Time for a real post!!

Hola Amigos!! While I have time, I’ll write a complete post about what I’ve been up to. Guatemala is absolutely BEAUTIFUL as you will see in the pictures I’m putting up below. Antigua is a smallish colonial style city in the interior of the country. It’s up in the highlands, so it is relatively dry, and it is surrounded by volcanoes—Volcan de Fuego, Volcan Pacaya and Volcan de Agua. Volcan de Agua (water) is called that because its crater used to be a large lake. As many of you may know, in October 2005 the wall of the crater broke causing a huge mudslide that killed thousands of people in one of the towns of Lago Atitlan on the other side of Volcan de Agua. Guatemala is not a stranger to such disasters. In 1976, a huge earthquake killed about 3000 people in Antigua, and destroyed much of the city. My Maestria (Spanish teacher) recalled in detail the night of the earthquake that happened when she was a teenager. She lost an aunt in the disaster. I’ve realized what a luxury it is to live in a place where I never wake up fearing a major natural disaster.

The town is precious. The streets are cobble stoned (mighty good for the calves I have discovered) and as it is a Spanish centre, there are people from all over the world. There is a Japanese student named Toshi living in my house for the month of January. He’s learning Spanish so he can continue on in other parts of the country for the next two years teaching in the primary schools. I live in the North East corner of the town on Calle Candelaria, about as far from the school as you could get. Haha. I love Patty (my house Madre) so much, but we may end up being moved just because of the distance. It can get dark quickly and it’s important to be in a well populated area. We’ll see what happens.

My Maestria’s name is Nivea. She is wonderful! She’s born and raised in Antigua, and now lives with her husband next to her three grown up children and their children. She’s very interested in world issues and we get talking about everything. My vocabulary has expanded a lot and I’m learning to describe almost everything in Spanish. This morning I told her all about NightLight, the drop-in centre I volunteer at in Guelph. In the past I’ve explained the Canadian governmental system to her, Canadian climate and geography, the Rwandan genocide, Project Serve Mississippi, and we had quite a lengthy conversation about midgets. I don’t know exactly how that one started. We often talk about religion. She is a Pentecostal, which is very common in all parts of Guatemala…except Antigua. Antigua is very traditional and very Catholic. There are some beautiful churches here and almost every week there seems to be a Catholic celebration. Today is the day of a Saint from Guatemala. (I can’t remember his name) But it began with firecrackers at four in the morning. Lovely way to wake up. Haha. But I’m used to it…they set them off early in the morning whenever it’s anyone’s birthday. And it always seems to be someone’s birthday.

This past weekend was WONDERFUL!! All 43 of us (students, Clive, Janey, Magda, Lisa, her husband Luis and their three children) piled into a rented chicken bus and drove two hours to Monterrico. Montericco is a beautiful beach on the Pacific Ocean close to the El Salvador border. We took over a cute beach side hotel and made ourselves at home for the weekend. Monterrico was very different from Antigua in more ways than replacing the cobblestones with sand. It felt very very safe. I never got nervous the way I sometimes do walking down the street in Antigua, especially when it starts to get dark. And there were tons of pigs…just sauntering down the middle of the road. There were kids everywhere! I think they are very used to tourists and used to being cooed over. They knew exactly how to pose for pictures…and they loved to grab our cameras and take them. Haha. It’s reminded me of the movie Born into Brothels to see all these little kids snapping photos. But it was sweet. For dinner on Friday night, all 40ish of us piled onto the rooftop patio restaurant of the hotel. I was so impressed with our little waiter. He was the only one on duty…had had a pretty chill afternoon, and all of a sudden 40 hungry 20something year olds arrive and it was only him and his buddy in the kitchen. He was a trooper.

We had our first development economics class at the beach. I’m really excited for that class. Clive told us all about a project that we will be doing while we’re here. It’s called a Cost-Benefit report. We will choose a hypothetical (or possibly one already in progress) development project in Guatemala, in collect data to analyze the total cost (financial, social, environmental, cultural, health) of the project, and ultimate benefit to the community. Oye am I glad I didn’t take that class in the fall. This will be a great experience. And I have decided that I really like my coordinator Clive and his wife Janey. They are mid 60’s, both from South Africa and came to Canada I think in their late 20’s for Clive to take an economics PHD. They’ve done incredible things since then, including a CUSO project in Kenya for 2 years and several of the Guelph India Semesters abroad. Clive just retired from the University of Guelph’s Economic department, and this is his last big thing before they really settle down (if that’s really possible for those two). But they are nuts and tell fabulous stories and I really enjoy them.

We took a half an hour boat ride from a little canal town to Monterrico...the scenery was beautiful.

How we fit 43 people in this tiny little boat...I have not idea. It was hot. I think because we were all sweaty we couldn´t smell eachother.

Two of our little Guatemalan friends--Carmello and Eduardo.

Iguanas from the wildlife conservation project. Alisha! I found our lizards!!

I feel very blessed to have be able to see a sunset this beautiful.

The waves were freakishly strong...but my brave little pro swimmer Emilie had the time of her life!

The sunrise (I actually saw both the sunset and the sunrise!) at six o´clock on Sunday morning.

Some tired chicas on an early morning eco-tour boat ride...

I´ve been making some new wonderful friends here...but it has really made me appreciate the close ones I have at home. This is my fabulous best friend from Calgary, Rochelle. She´s studying social work at Mount Royal College and is going to change people´s lives.

I hope that as the new semester has started that you are all feeling happy and satisfied with where you are! I miss you all!