In which our fearless heroine loses her cell phone and camera during her last 48 hours in Guatemala

Dear Diary,
Again, I've been neglecting you. I actually made it home to Portland the Sunday before last Sunday. Since then, I have been sunning myself in my parents' backyard, swimming and pilades-ing at my parents gym, and eating from the bounty of my parents' refrigerator for the last week. Also, participated in my first ever friend-wedding. The surreality began to die down as the tequila shots set in.

My last week in Guatemala was wonderful, although it feels like some far-off dreamland now. I went to Atitlan with Nadia for my last weekend and we spent equal times swimming, laying in the sun, and running around to San Marcos and San Pedro. Also met her fabulous plane-friends and learned a cool new game with dominos and tricks and trump called 42.

I got back on Monday and then what happened? It's all a blur. Wednesday was 4th of July and despite the fact that the Guatemalans made the reasonable point that we hardly deserved to celebrate our country's own independence when we are so dedicated to interfering in the self-rule of others (see Guatemala 1950s, Iraq 2000s, etc etc), we nonetheless decided to honor this problematic legacy by drinking large amounts of alcohol and letting off fireworks, a perfect encapsulation of the foolhardiness that seems to typify our country.

Thursday Andre and I took a private trip, thanks to Olga, to Aguas Amargas for one last dip in their healing waters (which was quite necessary after the festivities of the night before). We both got into the million degree private baths, but only after about a half hour of inching our way in to the painful stew. When we got out, the body parts that had been underwater were bright pink, boiled like the lobsters we felt like.

Friday was my last day. For my "final exam" Luis and I watched Voces Innocentes, a great fictionalized film about child soldiers in the civil war of El Salvador. I even understood about 75% of it on my own. Now that's progress. We had our usual big dinner, but it wasn't a potluck because we had a big group of people from Phoenix visiting. I made my good-bye speech, trying to sprinkle it liberally with seemingly accidental double-entendres. I think most of the profs couldn't tell where my mistakes were on purpose and where they were accidental - the brillance of my plan! - but people weren't sure when they were allowed to laugh. In the future, when listening to my attempt at Spanish, feel free to laugh all you want. I'll pretend I'm doing it on purpose.

So after dinner Friday they whole school trooped over to Kokoloko's for a crazy night of salsa & reggaeton goodness. It was then that I made the mistake of setting down my digital camera and when I went to look for it, it had spirited itself into the night, along with all my pictures for the last 3 weeks. I guess it is just practice for the Buddhist teaching of letting go... Actually, it's practice for my parents, since the camera was technically on loan from them...

The next morning I inquired after my camera, bought some delicious Xelapan for the bus, ran into a friend from Kokoloko's, got a smoothie with Nadia, and then headed off to La Capitale in a lovely Pullman bus. I tried reading an Isabelle Allende book in Spanish, but guess what, it's way harder than Harry Potter! It takes me about 15 or 20 a page, because I have to read them each twice to make sure I know what's actually going on (damn metaphors!).

Guate was uneventful. I made it to Patricia's, ate some papusas from a sketchy restaurant nearby, read, met a student from Xela who recognized me from Kokoloko's (small small town, hm?), and plugged in my cell phone so it would be all charged up for my long journey the next day. This proved to be my fatal mistake.

When I woke up at 6am to get my shuttle to the airport, I completely forgot to bring my phone with me, which I didn't realized until I was sitting at the gate, ready to use up the rest of my Q30 in credit. Oops.

The flights were long, but fine, and when I arrived in Portland, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and my parents welcomed me with open arms, even after I snuck in the fact that I had just lost their prized digital camera...

So I haven't been updating my blog because everytime I step into an internet cafe I've been working on the program notes for my upcoming series at the Pacific Film Archive on female-to-male cross-dressing (the program is top secret, but keep the last two weekends in September open if you live in the Bay Area!). Anyways, it is always difficult to write clever, pithy prose to convince people to see your movies and it is PARTICULARLY difficult to do so while living in a Spanish-speaking country, studying Spanish for 5 hours a day, and working on strange computers in internet cafes that lose power with the frequency of MUNI malfunctions... Last weekend I had worked 2 hours writing program notes when the computer shut down, corrupting my file and apparently deleting it. It spent almost 20 minutes trying to convince the tech guy (in Spanish) that I HAD saved the file, the computer had just devoured it. He kept insisting that if I had saved it, it would be there. Well, it wasn't. After some pouting I was able to reconstruct it and move on with my life, but it was not the funnest afternoon... Therefore I have been avoiding computers when and overwhelming sense of obligation doesn't force me in to write another draft.

In other news, my friend Nadia got here last Friday, just in time for the Gran Competencia Nacional de Salsa, in which my friend Emma and Carlos, one of the Spanish teachers, competed. They got 3rd place, which is pretty good, except for there were only 3 couples competing. They still looked damn good on the dance floor, which was huge and white and shiny like a prom movie from the 80s. The streets were practically flooding and we got a flat tire before even leaving the parking lot (which my teacher Luis promptly fixed while we took pictures of him bending over the car). The weekend was otherwise devoted to working on my program notes and chhillaxing in Xela. Sunday night I went to a Catholic mass (the repetition makes it easier to understand) and heard Carlos sing in the chorus. Afterwards we went out for 3 tacos for 10 quetzales (equivalent to about $1.25).

This week, let's see. I tried to do a hike to some natural saunas in the area, but the organization leading the trip didn't show up, to I watched Motorcycle Diaries with a group at school and mentally added Argentina, Chile, Peru and whereever Gael Garcia Bernal happens to be standing to my list of future vacation destinations. Tuesday I did live translation for a talk on the Mayan Cosmovision at the school and had my Mayan astrological sign read. Apparently my Nahaul is "E", which means path. The pros: I like to share my experiences, I'm organized, I'm friendly and a hard worker, I have a tendency to be a community leader. The cons: constantly traveling, a wanderer, with insecurities and I take a long time to make decisions. What do you think - is my reading on to something? Also my animal is a mountain lion (which actually is my favorite animal), the most sensitive part of my body is the the bottom of my feet, and my color is red (which is in fact reflected in my favorite red jacket and hoodie)... Spooky, huh?

Yesterday I watched the soccer game between Mexico and Brazil (2-0 Mexico) (learning some new words from the local Brazilian fans at the bar) and went out for salsa dancing at La Parranda. The nice thing about having 2 salsa bars in a town is that everyone you know (or at least half of them) eventually ends up at the same bar as you. It makes planning easier. I got a ride home from Luis and his 7 friends and tried to use my Spanish slang but just ended up sounding ridiculous. Apparently a vowel or two can make a big difference!

Today I finished another draft of my notes and I'm off to watch the big game between the US and Argentina. I *wonder* who's going to win... Tomorrow is the big school potluck--I'm making fried plantains--and Saturday I head to Lago de Atitlan with Nadia for a relaxing weekend at Casa Del Mundo. I can't believe I only have a week and a little bit left--I'm trying not to freak out...

Dear Diary,
Sorry I have been deglecting you for so long... Since Saturday, June 9 (the last real entry), I have been out salsa dancing 4 nights in row (with one night off to play soccer), survived an earthquake, wandered around Antigua (the old capital of Guatemala), helped build a school, and learned all about the progressive tenses and conditional mode.... Whew.

Last Tuesday, one of the teachers at the school taught a 3-hour salsa class for us and so naturally we had to go out on Wednesday to try out our new-found skills. The trick to being an amazing salsa dancer? Dancing with Guatemalan guys who have been doing it since they were 5. Also un poco de cerveza, perferably on the house. Our school pretty much took over Kokoloko's, one of the local salsa clubs, on Wednesday night, and we danced until midnight. Then up at 7 the next morning for more Spanish class. I have mostly been discussing movies with my teacher this week--finally learning the vocab I need! (Guess what--it turns out my teacher, a 25-year-old Guatemalan guy who is studying mechanical engineering, LOVES Harold Lloyd! Can you believe it? A man after my own heart... Apparently they used to show Harold Lloyd movies here in the mornings when he was a kid-who knew?)

Thursday we went out for a soccer game with a mix of gringos and chapins (slang for Guatemaltecos). They were frickin good. Our side won, with only a slight amount of help from me... We went out for dinner at a local Taberna, where I ate a foot-long sandwich consisting of every kind of prepared pork product available here as well as thousand island dressing. Mmmm mm good.

Friday several of my friends from the school and a couple of the teachers hit the town for another night of salsa dancing, although we didn't stay out too late, as we had to get up early the next morning to catch a bus to Antigua. At least that was the plan. Our morning kept getting pushed back and we got the 10:15 Pullman bus (i.e. not a chicken bus) out of Xela. 6 hours later, we rolled into Antigua. (Sometimes they just close the roads for an hour or two to do some constructiopn. So we waited in the middle of nowhere, eating food at a road stand, playing 'Bullshit' (or Pajas, as they call it here), and taking silly pictures in the back of the bus.

Antigua, though, was completely captivating. Although the composition of the population looks more like the San Francisco Mission District than like Guatemala, the city was totally worth exploring. It is full of ruins -- of cathedrales and convents and the old university -- from the earthquake of 1777, when the capital was moved to its present location in Guatemala City, which has the advantage of NOT being located smack between 3 active volcanoes. In fact, the city feels eerily like the Epcot Center version of Guatemala, if such a thing existed (do they even have Latin American countries in Epcot Center?). My companions on the trip consisted of 2 friends from San Jose State, 1 who is a student at Berkeley (none of whom I knew before I came here) and 2 of our teachers from the school (including my Harold Lloyd-loving prof). Let me tell you, it is way easier wandering around this country when you don't have to be the one in charge of bus changes. We hit the Antigua salsa scene Saturday night and wandering around ruins the next morning. On our 6 hour bus ride back on Sunday afternoon I slept most of the time (apparently with the head of a sleeping indigenous woman in my lap for part of the time, according to my non-sleeping friends).

Monday back to class. Our school is swamped by a groupd of about 15 8th graders from Seattle on a school trip. They're staying here with homestays for a week and taking Spanish classes in the afternoons. I can't imagine having to be in charge of a gaggle of 14 year olds in Xela - crazy! But they seem like a pretty cool group. Monday afternoon we embarked on a little manual labor to help build a school in the countryside. Let me tell you, I am now in favor of the industrial revolution, at least when it comes to construction work.

Tomorrow we're going to another natural hotsprings, called Fuenes Georginas... (Yes!) I can not wait. Thursday the 7-year old in my house is doing a dance presentation at his school that I am looking forward to seeing. And Friday is the Gran Competencia National de Salsa - apparently an all night affair where the best Guatemalan dancers of salsa, merenge, jazz, and mambo compete for hours. We're going to check it out, maybe pick up a few moves... ;-)

3.5 weeks has gone by so quickly! I will try not to take so long before my next post...

My pictures!

We just had an earthquake here for at least a minute or two. Nothing broke, luckily. It was so long! I have no idea how long it went. Definitely my longest earthquake experience... I also uploaded a few pictures to a Picasa page - I'm still working on embedding them here, but here's a link: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laura.horak/Guatemala. Enjoy! -Laura

Saturday

So this is my first weekend actually in Xela and the sun shone all day today. I am a much happier gringa. I slept in this morning until 9:30, despite the screaming children running around outside my bedroom. I took a shower (first in maybe 4 days) and had some breakfast and got some work done and ran into some friends (this happens a lot in Xela - it is a very small town, at least the neighborhoods that the foreigners frequent. After lunch I sought out a pool and did some lap swimming, dodging in between screaming children throwing a ball around in the pool, and occasionally fetching said ball for them. I went to a market and bought some vegetables for a stir-fry with friends (hopefully I can get a week's worth of veggies in...). We're planning some intensive card playing tonight: Cribbage, Machiavelli (a new one! sounds like Rumikube), Spades, and anything else we can think of!

Aguas Amargas

So I just wanted to report that I went to the 'Aguas Amargas' natural hot springs yesterday afternoon and floated in big cement pool of hot sulferous water and looked up at the canyons of jungle and fog above me... Definitely my favorite afternoon activity so far. Also the first time my body has been exposed to hot water since I got here.

Later I went to a fundraiser where I played blackjack with a bunch of expats and lost Q10 to charity... Luckily that only amounts to about $1.50, though it seems like more when you watch 10 white chips dwindle down to none. I also encountered a cribbage enthusiast at the table, so I hope to continue more non-monetary card games in the future, even after Eric and Sam take of tomorrow.

Today I went to the 'San Francisco' market with my teacher, which she says is the largest market in Central Ameria, which I can believe! They have everything from old Singer sewing machines to live pigeons (and even cows and horses) as well as plenty of knock-off Diesel and Abercrombie clothing. Tonight is our weekly potluck... I have to get to work in about 10 minutes making a cassarole! If anyone can think of any good recipes for a big group that are pretty easy, let me know!

Volcanoes and churches and rain, oh my!

Dear diary,
Sorry it has been so long since I last talked to you. The internet is so slow, it's a bit demoralizing to spend 2 hours in an internet cafe and realize that I have responded to about 5 emails. Also, I haven't gotten it together to get any of my pictures online. Here's a brief repaso of what I've been up to:
Last weekend, I planned with Sam and Eric to go to Lago del Atitlan for the weekend. Sam's host brother David offered to drive us over there at 4 in the morning along with some of his friends, so they could all (everyone but me) could climb one of the imposing volcanoes you see in the picture below. The plan: Eric come to my house at 4, Sam and David in car come pick us up. Simple, right? So I wake up at 3:40, pick up the lunch my host mother has kindly packed for me (spaghetti sandwiches - yes, really) and wait at the door. It is POURING rain, might I add. The van shows up at 4, but no Eric. We drive over to his house, no Eric. We knock on the door, no Eric. Unfortunately, dear Eric doesn't have a cell phone either. David's in a hurry to pick up his other friends, so we shug disconsolately (is that a word?) and head out. We pick up the other guys and drive 3 hours through the mountains in the rain to a tiny indigenous aldea where the boys start their trek. It turns out Eric had walked to my house a couple minutes late, and we missed him when we drove over to his house. He walked around in the rain at 4 in the morning for a while trying to find us, but no luck. Furthermore, the number I had given him (like the number I gave you, dear diary) was one number off, so he couldn't get ahold of him, and none of my calls to his host family actually made it to his ears.
After the boys rock-climbed a slippery, muddy volcano in the torential rain (while I made friends with the locals - at least enough to convince one of them to let me use her bathroom - and read Harry Potter 1 in Spanish), David dropped Sam and I off in Panajatchel and the sun came out and everything began to look up. We went right to our hotel, maybe the most edenic place in the world - http://www.casadelmundo.com. I never got tired of taking pictures of the 3 volcanoes reflected in the lake - from the window in our room, from the hamack in the veranda, from the dining room... although by the time I got in the wood-fired hot tub overlooking the lake, it was too dark to take pictures.
The next day, I found some great lucheador t-shirts at a market in Pana and Sam and I commenced our trip home. We ended up taking FOUR different buses in order to get home. I took charge of the first two, Sam did the rest. Amazingly no rain, and very little construction. We got back to Xela around 3, promptly tracked down Eric and played our usual few rounds of Scrabble in various cafes.
After the weekend, it promptly starting raining again. Monday, Eric and Sam and I make a pilgrammage to the mall (which is owned by Wall-Mart, like all the supermarkets in this country, unfortunately). Eric bought a phone (better late than never!). We got some popcorn and went to see Pirates of the Carribean 3 en español. Amazingly, it make more sense the 2nd time. They stopped the movie halfway through (to change reels, I suspect) giving us time to buy a second grande Pepsi (because their grandes are TINY).
Yesterday we took a field trip to a town to see the oldest catholic church in Latin America, which was hard to see through the rain. Just about everything I owned got soaking wet. Luckily today it was bright and sunny and my tennis shoes are beginning to dry out. My Spanish is really coming along. On the bus I had a nice chat with some Guatemalan Mormon missionaries, and I can finally start to understand my family when they talk to each other, not just to me. (Although the conversations usually involve a 7-year-old, before you get too impressed.)
BIG NEWS: Last night I watched an episode of the Wire. Fourth Season. En Español. My family actually gets HBO (but no hot water for the shower - go figure...) and were flipping through channels and found it. I don't want to give anything away for you poor souls who haven't seen it - but it was a good episode (aren't they all?).
That's all for now, folks, but I'll work on the picture situation. Tomorrow we're going to a natural hot springs! Here's a pic of the church we could hardly see through the rain in Salcaja: