I found out awhile ago that one of my friends, Bri, was going to be volunteering in Guatemala for the months to come. I immediately thought: 1. wow, that is really cool & 2. when can I come visit??! It's funny how things work out sometimes. Bri and I first met while studying in Buenos Aires together almost 2 years ago. Sidenote- can you believe that come this June it will be 2 YEARS since I went to Argentina? Anyway, this was not the first time that I decided to take a little impromptu vacation to visit Bri. Last year I spent a nice little weekend at ASU (Arizona State University for those of you who aren't familiar with this absolutely wonderful place- shout out to my fellow pitchforkers!), but this is besides the point. Long story short, Bri is from Wyoming and a couple from her hometown formed a nonprofit organization some time ago that runs primarily in Guatemala. After graduation Bri decided to take the leap and head to Guatemala as a part of this organization and spend her time volunteering and teaching English in a school in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. She has been living and teaching there since January of 2012. If you'd like to read about what she's been up to, click here!
Amidst the craziness of tax season and my unrelenting desire to finally be done with school, I decided I owed myself a vacation as a reward for working like a crazy lady and successfully (almost) completing 4 years and then a bonus year at TCNJ. I couldn't turn down an opportunity to travel (duhh) so Bri and I got to planning. For some reason I thought it okay to just dip out on the last week of classes at TCNJ to take this little vacay so that's how it went down. I'm not sure how pleased my professors were with me, but the opportunity of volunteering in a foreign country was just something too great to pass up, so off I went! In reality, it couldn't have been more perfect timing. I never thought it was possible to work as many hours as I did during the past few months (good thing I love my job and time flies when you're having fun!), so needless to say by the end I was more than ready (physically and mentally) for a little descanso (break). My Mommom had also just passed away, and this vacation was the perfect remedy (not that there even is one) to make me feel a little better. I can finally talk about it without crying (for the most part), but I just wish this heartache would go away. Words can't describe how much I miss Mommom and how badly I can't wait to see her again in Heaven. It's funny how God works sometimes. This vacation was just what I needed, at the right place and at the right time. Bri and I planned to meet in the Belize City airport, spend time at the Cayes (pronounced "Keys"- I didn't learn this until after I had already been there for a few days haha), and then head back to Guatemala to volunteer for a few days.
To give you an idea of the scenery when I first arrived... clear skies, palm trees, and turquoise water.
Thursday, April 19th
I had an EARLY morning to say the least. Left my house around 4:30 am to head to the Newark airport (gracias to my wonderful friend Jill!) for an 8 am flight to Houston and then a 1pm flight to Belize City. Nothing too exciting happened that morning, except in the Houston airport (which is really nice by the way) I met a man who owns like half of the coffee fields in Guatemala. No big deal or anything. I was SUPER PUMPED to get off the plane in Belize and use my Spanish. If you haven't noticed the theme yet, mostly all of the countries I've visited are Spanish speaking countries. I hop off the plane (literally- because I was playing on the runway again like old times!) and I find that I am missing one of the border control forms that you have to fill out to go through customs and whatnot. I quickly find a man, who appeared to be a native Spanish speaker, and I ask him in Spanish which forms I need because there was more than one. To my disappointment he responded in English. Bummer, I hate when they do that. I go over to another counter to find that all of them are speaking English. What the heck!! I got the other form I needed, filled it out, and got a sweet new stamp on my passport, which we all know by now is one of my favorite things ever. When Bri arrived to the airport (which by the way was EXTREMELY small) she informed me that the official language in Belize is actually English. Who knew? You can imagine my disappointment, but I got over it. That still didn't stop me from trying to speak Spanish whenever I could for the duration of our stay in Belize. We hopped in a cab to take us to the port to get on a water taxi to take us to the islands. To get to the port we drove through Belize City. Not sure why I expected to be greeted by at least one skyscraper or a tall building to say the least, but it was actually the complete opposite. Belize City is one of the most populated areas in Belize, but get this, there are a total of three traffic lights in the entire city. I guess now would be a good time for a little background about Belize that I learned during my time there. First things first, and this still blows my mind, there are a total of about 320,000 people that live in Belize, in the entire country. That's probably a combination of 3 or 4 towns here in South Jersey alone. Not only is their population really small, but it's also very concentrated in that outside of Belize City, the islands, and Belmopan (the capital) there is really nothing around (we'll get to more about this in a bit). Secondly, an interesting fact is that they recently only gained their independence in 1981. Crazy right? Third, the currency gets very confusing. They have about a 2 to 1 exchange rate with the dollar. Two Belizean dollars to one USD. However, many times they let you pay in either and give you change in either. For example, sometimes I paid with US dollars and got Belizean change or vice versa. It got somewhat complicated and who knows who was losing out because it's not even possible for the exchange rate to stay at an even 2 to 1. Fourth, the population is very unique. After my experiences there I'd say that 95% of them are bilingual and probably 75% of them are trilingual. Even more crazy right? Well we know they speak English, but most of them speak Spanish as well. However, a majority of those English and Spanish speakers speak Creole (spelling?) as well. Creole, I learned, is a mix between the African languages (from the slaves that were brought over by the British) and English. It sounded like gibberish to me! Their Spanish also sounds weird. I asked one of our tour guides about their Spanish and he told me that it sounded weird because they speak more Spanglish than anything. I wanted to say, hey buddy I am the QUEEN of Spanglish and I have no idea what any of you are saying. This probably has to do with the fact that I really had trouble understanding the Belizeans when they were speaking English haha. I'm being completely serious. I don't even know how to describe the way they spoke, but it was very confusing. I guess it was like an island-Jamaican-mon type English with a Spanish and Creole twist. The point I'm trying to make here is that I'm just confused when it comes to their language(s). However, it was still really cool to see how many of them just had the ability to communicate in 3 different languages, and what makes it even more impressive is the fact that these languages are learned at home and not in school.
Okay, so back to actually what we were doing... We took a water taxi from Belize City to Ambergris Caye. The ride was actually pretty long, a little over an hour. It was beautiful when we were on the boat ride. The sun was setting (it sets there around 6 pm which I thought was relatively early, but then again the sun would rise at about 5 am) and the weather was beautiful. We lucked out on the entire trip actually. It was about 90 and sunny (and humid might I add!) everyday! As soon as we got off the boat we were greeted with rum punch and a personal guide to our hotel room. Not a bad start! It was dark by the time we actually arrived to our hotel, but we could tell it was absolutely beautiful and we couldn't wait to see it in the daylight.
Friday, April 20th
This is what I woke up to...
Then I walked a little further and got to this...
And this...
We weren't sure what exactly we were going to do this day so we went out on the dock to talk to the tour company that was conveniently located right at the edge of our resort. The funny story of the morning is that on the way back from breakfast an iguana tried to play a little joke on me. By that I mean that it came out of nowhere when we were strolling along and scared me half to death. It was maybe 6 inches away from me at one point. I may have slightly bruised Bri's arm when I grabbed onto her. This was before I bolted away after it started to almost chase me. Bri got quite the kick out of it as she stood next to the iguana laughing at me. By the time we got to the dock, it took all of about a minute and a half to convince us to hop on a boat for a snorkeling tour that was leaving in 2 minutes. I was a little hesitant because, oh right, I can't swim. They quickly told me that there were lifejackets so I said I'm game! I normally don't do well on boats (ask my family how sick I was the one time we took a cruise; I was ecstatic every time we landed in port and could get on land!), but my body surprisingly held up really well the entire week. Anyway, the boat ride was absolutely gorgeous, with nothing but turquoise water and palm trees to stare at. There is a huge barrier reef that covers almost the entire length of the country (the second largest in the world next to the Great Barrier Reef), and Belize has been doing a great job recently to protect it. We ended up making three stops on this snorkeling trip, all of which were very cool! The first stop was the longest and we had about an hour to explore all over.
I put my flippers, goggles, and lifejacket on and hopped into the water. The water was like bathwater. I was in the water for a whole minute when Bri raised her head out of the water and says, "Hey guys, look! A shark!" I froze. An immediate sense of panic set it, and we later laughed at how nonchalantly Bri yelled this to everyone. One of the ladies that was a part of our tour immediately got back on the boat after this little incident. Oops. Our guide quickly informed us that the shark wouldn't bother us because it was not a human-searching shark, but still. I was about 30 feet away from a shark in water, and my inability to swim quickly in the water, or to just swim in general made me even more nervous. The sharks in the water here were about the size of my arm span. Here began the onset of my prayers. The shark quickly disappeared and I was able to relax, although I was very alert the rest of the time in the water. Although I was a bit scared, this snorkeling experience was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had because we were able to see so many things!
I can't even tell you how many different types of fish we saw! Mainly because I can't remember all of their names, but also because there were too many to list. Our tour guide would dive into the water and swim all the way to the bottom, and he was also really good at pointing out everything to everyone. Bri told me not to expect to see nearly as much as we did if I ever go snorkeling again. We got back into the boat to hit up the next spot. I STUPIDLY got in the water this time without my lifejacket. Dumb. I can't remember my reasoning.... something like oh, you'll just float; it'll be easy. HA. I lasted all of 5 minutes, and it just so happened that this stop was the one with about 30 stingrays swimming all around us and getting way too close for my comfort level. The stingrays were gigantic!! My favorite part of the day was on this stop because there were also sea turtles swimming with the stingrays. The sea turtles were SO CUTE. I wanted to take one home with me! They got so close too. I probably could have touched one had I not been instructed to not touch anything. They swam around like little cuties as I kept thinking of Finding Nemo. They swam around exactly as they are portrayed in the movie.
This is totally off topic, but I'm currently watching the Heat/Knicks game and thought I would add that Lebron James should be nominated for some sort of acting award. World's Best Actor or something. He's such a bum.
The last stop we made was the most interesting one. And no my camera is not zoomed on this picture.
At this point we were in the middle of a shark frenzy. There were about 20 or so sharks surrounding our boat alone. They were all over the place near other boats too. Our tour guide started feeding them so they would come close to our boat. We all got in the water (this time with my lifejacket again haha), but to be honest I was so nervous that I got back onto the boat after about 3 minutes. Meanwhile, Bri was with the others still in the water hovering over about 20 sharks. I only got as close as maybe 30 feet away, but it was still seriously awesome. Indirectly, this whole experience was keeping with our traditions. What does that mean? My first vacation with Bri we were in Chile and we had a fabulous horseback riding experience in the sand dunes. When I say fabulous, I really mean that it was the first time I had ever been on a horse and we were RUNNING down mountains of sand. We totally skipped the básico level that day and went straight to avanzado. Naturally we had to keep the theme the same for my first snorkeling experience, so why not just throw me in there with a bunch of sharks? Haha, but seriously this was a really cool experience and I'm really glad we had the opportunity to do this.
We arrived back at our hotel and went to the pool. The pool area was beautiful and very relaxing. There was a swim up bar, so naturally we took advantage of this and got smoothies. I'm a little embarrassed to say how much we paid for those smoothies so I'll leave that detail out.
After hanging out at the pool for awhile we decided to take a ride into town, San Pedro (the center of the island). Did I mention that while we were waiting for the boat, one of the hotel guys took down 2 coconuts from a palm tree, split them in half, and gave them to us to eat?
We took a short water taxi (the island is about 27 miles long) and arrived in San Pedro. This was a small little town as a lot of the transportation consisted of these golf cart looking cars. We walked around a bit and did some souvenir shopping. My collection of postcards, flags, and magnets is becoming quite hefty! We also stopped in the food store to do some shopping and to hopefully save some money on food for the next couple of days. A little tidbit about the area we were in- they totally hike up the prices because it is so touristy.
Saturday, April 21st
We got up super early this day to go on a tour of the Mayan ruins. We took water taxis back to Belize City and then took another hour car ride from there. All in all we probably traveled half of the country that day! Back to my point about how there is nothing outside of a few specific cities in Belize, there are 4 major highways in the entire country. Outside of that, most of the roads are dirt. There is a highway that goes north (the one we took that day), east, south, and west. When we arrived at the site, we hopped on another boat and were off. We had to take a boat ride down the river to get to the Mayan ruins. This time around we were in the middle of the rainforest! After about 5 minutes on the boat we slow down a bit because we spotted a couple of spider monkeys. We got closer to them, very close to them actually.
One of the ladies sitting next to me took out a banana and started feeding them (there were 2 relatively close to us). At this time, this little guy above was walking along the fence and the other one was still swinging in the trees. I noticed he was getting pretty close to us in the trees and I said, "Watch this guy's gonna hop on our boat." Sure enough, the monkey hopped on our boat! I got a little scared at that point. Actually I was very scared, stood up, and dropped my camera and all of my belongings on the floor without even realizing and tried to move to the other edge of the boat. By now I was practically on top of the 2 ladies next to me. Mind you at this point I was also the one holding the banana trying to feed them. I quickly realized this and threw the banana in the other direction, but the monkey was determined to check out the rest of our boat to see what was up. Go figure. I calmed down a bit because he got further from me, or less concerned with me, and I actually snagged a pretty funny video. I couldn't get over the fact that there was a monkey on our boat. I still can't get over it. It's just funny to me. At one point he was sitting on top of a lady's lap (see the picture below). I've never been that close to a monkey before, or any wild animal for that matter. He did a lap around our boat (literally) and then finally made it to the front end. He then spotted another boat coming from the other direction, hopped boats as it crossed paths with our's and sailed away with the other people. RELIEF.
Anyway, after the monkey episode we finally arrived at the Maya site. We had a really good traditional Belizean lunch (stewed chicken, rice & beans, cucumbers, potato salad, and fresh watermelon- all very yummy!) and then started on our tour. Back in the day, we're talking before Christ, the Maya population in this region of Belize was over a million, and to think that Belize's total population is only around 320,000 today is crazy. We learned a lot of history this day about the Maya population, which was cool because it tied into what I've recently learned in one of my Spanish classes this semester, but seeing it firsthand made it even cooler! We even got to climb one of the Maya temples and the view from the top was spectacular. Nothing but rainforest (and about a million palm trees) in sight!
The tour was really cool, but that climb was a little steep! I can't imagine what the pyramids in Mexico are like.
Sunday, April 22nd
We got up early again this day and headed to Caye Caulker, another nearby island. Again the weather was beautiful!
Conveniently our hotel was located right off of the dock. Our hotel was the cutest, quaintest little beachy hotel I've ever seen. It was adorable with bright colors, hammocks, a wonderful view from the top deck, and our room even had a princess room that would have been right up my sister's alley. Take a look at the view from our hotel. Not too shabby eh?
An interesting fact about Caye Caulker is that in 2001 a hurricane split it in half. It was really cool to see because in fact you could see some of the old cement and whatnot through the water. They call it "the split" and it is a huge hangout spot with really calm waters. Actually all of the water is really calm. There are no waves because the barrier reef blocks all of the waves from coming in. In fact, that's one of the main reasons why the islands in Belize have remained "safe" from dangerous weather conditions in the past. Take a look at "the split" below.
We rented bikes for the day and strolled around the island. All of the roads were sand, which I thought was really cool. You could also see from one side of the island to the other. That's how small the island was. We rode our bikes for about 15 minutes before we had cruised the entire island.
We had delicious meal right on the water and then we went and later watched the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful!
After the sun went down, we started talking to one of the natives. He was a super nice guy, but he ended up telling us how 7 people were shot and killed in Belize City the night before. Thanks for that one. That always calms the nerves. Then we got mauled by mosquitos. I'm not joking you when I say I have at least 20 bites on my legs.... still. Then I soon got a bloody nose. Successful night right? At least the sunset was beautiful, and like I say. You win some, you lose some.
Monday, April 23rd
Today was very relaxing. We had the morning to chill and absorb one last time the beautiful weather and scenery!
Soon we said goodbye to Belize and headed back to the airport. We had a 5 pm flight to San Salvador, El Salvador and then a 7 pm flight from there to Guatemala City. I bought my ticket off of Expedia and chose the cheapest I could find for the same flight that Bri had. Little did I know my seat ended up being first class!! We flew with TACA, and I knew they were nice because I had previously flown with them from Rio to Lima. Coincidentally, I also sat in first class on that flight too. I honestly had no idea I was sitting in first class until we were actually on the plane and realized that my seat number said 2C. I asked Bri if there was another row 2 (haha) because I thought there was absolutely no way that my seat was in first class. Sure enough, there is only one row 2 on the plane, so I got quite the kick out of sitting in first class (however short the flight ended up being). I laughed about it some more as I got off the plane and as I got back on the plane in San Salvador, with priority boarding mind you. I was sure to give Bri a nice little wave as I exited! I should fly with TACA more often no?
We arrived in Guatemala and switched into Spanish gear (yay!). Another stamp on the passport- check! Bri's private shuttle man (se llama Juan) came to pick us up and off we went. By this time it was around 8 pm and was pitch black out. I didn't really get to see much of the city except for the part of the highway we drove on, but I can tell you that Guatemala City keeps the south of the border tradition of driving like a complete loco. Holy cow, these people just have a total disregard for any sort of lane marker, double yellow line, or what have you. They pass people whenever they want, wherever they want, and however fast they want. I'm not referring completely to our driver, but more so the other wacko's on the road. I was having flashbacks of good old Argentina. Anyway, it wasn't before long that the roads got really windy and nerve-wracking. Good thing I took some dramamine. Guatemala really reminded me of Peru with a mix of Bolivia to it. The roads kept getting windier and crazier and as I was falling asleep, I couldn't help but trying to stay awake and alert because I was somewhat nervous that all of the guardrails had long disappeared. It felt like I was staring at the clock and that we would never arrive, but it was soon over. That was not an easy drive by any means. It was a tough 3 hour drive, in pitch dark might I add. But we arrived safely and that's all that matters.
Tuesday, April 24th
I was really excited for this day. I have been waiting to go to school with Bri and volunteer for the longest time! Before we left Bri's house, which was really nice by the way, she took me up to the terrace to see the view from the top. She previously lived in a more exclusive house right on the lake (Lago Atitlán), but recently moved into the center of Santiago.
We then walked to school and she gave me the low down on the city and everything I needed to know. It was really interesting to see everything for the first time. This city (Santiago) is very traditional with the Mayan culture. Most everyone wears traditional Maya clothing and many sell items on the street to make a living. They sew a lot of their items, much like Bolivia and Peru, and wear their own products. There is a huge soccer field right outside of the school that Bri works in and as we were arriving we saw many kids outside practicing (before 8 am might I add). A popular thing apparently in Santiago is the olympics between many of the schools. They take them very seriously; seriously enough that many of the kids miss part of the school day to practice sports. How come I never got to do this back in the day??! Anyway, they pick the most promising athletes in each grade to compete in these olympics that take place in June. Pretty cool, right?
We arrived at the school and I got to meet the principal and a few teachers. Everyone was so, so friendly and welcoming and made me feel right at home. Then, at the first sight of Bri, children came running from all directions to give her hugs and say hello. I've never seen kids get so excited before, but they LOVE her. She didn't even get to fully introduce me to all of them before they were coming up to me and giving me hugs. It was so cute and just really warmed my heart. Here I am a complete stranger in this town and everyone is just taking me in as if I were one of them. It's amazing that sometimes you can learn more from kids than adults. I soon embraced my Spanish name (pronounced "Kah-tee") as they were all yelling "Hola Katy!!! Cómo estás??" All of the kids in that school are seriously adorable, and I can totally see why Bri loves teaching there everyday! The school is for the little parvulos (kindergarteners) up to sexto (sixth grade). Perfect teaching age if you ask me. Bri teaches second through sixth grade English and computers. It's funny because most of the time kids walk up to Bri and are like, "Hola Briana. Computación!!!!" Literal translation means "Hi Bri. Computers!" I got to meet with each class and meet all of the kids and teachers.
We first started with 6th grade today and we took an impromptu field trip. This would NEVER happen at home. We literally walked into the room, asked the teacher if we could do "palabras de la calle" and we soon left to explore the city. This game, "palabras de la calle" is basically a walk around Santiago where the kids point out different items that they see around them and we practice the writing and pronunciation of those words in English. It was actually a good review for myself with Spanish vocabulary as they were learning new English vocabulary. Each class that I visited that day was a ton of fun. We had a few English classes and also a few computer classes. The foundation that Bri is volunteering with has donated 12 computers for the school to use, and they have also contributed in other ways such as with supplies and food. Many of these kids come from very poor families (some who even have dirt floors in their houses), so the fact that the foundation provides lunch everyday for these kids to get a solid meal, I think it's awesome.
It's interesting to see how totally different the school system is from our school system. First things first, their school starts at 7:30 am and ends at 12:30 pm. Talk about a short day! Most kids arrive on time, but there are a few stragglers that come in late. Everything is very lax, in that a lot of times kids leave the class whenever they want to and walk around whenever they want to. There isn't a whole lot of discipline going on down there. At times it gets a little rowdy (wait for my entry for the next day for a funny story relating to this). And recess, my goodness that's a whole different ballgame.
After 2 or 3 (I can't remember) English classes during the morning it was finally time for recess. The bell rang and boom. Complete chaos. Seriously, recess there is like kids gone wild. It was absolutely insane how much energy all of them had. There were about 3 different games of basketball going on on the same court, another game of "glo-bo" (tossing an inflated globe around), not to mention there were kindergarteners and 1st & 2nd graders playing with each other, as well as kids trying to get food and eat. DIOS MIO. I have never seen anything like it before. And the best part of the whole thing was that I've never had so much fun before playing with all of them. They sure know how to let loose, let me tell you. By then, somehow the entire school knew my name. Kids were yelling "KATY" without even having met me, and I had kids just coming up to me asking me to play and having conversations with me. It was seriously the coolest experience ever. I wish I had the entire recess period on video because it was a real riot and I loved every minute of it.
After lunch we taught computers. They were working on making powerpoint presentations. It's crazy to think that this year in school was the first time many of these kids saw a computer, and then to think that many of us here can't go a day without a computer. Crazy. Anyway, I learned a ton of new vocab. This was the first time I ever saw Microsoft PowerPoint in Spanish. Pretty neat. Our last class of the day was with the 2nd graders. What cuties! Little Pedro was my favorite student of the day. They all seriously melt your heart when you see them.
School ended sooner than I knew it and half the kids even came to say goodbye to us. We started walking home until we ran into a pair of sisters that are students at the school. I forget what grade each of them are in, but they were so friendly and talked to us for awhile as we were walking. The kids absolutely love Bri, and they both latched onto our arms as we were walking along. We ate some really delicious food for lunch and we continued our tour of Santiago. We walked along the "tourist street" where every color of the rainbow hung from bags to clothing to you name it, much like Cuzco, Perú. They make a ton of different things with their hands. They are very artistic. You should see how good at drawing all of the kids in the school were! We also stopped in the market to buy some food too!
A lot of bargaining goes on around there. Part of that bargaining has to do with the fact that they find it appropriate to charge tourists way higher prices than the natives. We also stopped in a bakery that sold muffins for 15 cents. When can we get those around here? That'll be the day when I can buy anything for under a dollar. We ended up bumping into 3 boys that were students at the school as we were leaving the bakery. In fact, after my 2 day stay in Santiago, I can confidently proclaim that Bri is, in fact, living in superstardom. We didn't go anywhere without her running into at least 2 people that she knew while walking in the streets. What a superstar. That's all I'm going to say :-) Anyway, as we were talking to the 3 boys an old woman came up to us, said something in T'zutujil (pronounced Tsuit-too-hill) which is the Maya language that they speak. I'll get to this language more in a bit. We asked the boys what she said and they told us that the lady came up to them warning them to be careful because Americans will most likely rob them. RUDE.
We walked backed to Bri's house to relax for the rest of the night. Teaching can be exhausting! I have a whole new appreciation for that profession, and I also realized that I totally don't have the patience to do that day in and day out. I give major credit to teachers for committing to such a demanding profession. However, I am totally content at the time being to sticking with tax returns :-) Bri has to soak the vegetables she buys in bleach. I don't really know where I was going with that, but I thought it was interesting.
Wednesday, April 25th
Today was my second day in school and I was feeling like a pro! Haha yeah right, but I did come up with a game for the kids all on my own! We didn't end up getting to it in class that day, but from what Bri told me they really enjoyed it the next day! We received our normal warm welcome in the morning, and by then all of the kids acted like they had known me forever when they saw me. Several of them were making plans for us to play together at recess that day. I still just can't get over how full of life all of them were. It just makes me happy to see these kids, who come from really poor conditions, having such joy in their hearts. I can't describe it, it just makes you feel good. We taught some more English, which I have found pretty challenging to teach. Well, I think English is difficult to teach in the first place, but I think it makes it even more difficult because for almost all of these kids, Spanish is their SECOND language. That is, they all speak their Maya language, T'zutujil, at home and then learn how to speak and write Spanish in their early school years. They speak it a lot in school as well, so half the time I didn't even know what some of them were saying. It made things somewhat complicated at times.
Recess today was even more fun than the previous day (if that's even possible), except today we joined in on one of the basketball games. I obviously took this as an opportunity to show off my moves! Haha I got a kick out of going between my legs, behind the back, and no-look passing to show off for them. This will be the first and last time that I play in a basketball game where I am the tallest one playing. What a great feeling that was... I've always wondered what it felt like to have a height advantage over my opponent! There really wasn't any shooting involved in this game, just a good old game of keep-away, mainly between the boys and girls. Again we had a great time (Bri and I) and I think the kids had a blast too. They were probably all wondering where the gringa got bball moves from.
We finished up some more computer classes and then taught English with the 3rd graders to end the day. Holy Hannah were these kids wired when we arrived. The part I was talking about earlier with being rowdy? Yea these kids were real rowdy. Apparently they aren't usually like that, but I couldn't believe my eyes. They were all just excited or something for us to be there because they couldn't relax haha. I really didn't mind to be honest. Their energy is somewhat contagious, but it was interesting to see how different things are run there versus here. Their behavior certainly would not have been tolerated at my elementary school here. We soon got them under control, but they were still a little antsy when we were playing a game. Children are so funny.
We left the school and immediately went back to Bri's house to grab our stuff and head across the lake. Santiago is located on the lake with several volcanoes surrounding the lake. It really is beautiful scenery. You can actually hike some of the volcanoes. There are also different towns around the lake, all of which have their own vibe. We headed to Panajachel so I'd be able to leave easier the next morning for Guatemala City to head back. The lake is so large that it took almost a 45 minute boat ride to get to the other side. But before we went on the boat ride, we took a tuk-tuk ride to get to the boat. Tuk-tuk's are the taxis in Santiago, except they're these really small cars with 3 wheels. See below- you'll find a picture of a tuk-tuk, a view of Santiago, and a picture of me with the lake and one of the volcanoes in the background.
We spent the rest of the day walking around Panajachel and souvenir shopping. I had to keep up with my collection! This town was much more touristy than Santiago, and I think I counted a total of 5 people that came up to our table, in the middle of a restaurant mind you, trying to sell us things. Talking about not being able to eat a meal in peace, but I do have to give them credit for being persistent and working hard to try and sell their products to make money. We also had some time to just sit and people watch, which is always fun.
Thursday, April 26th
Rise and shine! My day started early yet again (good thing I am a morning person). I left our hotel before 6 am to catch a shuttle back to Guatemala City. This time around we took the longer, less-windy route so the ride wasn't too bad. Plus it was daylight so I got to look out the window and see the beautiful country. Guatemala really is beautiful and mountainous. I found it interesting that all of the signs referring to Guatemala City simply said Guatemala. Like "Guatemala- this direction" as if we weren't already in Guatemala. I thought it was funny that they refer to their capital as "Guatemala". I arrived at the airport safely and with plenty of time to spare and with all of my belongings. Success.
It was a long day of traveling, but it was totally worth it. This trip was one of the most unique trips I've taken and I'm so happy and grateful that I had this opportunity. Can't wait to see what is in store next!! Hasta pronto :-)
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