very tired the first week from oxygen deprovation. Xela is 2,335m above sea level. The air is thin, laced with dust and smoke and car exhaust, and sometimes a little chilly. It took about a week for my body to adjust, during which I was falling asleep by 9pm.
The other reason not having internet at the house put me out of touch is it isn't higly advisable to walk alone after 8ish. I don't want anyone to worry, Xela is not dangerous, but a little more caution is advisable.

But those days are gone. Dave arrived Wednesday afternoon and we have gotten his computer hooked up to the wireless network, and pictures have been downloaded from my camera, and here I am!

Also, this week the schedule has shifted and we are taking afternoon classes from 1:30 to 5:30. In the mornings we go to El Nahual to volunteer. Dave is the ablebodied volunteer on call, so he has been asked to do maintenance on all the bikes the volunteers ride, as well as work in the garden and on the new construction site. Of course he said yes. I helped with the construction last week (construction means manually trying to level a 6m x 6m square full of big rocks and loose dirt) and will work in the garden Wednesday morning. Tuesday and Thursday mornings I will be helping teach art/ English at a nonprofit school, La Cuchilla, about a 15 minute bike-ride from El Nahual.

We are living with the same family I have been with since I got here. Elsa is a nurse, Marco is an attorney, their two sons are studying law at university, and there are 6 nursing students and 1 nurse who are pensionistas here. Marta is the cook/ house-keeper. Everyone is very friendly and tolerates/ corrects grammatical errors and pronunciation quickly and kindly. There is a little calico cat that likes to cry and a fluffy white dog named Fanni that lives on the roof. The dog-on-roof thing is common here, and they have much better lives to the street-dogs. At first I felt sorry for Fanni, but now I realize she is lucky.


Where I've Been
Not very far, actually. My first weekend here we went to Fuentes Gorginas, a hot springs about an hour from here by chicken bus and pick-up truck. It has been slightly developed, in that the water is collected in different pools which are lined with rocks and there are six bungalows and one little restaurant. The first weekend I went it was about 60% Guatemaltecos and 40% extraneros. It is about 8km up a mountain from the tiny town of Zunil 20ish km south of Xela. The road up the mountain is curvy and the width of one lane, although it has a dividing line in some spots that no vehicle could abide by, but a skinny donkey could. Small pick-ups with welded cages for the beds provide rides up to the springs for 50Q each way, or 10Q a person each way, whichever total is higher.



The drive up passes farm plots that are worked by hand. There is a wide variety of crops: corn, radishes, carrots, lettuces, chard, cabbage and flowers were what I was able to identify. There is a fantastic view of Santa Maria, a dormant volcano that looms in a perfect cone over this area. In the earlier part of the day the ride up and the hot springs are clear, but as the day progresses the clouds roll down mingling with the steam from the sulfur waters and Santa Maria vanishes into the cool, damp air.


The hottest pool. The water drips down and bubbles up at the farthest point from where this picture was taken.

The sign says "Please use bathing suits. Thank you. No food, drink, pets, or smoking in the pools."

The first Saturday I was here I went with 5 other people from school on the chicken bus.


This is not the bus we took, but a shining example of the "chicken buses" here. They are the economy buses that run everywhere. School buses of varying age and decoration, with racks ontop to hold bags and bundles and the standard of three people to a seat, four if one person is a child.

This past weekend, Dave and I decided to go to Funetes Gorginas again to give him a break from the 11 days of driving he had to get here from El Potrero Chico, the climbing site he was at near Monterrey. We stopped in the actual town of Zunil and walked around the cobble-stone streets. Women wearing traditional dress and going about their Saturday morning, buying, selling, and walking, and chatting dotted the streets.

Esmeralda, enjoys the view of Zunil from the dash.

Dave readies Sherry, the van, with "The Fortress" which is like The Club, but it matches Esmeralda.

Zunil is just a little Pueblo on the side of a mountain surrounded by fields with a river running between it and the main road. Sadly the river is full of trash because there is essentially no infrastructure for trash disposal here. The liter problem is huge, much worse than anywhere I have visited before, but there just aren't good options for the people who live here. Either dump it where everyone else does (in Zunil the two spots I noticed were off the bridge beside the river, or on an especially wide shoulder on the small road just outside of town leading up to Fuentes Gorginas. But because the litter is everywhere, including in Xela, my eyes have become a little more accustomed to it, and it is not taking away from the scenery like it was when I first arrived.

The fields go right up to the edge of town, and there are always people working in them.

After enjoying the springs for a few hours we headed back to Xela. As we were leaving the springs there was a group of 6 backpackers, all with packs and one with a guitar, who needed a ride. We crammed them into the back of Sherry and all bumped along for the return trip. Some of the guys in the group were pretty sure they had seen Sherry parked on a beach in Mexico, and sure enough they had been at the same place as Dave a week or so ago.

On Chicken Buses and Homemade Liquor
Wednesday we had a field trip with some of the teachers to Salcaja, about 20 minutes Northwest of Xela. A small town known for two things
1. It has the oldest church in Central America
2. Caldo de Fruta, a homebrewed liquor made using a mixture of fruits.
Also there is traditional weaving there. We visited the church (No pics, I accidentally left my camera at home), popped our heads into see some weavers using the foot-peddled looms, and then went and rang the doorbell of a house known to have Caldo de Fruta. The fruit itself was very strong, good, but dangerous. The liquor is smoother. Chris, a friend from school, and I went in on a large bottle for 20Q each. We haven't figured out how to split it, or when to drink it, but we have a few weeks to work it out.

The busride back from Salcaja was classic chicken bus. It was packed full, and the people who were going to have to get off sooner do not strategically place themselves near the front, or get out of their seats ahead of time, no they wait until the last minute, then yell and push and squeeze up to the front. It was 3 or four to a seat and the aisles are packed.

At the first stop in Xela many people got off, and it seemed we were waiting longer than normal. Then Chris and I noticed a fight in front of the bus. One man had taken off his belt and was striking at the other man who was counter-attacking with a rubber antenna-like item. Then I realized our bus driver wasn't there just as Jukka, another friend, said "I think our bus driver is the one with the belt."

Jukka was right, after 3 or 4 minutes the driver came back to the bus, threw his belt on the floor next to the door, and on we went. It ends up the man with the antenna was trying to scam people by saying his bus went somewhere and then taking them to a dangerous part of town and charging more money for them to get back. Our driver did not appreciate this poor reflection on his profession and took it upon himself to straighten out the scoundrel.

Another Chicken bus, this one from Antigua and full of bikes on the top.

The Mennonites Made Me Do It
They made me eat GLUTEN! On Tuesday I needed to by a cap, because my face was getting BURNED by the strong sun, and there are no straw hats sold around here. I kept thinking I would find one, but after over a week, I gave in to getting a cap. My teacher and I went to El Mercado Democracia, one of two main markets here. While there she asked if I knew what Mennonites were, I said yes, but why? And she proceeded to tell me about "La Bakeshop". There is a Mennonite community near Xela, and they have a bakery where twice a week, Tuesday and Friday, they sell bakegoods, granola, cheese, yogurt, etc. It just so happens it is was on the way from the market to the bus stop, so we went in. I didn't stand a chance.
The doughnuts were the most amazing I have ever had. I wanted one of everything, but only had one chocolate covered doughnut sprinkled with dried coconut. I haven't had gluten since, but I can't stop thinking about it, and am going back Friday.

Random Pics with Captions

The towel dispenser at Black Cat Hostel. Why aren't all of them elbow-push like this one?


Basically, don't be a pig and throw your trash in front of my house. A very popular stencil around my neighborhood.



A seed store near Mercado Democracia. The signage of the ag stores here is superb.


The boxspring "factory" on my way to school. On one side of the street they chainsaw the logs into manageable pieces. Then carry them into the shop, the turquoise building on your left, across the street where they make the boards. Put the boards into the street to dry. Then assemble into boxspring frames which are stored in the street until the fabric and a protective layer of plastic are put on, then back to the street to wait for a truck to take them away.

Coming Soon
Saturday morning Dave and I are heading to Santiago de Atitlan on Lago Atitlan. It is about a 3.5 hour chicken bus ride from here, so it will probably take us 3 hours, if we don't get lost. I am excited to get to some water. It is said the lake is beautiful and safe to swim in and kayak. We will come back Monday morning and start our last week of classes and volunteering here in Xela. We will leave on Sunday February 15. We are staying the weekend because it is Sarah's (the special programs coordinator at El Nahual) Birthday Saturday and it should quite the party. On the 15th we will either head south towards El Salvador or to eastern Guatemala. It depends on when and where Boozin' decides to meet us.