Day 117: The Last Friday

There was no school today. Last night after I had written my blog, 'they' made the decision to suspend all of the schools in our district (as well as two others). I was pretty bummed, not being able to have one final day with the children, not being able to help Dora any more with the piles of work she does not have time to take care of for the class.

Ash and rock fell pretty heavily on the capital city. People were missing, as of last night there had been 3 deaths, and of course all of the inhabitants of the Pacaya volcano's mountainside were evacuated. They closed down the airports and redirected the flights through neighboring countries. The eruption was accompanied by the earthquake that I felt just a hint of here in Antigua. We are actually not that far away from the central point of the quake, where it was measured at about a grade 3.5, but what reached us was quite weak.

The silver lining to all of this drama is that I got to sleep in this morning. Of course, my body decided that today would be the day that it adjusted itself to the early wake-ups, so I had to roll over a couple of times; but, it it was nice to have breakfast at 09.30, a full four hours later than usual. It had rained, not terribly hard, throughout the night, and it continued into the morning. After spending some time relaxing in my room, I decided I might as well take advantage of the free time.

I called Continental Airlines and was told that currently my flight for Sunday has not been cancelled. I need to call again tomorrow to confirm that there have been no changes, but it is a good sign. Hopefully they can clear the rubble off the runways by tomorrow evening.

After making the call, I decided to go ahead and pack. I figured that tomorrow, as my last day, should not involve frantic packing, rather happy farewells. So, now I am about 95% packed. I just have out the things that I am going to use tomorrow morning.

I had lunch here at the house, and then opted to go for a bit of a walk through the city. I grabbed my backpack, with raincoat, wallet, phone and camera and left. I decided to take some pictures of the streets, for they were still quite beautiful even in the overcast climate. The surrounding mountains were blanketed in clouds, so I could not see any ash, or dramatic lava sprays at all. In fact, I would not have even known about the eruptions except for Carmen and the news. I feel like there was a slightly suspicious scent that came down with the rain at a couple moments during the day and afternoon, but that could just be my subconscious, desperate for a little part in the excitement.

Courtyard outside my room

Front door

Tuk tuk

Barber shop where I got my hair cut

National beer 'Gallo'

Rain-protected stalls of off-day market

Entrance outside my gated community

My walk led me, inevitably, to the bakery where I purchased a half-loaf of that banana bread. After snacking a bit this afternoon, I now have a third-of-a-loaf of three breads: orange, carrot, and banana. A fantastic snack for the flight day. Beats the airport snack options without question.

I had a little chat today with Gloria, the household assistant who was just recently hired. There is a second girl, Maria, but she left to visit her family for the weekend, so Gloria is flying solo for the first time. She was very nice, quite sweet, but just as shy and soft-spoken as the typical Guatemalan. Guatemalans, to stereotype for a sentence, are quick to giggle, but essentially only adult males will initiate a conversation with a foreigner like myself.

Tomorrow I would like to go up to the Earth Lodge one last time to say 'thank you' to Emma and Jonathon. I also need to return the key to the classroom that Dora lent me since I arrived before she did in the mornings. Hopefully, I will see a couple of the kids there, and I would like to write them a little letter saying thanks and goodbye to them, so I can drop that off while I am up there.

Only one more full day left in my wild and fantastic adventures abroad this semester. Hard to believe.

Chao.