Fresh Air, at Last... but a Dark Side, too.

Leaving the city was a great decision, and I'm very grateful it worked out... the air is much better up-down here (The 'mountain school' is actually at a lower altitude than Xela...). The folks running both schools are great, and the teachers are fine, too... but I don't miss the smell of diesel smoke at all.

All is not tranquil here in the mountains, though... yesterday morning I arrived at the family's home for breakfast and was greeted by the news that the baby girl next door, 'Esperanza' (somewhat ironic - it means 'Hope') had died early that morning. In Nuevo San Jose, this small community of roughly 35 families, everyone is affected by this event. The school took a collection to help with things, as is the custom here, and most of the day yesterday centered on this depressing event. Apparently, the little girl had a fever for a few days prior, but her mom, Maura, didn't realize it was 'fuego,' which may or may not be scarlet fever... it's very hard to tell. The funeral is later today in a nearby town where most of the families attend a Catholic church. Prayers for the family... and your choosing to learn more about Guatemala's horrible infant mortality rate... are all very welcome. I don't know how many children died while I was in Xela, but the size of this place and the nearness bring things into a very differnt focus.

I'm presently in Columba, the nearest town with a market and internet. My visit today is to check email and write this blog and buy some groceries for the upcoming (tomorrow night) Cena International (international dinner).

Catch you all later.

Headin´ to >>> ¨The Mountains¨

I´m heading to the mountain school of Proyecto Linquistico de Quetzaltenango, which is highly spoken of by most everyone I talked with who´s been there... the worst I heard about the place was ¨there´s a lot of bugs¨ and ¨it´s what you make of it.¨ And it´s out of Xela, so I hope I´ll like it better. We shall see.

Had a nice breakfast at the Gato Negro... Black Cat.... hostel with Robbie from Rollins and Sand from Berkeley; Robbie´s on his way to the mountain school, too, and Sand´s finishing up at PLQ and may... or may not... be heading back to the States. We talked about pets and our reasons for being here and, maybe since Sand specialized in psychology or maybe just ´cause it´s where conversations go here, we did a little analyzing and soul searching on our motives and thoughts and feelings about Life, The Universe, And Everything (thank you, Douglas Adams).

Need to pack and sort things out... hopefully I´ll be able to leave most of my luggage at the school and just bring a backpack with a few changes of clothes... and wash something often. I´m feeling the wear and tear of being away from home and familiar things and FRIENDS a lot more than I thought I would... God´s going to have to make it really clear if I´m supposed to work overseas somewhere. At this point... at this moment, actually, I´m feeling more certain about teaching somewhere in Central Florida and traveling summers and holidays. That certainly could change (I´m such a fliberty=gibbet... sp?)

Hopefully I´ll be able to update this blog at least a couple times from, Colomba, the closest town to the mountain school... 20 minutes by pickup truck=taxi.

All ya´ll take care.

¨Jesus Viene¨ --- a Sign over Xela/Quetzaltenango (pics added 22 June)

On a hill overlooking Xela is a sign - one of the few that´s not advertising one of the twenty-or-so presidential candidates for the upcoming september elections - that says ¨Jesus Viene,¨ roughly translated as ¨Jesus is Coming¨ (sorry, no photo yet).

I hiked up the hill this morning (and was again reminded of Florida´s low altitude... Xela´s at about 5000 feet?) with four other students to the church proclaiming this message. The road is cobbled with large stones, and much of it is probably close to a 45-degree angle, but the view was worth it.

After coming down, joined Megan, a young Master´s student working on her thesis here, for a mocha at La Luna, an antique-filled bistro with decor a bit reminiscent of the toy-filled Bubble Room on Captiva Island; old cameras, pistols, swords, and the like cover the walls and fill cases throughout the several rooms of the restaurant. The beverages were great, and the ambiance is perhaps the best I´ve found in Xela, at least at 10:30 in the morning. I´ll be returning there for a quiet place to write (God, I wish I´d brought a laptop).

The school offered a film last night, and, thankfully, it was in English (with, curiously, Chinese subtitles). The picture, titled ¨Romero,¨ was about the barbarities of the Salvadoran government during the ´80´s, and Archbishop Romero´s life and death during this time. Definitely worth watching, but not a fun or uplifting ride ... at all.

some pics:


L to R Jocelyn, Megan, Matteo, and Natalie


Me










Panoramic views of Xela, L to R

Chapine-time... and Life in Xela

Everything here seems to take longer... there´s even an expression,¨Chapine Tiempo¨ - meaning a little late for something. (Chapines are native Guatemaltecos, people who were born here.) Editing and posting, esp. photos, to my blog take a long time.

UPDATE --- 20 June @ 7:00 p.m.
... consider the early shortness of entry as a kind of test to see who, if anyone was reading this thing.
I´m actually hovering between homesick and braindead, and didn´t want to put too much of that kind of crap on the blog.
And I started a short story, too, so I forgive myself for the brevity.
Another great excuse would be anything vaguely romantic, but nothing there... sigh.
Took a trip to ¨El Zoológico¨ today with my teacher... it was all that I expected, and less, but I´m so not-enchanted with Xela´s big-dirty-city feel that I was hoping against hope that it might fool me, and my teacher remembered it as a ¨tranquilo¨ place... he was disappointed too, as it seems the lovely gardens at the back of the zoo were destroyed some time ago and never rebuilt. So our two hours spent in the micro-bus, packed like the proverbial sardines in a can, was for nothing.
Life is still good... my ¨house-mom¨ agreed to wash my ¨ropa de cama¨ today, so I should have clean sheets to sleep on.

Here are a few more pictures:

On the road from Panajachel to Xela #1


On the road from Panajachel to Xela #2


On the road from Panajachel to Xela #3


Un Cemetario Near Xela


Sunset over Xela, from the Terrace atop Proyecto Linguistico de Quetzaltenango

Panajachel in the Rain (update 19 June)

The drive to Lake Atitlan was very interesting... 11 people in a micro-bus climbing up and down some extremely steep (can you say ¨first gear?¨) and curvy mountain roads (no guard-rails, of course). And my camera was trapped in my backpack on top of the van, so there´s no photo evidence. Arrived in Panajachel and Hector, the van driver, took me to a pleasant little hotel, where I spent a couple hours resting and taking photos of a persistent little hummingbird who was buzzing the flowers in the courtyard without cease.

The rain, predictably, started as soon as I got up from my nap; I headed out anyway to make travel arrangments for tomorrow.

So, what to do in an extremely touristy lake-front town on a rainy afternoon?

Go to an art gallery, of course! And that´s just what I did after wandering along a waterfront strip that reminded me way too much of Hollywood Beach (Florida) in the ´60´s -- all it lacks is neon and building codes. I wandered into a bar/restaurant and got ripped off by ordering a beer without the everpresent ¨¿quanto vale?¨... paid about Q27, or $3.75... not much by USA standards, but Q10 more than I paid at the worst tourist trap in Antigua. Left there and found a spectacular building with several old Mercedes up on blocks, and, when I stopped to take a photo or two, I saw the sign ¨La Galeria¨ (Ave. Rancho Grande, Panajachel, tel. 7762-2432)

Hooray! Some beautiful artwork by the omnipresent Angelika Bauer and a half-dozen or more other artist whose work was mostly new to me. A couple of hours passed by pleasantly, and I picked up a small lithograph by a Cuban artist named XIOMAO (no guess on the pronounciation, sorry)who apparently is living in El Salvador now. The gallery owner, whose name was, I think, Sabrina (sorry if that´s wrong) was very kind and gave me some of the history on different artists working in the area.

Hopefully I´ll be able to post some photos soon, after I get settled in Xela.




Un Choque... an accident blocked the road right outside Panajachel on the way out of town.

Y´all have fun now, heah!

Earthquakes and Volcano Pacaya

All´s well here, although we definitely felt the ¨tremblor¨ (a mini'earthquake) here a couple days ago at 1:30 pm local time (3:30 EST?). It was pretty cool, the first one I´ve experienced, and I´m grateful there were no injuries or serious damage.

What almost killed me was taking a 3-klick hike up Volcano Pacaya the following day... The official height is 2,550 meters... a long way above Florida´s sea-level! For more info on the volcano: http://www.aboutguatemala.com/archives/parque-nacional-volcn-de-pacaya.php

I hiked and climbed (more like dragged my 51-year-old bag of bones) all the way up, though, with a young Guatemalteco offering me ¨horse, mister, very easy with horse¨ for two-thirds of my journey. I guess I just wanted to prove I could still do something like this, though training for it a little more than my usual 30-minute morning walks would have been a great idea)
I didn´t bother with the last 60-or-so feet, to where the lava was actually burping and spitting... some of the younger (spelled S-T-U-P-I-D ???) kids went up and stuck their walking sticks (¨stick, mister, only 5 quetzales?¨) into the lava or roasted marshmellows... In all it was a very interesting experience and I´m glad God saw me up and down the mountain without any major accidents or heart attacks.

I wish I´d taken more photos, but it was almost all I could do to walk up the ¨hill¨ (though I did have enough energy to joke with the youngster about carrying my dead body down the hill on his horse.


Veronica, a house-mate at Casa Hernandez, taking a ¨taxi¨ up Volcano Pacaya.


Augustino, our guide, helping Tina, a Colorado teacher, down the crumbling pumice slopes of Pacaya.

The youngsters playing with lava at a fumerole.

A view from near the top of the volcano.

The Secret... ¨El Secreto¨

Spent an hour yesterday writing a blog entry and editing photos... then, even though I´d clicked ¨save¨ on the blog site, something hiccupped and it was all gone... God, I love Windows... and it´s even worse trying to play in Spanish!

Pictured below is the exciting ¨calentador de agua¨ in the shower; note carefully the exposed 110v wiring two inches above the water flow.
So, for 5 days I´ve been taking cold showers, although my hostess assured me her home has ¨agua caliente,¨and I´ve asked her to explain its operation at least twice. Finally, night before last, ready to go out and rent a hotel room just to get a hot shower, I asked the eldest son, a med student and English speaker, what the deal was. Pablo took me into the shower and showed me ¨el buton,¨ which I´d already tried to manipulate to no effect. Then he carefully turned on the flow of water to a hair above a trickle, and pointed out that I must hear the ¨shu-shu-shu¨ of the internal mechanism. Apparently, if you turn on the water to a flow approximating that of the newer US water-savers, it´s too much pressure and you get cold-cold-cold. But if you give it about half that flow, it ACTUALLY GETS HOT, or at least very warm... thank you, Jesus!

To the right and below are pictures showing that kids are kids the world over... a little girl writing her name on the sidewalk with water from a small puddle, with her little sister erasing it afterwards. Also, a picture on its side, of a young man who was supposed to be helping his dad and older brother with the public concert of whistle and drum (made from a tortoise shell). But the youngster had better things to do, like climbing this window and later, a table.

The last two photos are a view of Volcano Aqua, the landmark south of Antigua, and the famous Arch en Calle de los Arcos.

Met , Jim, a guy from the Peace Corps today in the park, who´s living about twenty miles out of the next town I´m going to visit, Quetzaltenango, or Xela (shay-la). He´s got another year or so to go, and has been working on greenhouses to help extend the growing seasons.

Last night, I gave in and went to a local hangout for Americans, Kafka, where the two guys at the bar and the bartender, a gal from Chicago, were all about speaking ONLY in English. I had a Coca cola and a decent Philly Cheesesteak with fries, all for about five bucks. Then, since it was after ten p.m., I paid about two bucks for a tuk-tuk ride home to avoid walking the dark streets alone.

Time for lunch.

(Robbie, if you read this, EMAIL me or leave a comment with your email address! I can´t find it anywhere!)

Buena Vista Social Club

Last night I went with three of the visiting students: Joe from Canberra, Australia; Devin from Richmond, Virginia; and Veronica from Boise, Idaho,to a small club to hear one of the Cuban musicians from Buena Vista Social Club. The music was great, but it was mostly foreign students (like me).
Signing off for now.

I am NOT complaining...

but in the interest of science or for posterity or for whatever reason or excuse I want to use, here goes:

The first few days here were a lot tougher than I expected... partly because there are only street signs on about 10% of the corners, but mostly because of my disability -- I have a miserable sense of direction and I´m totally turned around after two right turns; I was lost at least four times in the first two days. The saving grace of Antigua for the directionally challenged is that a three-wheeled taxi, called a "tuk-tuk" locally and reminiscent of the old Cushman mail carts of my teen years (yes, I´m dating myself), only costs Q10 to go anywhere in the city. The exchange rate is about 7.5 Quetzales per $1, so you basically get door-to-door service for $1.25. And I felt a little better when the driver of the tuk-tuk had to stop and ask directions at least twice to find the street where I´m staying, 1a Avenida de Chajon.

My other big challenge is getting around in a non-English-speaking country. My Spanish isn´t terrible, but I have a HUGE way to go before I´m fluent, so my brain hurts almost all the time now... I think I need to apply a lot more cold beer -- I´ve only had two since my arrival.

In spite of my challenges, I´m enjoying my stay a great deal. Antigua is a beautiful place, though less modernized than Rome or Nassau, my only similar comparisons. Volcano Agua, the inactive volcano just south of town, dominates the landscape and is a great direction aid when the sky is clear. This is the beginning of the rainy season here -- mornings have been mostly bright and clear with temperatures in the 70´s, and afternoons bring some very impressive thunderstorms, creating rivers in the cobble-stone streets. The people here are very friendly, even the 16-year-old soldiers carrying automatic rifles return smiles and say ¨Hola.¨

My hostess, Sra. Hernandez is very accomodating -- and a great cook! The meals have been terrific, though surprisingly the level of ¨heat¨is not nearly what I had hoped for, and I´ve had to ask for the special jar of dried chile powder from the top shelf to augment my meals. The local definition of ¨agua caliente,¨or hot water, is a far cry from what we expect in the U.S., and barely reaches tepid at best, so I may splurge this weekend and get a hotel room just so I can take a really hot shower -- but the showers are not freezing, just not really warm (I´m just glad this is summer!)

Being lost so much of the time, I haven´t done much sight-seeing and have spent most of my time getting to know the 4-block path from Casa Hernandez to la Academia Español Antigueña where my studies take place. Maria, my teacher of the last two days, is very friendly, very patient, and a woman of strong faith, so we are having some great conversations outside of the normal grammar exercises -- in fact, I´m probably learning as much or more in these talks and discussions around the Hernandez kitchen table than I´m learning in the formal classes.

As is my all-too-frequent custom, I left home with something undone -- I didn´t get around to sending the group email I planned to send. And to make things worse, I don´t have all my email addresses in my Yahoo! address book, so if someone can forward the link to this page to anyone who asks about my travels, I would appreciate it greatly.

Speaking of which, it´s time to try and send some kind of email about my whereabouts.

Hopefully, I´ll get back online later this week.

top right is Iglesia de Merced, top left is a view from El Convento de las Capuchinas, and bottom is another view of the same.