Road Trippin'

So finally, that Friday night, after a bit of studying I think, or maybe a nap, we went back to the school for a traditional Mayan meal. It cost like $4 a head. We neglected to BOOB (bring our own beer) but Fabian brought some weed of course, so that made the night fun (for others- you were thinking for a second there weren't you?). It was fun and pretty tasty, and by candlelight with a small enough group of people at each table that we got to know some people, all of whom we'd be traveling with the next morning. We said our goodnights after meeting Cheryl, Cynthia, Anne, Brie, Paul, and Kelsey, and I think that was the night we walked home with Anne cause she lives across the street from the brewery- and so did we.

So the next morning we packed into a minibus and the more robust backpack-type luggage (namely OUR backpack, with our stuff consolidated cause we knew it'd be tight) ended up on the top rack. Yyyyyyeah sweet- later heard horror story from the five U of Dayton kids (some of whom were from Chicago-ish) that on their bus trip to Xela their shhhstuff got SOAKED soaked SOAKED on top of the bus and everything they had was drenched for the next day until it dried. Thankfully no such mishaps.

But that's what happens on Chicken Buses (so-called by Americans, something else in Spanish unrelated). They are repurposed school buses from the US, belching diesel fumes, garishly painted and personalized, usually with names in script letters in the back window, or a phrase in the front window not unlike many Latino hoopties here in Chicago that say "Margherita" or "Dios es me Padre" or something like that in the top of their windshield. Anyway these buses, made to seat like 40, usually seat more like 80. The windows are tinted and there's a wingman guy who stands in the constantly open bus door, hawking riders, taking fares, and jumping up on the roof of the (yes MOVING) bus to strap down their luggage, then he swings back down the ladder on the back of the bus and into the bus. These buses drive from town to town, and you can get like a 45 minute ride for around a dollar. As long as you're not claustrophobic or careening off a cliff phobic. See these examples:

These things were everywhere. If you look closely, the one in the back had the front of a semi-truck, the International brand ones. I dunno how they did that. But its common. Must be like the BMW of school buses.

The front window also stated the bus's route.

By the way, these buses don't actually have chickens in or on them. Its not like Indiana Jones in India or something. But I did see a lady carrying a giant tray on her head with around 7 LIVE chickens tied down on it in a net. See the ladders and racks though??

So, I digress. But that was information in need of dissemination. Anyway, we piled in the microbus, which is like an oversized minivan, not like a full size van, and seats like 14, or 16, depending on...things. Here's us piled in, a photo from the front seat. Miguel on the left is a maestro and was the fearless leader for the weekend. He was sitting on his backpack basically in the metal footwell next to the sliding door. On the way back he turned around and sat on the warm hump sticking out from under the front seats where the engine was. Then there's Paul, Kelsey, Dayton kids in back, some bald dude, Cynthia, and a creepy guy with sunglasses and a mustache :)

Typical scenery during a drive ANYWHERE. My mom would have loved the cliff-hanging roads. Definitely exhilarating.

The trip was tight but not too hot, and we had mostly fresh air except when following chicken buses up or down some mountain. We were always going up or down, by the way. Flat doesn't exist. I think Anne got kinda car sick but everyone else was okay- but by the end I was ready to get out- starting to get car sick/tired of the density of people and occasional fumes. Brie had to pee like mad, which we found out was like every hour, and the rest stop where people (and kids) tried to sell us stuff had no working potty. Bummer. Then suddenly we arrived after two hours, and all of us newly best friends piled back out. (Uh, cue the next slide please?)

Those kids were persistent. And they could smell Anne's weakness for buying things like sharks smell blood and dogs smell fear. And that's Anne handing money out the door of the van. Oh Anne........

This is what you call a Guatemalan carpool.

Though that dog may look completely flattened and dead, he was as life-ful as most dogs in Guatemala- which is to say comatose and gaunt from malnutrition.

Cafe Luna

Our first real adventure doing anything but school was on Friday, when we got together with my dad's maestra Nancy at the city's first chocolatier, or at least at their shop, called Cafe Luna. They have some food and some wicked tasty hot chocolate/coffee/ice cream drinks. We went there to talk some more to catch up on lost time since we weren't in Xela that Monday for class. The place is a veritable museum of...things, like old radios, tvs, and even old Guatemalan currency. We went back there again the following week as a group, which was quite a great time. I tried to get back there a third time but didn't quite make it sadly :)

Margaret, me, Paul, Kelsey, Anne-Luke-Tim (Anne engaged to Tim, both friends of Luke, all from Australia- Luke is currently in Miami possibly having surgery on a brain aneurysm! He's doing an MBA in Barcelona so we might hang out), Brie, Anne, I can't remember her name but she's a teacher at Goshen College, and two sisters Cynthia and Cheryl, who are Canadian but Cynthia teaches at Goshen College and Cheryl lives in Oregon.

A random picture I took that I really like.

My dad and Nancy!

Intermission

Here's some random things I took pictures of in Xela:

Two guards strolling through Parque Central, carrying guns. I think they were machine guns, but I forget. Many stores, like small electronics stores, and also banks, did without high-tech security systems by having someone standing at the door with A SHOTGUN.

Latino mannequins. "Daddy, why are their behinds shaped like that??"

This speaks for itself, clearly.

Cow stomach. Note the texture. Very...textury. Gross.

Lambs brains.

The brewery near our house- they made lots of stuff.

When they start offering "Big Cola" in 3.3L bottles, it becomes....

There were dogs all over the city. Mangy, scraggly, starving, timid, dogs. All the same kind of dog too. Sleeping, eating, walking, chilling out, everywhere.

Friends

Time to tell you about the people I met in Guatemala. I already told you more or less about Lily. First, my teachers. Edwin, who I had the first week, happened to be an architecture student, and he's 27, and he loves Switchfoot. So he and I were friends (or so I thought, cause he still hasn't found me on Facebook like I told him too- and he's on there all the time!)

Gabriel, my second teacher, was like 34, and had proposed to an American girl from Vermont who used to be a student at another school he used to teach at. He's been there and met her family and all, and would move to Vermont :/, but he's waiting to get his Visa. Her answer was basically yes if you can get your Visa. That's rough. He was in a military school so he told me all about his scars, stitches, broken bones, screwing around in school, and lots of marching and drills. He also is a semi-pro soccer player, but there are a bunch of levels of leagues in Guatemala, and he basically is in a league I think within the state (there are 11 states). He plays goalie, and told me how he messed up his shoulder diving into the goal post. He did uh, less teaching and more story telling than Edwin. I also helped him (just by being the "my student who is sick needs to go to the pharmacy" to get let out of and back in to the soccer game we went to so he could sneak in some booze. They don't have beer at the games because people were throwing bottles on the field. They would.

Gabriel giving a short speech about me before he gave me my diploma. I forgot to say thanks to Edwin also- maybe thats why he didn't Facebook me. Sorry dude.

Here's some of the group of people we hung out with:

Frank (real name something unpronounceable, Chinese), me, Brie (Brianna), Kelsey, Anne, the man of honor, and two sisters uh Michelle and I forget already. Nuts. The two sisters were from Michigan, one goes to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, the other was in med school somewhere. Oh and down at the bottom, Paul, the danish guy, who speaks a couple languages, and was gonna stay in Guatemala until December. His friend visited, who dad and I had dinner with, and he said I could stay with him in Copenhagen if I come visit. I'm there.

Me and Margaret. She is an M.Div student at ND, did ACE (two year graduate program in education, that Josh did) knows Rachel Wack (Tigue) somehow, both Father Wacks, and Beth Cassin who was her RA in Lewis. Oh and Josh's girlfriend. I found this all out within two minutes of meeting her. Crazy. Apparently last weekend she got robbed at knife point and had her money and passport taken. That SUCKS.

Kelsey, who is 19, finished her freshman year at Emory (so we talked a bit about Atlanta, a fun a place) and she is from California, plays volleyball, won the like DIII national championships last year. Went running and other sorts of working out often while in Guatemala. She was really nice, pretty fun, and no one thought she seemed 19!

Anne, on summer break from grad school, a Master's in Appalachian Studies. Interesting. She goes to Appalachian State, and was happy to know I had heard of it, though of course thats just cause they beat Michigan in football a couple years ago. She's really interested in weaving, SUPER ridiculous nice, and completely powerless to NOT buy things from people in markets and in the street when they ask, even when she doesn't even have enough money for her next meal and already has more stuff than she knows how to get home :) She's attended all three schools in the research triangle for some period of time- NC State, Duke, UNC.

Brie, a music therapist who's classically trained in piano. So I started wishing we were friends so she'd play me stuff. She plays guitar and sings in a band. I kinda felt like those were all things I could be doing now if I had taken a somewhat different course in life. She went to Loyola New Orleans and was there for Katrina. Lives in California working at a max security prison for people with clinical disorders, doing music therapy for basically schizophrenic murderers and the like. Pretty heavy stuff. I guess thats why she takes martial arts on the side.

A few more shots of the school- from the bottom of the hill, you can see how tall the building is, which is why it has a great view of the city...

And of the courtyard, once again- you can see the roofs we have.

On to the next topic. Does this ever stop?

Guatemala Cuatro- The School

Our school in Xela was called ICA. Stands for, uh.....I honestly forget. Something about a spanish school, I'm pretty sure. It was the tallest building around, with some nice views from the roof, and an open central courtyard where we'd take breaks, hang out, warm up from the sun- the weather was usually cloudy or even rainy, often around 60 degrees, and actually kinda chilly in the shade inside the "classrooms" of the school, which were basically just larger rooms with partitions into very small rooms adjoining the courtyard. No insulation, no nothing, just wood walls and metal roofs, like its Jamaica or...Guatemala, I guess. There were like 25 students there the first week we were there, and we made friends with a handful of them on our weekend excursion, but more on that later. They had coffee and purified water for us to drink, and thats about it. We met here to go on our adventures too. It wasn't really a school in any traditional sense. I think they were doing quite well, despite the fact that school and room and board for a week is $150. Wow.

Sitting around the courtyard:

The computer cluster room, where this dude was almost constantly taking the covers off the PCs for no apparent reason, cause he never seemed to be doing anything hardware related- so maybe they just needed some fresh air. I dunno. He was usually just poking around on the screen and rebooting them. Whatever. The machines were Pentium IIIs and either they or the internet or both, SUCKED. But hey, internet in Guatemala is sweet period.

The courtyard, some stairs leading...well, upstairs.

Good old dad, the subject of many photos. Often people would come and set up their woven things to sell to us.

The school (yellow building, ICA written on top) and volcano.

The courtyard more. And stairs. And people.

Courtyard.

Hallway to classrooms.

Peeps.

More peeps. Dude in the front with the beard is a French Rastafarian named Fabian who smokes weed daily, but doesn't drink. Nice guy. Listens to lots of reggae, as one would expect. Has some dreds that he keeps in his hat most of the time.

Guatemala Numero Trez

Alright continuing on with the house. Concrete floors, skylights letting light down the stairwell into my room through an INTERIOR window in the wall, and the weirdest stairs I've ever seen. Also, she had an old stove covered up with a sheet and used as countertop space. Showers in Guatemala (apparently this is normal) are hooked up with a heater attached to the head of the shower that heats the water right there, rather than downstairs in the water heater. Looks a bit like electrocution waiting to happen. There was no AC or central heat, because the climate is mild enough in both directions that you either put more blankets on the bed or open the windows. Some pictures:

My dad outside the house we stayed at:

The deathtrap:

My room.

Our host lady Lily. She liked to wave constantly to the camera while repeatedly saying "hola, hola, hola" as if we were taking a video. Stop bloody moving!!

And now I shall get on with talking about the school, before I get to discussing our excursions and our new friends that we made.

Guatemala #2

As soon as we got into Xela, we got picked up by the director of the school, who apparently doesn't speak all that much English- or else he just doesn't care to try. He drove us to our house and showed us where the school was, around the corner, enough that we could walk there from the house. We dropped our stuff off, ate a quick meal made by our host lady Lily, who speaks basically no English, and scooted off to our first day of class- yeah- within one hour-ish of getting into town we started Spanish classes.

The brief is this- the town of like 3-400,ooo didn't look like it. Most buildings were 2-3 stories max. Concrete. With lots of rebar sticking out the top in case they want to add on in the future. If I didn't know better before, after 2 years of education I can certainly tell you that pouring concrete over rusted rebar is a terrible idea. The streets are mostly bumpy cobblestone, and the few streets that are busy are very busy. Many many vehicles are not only diesel, but crappy old buses burning oil and belching clouds of dark smog into the air. Every day our walk to school (until we found a side-street route) was a diesel-smog choked ten minutes.

The house we stayed at was actually pretty large, but conspicously empty. Lots of bedrooms where other people like us could stay (she'd been doing this for like 15 years) and then a small apartment on the first floor where her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren Carlito and Marie-ta live. And a garage, one car wide but three cars deep. Weird. With open windows into the house. Mmmm, fumes are tasty.

The sidewalks are also ridiculously narrow, sometimes high off the street, and often bisected by random telephone poles. There are shops everywhere that open right onto the sidewalk. There's a volcano in the distance called Santa Maria that we didn't get to climb- left the day before that group trip happened :( It apparently caused tremors twice, one which failed to wake me up, the other which I missed while playing soccer with the kids.

Most roofs were metal, but the few that were tile had stuff like this growing:

The is Parque Central (I hope you can figure out what that means):

One of the only steep streets in the city, near our school.

The town, and El Vulcan in the background again...

A typical gaudy ish house.

Our typical environment walking around.

The other kid often in the house was Fernandito (or Fern), who was three- his mom would drop him off for grandma Lily to watch him. But the kids called her Lily. So I called her abuela (grandma) instead. She liked treating me like the kid, and called me "el bebe".

This picture was in the kitchen- another grandkid, Andrea, had her 13th birthday- and got a new cell phone- meaning she had one before. This was when I played soccer with the kids...

Fern, "Ita"& Andrea (sisters), Carlito (12), Marie-ta his sister, and random kid with too much energy.

Its time to start a new post.