I'm terrified.
Sometimes when I wake up early in the mornings, I think I'm already back in the states feeling like I'm still in Guatemala, and I feel strange for knowing that the last major part of my life is only memories. Then I really wake up and realize I'm still here, and I realize how much I'm dreading losing the reality of it. I don't want for this whole time to only be memories and pictures and souvenirs. Doesn't it deserve more than that? I hate having an awareness of great moments in my life. I hate the awareness that everything's moving away from where I was last. I don't mind the moving, I mind the cognizance. I should probably be happy for it, since it gives me a vivid and long-reaching memory, but it gives me pain for the unavoidableness of "The End." Who doesn't feel that kind of force, though. It's like the universe is about to shift. It's not going to be until 17 days from now till I really know where and how I've changed, if it's for the better, if it's something I"ll need to recover from. The anticipation is killing me inside, and there's no way for me to differentiate between the hope and the dread. I don't have a life here. I could never stay, and I would never want to. I am in need of going home. I have to go home- an internal psychological obligation compels me. But I am not ready. What an escape from reality this has been, and face plant into the concrete it will be.
1. jobless
2. homeless
3. without the comfort or security of my life's savings
4. pursuing a profession that is all I want and next to impossible to attain
5. forgetful of american culture and unwilling (at this point) to re-assimilate
6. far away from hugh
7. worlds away from my home here
I have a home here.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Volunteers
Wellll. It's pretty late for me (past 10 PM!? what am I, still a teenager? My butt should be in bed by now!) but if I'm in the mood, I've got to write or else I won't do it later, it seems.
Last Saturday AMA picked up some new volunteers: 1st is a woman from Virginia who wanted to come with the groups but couldn't work it out with her schedule, so she came by herself. Hilda and a driver in the truck picked her up at the airport and she's been staying in the house in the room Lupe used to be in. She's a 7th grade civics teacher in the DC area, and has plenty of pluck, as Hugh puts it. She's really just normal. Everything you'd expect a 7th grade civics teacher to be except that she's not phased at all by Guatemala, has a good sense of humor about the things that are annoying, and is one of the more adaptable 50 year olds I've met. Oh yeah, her name's Bonnie. Bonnie wanted to help with the kids in the MAP program, so she's been tagging along with Dilma (the new art teacher we hired, and my old student) to the schools with her on her first week of working with the kids (Dilma was only just hired.) Hugh's also been tagging along as translator. She actually knows sufficient Spanish to function, but it seems like having someone fluent is better for everyone, plus he likes going. They've come back with lots of stories of well, and poorly behaved kids. Smart kids, dumb kids, manipulative kids, and I hear a lot about runny noses. Bonnie and Hugh are also really pleased with Dilma, even with it being her first week of work. Ben expressed reservations to me about hiring her because she was so quite and calm, thinking that she wouldn't be able to entertain a classroom, and that she'd be too dull to latch on to the project, which was wrong wrong wrong wrong, and I have pain for it. I tried to tell them that she was super smart, and expressed to Lupe that maybe it was a better idea to have someone calm and collected in a classroom full of screaming kids with paintbrushes than one that's egging them on, which seemed to sooth her at the time. Now Bonnie's taking every opportunity to tell Ben that Dilma's perfect, perfect, and so patient, and a good teacher too in many respects besides being able to control children gone mad. I was very relieved to hear this. She has done a bit of a personality transformation since she's been working too, where she came in shy and quiet and scared to mess up. After a week of being in front of kids, and in charge of the lessons, and getting used to working in the house she's so relaxed and confident and smiles all the time. I love talking to her, now that I kind of can, and I can understand her spanish more than when we were in classes. I still don't know if she wants the bead-superviser job. I'm afraid it's going to be a no, but I'll get to that when it comes.
Then there are the two girls from Seattle- Ashley and Sara, who have come independently of AMA, but are working with them, doing a photography project with the women's group in Espumpuja. They are grad students studying art-therapy, and two people who I have really connected with in a fast and sweet way in the last week. I'm really, really happy to have met them and look forward to living together for the rest of the month. Anyway, they came with the project already planned and funded, and were placed in Espumpuja by Hilda because of a past project with this girl named Sharon. Sharon had a photography project there that functioned really well and the women loved, but then she got a job in the East and just up and left without ending it or even giving the women their pictures. What it's come out as is that she was using this project more for her portfolio than to help the women.. Anyway, she promised to return in October (which is a 6 month wait for the poor women, and not good for the organization, blah blah blah.) So the but the new girls there not only because the women already had some experience, but also because it was a well structured plan that would give closure to Sharon's project that left the women feeling abandoned. So at some point Sharon found out about the new girls in Espumpuja, and actually called Hilda's phone WHILE she was introducing them to the women, and started screaming at HIlda (who screams at Hilda??? ) about how it was HER project, and how DARE these girls steal it, and WHY didn't they talk to her, and how stupid of Hilda to forget she was coming back, repeating the phrase "MY PROJECT. MY PROJECT. MY PROJECT." to which Hilda (by witness angry but within voice control) "MY organization! MY time! MY passion! I've built this community and this group for 7 years! this isn't your project! I didn't forget you! I chose to move these women on, you're not seeing it from their eyes, and shame on you!" She told me this later over lunch, saying to me "I don't let foreigners talk to me like that. She was trying to make me feel stupid and below her and it's discrimination." So good for her. This Sharon girl's a trip. She's like the most difficult person in Guatemala from the rumors. She hates all the white people who live here, as if they don't belong and she does. She came to the house one day, totally iced off Vladimir who was the friendliest guy ever, and when she passed me I said "hola!" and she just looked at me like I was a child and said "HELLO." and very deliberately walked away. From the sound of it AMA's done with her. Poor Ashley and Sara for being caught in the middle of it. They were actually standing right next to Hilda, in the community, in front of the women, when the whole conversation happened. They say the women looked embarrassed, but kind of happy, as if they were really relieved Hilda was standing up for them. They're going back tomorrow to continue with the project and pick up the pictures to develop them. We're all anxious to see them.
In other news, I've been participating in none of this, doing minimal work besides cleaning with the jewelry project, and weaving my little fingers off. I'm happy to say I've become famous at the weaving school, as "la chica con la tejida verde" (the girl with the green weaving.) Because I actually know how to weave, enjoy it, and have done a lot harder patterns than this, and they love giving me a challenge. Mom, imagine trying to teach 5 Guatemalans a day who don't speak your language and just don't get it. Gross. Frustrating. I picked the hardest project they offered, a table runner with embroidery, for which they looked at me doubtfully and asked me more than a few times how much time I was planning on staying in the city. It didn't seem appropriate to begin my first conversation with them with "You say this project takes 20 hours, and then most people need a few weeks? I can put 20 hours in in 3 days." So I'm almost finished now a week and a half later, and they're cute around me. Oralia, one of the women who I refer to to other people as so Zen it's amazing, calls me maestra.
Well. the two women that run the organization are Oralia and Amparo. Amparo is short and squat and Ashley says she laughs like Gus-gus from Cinderella. She tends to explain better, and scoots around like a little bumble bee. Oralia is so Zen. She speaks more or less in a calm, sweet monotone, and does more floating than scooting. She dresses traditionally, is really, really pretty, and somehow just reminds me of a geisha or something. She's also got three kids, the youngest of which, 2 year old Carla, get's her kicks and her babysitting in among the students and volunteers. For a kid who has so many emotions, it's hard to believe she doesn't know any words. We'll have whole conversations with her, us speaking English and her speaking gibberish. And she's the sassiest baby EVER. She'll plain put her hands on her hips and tell you what's up. The opposite of her calmer than calm mother.
I should be finishing my table runner tomorrow, which I'm SOOO excited about. Then hope of hopes, Hilda will have a loom for me from Espumpuja for me to practice with and take home. I can buy one from Trama, but it's cheaper and has more street cred if I get it from the village. By the way, fun note for mom and other weavers- The warp in Spanish is called the pie (pee-ay) or translated-the foot, and the weft is called the trama (trah-mah) which also means food. If you think about it, when you put the weft through the shed, it's like you're feeding the weaving. So the joke in Espumpuja when we were there watching them weave was that after they had the loom set up and someone was winding a shuttle for them, they complained that their scarf was hungry.
ENOUGH I SAY ENOUGH.
bedtime.
Last Saturday AMA picked up some new volunteers: 1st is a woman from Virginia who wanted to come with the groups but couldn't work it out with her schedule, so she came by herself. Hilda and a driver in the truck picked her up at the airport and she's been staying in the house in the room Lupe used to be in. She's a 7th grade civics teacher in the DC area, and has plenty of pluck, as Hugh puts it. She's really just normal. Everything you'd expect a 7th grade civics teacher to be except that she's not phased at all by Guatemala, has a good sense of humor about the things that are annoying, and is one of the more adaptable 50 year olds I've met. Oh yeah, her name's Bonnie. Bonnie wanted to help with the kids in the MAP program, so she's been tagging along with Dilma (the new art teacher we hired, and my old student) to the schools with her on her first week of working with the kids (Dilma was only just hired.) Hugh's also been tagging along as translator. She actually knows sufficient Spanish to function, but it seems like having someone fluent is better for everyone, plus he likes going. They've come back with lots of stories of well, and poorly behaved kids. Smart kids, dumb kids, manipulative kids, and I hear a lot about runny noses. Bonnie and Hugh are also really pleased with Dilma, even with it being her first week of work. Ben expressed reservations to me about hiring her because she was so quite and calm, thinking that she wouldn't be able to entertain a classroom, and that she'd be too dull to latch on to the project, which was wrong wrong wrong wrong, and I have pain for it. I tried to tell them that she was super smart, and expressed to Lupe that maybe it was a better idea to have someone calm and collected in a classroom full of screaming kids with paintbrushes than one that's egging them on, which seemed to sooth her at the time. Now Bonnie's taking every opportunity to tell Ben that Dilma's perfect, perfect, and so patient, and a good teacher too in many respects besides being able to control children gone mad. I was very relieved to hear this. She has done a bit of a personality transformation since she's been working too, where she came in shy and quiet and scared to mess up. After a week of being in front of kids, and in charge of the lessons, and getting used to working in the house she's so relaxed and confident and smiles all the time. I love talking to her, now that I kind of can, and I can understand her spanish more than when we were in classes. I still don't know if she wants the bead-superviser job. I'm afraid it's going to be a no, but I'll get to that when it comes.
Then there are the two girls from Seattle- Ashley and Sara, who have come independently of AMA, but are working with them, doing a photography project with the women's group in Espumpuja. They are grad students studying art-therapy, and two people who I have really connected with in a fast and sweet way in the last week. I'm really, really happy to have met them and look forward to living together for the rest of the month. Anyway, they came with the project already planned and funded, and were placed in Espumpuja by Hilda because of a past project with this girl named Sharon. Sharon had a photography project there that functioned really well and the women loved, but then she got a job in the East and just up and left without ending it or even giving the women their pictures. What it's come out as is that she was using this project more for her portfolio than to help the women.. Anyway, she promised to return in October (which is a 6 month wait for the poor women, and not good for the organization, blah blah blah.) So the but the new girls there not only because the women already had some experience, but also because it was a well structured plan that would give closure to Sharon's project that left the women feeling abandoned. So at some point Sharon found out about the new girls in Espumpuja, and actually called Hilda's phone WHILE she was introducing them to the women, and started screaming at HIlda (who screams at Hilda??? ) about how it was HER project, and how DARE these girls steal it, and WHY didn't they talk to her, and how stupid of Hilda to forget she was coming back, repeating the phrase "MY PROJECT. MY PROJECT. MY PROJECT." to which Hilda (by witness angry but within voice control) "MY organization! MY time! MY passion! I've built this community and this group for 7 years! this isn't your project! I didn't forget you! I chose to move these women on, you're not seeing it from their eyes, and shame on you!" She told me this later over lunch, saying to me "I don't let foreigners talk to me like that. She was trying to make me feel stupid and below her and it's discrimination." So good for her. This Sharon girl's a trip. She's like the most difficult person in Guatemala from the rumors. She hates all the white people who live here, as if they don't belong and she does. She came to the house one day, totally iced off Vladimir who was the friendliest guy ever, and when she passed me I said "hola!" and she just looked at me like I was a child and said "HELLO." and very deliberately walked away. From the sound of it AMA's done with her. Poor Ashley and Sara for being caught in the middle of it. They were actually standing right next to Hilda, in the community, in front of the women, when the whole conversation happened. They say the women looked embarrassed, but kind of happy, as if they were really relieved Hilda was standing up for them. They're going back tomorrow to continue with the project and pick up the pictures to develop them. We're all anxious to see them.
In other news, I've been participating in none of this, doing minimal work besides cleaning with the jewelry project, and weaving my little fingers off. I'm happy to say I've become famous at the weaving school, as "la chica con la tejida verde" (the girl with the green weaving.) Because I actually know how to weave, enjoy it, and have done a lot harder patterns than this, and they love giving me a challenge. Mom, imagine trying to teach 5 Guatemalans a day who don't speak your language and just don't get it. Gross. Frustrating. I picked the hardest project they offered, a table runner with embroidery, for which they looked at me doubtfully and asked me more than a few times how much time I was planning on staying in the city. It didn't seem appropriate to begin my first conversation with them with "You say this project takes 20 hours, and then most people need a few weeks? I can put 20 hours in in 3 days." So I'm almost finished now a week and a half later, and they're cute around me. Oralia, one of the women who I refer to to other people as so Zen it's amazing, calls me maestra.
Well. the two women that run the organization are Oralia and Amparo. Amparo is short and squat and Ashley says she laughs like Gus-gus from Cinderella. She tends to explain better, and scoots around like a little bumble bee. Oralia is so Zen. She speaks more or less in a calm, sweet monotone, and does more floating than scooting. She dresses traditionally, is really, really pretty, and somehow just reminds me of a geisha or something. She's also got three kids, the youngest of which, 2 year old Carla, get's her kicks and her babysitting in among the students and volunteers. For a kid who has so many emotions, it's hard to believe she doesn't know any words. We'll have whole conversations with her, us speaking English and her speaking gibberish. And she's the sassiest baby EVER. She'll plain put her hands on her hips and tell you what's up. The opposite of her calmer than calm mother.
I should be finishing my table runner tomorrow, which I'm SOOO excited about. Then hope of hopes, Hilda will have a loom for me from Espumpuja for me to practice with and take home. I can buy one from Trama, but it's cheaper and has more street cred if I get it from the village. By the way, fun note for mom and other weavers- The warp in Spanish is called the pie (pee-ay) or translated-the foot, and the weft is called the trama (trah-mah) which also means food. If you think about it, when you put the weft through the shed, it's like you're feeding the weaving. So the joke in Espumpuja when we were there watching them weave was that after they had the loom set up and someone was winding a shuttle for them, they complained that their scarf was hungry.
ENOUGH I SAY ENOUGH.
bedtime.
Mex(h)ico
What did I do this week? I think we went to Mexico. Man, I've got to get back into writing this stuff again. I don't want to forget it.
Well.
Saturday we got up at 5:30 to catch a bus to mexico. 3 buses later we're there.
That sounds really not so bad. But it literally took 3 different busses to get us where we needed to go, which was actually pretty good when you think about how far that is. First we rode 2 hours to San Marcos, then caught the bus to Malacatan (I think) which was about 2 or 3 hours. That bus actually took us all the way to the border, where it was hot and gross and shady. We were planning on staying the night, so I brought a full backpack that managed to be really heavy, even though I thought I packed light. For so long we've been only going places that are cold, I just assumed to take a sweater and my rain coat (always) and I wore a jacket, then we get there and it's amillion degrees, duh. YUCK. Sooo. we've been all concerned (more me than Hugh) about the 90 day limit on our tourist visa, which had expired 3 days before, and I was very afraid that there would be some major money, we'd be detained, wait in a million lines, I don't know, be questioned viciously in Spanish.. But we get there, go one place go to another, pay a bit of money and that's it. Claudia stayed with us to translate and make sure we didn't get screwed, and there weren't any problems. The border though, gross. We got out of the bus and were surrounded by trash and the smell of rotting garbage, along with the obligatory dogs and so many dudes that were practicing their nonsensical english catch phrases on us. Then we're bombarded by a hundred men waving money at us trying to get us to change our Q's for pesos. One guy Claudia bribed into helping us navigate the offices in return for a gauruntee we'd change our money with him. He was wearing this badge around his neck, and shoved it in the pocket of his shirt when he was within sight of the officials at the station. These are just dudes who bring a bunch of bills and probably a concealed weapon to the border every day hoping to slight tourists out of some bucks in the process of changing. Anyway, the Guatemala side is horrible and stinky and crowded and scary, and then we go through the buildings of the station to Mexico and it's clean and fresh, the road is well paved, and nobody's harrassing us. About the opposite of what you think of (or see on tv since I don't live in a border state) about the border with Mexico/US. AAAAnd we walk to this line of little stores and restaurants and jump on a bus, and sweat our teeth out, and drive about half an hour through the department of Chiapas, Mexico, to whatever city we went to which I can't remember, and got out. Ugh. Heat and crowds. It's more like a busy american city than what I'm at all used to in Guatemala. There are wide sidewalks and functioning roads, and all the cars aren't belching black smoke, and there are people everywhere. It was a Saturday after all, and we were in central park. We walked around looking for an affordable meal and landed on this taco joint where I admittedly had some of the tastiest tacos and orange juice I've had in a long time, definitely since coming to Guatemala. We decided there that we weren't going to stay the night, it was an uncomfortable city with not much for us to do, and unbelievably expensive. The Quetzal is in favor of the peso, and the prices were still way out of what we could do, even just for some tacos it was way more than we'd have to pay here. So I lugged around this big bookbag for nothing, which sucked. We walked around the city for a bit, looking for some wire for me. I've been trying to find the "alambre alpaca" (really, nickel wire) for a while to make these mandalas that this guy at Yoga House showed me how to make, but I need really hard wire for it and I can't find it anywhere. What we discovered is that a. you can't get alambre alpaca there, and b. Mexicans speak way different spanish. It was very direct and forceful, and almost rude. When a guy selling pirated movies is putting on the bargain in Guatemala, he says "tell me how much you'd like to pay for this and I'll see what I can do." In Mexico, the guy said "how much you want to give me?" It caught Claudia off guard. I did buy a long necklace of red bean beads from a hut on the sidewalk, and got Claudia to bargain it down 10 pesos. I wanted the beads. They're significant in Mayan culture because they're abnormal. Red beans come from white or black bean plants, and when you plant them they make white or black beans, and when you cook them they turn the same color as white or black beans, but they're one of those unexplainable phenomenons of nature that's supposed to remind you that God is always making miracles, or something to that effect. Plus red has a special significance, being the east, the sunrise, and the figurative aspects of passion, power, love, aggression, etc. So I've been trying to collect them, and got a good couple hundred off this necklace.
Well, we had about enough of the heat and the culture and headed back to the busses after only really about 2 hours. We literally only came to Mexico to get our passports stamped and eat some tacos (and sweat.) When I got back on the van to get to the border, I noticed my bookbag was open and didn't think about it, just shut it thinking I'd managed to pull it open when I climbed in. (2 busses later, I actually thought about it and got pretty nervous about my camera, which was the only thing of value in it. Rest assured, when I got home, I checked and everything was still there. I've learned, and everyone else should too, that if you're carrying a big bag, you're a big white target, and at least being dumb and bringing winter clothes afforded me the advantage of stuffing a sweater and two jackets on top of everything worth keeping. In the other pocket that was open I only had toilet paper and tampons !HA!) We got to the border where we were harrassed again by guys waving money at us, and we changed it, and then realized later I was one of those tourists that they slight out of 50Q, which sucked, but I was too hot and tired and nervous to get in a Spanish argument about money. Keep it just leave me alone. We rode one of those karts that has a moped in the back that's connected to a rickshaw in the front to the gate where we got some passport decoration (hooray!) and another 90 days here in Guatemala. Then passed back into the nastiness of the no-man's-land of money changers, cat-callers, and English-language-offenders, yet another van for who knows how long. Another chicken bus to San Marcos, another chicken bus through San Marcos, another chicken bus out of San Marcos! another bus through Minerva!! and HOME at 8:30. All that fun (NINE BUSSES WORTH OF FUN) in only 14 hours. I feel like we weathered it pretty well. By the time we got back we felt like our butts had been flattened a little bit, and definitely felt a lot closer.. physically.. to our fellow Guatemalans. Really enough affection to last us for a long time. And well that was that.
Well.
Saturday we got up at 5:30 to catch a bus to mexico. 3 buses later we're there.
That sounds really not so bad. But it literally took 3 different busses to get us where we needed to go, which was actually pretty good when you think about how far that is. First we rode 2 hours to San Marcos, then caught the bus to Malacatan (I think) which was about 2 or 3 hours. That bus actually took us all the way to the border, where it was hot and gross and shady. We were planning on staying the night, so I brought a full backpack that managed to be really heavy, even though I thought I packed light. For so long we've been only going places that are cold, I just assumed to take a sweater and my rain coat (always) and I wore a jacket, then we get there and it's amillion degrees, duh. YUCK. Sooo. we've been all concerned (more me than Hugh) about the 90 day limit on our tourist visa, which had expired 3 days before, and I was very afraid that there would be some major money, we'd be detained, wait in a million lines, I don't know, be questioned viciously in Spanish.. But we get there, go one place go to another, pay a bit of money and that's it. Claudia stayed with us to translate and make sure we didn't get screwed, and there weren't any problems. The border though, gross. We got out of the bus and were surrounded by trash and the smell of rotting garbage, along with the obligatory dogs and so many dudes that were practicing their nonsensical english catch phrases on us. Then we're bombarded by a hundred men waving money at us trying to get us to change our Q's for pesos. One guy Claudia bribed into helping us navigate the offices in return for a gauruntee we'd change our money with him. He was wearing this badge around his neck, and shoved it in the pocket of his shirt when he was within sight of the officials at the station. These are just dudes who bring a bunch of bills and probably a concealed weapon to the border every day hoping to slight tourists out of some bucks in the process of changing. Anyway, the Guatemala side is horrible and stinky and crowded and scary, and then we go through the buildings of the station to Mexico and it's clean and fresh, the road is well paved, and nobody's harrassing us. About the opposite of what you think of (or see on tv since I don't live in a border state) about the border with Mexico/US. AAAAnd we walk to this line of little stores and restaurants and jump on a bus, and sweat our teeth out, and drive about half an hour through the department of Chiapas, Mexico, to whatever city we went to which I can't remember, and got out. Ugh. Heat and crowds. It's more like a busy american city than what I'm at all used to in Guatemala. There are wide sidewalks and functioning roads, and all the cars aren't belching black smoke, and there are people everywhere. It was a Saturday after all, and we were in central park. We walked around looking for an affordable meal and landed on this taco joint where I admittedly had some of the tastiest tacos and orange juice I've had in a long time, definitely since coming to Guatemala. We decided there that we weren't going to stay the night, it was an uncomfortable city with not much for us to do, and unbelievably expensive. The Quetzal is in favor of the peso, and the prices were still way out of what we could do, even just for some tacos it was way more than we'd have to pay here. So I lugged around this big bookbag for nothing, which sucked. We walked around the city for a bit, looking for some wire for me. I've been trying to find the "alambre alpaca" (really, nickel wire) for a while to make these mandalas that this guy at Yoga House showed me how to make, but I need really hard wire for it and I can't find it anywhere. What we discovered is that a. you can't get alambre alpaca there, and b. Mexicans speak way different spanish. It was very direct and forceful, and almost rude. When a guy selling pirated movies is putting on the bargain in Guatemala, he says "tell me how much you'd like to pay for this and I'll see what I can do." In Mexico, the guy said "how much you want to give me?" It caught Claudia off guard. I did buy a long necklace of red bean beads from a hut on the sidewalk, and got Claudia to bargain it down 10 pesos. I wanted the beads. They're significant in Mayan culture because they're abnormal. Red beans come from white or black bean plants, and when you plant them they make white or black beans, and when you cook them they turn the same color as white or black beans, but they're one of those unexplainable phenomenons of nature that's supposed to remind you that God is always making miracles, or something to that effect. Plus red has a special significance, being the east, the sunrise, and the figurative aspects of passion, power, love, aggression, etc. So I've been trying to collect them, and got a good couple hundred off this necklace.
Well, we had about enough of the heat and the culture and headed back to the busses after only really about 2 hours. We literally only came to Mexico to get our passports stamped and eat some tacos (and sweat.) When I got back on the van to get to the border, I noticed my bookbag was open and didn't think about it, just shut it thinking I'd managed to pull it open when I climbed in. (2 busses later, I actually thought about it and got pretty nervous about my camera, which was the only thing of value in it. Rest assured, when I got home, I checked and everything was still there. I've learned, and everyone else should too, that if you're carrying a big bag, you're a big white target, and at least being dumb and bringing winter clothes afforded me the advantage of stuffing a sweater and two jackets on top of everything worth keeping. In the other pocket that was open I only had toilet paper and tampons !HA!) We got to the border where we were harrassed again by guys waving money at us, and we changed it, and then realized later I was one of those tourists that they slight out of 50Q, which sucked, but I was too hot and tired and nervous to get in a Spanish argument about money. Keep it just leave me alone. We rode one of those karts that has a moped in the back that's connected to a rickshaw in the front to the gate where we got some passport decoration (hooray!) and another 90 days here in Guatemala. Then passed back into the nastiness of the no-man's-land of money changers, cat-callers, and English-language-offenders, yet another van for who knows how long. Another chicken bus to San Marcos, another chicken bus through San Marcos, another chicken bus out of San Marcos! another bus through Minerva!! and HOME at 8:30. All that fun (NINE BUSSES WORTH OF FUN) in only 14 hours. I feel like we weathered it pretty well. By the time we got back we felt like our butts had been flattened a little bit, and definitely felt a lot closer.. physically.. to our fellow Guatemalans. Really enough affection to last us for a long time. And well that was that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
