Son of a Nutcracker!

After Cusco, we headed for that part of Perú I had always assumed was fictional, perhaps from a Dr. Seuss story, Lake Titicaca. Do you know that there are people who live on an island made entirely out of reeds? In the middle of a lake. They decided, enough with the land. We will cut down some floating plants, stick them in the water and live. They were so poor that the Incan taxation system required from each family one reed filled with lice. I can only assume that this lice was then used as a military strategy to wreck havoc on the hairstyles of European conquistadors. We spent the night at a homestay on the Isla Taquila. It was a perfect pre-Christmas activity, as all of the men dress like Christmas elves. Close observation revealed their hat related mating rituals. Men wearing all red hats, with small, dully colored pompoms, are unavailable. However, a half red and white capped fellow, with large and brilliant pompoms can be pursued by women wearing four or more skirts, with two pompoms on their front and two on their back. Three pompoms to the side is a definitely no-no, obviously. It was just a relief to find an island filled with people who share my affinity for elfish culture.

We then made our way to Arequipa, rich in delicious food and elaborately planned nunneries, with wall colors set to inspire my new apartment. There, Maggie and I sadly said goodbye to Jack and Perú.

Now I ask you: What is the most extreme thing you have ever done? Swam with sharks? Bounced through a sea of jellyfish? Rode the South Australian current with righteous turtles? Well, I have recently done the most extreme thing I can think of. I rode a bus straight for thirty six hours. I am prepared to write a manual on the most effective bus sleeping positions, as well as a brief paper on the importance of Chinese Kung Fu movies on gender roles in Latin America (my favorite is definitely the one about the dog kung fu martial artist). On the bus with me were two girls, who journeyed seven hours longer than I. They were on a pilgrimage to see Madonna´s concert in Santiago. Which leads me to the question: How far would you travel by bus to witness the Sticky ´n Sweet tour? We had to rush down to meet Lyz in Santiago, halfway down the longest country ever. Upon arriving in Chile, Lyz was promptly arrested for possession of...raisins. $200 Fine. I'm not joking. It is not recommended that you carry GORP into this region; it is very hazardous.

I love Chile. They have figured out the followed extremely useful things: potable water, toilets that flush toilet paper, the marketing concept that bread with the brand name Ideal sells better than Bimbo bread, a metro system, daylight savings time, and how to grow the most delicious cherries. It is all very exciting. As Christmas arrives, so does the summer produce. We are spending our time at markets, shopping for strawberries, cherries, avocados and extremely inexpensive Cabernet Savignon. We are currently in Puerto Varas, playing in a sparkling lake that overlooks three snow capped volcanoes in a town that focuses on gourmet food and chocolate shops.

¿Lady?

After repeatedly seeing photographs in National Geographic of the Cordillera Blanca Mountains in Perú, I was determined to find my way there. It is not close to anything. Particularly, Ecuador. After approximately twenty four hours of bus travel, we finally found ourselves on the brief seven hour bus ride to Huaraz. Of course, after an hour the bus driver pulled into a non-town and declared lunch. This has been an irritatingly frequent theme on our journey. The entire bus was asleep and the driver started shouting - get up! Lunchtime! Leave the bus! We finally did as we were commanded to do and sat down for our first Peruvian meal in what appeared to be someone´s living room. A tiny woman came out and asked us if we wanted el menú. This seemed like a logical thing to ask for, so we said yes. Apparently menú in Peru doesn´t mean menu, but the daily meal. Of chicken foot soup. For the record, menú means menu in all of the other countries we have been to.

Jack flew into Lima and we demanded that he immediately find an overnight bus to meet us in Huaraz, the base town for trekking in the area. He brought with him the following things: the inability to speak Spanish, one headlamp with dead batteries, several requested clif bars, which he consumed on the plane, a sleeping bag, which he left at our hostel during our trekking expedition, and the inability to instantly adjust to high altitude. He was, overall, a real drain on all parties.

The year 23 got off to a rough start. I spent the day waiting for Jack´s recovery, while basking in high altitude sunshine, reading the New Yorker food issue he provided, watching a birthday slash human rights parade and gazing up at the mountains we would soon be wandering through. The next day, we embarked on the Santa Cruz trek, which is four days through the Cordillera Blancas. We had a guide, Abel and a dutch companion, Thea, who was referred to as Lady for the entire trek. ´Lady? Do you want bread with avocado?´The Coridllera Blancas are rather hideous. At one point Abel asked us if we wanted to do a side excursion, where we could see a turquoise lake fed by an enormous glacier, framed to
the left




by the Paramount Pictures logo and to the right by a mountain voted the most beautiful in the world, by some guys in Munich.



We have moved along through Lima and embarrassingly enough, flew to Cusco. We decided that it was the best bus to flight time ratio of all. One hour and 20 minutes of flying versus twenty seven hours ofbusing . What do you think? Here, we narrowly avoid being hit my miniature cars as we wander through old alleys past original Inca stonework housing hipster cafes. Jack has purchased at least seventeen winter hats. Our Thanksgiving dinner involved Alpaca, potatoes and delicious lamb. We were extremely thankful.

State Department Warning

While the state department and our parents warned us not to, we decided to go to Colombia. Of course, we were kidnapped by FARC. Luckily, they allowed us to travel onward to Ecuador on the condition that I would act as a drug mule, being the least likely person in the history of time to be in possession of several kilos of cocaine.

Actually, the above character is our new friend, Lucho! He is a Colombian character, and a friend of a friend of Maggie's. I would estimate that Lucho has approximately six girlfriends, although we only met two. The second was allegedly a university professor of juggling. And his "business partner". For several weeks now, we have been working on not wasting any good luck, so that it could saved up for November 4. We prayed for rain, delayed buses and embarrassing grammatical errors. It worked out quite well. On November 4, we arrived at Lucho's new pad in Bogota. The first thing that greeted us was a golden retriever puppy. Next, Lucho told us that his neighborhood is nicknamed the "G zone". That is gourmet zone. Then, he showed us his Lesbaru Outback parked downstairs. After a weekend where everything was mysteriously closed, every museum, crepe shop and ONLY English bookstore was open (they had a room full of cookbooks, as well as most of the recent World Bank publications). As we all know, the day only proceeded to get better until reaching the designation of The Best Night Ever. We found ourselves in a British pub with a huge flatscreen projecting CNN before a small crowd of French Obama supporters. They even had pins. Where do French Barack supporters find Change pins in Bogota? This is my question. There were also a few disgruntled American businessmen who left early in the night in a huff. We couldn´t watch the acceptance speech, so we woke up early the next morning, crowded around youtube at an Internet cafe and triumphantly cried to the puzzlement of the staff.

Colombia was a fantastic country to visit. The people were improbably friendly. We met one group, who asked us if we needed help, and then guided us to the museum, which was closed. They then quickly called up their friend, the travel agent, to find out which museums were open and which were good. They then sent us to this eerie salt mine slash cathedral outside of the city and even gave us their cell phone number in case we had any trouble. How would we call them you might ask? In Colombia, there are kids perched on stools along every block with about 7 cell phones chained to their jackets. It is very entertaining to watch a boy on a stool in the street attached to a businessman, a frazzled mother clinging to her children and a 13 year old girl. We also came to the following conclusion: the person who wrote the Lonely Planet was too afraid to go to Colombia. Every restaurant they suggested was invisible and all advice was completely incorrect.

During the dark days before Bogota, we spent our days honeymooning with our cousin and her newly betrothed in Costa Rica, retirement home shopping in beautiful Boquete, Panama and watching improbably large boats pass through the Canal in the capital.

During the glorious days since, we´ve been in Ecuador. We met up with one of Maggie´s colleagues who is teaching at an international school in Quito. We watched some futbol, saw the town and did some awesome hiking on Cotopaxi. We then journeyed to the Quilatoa loop, notorious for its impossible bus time tables (the milk truck leaves at 8:07, but only sometimes) and gorgeous hills. We hiked from one hostel to the next and spent some time at the wonderfully sustainable Black Sheep Inn. So far, they are winning in the category for the best views from a composting toilet. My triumphant return to Peru looms near.

You say goodbye and I say hello

Monday, October 13. Maggie's birthday. Of course, it needed to be celebrated in style. While she didn't surf on the actual day, she had attended her first two classes on the prior days at the coast. We returned to Granada where we discovered the true ultimate birthday present. A gym. With yoga. Maggie attended a class, and I elevated my heart rate beyond the rate it usually achieves during my typical daily exercise of gently swaying in the hammock. It was intense.

From Granada, we journeyed to Ometepe, a magical island in Lake Nicaragua. Life is very slow on the island. We were promised that people rode bulls instead of horses. This was a lie. They rode horses, holding onto their bulls by leashes. They also said Adios when you saw someone in the road, rather than hola or buenas. Which seemed rude. Another cultural note about Nicaragua. We frequently had the following conversation with 18 year old girls. I am not exaggerating that they are 18. We asked.
Nica: Hi. How old are you?
Me: 22.
Nica: Do you have children?
Me: Uh, no.
Me: Silence.
Me: Do you have children?
Nica: Yes of course! I only have one. She is three.

On Ometepe we met up with one of Maggie's Seattle acquaintances, who is working in the small town of Altagracia for a year via the association of sister islands, an organization that connects the islands of Ometepe and Bainbridge. While I have heard of sister cities before, I believe that the extent of the association is that each town paints the name of the other town on their welcome sign. Instead, this association is legitimate, sustainable and so cool! There are numerous ways that the two communities connect. Bainbridge sends down high schoolers on spring break to live in homestays, practice their spanish and do service projects. The Bainbridge school system does fundraisers throughout the year to send school supplies and other necessities down to the community. English language teachers from Altagracia spend a few weeks in Washington state, brushing up on their tenses and pronunciation. Bainbridge hires one volunteer to work side by side with a community organizer to put fundraising projects to effective use in town. Bainbridge only buys coffee from an organic co-op called Finca Magdalena at better than fair trade prices, adding an economic benefit to the association. The extra profit goes into funding social projects around the island. Here is an article about the connection: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040921&slug=econcoffee21. Maggie's friend, who is also named Maggie, told us of how the local community was so grateful for the presence of this NGO and were unsure of where to direct their gratitude, aiming in the meantime, at her. People keep showing up at her door, hopping off their bikes with a squawking parcel in hand- Here is a rooster for you. Thank you.

Inspired by Maggie and Let's Go, we headed to the coffee farm, which had delicious coffee and gorgeous views, until the unstoppable rain set in. When we finally returned to civilization, we saw a clip on CNN titled Nicaragua: Under Water, about the hurricane striking our area. It all made sense. You know that it is a bad sign when the locals a) stand outside their door and cheer for the bus to make it and b) whip out their cell phones to take pictures of the road conditions.

We are now in Costa Rica, which is very different. After we waited for approximately five hours to cross the boarder, at least two additional boarder patrol police officers boarded our bus full of Nicaraguan workers. Both asked to see our papers, as I clearly am an illegal Nicaraguan trying to steal the jobs of the Ticos. Public transportation here is lacking. We are used to bus assistants pulling you onto a bus heading indirectly, but eventually to any location you desire. They just want another body on the bus. Here, you have to work hard to get on a bus. Most of our rooms in Nicaragua cost between $4 to $5 per night. Here, it is $14. What is this? Dubai? We spent our first night in a hostel that contained both cockroaches and whores, so we promptly left for the more magical land of Monteverde. Again, you know that it is a bad sign when the road posting says that you are 40 kms from your location, and the book notes that it takes three hours. Both statements are in fact true. The ride was so rough that we took three different buses (all driven by the same driver), and I broke my seat from bouncing up and down too hard. The locals were all making fun of me for being a fatty. Since successfully arriving, we have very much been enjoying the cloud forest, with its remarkable biodiversity, quakers and cheese factory. It's a winning combination.

On hearing

Since leaving the land of the scuba divers, Maggie and I have happily found ourselves reemerged in Latin American culture, and the Spanish language. For several days, it was impossible to find anyone to speak with us. English, Hebrew and French dominated our boat rides on the island of Utila. Fearing that we would lose our ability to conjugate correctly, we wandered to the most out of the way language school we could find in Nicaragua- at the biological station on the shores of the Lago de Apoyo. The woman working at the station seemed to be startled when we arrived. How did you find us? She ended up being my very interesting teacher, with many stories of the poor morals found in Nicaraguan men. Maggie´s teacher is indescribable. He had bug eyes, strong convictions and wildly flailing arms.

The lago was gorgeous, but very damp. There was mold covering the pages of my book, and the insides of my ears. Again, I feel that I have attained a certain level of competency, as I navigated my way through an interview with a doctor who spoke without s´s, (the lovely Nicaraguan accent that is incomprehensible) in spite of my inability to hear much at all. Over the week, I have become far more sympathetic towards my grandparents, as I was forced to read the lips of my teacher and attempt to decipher her words.

My hearing has steadily improved, and one day as I was walking down to the lake, one of my ears opened up. It was miraculous! I turned, as it sounded like an enormous waterfall was gushing directly behind me, but it was only my water bottle sloshing in my bag. I thought the lake was a very quiet place, but on the final day discovered it was not. The decibel level of the Howler Monkeys, frogs, and rain was insane, and Maggie had to convince me that they really had been present all week long. The station was a great spot, with impressive diversity. They even had a pet wild boar, who thought it was a dog. My teacher would pet the creature, and it would turn over and thump its foot. My room also contained a variety of creatures. The first night, I was accompanied by a lizard, who promised to stick to the wall. The next, it was a spider in my bed, who returned to his spot out of sight. However, on the third night, a scorpion sat on the wall just above my bed. I called in another guest who had just returned from Peace Corp in Kenya and promised to be a proficient scorpion killer. He was, and I moved into Maggie´s room.

From the lago, we traveled to the liberal University town of Leon. It´s wonderful! It has been the first city we have encountered that seems to truly care about art. Poets are the heroes of this town- even the streets are named after them. The city is also conveniently located next to several volcanoes. We hiked up one, Cerro Negro, which is famous for its volcano boarding. The two of us narrowly missed starring in a French TV documentary about this activity. One of our friends from the language school at Apoyo was assigned to film, but his camera ceased functioning, again due to the incredibly humid conditions at the lago. Without the pressure of the camera, we simply ran down the face of the fuming volcano, rather than riding a plank of wood. I think that we made the correct choice. Leon is also very close to the Pacific Ocean, so we have spent the last few days involved in the following activities: swimming, hammocking and drinking milkshakes. My life is so hard.

Marching Bands and Machetes

Our final days in Xela were spent celebrating the "Independence" of Guatemala. This traditionally involves rioting in the streets. The Xelaites enjoy on average seven parades per day. Each has a different theme, but the kids spend approximately six months of school in marching band practice, rather than learning to read or write. Different priorities. Maggie and I watched the cutest parade, with the four year olds dressed up. Some have toy drums, some have kazoos, some just wander around with bags of juice. Otherwise, it seems that people become extremely intoxicated. My house is one story and would be very easy to break into, if it weren't for the broken glass glued to the roof. On Saturday of the holiday weekend, I was napping in preparation for that night's soccer game (Xela vs the capital) and our hike up Volcan Santa Maria. However, as it sounded like a robber was breaking into our house, I found it rather difficult to fall asleep. The noise on my roof and stomping around the courtyard outside of my room were frightening, so I remained as still as possible, until the robber started washing his hands for an excessive period of time. It then occurred to me that I was imagining things. A cat was on the roof, and now a member of my family was probably wandering around the courtyard. Then someone knocked on my door. This had never happened before. I opened the door to find my host brother standing outside, looking like he was about to collapse, with blood pouring out from his hand and deep cuts on his face. Can you help me? Of course, I'm thinking he was just in some sort of gang fight, and he wants me to hide him from his gang enemies. Instead, it quickly became apparent that he was extremely intoxicated, and had cut his hands on the roof protection, trying to break into his own house, when I could have easily opened the door for him. I tried to help him out a bit, and while I tried to convince him otherwise, he went to the store to buy more beer, which they sold to him in spite of his blood drenched clothing. He proceeded to sing to me, until I ran away from the house to the futbol game, where they shoot fireworks from the stands towards the opposing goalie. I´m not really sure where I was safer.

From Xela, we traveled on the most packed bus, ever, to Lake Atitlan. As is the rule on chicken buses, everyone sits three to a seat, and then you stand wherever there is room. I was standing in the last row, between 6 people sitting, and there were four full grown men behind me. I don't understand how. The lake was lovely. Our friends from language school are basically running a bed and breakfast, set amongst a gorgeous garden with lake views. They have avocado, banana, papaya, mango and coffee trees. It's a good job. The best part is that this property is owned by the heir to PBR. We wanted to hike up a volcano, and so our friends set us up with the gardener. He suggested one hike that our guide book said, "Only go with a very experienced guide. The trail is notoriously difficult to follow and robberies occur frequently." The gardener told us that he hadn't been there in five years, so it would be perfect! No hay problema. The hike was actually awesome, for a while. It was challenging to communicate, because he speaks limited Spanish, as most people in his town of Santiago speak only a more traditional tongue. Rather than learn all of the conjugations, he had the brilliant idea of sticking with the nosotros (we) form. So he told us, "We rob the village frequently. But we are trying to stop this." etc. It was entertaining. The hike fell apart when he lost the trail and was macheting through the forest, where he claimed a great view was just ahead. We don't think it was.

We next traveled to Antigua, the nice city of Guatemala. It was weird. Everything worked and was clean. They sold bagels and spoke English. We left. We journey to the capital, then to Rio Dulce and up the river to Livingston. We then bid our goodbyes to Guatemala and arrived on paradise island, Utila in Honduras. Utila was very different from Guatemala. In Guatemala, we could understand people´s Spanish. Here, it seems that people are too lazy to finish their words and drift off mid sentence. This makes comprehension difficult. In Xela, we worried about being out late at night for fear of muggings. Here, we fear the enormous crabs who colonize the streets. Finally, in Xela, I was huge. Here, I can´t even get into the top bunk of my bed. I literally need Maggie to lift me in. While we had no real intention to before arriving, we signed up for a SCUBA certification. It was glorious. Refer to Planet Earth-Shallow Seas for what we saw. David Attenborough´s voice was in my head through every dive. Although one drawback is that I am now, hopefully temporarily, deaf. The good news is that the SCUBA course teaches underwater sign language, so I am completely ready to sign to anyone on the streets that I am out of breath. Could they possibly offer me their alternate air source? We are currently in Granada, Nicaragua, and are planning on travelling today to the Proyecto Ecologico for Spanish classes at a biological research station on el Lago de Apoyo. Both of us feel that we have reached certain competencies in Spanish, as I acted as a translator for a tourist in Antigua, and Maggie argued down a hostile Honduran taxi driver, who called in the police to mediate the situation.

How to Learn a Language in 10 Days

I´ve now been studying Spanish for ten days and have progressed past the present, preterite and imperfect, into the future tense. This strikes me as ridiculous. I´m pretty certain that I did not hit the future in French class until at least my fourth year of language study (although my favorite teacher of all time, Madame McAndrews may be partially responsible for the delay). Again, it is lovely to be able to express more complex thoughts than I sit. The capacity to explain that I sat, and that I plan on sitting is simply marvelous.

I have graduated from Mario (who was interestingly enough my merengue partner at the disco last night) to a far superior teacher, Ana. I was very excited for class on Monday, so walked in and confidently asked how she was. In a devastated voice, she responded triste, because her uncle died the day before. She went on to explain the elaborate story of his death, which possibly involved diabetes, gangrene, and or stomach cancer. I am terrible at consoling people in English, and we haven´t yet hit the chapter ¨At the funeral home¨so I struggled a bit with that vocabulary.

Last Thursday during the lunch hour, Flori (mi madre here) and I were discussing afternoon plans. I wanted to take advantage of my first free afternoon to venture into a coffee shop and resolve my internal problems related to the instant coffee served to me every morning, but Flori became very excited in describing someplace. I caught the words beautiful and outside of town, so agreed to go with her on an adventure to what I envisioned as a neighboring mountain town´s market.
We went to Guatemalan Wallmart instead.
Hyper Pais, as it is called here, is on the outskirts of town, and apparently contains many beautiful things, which Flori enjoyed showing off to me. My favorite were the flaptop computers, as she called them. I described how I wanted to buy something for Katie´s soon to be baby, meaning traditional Guatemalan clothes, but Flori took me to the equivalent of BabyGap. The afternoon was actually wonderful, as an opportunity to spend more time speaking with Flori. I also was able to escort her like a boyscout, arm in arm through the aisles and across the roads. It was adorable.

I´m still enjoying the other students here. Last Friday night, we had an enormous international dinner, featuring Snitzel, Danish meatballs, Swedish pancakes, pasta with pesto, vegan banana chocolate chip pancakes, Guatemalan comida tipica and I threw in some roasted vegetable to elevate the nutritional value of the meal. However, the pesto crew stole my extra virgin olive oil. It was a disaster. Everyone was like, just use vegetable oil. I was like, are you crazy??? On roasted vegetables? Of course, everyone thought that I was the crazy one, as so frequently seems to happen when I cook around others.

Saturday morning, Maggie and I, and our new Dannish friend Ennie, journeyed to the opposite of Hyper Pais, the small, traditional village of Todos Santos Cuchumatán. We drove through gorgeous, green mountains and found a town very different from Xela. The views were superb, and the air was clean. As well, every single man, whether he be 80 or 16 was wearing the exact same outfit. Red and white striped pants, a white stripped shirt with blue collars and cuffs, and a white hat with purple ribbons. It was a bit like being in a Where´s Waldo scene. We also were discriminated against by the Guatemalan children. It was like Flight of the Concords. They refused to sell us bread, and hid and probably made fun of us in mam, the local language.
I find that when I meet people from my guide book, I feel like I´m talking to a celebrity. Will you sign my Let´s Go? Todos Santos is known for great hiking, and our guide book suggested a Swiss named Roman as a good resource for treks. There is absolutely no information about how to find Roman. We wandered to the hostel we wanted to stay out, but a little girl told us it was closed, but if wanted to we could stay at her house. This didn´t seem like a great idea, but then she introduced us to her Papi, Roman, who then took us to his homemade Swiss chalet, complete with composting toilet featuring a heart shaped cut out for your mountain view, and elaborate garden. There were strawberries. It was paradise. We took a hike the next morning to the neighboring tiny town of San Juan Atitan, where instead of hiding from us, every single child (again, wearing identical outfits) came running for us, demanding to be photographed. The hike was amazing. There were lambs, wandering locals, perfect views, echoing evangelical songs, and a Sunday futbol game. Pictures work better than descriptions, no?

Frijoles y flashcards

I arrived in Guatemala last Tuesday, and promptly fled the capital city for Xela, the second largest city in Guatemala. I joined up with Maggie's familia. In her house live three sisters. Based on research published in 1983 by Roald Dahl, at least two of these sisters are witches. They have boils, wear pointy shoes, and speak in incomprehensible tongues. One sister, who is Maggie's pretend mother, is actually quite nice and a lovely cook. After a few days of guarding my back from the sinister sisters, I moved out so that I could better practice my spanish away from my own incredibly bilingual sister.

I now live in this turqoise house with a wonderful mommy, Flori. Standing next to Flori, I am able to practice one of my favorite words, gigante. Because for the first time in my life, I am gigante. She cannot measure in at more than 4'9". Flori is quite adorable. She wears all traditional Guatemalan clothing and is an excellent luncheon cook. Dinner is typically less exciting. In Guatemala, lunch is the most important meal of the day, with dinner frequently being a lower priority. I eat eggs and beans for every breakfast and dinner, 7 days a week. There was one exception. On Sunday night, Flori prepared for me a ham sandwich (one slice of ham) on the Guatemalan equivalent of wonderbread, which here is called Bimbo bread, with ketchup and mayonaise. Quite the Sunday feast. I can't actually complain though, as lunches are outstanding. Today I had guacamole. Life is good.

As was the case during my other adventures, my Irish face is quite noticable and I spend much of my day avoiding stares. This has perhaps been accentuated by the fact that I purchased a new type of face wash before leaving home, and I believe that the primary ingredients are sparkles. It literally looks like I put on the shimmer gel that was popular when I was in 6th grade.

I'm attending a great language school, ICA. The teachers seem great, and they do a wonderful job of organizing activities. The other students are a really cool crowd from around the world. I have been here for less than a week, but have hit up some hot pools in the mountains, visited a coffee farm, gone swimming on the Pacific coast, taken Merengue lessons, played futbol and been to a chocolate factory (or a small grinding machine in someone's house). We also watched a movie together, that was kind of like Bend it Like Beckham. In this documentary, a group of prositutes form a soccer team to raise awareness of police descrimination and the problems they face. Ok, so not really that much like Bend it Like Beckham. I really recommend it: Estrellas de la Linea. We also traveled to a house that to me represented the ultimate example of sustainable development. We traveled by a chicken bus that was most artfully decorated with stickers of the Tasmanian Devil, Bart Simpson and Jesus. At the house, they grow all of their own food, have chickens, cows and sheep, even turkeys. They are a family of weavers. They shear the sheep, spin the wool, dye the wool with natural materials, and then weave on looms they built themselves. They also served us the most delicious tortillas of the trip. They grow their own corn, made the flour and then cooked them up fresh for us over a wood burning fire. They were accompanied by amazing queso fresco from their cows. It was perfect. Now when our families give us the store bought tortillas, they taste horrible.

Class is going well. My first teacher was phenomenol and made it very simple for me to understand and to speak right off the bat. We switch teachers at the start of each week, and my new maestro looks like the ultimate stereotypical 20 year old latino dude. He has a slicked back ponytail, professes his love for the 80s, and rides a scooter. I like him less, but I'm definitely still learned very quickly. On Monday, the past tense entered my vocab, which has severely improved the quality of my stories. Before, my family was always like cuando? Hoy? at the end of each sentence. My bed is currently covered with approximately one grillion flashcards (which are really just tiny shredded bits of paper) to test me on the 130 new verbs introduced into my vocabulary every day. I also try to supplement my speaking with reading and watching TV. I asked Flori for something to read, and she passed me magazine from the Jehovah's witnesses. If the occassion arises, I am completely prepared to quote in spanish from the Bible. Sarah Palin should hire me to pick up some of the religious hispanic vote. Xela is preparing for the big Independence Day celebration on September 15. Part of this involves selecting the equivalent of a May Queen from the local 12 year olds. Flori and I spent an evening watching public access television document one night of the selection process. Imagine American Idol meets the local Christmas pagent. Each nominated girl would give a speech about Guatemala and then dance as part of the story of Guatemala. The dance was the best part, as the stage was filled with both kids performing traditional dance in logical costumes (Mayan princesses, dangerous animals) and every once in a while, a tiny child standing on the middle of the stage dressed like a gorilla or a bumblebee. This is a perhaps representative of Xela. Old meets new. Buses everywhere filled with women in traditional Guatemalan dress carrying newspapers on top of their heads. We like it.