Days 118-119: The End of Regulation Time

This weekend was originally set to be my last weekend, with Sunday being the final post in this blog. With certain recent events, however, there are to be a few more entries.

In addition to the disastrous effects of the volcanic eruption, a tropical storm swept the country, powered by the hurricane Agatha that touched down on the Pacific side of Guatemala last evening.

Friday's rain carried over into Saturday. It did not stop raining the entire day. And it was not just a drizzle, but a good steady pour. I only ventured out of the house once on Saturday.

We had rebooked my flight from Sunday (since the airport had closed for that day) to Monday, so I went into town to book a shuttle to the city on Sunday so as to be in the City the evening before my flight. I borrowed an umbrella from Angelica, but I was still getting wet, so I dropped by the handily-timed market and bought myself a raincoat. It is quite nice: it is black, goes down to my knees, and has a hood and sleeves. Between that and the umbrella, my body from the upper leg and above stayed essentially dry. My feet and legs, on the other hand, got an extra shower.

I was lucky in that I only went to two travel agencies before booking a shuttle. The first place pointed me to the one I used, Silva Travels, who offered a private (that's right) shuttle since they have no public transportation on Sundays. I was relieved that they were going out, since other agencies had preemptively closed down. I returned home as quickly as possible.

That night, I had dinner with the family, watching the news station. We were experiencing a remarkably mild set of conditions compared to other cities nearby. The images of extreme flooding were impressionable. We heard conflicting information throughout the evening as to the duration of the storms, predictions that seemed to be hardly more than guesses.

The only difficulty that affected me personally was that we had power cuts during the day, some for no more than a half-second, other times for maybe 10 minutes. However, each time, the internet cut and had to reset a process that takes about 7 minutes. If there was another power 'break,' it would have to start over. That got quite frustrating when I was trying to monitor Continental's website or contact my family or Carmen.

This morning, however, when I woke up it was oddly quiet and still. The rain had stopped during the early hours. It was very strange to not hear it falling on the roof and on the courtyard stones.

It turns out that the airport will be closed for a minimum of three more days. The earliest I have heard of for a possible reopening is Wednesday. Naturally, my Monday flight was cancelled, but my Dad was able to book on on Thursday afternoon. With that change in plans, I had to change the date of my shuttle trip into the City, because I did not want to bother Carmen's parents for more than one night and also the City has been damaged much more severely than here. Carmen's parents were without power for a good part of Saturday.

I went into town today around lunch time to talk with the agency about a reschedule. I had called last night as well as this morning, and I had been told that the postponement of the shuttle was no problem, and it was not. I just walked in, they recognized me, changed the date on my ticket and bam, that was that. I went out for lunch and ate a pretty big one since I knew dinner was not going to be served either at Angelica's house (it is Sunday, the food-less day in Guatemala), so after eating I grabbed a container of pasta and a salad to bring home with me. I also stopped by at the La Bodegonia supermarket for some snack food. I do not think my bread will last me until Thursday. Pitty. I will just have to eat it before it goes bad.

Semi-dry street with a volcano visible and blue skies

Damp paint marks flooding height in Antigua

Today's paper: "Tragic rain: 12 dead"

I have made quite good friends with the family cat here. Yesterday, it was left outside the front door during the rain, and while I was in the entertainment room fiddling with the internet modem, I heard its whining. So, I opened the door, of course. It spent the entire evening on my bed/lap. Today, when I left for the city center, it was still sleeping on my bed so I left my door open. Someone closed it while I was gone, but the cat did not seem to mind, it was fast asleep when I got back. It spent the rest of the day today on the bed again. It is a sweet little thing, the only bad trait is that darned kneading. It does that alternating 'pushing' with the front paws and only once I have been petting away for a goodly while, will it settle down and sleep. I guess I have never noticed this because there has never been a cat in the house, but they sleep in the weirdest positions. Quite amusing.

Cat on lap. Makes typing more of an effort

So, tomorrow I plan to go up to El Hato, since that did not happen this weekend. I can return Dora's key and say some goodbyes, but there are no classes this week, or so Angelica says. I will head up with the noon bus (thank you, Market Day) and hang out until the 5.50p bus comes at the end of the day. Hopefully, I can see a couple of the kids on the streets.

Other than that, I am just waiting on Thursday to arrive. I cannot do anything to accelerate or even really assist my departure, except be in the City and at the airport on time. I just have to hope that the fair weather here today was the same in the City, and that it continues as such so that they can clear off the runways.

Chao.

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.

Days 115-116: The Last Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday. The most rain I have seen since I have been in Guatemala. Pretty much the whole day was drizzly, I actually wore jeans for the first time since leaving Buenos Aires.

At school we worked more with numbers, moving full speed ahead with number 7. I am making 'friends' with the children now, they are all used to my presence in the classroom, and they know I speak Spanish. It is fun talking with them; it is quite different from talking with adults, I feel like all of the adults are paying attention to my accent, my grammatical errors, while the children just hear what I am saying. The only problem I have had so far is when my Argentinean accent makes my Spanish 'foreign' to the children's ears. Since they are not accustomed to accents, the 'shh' sound that I use throws them for a loop. So I have to be more careful with my speech in that respect. Mostly, I just end up repeating the sentence, sans-accent the second time.

I went over to the Earth Lodge after school. There are two women from Australia there right now, a dentist from England, and two girls from Canada. It had been nice chatting with them, sharing stories and plans for the future. Only problem is the lack of Spanish, English really is the primary language at the hotel, but I guess it is about time I adjust to the concept of speaking only in English, my return is coming up quickly. I did finish my El Eternauta book, the gift from Germán, and I have to say it was an excellent read, such good practice for maintaining my Spanish. Thank you Germán and Marta.

My bus stop

Today has been rather wet as well. It was drizzling as I caught the bus this morning (a very full bus due to the fact that I get on right before the market, so all of the vendors are in the bus). The drivers all know me now, I am the only 'gringo' I have ever seen on the bus. This morning I wish someone could have taken a picture of my white face and blonde hair standing out horribly amidst the sea of stall owners.

Today in school not too much academics happened. Seño Dora and I did a lot of homework checking, and I wrote out the homework for this weekend and Monday night. I want to do as much for her as I can before I leave, since she is really quite overwhelmed by the size of the class. She needs a full-time assistant. Anyone want to do some volunteer work in Guatemala? Just before break, we went for a little march down the road a bit. She had them all lifting their knees, swinging their arms and singing little songs (including the Spanish version of 'Twinkle, Twinkle." Super cute.

On our 'march'

Returning to school

"Seño-Emma-Teacher"

I get so used to how short the kids all are while we are still in the classroom setting, since the chairs and tables are all pint-sized too. But once I was standing up and we were out on the road, I noticed how a lot of them really just came up to my hips. If even.

After school, Seño Dora had a meeting so I sat outside the classroom with a couple of the kids who were waiting on siblings in older grades. We took some photos, they played some soccer in the rain, and we talked a bit, which was great. One of the boys was really quiet in class, but he talked to me after school, it was very sweet.

Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 13th Grade(?)

I caught the midday bus today, market day, and so I got back to Antigua at around 1.00p. I went out again in the afternoon to look around the market a bit, and to buy some bread. I bought two loaves, and took a half from each and gave them to the family here as a gift. Besides, I wanted both flavors, but there is no way I could eat that much bread.

The bakery.

The biggest news this evening I just heard about about a half an hour ago, as I was starting to type. Carmen contacted me about the little tremor that we all felt this afternoon. I had originally thought it might be the construction next door, but it lasted a little too long and was not accompanied by an obvious noise. I did not think anything of it, Carmen had told me it happens in Guatemala, but it turns out that it was just a little indication of what is happening nearby.

The volcano Pacaya has been erupting, throwing ash and rock over Guatemala City and the surrounding areas. There have been volcanic rock injuries, ash is covering the capital currently, and most importantly for me, the airport is closed. The rain is supposed to continue at least through the night, Carmen suggested that I keep the doors and windows closed in case any ash comes down with the rain. Talk about going out with a bang. Schools are being closed across three provinces, including the one I am in currently (Sacatepequez, quite the mouthful) so I do not know if I will have school tomorrow. I sent an email to Jonathon and Emma, hopefully they will respond.

So, I have to hope that the City can clear up the runways before Sunday, and that I can leave without any delays. It is looking a little uncertain right now, but I do not have a very clear picture of how things will shape up.

Chao.

Days 113-114: The Last Monday and Tuesday

Yesterday it was pretty hard to get up in the morning. Still, I made it to the bus and had my morning reading time while waiting for school to start. There is a cement bench right on the other side of the street from the school and each morning I have a good hour and a half to read.

I helped out again in Seño Dora's classroom, the children are starting to know my name and recognize me outside of the classroom setting. Most of them are not too shy, but a couple of them still freeze up when I speak directly with them.

Emma came in and did a short bit of English work with them, colors and body parts again, and I worked on writing out homework in some exercise books. Since photocopies are very expensive and hard to come by in this little village, the teacher normally writes out all of the 'assignments' (which include repetitive symbol drawing and coloring) by hand in each of the 30 students' books. It is therefore very helpful to Dora when I can do that for her and leave her free to attend to the kids.

After school, I went to the Earth Lodge, per normal, and hung out chatting with the guests. Now that I type what happened yesterday, I realize how boring it must be to read about my days, since they are all essentially the same.

Today, the differences were: It was overcast today, sprinkling on and off. Also, I almost missed the bus this morning. I was tired this morning and a bit cold, so I was moving slowly. I literally was 5 feet from the stop when the bus came whizzing around the corner. Thank goodness I was not 30 seconds later.

I was put to my homework assigning work today. They are working with numbers (number 6 and 7 are the new ones), and so I wrote out an assignment for each number in every book. Pega cuadros de papel sobre el 6 y pega 6 semillas. Dora has them decorate each letter and glue the associated number of objects to the page or draw that number of pictures to help understand the concept of the number in addition to how it is written.

A dentist from England visited today briefly, she is staying at the Earth Lodge and handed out toothpaste and brushes in addition to a little talk about sugar intake. The ironic part of my class's conversation was that it was right after break, and everyone was still sucking on their recently purchased candies.

I had a giant chef salad at Earth Lodge this afternoon, it was a mountain of a salad and very yummy. I read for a bit (I am dominating my Spanish reading material) and ended up watching Benny and Joon with Emma in the little television room. It was raining on and off so I could not really sit outside in one of the lawn chairs and read.

Just had dinner with one other guest; beans and an egg with fruit and bread. We had a funny conversation when I mentioned that I realized I had gotten a light burn on my right arm, even though today was so overcast, and she said that honey was a good remedy. I think I will take her word for that, the burn is not extreme enough to warrant something that bizarre.

One negative aspect of the house here: there is a little dog that barks every time anyone enters the house, regardless of if the dog knows them or not. Loud, shrill barks that irritate me more than barking ever has. Maybe I am only used to hearing English barking and the Spanish accent is what makes it uncomfortable.

Only 5 days left on my gap year travels! So hard to believe.

Chao.

Days 110-112: The Penultimate Weekend

On Friday night there was a power outage, so I figured I would put all of this weekend in one post, knowing that Sunday would be pretty uninteresting. 

School on Friday was good. In the morning, at about 6.10 I arrived at the school because I finally caught the María Victoria in the morning. It was fantastically misty out, covering the mountainside, it was impossible to see across to the Earth Lodge, let alone the valley below. 

I helped out in the kindergarten; the teacher had returned for the first time in that week since she has been feeling poorly. The school day was quite relaxed as far as scheduling goes or lesson plans. They came in and ate their breakfast (provided by the school daily) then the teacher, Señora Dora, did some singing and reciting with them and then read to them the first part of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.' After a brief English class with Emma, in which they were read a book about a monster promoting body parts and colors, Dora suggested that I lead a game of Bingo with the children. After passing out the cards and jumbling up all of the animal and household object cards, I explained the rules, objective, and all of the kids rolled up little balls of tissue paper to mark off the squares. That seemed like the most fun they had all day. We played for a little bit, long enough for them to start understanding the rules, when it was break time. After explaining that we would continue after the break, so do not pick up the cards, they all scrambled out as fast as possible once the doorway was clear. 

During break, two vendors come to the school and the children can purchase fruit, popsicles, and candy. Games of tag, basketball, and soccer break out immediately, with whatever balls are handy. Girls and boys play together, although it is more impressive that the girls play basketball since they are all wearing the wrap-around skirts that are essentially floor-length and quite restrictive. 

After break, we continued on with our game of Bingo for what seemed like a century, especially for the little guys, but with some sneaky work on my and Emma's (who was hanging around with us) part, two kids won. Then it was the end of the school day. They only have a half day, until noon, every day. I hung around for a little bit and helped organize all of the Bingo cards since they all had duplicates, which  were a pain during the game. 

I went back to the Earth Lodge after school. There I read, napped just a little bit, and played a fun bean-bag toss game with Emma and Jonathon. Truly a game of luck; I had my glorious and my horrendous moments. 

I caught the 5.50 bus back down to Antigua and ate dinner by myself that night.

Saturday morning, I did not sleep in quite as much as I would have liked, but I think my body was getting accustomed to the early start. I had a nice big breakfast of cereals (there are different options and I always have more than one). 

Saturday was a great day for two reasons: I got my laundry done, and I got a haircut. Laundry was a bit of a pain, though. Angelica told me of a place nearby, but after searching for it for a little while, I asked around and found out it was closed. That is why I could not find it. There was a really nice guy on a bicycle who I asked about a different 'lavandería.' He told me where there was likely to be one, and peddled alongside me and my little suitcase-full of dirty clothes. When we found one, he just said 'you're welcome' and off he went. Very friendly. I dropped of all the clothes and the suitcase with the lady at the laundromat, and I was told to return in 3.5 hours. So, I headed off for a haircut.

Carmen had recommended a place to me that was near to where I had purchased my cellphone, so I went there and topped up my credit on the phone, but I could not find the place. After calling Carmen and confirming the location, I asked around and was told it had gone out of business recently. So, Carmen had a second suggestion, and off I went.

The shop was quite small, three chairs, and very old-fashioned. The barber was watching a soccer game when I entered (Italy vs. Germany), but he got right to work without me saying a thing. He cut it really quite well, and to cut the hair off my neck as well as my sideburns he used the old one-blade razor. First time I had ever used one of those in my life. Yes, I am young, I am very well aware of that fact. 

After the haircut, feeling light and free, I decided to make a very important stop: the bakery. I picked up a loaf of the orange-chocolate bread for the weekend before heading off to get something to eat. I had been told that I would not get dinner on Saturdays (nor meals on Sundays), so I ate at the Cafe Barista that is right next to the park. I had a yummy panini sandwich with fries and a really good banana-strawberry smoothie. 

On the way back, I stopped off and got my laundry (after a half-hour wait), which I folded back up into the suitcase and took home. Back home, the cook María told me that there was in fact dinner for me if I in fact wanted to eat. I did in fact want to eat, so I did. 

This morning I slept in quite satisfactorily. I had a very low-key morning, and Carmen came by in the afternoon with my other suitcase of stuff that I had not taken to San Marcos. Now I have all of my possessions together in a happy family. I have to say, warning this is pretty awesome, that I played a game of solitaire (just one game) and won! I have no way to explain my luck other than that I must have one-time solitaire luck in each country when I first go there. How cool.

I went out this evening for dinner to an Italian restaurant. I had a hearty spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread. It was very good, and I was very hungry, so I literally cleaned out the bowl with the bread at the end. Yum. Oh, and I also bought a loaf of carrot-bread for snacks during the week. I have been getting hungry during the school week since my pack-lunch is pretty small, so I figure the bread can supplement. 

Alright. Clean clothes, cut hair, bread shelf stocked, I am all set for my last week here in Guatemala. My flight home is exactly a week from today at just before midday. I will be arrive home in Austin at about 7.00p. 

Off to bed relatively early for the 04.45 alarm tomorrow morning.

Chao.

Day 109: The Art Classes

Second day waking up super early. Second day missing that silly bus. But now I know why: The bus makes one big loop around the city instead of (like others) stopping at the market and retracing the route on the return trip. So, I have been waiting on the wrong side of the road, not looking in the right direction. In fact, yesterday, the María Victoria might have passed me by while I was looking down the opposite side of the street. I got a bit angry at the amount the tuk-tuk driver charged me, but I paid up since it was only really an excessive amount in Guatemala. Thinking like the tourist I really am, it was not as big a rip-off.

Today, I helped out with Emma's classes. Normally she has three classrooms to visit (Grades 1a and 1b, and Grade 2), but today it was just the first-graders. We had two lessons with each class, one of English Language and one of Art. We did the same project with each group: for English we worked on colors and body parts, culminating in a monster head drawn per instructions from Emma as to the number and color of the facial components. With one class, there was a curious number of monsters with noses located in the forehead area, causes still unknown. The kids are super cute, very excited, and there was one child in each class that shows an incredible knack for language: one girl, and one boy.

Art by 1b

Grade 1a

The second period that we had with each class (after break time, of course, as well as their other periods) was Art in which the project for today created a lovely combination of chaos and creativity. The children chose a printout animal shape (all animals introduced in a story told weeks before) and then hunting through magazines provided by an Earth Lodge donator, tore out little pieces of whatever color and glued them onto the animals. Once the animals were feathered, haired, and scaled in all sorts of colors they were cut out and glued onto different colors of crate paper. The rest of the space was then decorated with crayons, and we hung the artwork up to add a splash (cannonball sized) of water to the classroom walls. For the most part during the Art period we spoke in English. Only in a couple situations did we need to resort to a word or two in Spanish, which was excellent as the children's comprehension level was very high.

After classes, I helped Emma carry all the leftover supplies back to the Earth Lodge. There I ate the sandwich that Angelica packed me, but I was still hungry, so I ordered an Earth Lodge burger for lunch. It was quite delicious. Next time I order from them, though, I think I shall try the giant salad because it lived up to its name when two other people ordered it, and it looked rather good.

Because today is market day in Antigua, there were more buses going back and forth between El Hato and the market below, so I was able to go home with the 3.15 bus which got me home at about 3.40. It was nice to have a very low key afternoon, trying to not spend a lot of energy so that the mornings are not too rough. Today was OK, but I think that tomorrow will be worse, the third day always is. The body realizes that the first day was not an accident, that the second was not a joke, and the third day it does everything it can to not make it a habit.

Just finished dinner with Angelica and the other two guests. I cannot remember names, or I would include them, of course. They are quite 'upper' class Guatemalans, with their manicures, make up, and a way of talking and holding themselves that is really quite different from most of the people I have interacted with here. They are very friendly and good-humored, but they seem to live in a slightly different world.

Friday tomorrow, end of the penultimate school week, I am looking forward to getting a haircut on Saturday. Excessive hair and excessive heat fit the equation in which the sum is greater than either of the two parts. Still no severe sunburn though, must be doing something right.

Chao.

Day 108: The El Hato School

Well, today was my first day working with the children at the school in the village of El Hato north of Antigua.

I got up this morning at 04.45, had breakfast (alone, of course) and left the house to walk to the bus stop. I arrived at the street by which nearly every bus passes in the mornings at about 12 minutes before 06.00, but I missed the 05.50 bus by probably seconds. I did not know it at the time, so I waited around for about 10 minutes before paying for a cab to take me up. 

Still, I arrived quite early for school. The classes start at 08.00, and today I got plopped into the kindergarten full of 4 and 5 year olds who were all learning the number 6. The teacher was absent today, so I stepped in to do as much as I could with the school director who was acting as a substitute. Since she had other responsibilities during the morning, I just did my best and ran the morning lessons. We counted to 6, we saw how the number is drawn, we colored in 6 ducklings on paper, we complete an exercise where they traced about 35 sixes in a connect-the-dots fashion, and we had them glue rolled tissue paper onto large sixes on sheets of paper. It was all very exciting, and we got glue everywhere.

We had a break part way through the morning where the entire school, which is very tiny, gathered in the central courtyard and sang the national anthem and learned the definition of 'perseverance.' Their anthem is extraordinarily long. Especially for the little ones who do not really know what is going on around them.

Claudia

I left with Emma, who is the English teacher with whom I have made the arrangements, after the children had their snack. Everyone brought their own plates and silverware, and the kitchen served some food that included rice and a red sauce and another item that I do not what it was made of, tasted yummy though. 

I went back with her to the Earth Lodge. I think I will probably be doing that most days since the bus down again does not come until 6.00p on three of the five school-days. There, I got a chance to chat more with Emma and Jonathon.

They are a married couple who have traveled the world teaching in Europe and Asia. They recently came to Guatemala (for the second time) to help run the Earth Lodge in exchange for free lodging while they work with the Las Manos organization that provides English lessons to Guatemalan students. Jonathon is the volunteer coordinator, and Emma (as mentioned before) works as an English teacher for three different classes. They have also started up working a bit in the Art department as well, since the school director is very open and grateful for whatever services are offered to the school. 

Jonathon and Emma had a Spanish lesson with a tutor that comes up to the Earth Lodge three times weekly, and they let me sit in on it and listen. They are working with stuff a little more basic than where I finished off in Argentina, but it was a great review for me and very interesting to see how the same material was presented in a different environment.

Jonathon tells me that there is a beautiful hiking trail loop that runs through the mountains right by the lodge, so hopefully this week or the next I can walk it at least once.

I took the bus down at 6.00, I was the only passenger for the first bit, which was funny, and just had dinner (eggs, beans and fried banana) with two of the other guests. Now, I think that I will go to bed early so that waking up early tomorrow is as painless as possible. 

I was feeling a little poorly yesterday, some stomach issues, but today everything felt much better. I think I am probably a bit dehydrated still, but I had a good day today.

Chao.