Cobán

    This last week I took my mandatory trip out of Guatemala to renew my visa.  Although I had not quite reached the 90 day maximum stay limit, I decided that doing nothing on Thanksgiving at a monastery in Esquipulas was not the ideal way to spend it, A beach in Belize sounded much better.  And it was.  The trip started with a bus ride to El Rancho, a town name that I still cannot say correctly.  Try it.  Remember though, you have to roll the R in Rancho and say it in a conversation.  Tough, huh?  I somehow managed to convince the bus attendant to remind me when we got there (by asking him at every town if we were at El Rancho) and de-boarded with high hopes, even though my directions were "wait at the corner and find a bus going to Cobán."  Easier said than done.  El Rancho, it turns out, is literally just a bunch of restaurants (but no bathrooms) at the intersection of two highways.  Two highways which, apparently, rarely see the passing of buses to Cobán.  Although I had been specifically told to take a bus and had been warned not to take the microbuses, after 45 minutes of waving off microbus drivers and waiting for a real bus, I decided to cut my losses and just get to Cobán.  I flagged down the first nearly empty microbus I saw, thinking that I'd have ample room for the 3 hour drive,  and was on my way.  Or so I thought.  We spent the next half hour driving around El Rancho until the bus, with seats for 13, was filled to capacity.  Oh well, I thought, at least now we won't have to stop to let more people on.  Wrong again.  Guatemala, it turns out, has no laws against packing as many people into a van as possible.  After many stops, a few too many people in the van, and a little back pain because of the fact that the seats didn't have enough room between them for me to put my legs out straight, I made it to Cobán.  A little worse for the wear, but still in one piece.

Come to think of it, maybe I should've figured the whole microbus thing out when I got here...

It is amazing that in a country that is less than half the size of Minnesota two places can differ so much, but Cobán and Esquipulas are completely different cities.  The first thing I did in Cobán was eat at McDonald's (because I liked the irony more than the food, the last time I ate McDonald's was in Switzerland, and before that, Chile) and walk around a mall.  Two things that definitely do not exist in Esquipulas.  It turns out that Cobán is about twice the size of Esquipulas, while my monastery is about twice the size of theirs.  That being said, besides the area around the mall, Cobán feels much smaller than Esquipulas.  While I was there the stores were mostly closed, nothing happened at night, and people really kept to themselves.  The lives of the volunteers up there is quite a bit different from mine as well.  I'm here alone, which really forces me to branch out and hang out with the monks or spend time alone in my room.  There are two volunteers in Cobán and they share a room, making their experience more communal in a way.  However, they have their own gringo hang out room with one of the monks from North Dakota where pass most of their time.  They even stream a MN news station every weekend to watch all of the football games!

 

This is a picture of us agonizing over the Vikings getting slaughtered by Green Bay.  Gabe, on the left, is from Wisconsin.  

It was good to see the differences between my life in Esquipulas and theirs in Cobán.  I realized some things that I have here that I'm happy about and some things that they have that I like.  I have more freedom here to choose my work, almost complete freedom actually, while they are basically stuck doing what Brother Bernie tells them to do.  It seems like this has made them a little unhappy with their work, and has made me realize that if I am unsatisfied with what I am doing, it's only my fault.  I've also realized that I am doing good work, and has given me more energy to go about that work.  They have more comforts such as tv, gringo friends, youtube, but I think if I had all those things it would take away from the real immersion that I have experienced here which has allowed me to make great friends and has sped up my ability to learn spanish.  They also have access to cars, which would be really nice, but would decrease the cool things I have seen walking down the streets of Esquipulas.  

Like this.

 

While I had a relaxing and informative trip to Cobán, a retreat for all Benedictine monks in Guatemala began on Monday, and it was politely suggested that we make ourselves invisible.  So we did the next best thing, we left for the beaches of Belize.

I need a vacation

     While I don't want to write a blog without anything to say, I also want to get one out before I head off to my first (hopefully of many) trips.  Because I don't have a visa, I can only stay in Guatemala for 90 days at a time before I become an illegal, so I've decided to make my trip out of the country coincide with Thanksgiving.  On Satuurday I will be taking a bus to El Rancho (little more than a few food stands on the side of the road), where I will apparently wait for up to an hour and a half to catch another bus to Cobán where I will meet up with the other two BVC volunteers who are staying there.  We plan to hang around Cobán for a few days and then head to Belize to spend Thanksgiving on a beach!  Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.
   
     That being said, I don't really have anything interesting to report from Esquipulas.  Things are chugging along, I'm staying busy, and having a little fun in between.  However, November has been a tough month for me so far.  First, I'm finally beginning settling into my stay here at the Abadía Jesucristo Cricuficado which means that the excitement of the first month in which everything is new, and the learning of the second month in which I'm finally comfortable enough to begin noticing the cool things about the country, have faded away, and I'm now just living in Guatemala.  Without much to do.  Please don't hear me wrong, it is amazing that I've been given the opportunity to live in Guatemala for a year, for free, learning Spanish, experiencing a really cool culture, and meeting some awesome people.  Also, I'm not the only BVC member going through this.  The more I talk to my friends the more I realize that almost every BVC group is experiencing the feelings of not really being needed.  A few of my friends have summed up this sentiment very precisely.  A friend from Chile writes that living abroad is "much like how I think living in Antarctica would be, or spending a year sailing the ocean.  There’s a lot of mediocrity in between the excitement."  Another friend in the BVC in the Phillipines uses a quote from Arthur Conan Doyle to sum up his thoughts: “I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely” suffice it to say, I'm pretty tired.
     The second reason for my November difficulties is that I've been unwillingly providing room and board for thousands of amoebas that have taken up residence in my GI tract.  This has given me a constant stomach ache as well as making me feel tired and weak all the time.  This Tuesday I went to the stomach doctor to get a check up and was introduced to the Guatemalan health care system.  While I've said before that there is no hospital in Esquipulas, that should not be taken to mean that there is no medical care for the people of Esquipulas.  In my search for an "internalista,"  I found that there are probably a hundred independent doctors in Esquipulas who all have clinics interspersed throughout the city.  Beyond that, you can walk into any of the dozens of pharmacies, describe your problem, and the pharmacist will "prescribe" you medicine.  While it doesn't have all the nice bells and whistles of the American system (and comes with the risk of two different pharmacists prescribing drugs that shouldn't be combined) it seems to work pretty well for the Esquipultecos, and is much, much cheaper.  That being said, my particular doctor is a friend I met here at the monastery, and because of that decided to give me a free consultation!  He set me up with some drugs, and sent me on my way.  The treatment for amoebas here is the medical equivalent of using a napalm strike to start your Coleman grill.  He basically gave me pills to kill everything in my stomach in one fell swoop, then a weeks worth of antibiotics and other pills to help me build back up the good stuff.  A little more than a week after my initial problems, I'm finally feeling good again, and gastrointestinally ready for my Belizean adventures. 
   
     Aside from these small setbacks, things have been moving along here.  I still teach English 3 times a week, and students still come, so that in itself is a success story.  The word about my class is really spreading too, I even had a stray dog wander into class the other day.  The stomach bugs have put a halt to my soccer playing... for now.  Actually, that's how I knew I was sick.  The last time I played, I didn't score any goals (hyuck hyuck).  That could have been due to my stomach problems, or due to the fact that I was facing a truly formidable goalie in the form of a herd of cows that wandered onto the field temporarily shutting down the game.  Instead of making photocopies all day at the library, our focus has shifted to painting the library.  While I generally enjoy painting, the way they do things here is just too different for my tastes.  Instead of using masking tape to cover the areas they don't want to paint, if they get paint where they didn't want it, they just paint over that slip up going back and forth with the colors until it looks good.  I also walked in one day to find them stirring giant 5 gallon paint buckets, not with sticks, but with their arms, in the paint almost to their shoulders.  That being said, the library has moved along nicely, and we are just about finishing up.  It should be all done by the time I get back from my trip.  When Mike and Sister Stefanie were here I began working on building a vegetable garden at the Ciudad de Felicidad.  It moved along nicely until my stomach problems started, and then promptly fell apart.  I had hoped to get it done before I left, but that didn't happen, and now it gets to wait until I return.
     That's all I have for now.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Dia de los Muertos

     The beginning of November in Guatemala brings some very interesting traditions, and some very interesting experiences for a gringito like me.  As October ended and I began seeing my friends' Halloween plans and photos on facebook, I got a little homesick.  So, being the industrious Norte Americano that I am, I picked up a gourd and a knife and decided to make the monastery a little more homey.  Pumpkins are nearly impossible to find here at the monastery, but they do have a green gourd called "ayote."  Given the fact that they use it like a pumpkin (they roast the seeds and have even tried to make pumpkin/ayote pie, basically a pie shell into which they scoop out the ayote and add salt and sugar) I figured it would serve my purposes for making a jack 'o lantern.  What I didn't know is that the largest ayotes are about half the size of pumpkins and feature a rock hard outer shell with a inner shell like a pumpkin's, but about twice as thick.  This turned "carving" a design into "chiseling" a design and effectively thwarted my plans of making some great work of art for the Guatemalans' enjoyment.  Given the restrictions on how detailed I could make it, I settled on a Guatemalan symbol that everyone here would recognize. Gallo Beer. I call it my GALLOte.      
    

     The gallote was unveiled with great success.  Almost everybody in the community commented on it, some even went up to hold it and touch it.  I think it might have been the first time they have seen a jack 'o lantern.  After the mixing of cultures on Halloween, I got to enjoy a thoroughly Guatemalan experience on Day of the Dead.  I had to miss the national holiday of All Saints' Day because another north american was coming into Guatemala, and I had to ride along to get him in order to serve as a translator.  About 11 hours in car all day and nothing to do in the capital, but it wasn't all bad; I had a nice relaxing day away form the monastery and got to eat a lunch at Pizza Hut without a tortilla in sight.

     Day of the Dead is by far my favorite Guatemalan holiday that I have experienced (Fiestas Patrias was kind of a bust except for the reindeer dance).  There was an atmosphere of fun and family, and the entire city seemed to be in a good mood.  I was drawn to the cemetery next to the monastery by the music that I think was audible throughout the entire town, but I can only vouch for the monastery. When I arrived I found something more akin to a summer festival than a remembrance of the dead.  Everyone had decorated the tombs of their loved ones and were sitting outside meeting all of their friends as they walked by.  I got the distinct impression that the families with adjacent burial plots see each other only once a year, on día de los muertos.  Kind of like how families with adjacent cabins in MN might see each other only on the 4th of July.  The day was complete with crock pots full of food, big back slapping hugs, and, obviously, Gallo. 

     Although this stage and speakers were wet up for mass, it makes no sense to let it go to waste.  Let's hijack the speakers and play marimba music all day long!

     There was another strange tradition for day of the dead that I didn't quite understand.  Although the entire cemetery is actually covered in pavement, they laid down so many pine needles (for sale outside the cemetery) that it appeared to be covered in grass.  I have no idea why they did it, but it made the entire cemetery smell like a pine tree stand, solidifying Día de los Muertos as my Día Favorita.

     The AWFLE for this week could actually be considered an AWESOME Foreign Language Experience.
     Santos, one of the postulates, and I were walking around the cemetery seeing the sites when he stopped to talk with someone he knew.  It was a particularly festive group, with all 13 or so of the family members there with food and drink, and they began talking with me.  It was the usual questions:
where are you from? Minnesota.
hmm... is that close to New York? No, it's right next to Canada.
Oh, is it cold?  During the winter, you betcha.
Are you studying to become a priest?  No.  (apparently people think it is funny that I answer this question so fast and emphatically).
What did you study in school? Physics.
Boom, that was it.  The entire group either started laughing or trying to tell me something I couldn't quite make out.  However, when they pulled a chair up to the altar/table/hopefully-not-a-grave that they were working on and pointed to one of the girl's physics book I began to get the picture.  She was doing her physics homework, and couldn't figure a problem out, so they wanted me to help.  It was a simple kinematics problem however, the fact that the cemetery was nearly all cement and there was no breeze to cool the very hot midday sun in conjunction with the fact that the entire family was watching me work, I got flustered and forgot all the equations.  So, to hide my ignorance and the growing sweat droplets on my brow (and back and... everywhere), I pulled the oldest physics teacher trick in the book and tried to give her the slip by just telling her what to do and how it would work out.  My plan backfired and the matronly figure across the table noticed my discomfort and ordered some girls to pour me a drink while to pulled me next to her in the shade.  20 minutes of idle conversation later, I ended up with a lesson in Latin American hospitality, but never finished the poor little girl's problem.

Somehow it just felt so natural to do physics in a cemetery.

(disclaimer: I later did the problem on my own and had no problems, so at least part of my wildly expensive college education is paying off)

2 months

     Well, November is upon us, and with it comes time to analyze my time here.  Foremost on my mind is the fact that, as of the 6th, I have been in Guatemala for the last 2 months.  That means two months since I've had a meal without black beans and tortillas (including breakfast), two months since I've had another Vikings fan to lament the season with, and two months since I've woken up later than 5:30 am.  While I would love to report that I've accomplished something truly spectacular in the last 2 months like achieving a fluency in Spanish or beginning some awesome project that is going to change the world, that just isn't the case.  However, my Spanish does get a little better week to week and I have done some good work.  I'm finding out that my time here is more of a marathon than a 100m sprint, which is something I'm not used to.
     My big project, the hospital up at the orphanage, has gone nowhere.  I have filled out plenty of grant applications, and received plenty of very nicely worded rejection letters, but I have yet to raise one cent.  It pains me to day it, but at this point I feel like I'm working alone on a sinking ship, and I'm about to abandon this ship.  However, Sister Stephanie (a nun from CSBSJU who is staying here until the 14th) had a good idea for a project involving building and starting gardens up at the orphanage.  Hopefully I can have more success with this than the hospital.
     My greatest successes so far have been in the two side projects I have started; teaching English and math. My math lessons take place at the Ciudad de Felicidad.  One of the nuns there is in an algebra class, and hopes to one day teach math to the orphans.  My work basically consists of explaining to her the concepts that she does not understand from class.  Not overly exciting, but very difficult in that I'm trying to explain math in a foreign language. It keeps me on my toes.  The English class is a different story.  First of all, it's not an official class, just something I put together at the request of some friends and opened up to the public.  Second, while I learned math almost exclusively in classrooms and have a huge amount of experience in how math classes operate, I learned English as a small child through a process more similar to osmosis than to classroom learning.  Therefore, unlike math, I have no idea how English should be taught.  The little hints I have come from Spanish classes, the last of which I took my sophomore year of college, and the most recent intro class was in grade school.  While this hasn't made my life especially easy, I'm plugged along.  However, I've also struggled with some other aspects of teaching.  The first is that there is no white/chalk board to write on.  I've literally never been in a classroom without one.  I'm like a fish out of water.  I found a way around that by writing everything on papers that I tape to the walls, but that solution is limited by the fact that I'm pretty sure some of my students are illiterate.  I'm also finding that amongst the revolving door of students that range in number from 5 to 15, some of my students are quite good at English, while others have never spoken a word.  I'm having trouble with balancing keeping the experienced ones interested without losing the inexperienced ones.  As they say, "asi es la vida."  For now I guess I'll just try to keep my head above water and keep the students coming (I've already lost 4 "regulars").
     All in all, after 2 months, I've managed to make some friends and become quite a bit more comfortable with my life here in Esquipulas.  While I haven't done anything spectacular, everyday brings a new type of adventure, and I'm enjoying myself.
     My awkward foreign language experience of the week contains some adult content, so if you are under 18, run and get your parents to explain it to you.  As I have probably said before, the people here love teaching me new slang, the more inappropriate the better.  Today's little tidbit is a greeting that they find especially funny both for its content and for its crafty little double entendre.  The saying is "como la minifalda" which translates as "how is the miniskirt?"  The correct answer is "como la vida, cada día mas cerca del hollo"  "like life, every day a little closer to the hole" (get it? the hole can mean the grave or because the miniskirts seem to get shorter every day is can mean the... well, I hope you can figure it out).  While the pun may merely make you cringe, imagine being asked that question in the sacristy of the church described by Pope John Paul II as "the Central America capital of the faith."  Sufficiently uncomfortable to earn it's spot as this week's AWkward Foreign Language Experience (Awfle).

A beautiful country

     While the doctors were here I asked one of the nurses what she thought of Guatemala, fully expecting the typical "it's a really pretty country, lots of cool people etc." but her answer to the question made me step back and look at my situation here.  In response to my question, she said only one word: "Depressing."  Over the next few days I struggled to convince her that Guatemala is really an amazing place, presenting her arguments like a toddler trying to impress a teacher, but she continually shut me down.

"What about the mountains? Those are really pretty."
    "We have those in California"
"What about the weather, it's nice literally ALL THE TIME"
    "It's nice all the time in California too"
"Fresh fruit everyday"
    "... fresh fruit in California too"
"Well, what about the people, they are an amazing people with beautiful traditions"
    "They are starving to death and have no access to even the most basic necessities."

     Eventually, right when I was about to give up and call it a lost cause, I hit a breakthrough.  Yes, the people are unbelievably poor, but they have an incredible sense of community because of that.  A friend related the story of interviewing a local woman for a catholic article and asking her whether or not she did charity work.  She said no.  As the conversation progressed it became evident that every day, her family shared their lunch for their poor neighbor and every evening, their other neighbors shared their dinner with her.  Thinking that she was on a breakthrough for a front page article, my friend asked her if she did this because Jesus said to do things like this.  No, the lady replied, I do it because she could be my sister.  Her sense of community was so strong, that she looked upon all of her neighbors as brothers and sisters.
     Guatemala also offers an opportunity to see the better side of humanity.  Yes, it is sad to see such poverty, and the corruption and greed that leads to that poverty is depressing, but because of that poverty, one has the opportunity to see people doing great things to help people.  I have seen such generosity from people who give their time and money just to help the poor down here that it really makes me feel good about humanity.
 
     Although I found an acceptable answer to what makes Guatemala beautiful, that question has still been in the back of my mind for the past few days.  In this quest to see the beauty of the country, William  and I climbed to the antennas, which are located at the highest point in the region.  The climb was somewhat difficult, on the way there it was about 12.5 Km all uphill, by the time we reached the top, my feet had ceased being covered in blisters and had converted to one big blister, and my hip flexers were crying for mercy.  Joe Vardas would be so disappointed at the state I've let myself fall into.  On the upside, I learned how to say the word blister, "ampolla," and the entire was was absolutely gorgeous.

     About 7 Km into the walk we passed the "piedra de los compadres."  The legend has it that a woman and her godfather were visiting the "cristo negro." On the trip back home they stopped here to rest for the night.  During the night they were overcome by carnal desires and gave into them.  Because two people who share such a close spiritual connexion shouldn't have sex, they were turned to stone, hence the design of the one stone on top of the other.  While we were walking, there was a group doing some kind of ritual that was described to me as witchcraft.  Apparently they often sacrifice chickens at this place. Interesting to know that Esquipulas is home not only to a Catholic pilgrim site, but also others.

 Though it was a cloudy day, the hike was beautiful.  From about halfway up, we began to see the country side all around us open up revealing rolling mountains, coffee, banana, and other fruit plantations, and lots and lots of volcanoes.

 Here, Willy is showing where we are headed to.  The antennas are quite a way above the cloud line.

      The view from the top was incredible, we could see both Esquipulas (on the left) and Quetzaltepeque (on the right), one of the oldest cities in the region. 

 

Just over my left shoulder is the city of Esquipulas.  If you have a high resolution monitor you might be able to zoom in and barely see the basilica.  Below is a zoomed in picture. The larger than normal white blob is the bacilica where I live. 

     I find Latin American cemeteries fascinating.  This one, which was just off the side of the road, separated from houses by barbed wire, shows the typical above ground burial plots adorned with real and plastic flowers as well as tinsel whatever else is on hand (used coke bottles are popular).

      My last reason why Guatemala is such a beautiful country. PETA would love it.

AWkward Foreign Language Experience.  Having to translate emails one of the novices has been receiving from aspiring Russian brides.  Some website somehow got his email, and he has been receiving messages and pictures from Russian women who want to marry him and move to Guatemala.  Except, they are in english.  He has me translate every lurid detail (and there are quite a few) and thinks it is hilarious to watch me try to come up with all the words in spanish.

Catholic Healthcare West

     Last week the doctors from Catholic Healthcare West came down to Esquipulas to give free care to the people of the Chiquimula region who, because of money and distance, cannot see a doctor here in Guatemala.  While this meant free medical consulting and medicine to the people of Chiquimula and a chance to do a really good thing for the doctors, this also helped ease me into being alone here at the monastery after Kenan's departure.  It was a fast paced week of working in the clinic, traveling, and enjoying the opportunity to pretend I'm back home by speaking English and drinking beer with some really cool people.  However, this was not my greatest week in terms of taking pictures.  I guess I clam up when everyone in the group is taking the same picture I was thinking about taking, so this blog will be completely without pictures until the doctors have a chance to send me theirs.
     Our first day with the doctors was spent with a trip to Horcones and Timushán, two Aldeas about  a 1.5 hour, or 50 Km drive from Esquipulas.  My group went to Timushán, about 2 Km from the Honduras border.  After the adventure of getting there (we rode in the back of a pickup over "roads" that barely resemble mountain bike courses), we began setting up and some of us realized that we were in over our heads.  Some people struggled with spanish, some with seeing the great disparities between what we have and consider normal and what these people have and consider normal, I struggled with having to realize my Mom's dream for me.  5 years after I almost went to pharmacy school, I spent one week working as a pharmacy technician in Guatemala and realized the bullet I dodged all those years ago.  At first I struggled with drug names and reading the doctors writing, I eventually got the hang of it.  By the end of the week, I was cruizing along, and only struggling with the doctors' writing.  Seriously, what looks like the number 2?  Nothing.  Why, then, do doctors see the need to write ii with a line over it?  I see that and I think "the second time derivative of pi." That is zero. That makes no sense.
     Anyways, the first day was quite an adventure, we saw a lot of people, gave out a lot of drugs, and ended the day having done a good thing, feeling good about ourselves, and worn out.
     The rest of the week kind basically followed that pattern, and fell into a rhythm from there.  The pharmacists I was working with, Liz, and I spent all of our time at the Centro de Salud in Esquipulas.  It was a busy week, the doctors estimate that they saw 125 people per clinic per day.  Sick people need medicine, so that meant that Liz and I were busy behind the pharmacy counter.  It was also a fun time; like I said, I enjoyed speaking English and it was really fun to show some new people the place that has become my home over the last 2 months. 
     The week did have its share of bumps in the road.  From health promoters charging the people for telling them about the free clinic and denying them access if they couldn't pay (that operation was shut down as soon as we found out about it) to someone forgetting to alert the people in the aldeas that the doctors were in town (and the subsequent radio advertisement for free medical aid to cover the mistake) we met each hurdle and were able to get over it.  However, near the end of the week there was one problem that proved too much even for all the doctors who still wanted to stay and help the people.
     Because I generally lack the soft touch and even handedness that accompanies politically correctness, I will defer to the doctors' blog to describe the incident.  From http://missionsblog.chwhealth.org/.

Though our goal is to serve as many patients as possible on these missions, the safety of our team members is the foundation upon which all our work is built. As our mission progressed we encountered a few disheartening thefts from our rooms at the basilica. The monks graciously refunded us what we lost. We were of one mind about continuing the mission and set about setting up our clinics the next day.

But when it was discovered that the spare keys to our rooms had gone missing, and that re-keying all the locks was impossible on such short notice, we felt we had to make the difficult decision to bring everyone home early in order to ensure their safety.

We are heartbroken that we could not finish our last two clinic days, but are confident that the basilica will take steps to ensure that future guests are well cared for. This is a set-back, but we are resolute in our mission of caring for those in need and we do believe we'll be back in Esquipulas next year.
     Thus ended the adventures of the Catholic Healthcare West in Esquipulas.  Who knows, maybe in 20 years I'll be laying on a psychiatrists bed and the abandonment issues from Kenan and the Doctors will surface.  For now, even though they had to leave under unhappy circumstances, I am comforted by thinking about all the great things that we did while they were here.  From the people who benefited from the peace of mind of seeing a doctor, to the malnourished children who were put back on the right path with dietary supplements (plumpy nut!) and anti worm pills, all the way to the chronic patients who were left enough medicine to last them until the next group of doctors arrive, the impact of this visit was very positive in Esquipulas.  And not only for the sick, but for the people who received counseling ranging from what foods to eat/avoid all the way to just boiling water, and for the nurses who sat in on lectures given by the doctors, and for the med students who got real experience working alongside the doctors.  These doctors made a positive impact here in Esquipulas, even though their trip can't be remembered without thinking of the sadder circumstances, I am made happy by thinking of the happier ones.

... And then there was one

     Last Thursday Kenan left Guatemala, giving me the dubious honor of being possibly the only non-monk gringo left in Esquipulas.  He must have been jonesing for some flag football and meals not centered around black beans and rice, because after making the decision to leave, he wasted no time in booking his flight as soon as possible.  While his timing was good (I had to return to Esquipulas on Saturday) the week leading up to our trip to Guatemala City was a bit rushed with finding transportation and lodging, but despite all the stress, Kenan did find time to do all the things he would miss one last time.

Here he was caught in the act losing his last game of Guatemalan Hearts.  

     Kenan's flight left around midday Thursday, which meant that I was able to stretch my trip to drop him off at the airport into a three day vacation from the monastery, which was very needed after more than a month of being cooped up here.  A friend of mine who used to work at the library named Dulio decided to tag along with us gringos, giving me a travel partner back to Esquipuas after dropping Kenan off.  We left Esquipulas ready for a wild vacation on the town, but after the 5.5 hour boiling hot bus ride, plans had changed a bit.

I snapped this picture of Dulio comfy in bed around 7:00 pm.

    

     Finally Thursday came, and I couldn't delay it any longer.  Kenan said his last goodbyes as I wept gently to myself, and promised that he'd think of me when he took his first nice, long, hot shower, slept well in a soft bed, and enjoyed drinking tap water, all things that I have another 9 months without.

 
     Now alone in Guatemala, I decided to see the sights with the help of my more than capable tour guide, Dulio.

      Or so I thought.  

     Luckily this was the only dead end freeway we ended up walking down during our all day walk from the airport back to the hotel.  Guatemala City turned out to be very similar to most big cities except for the overwhelming smell of urine, but we did see some interesting things.  We were able to tour both the bank museum, chronicling the history of Guatemalan currency and the Railroad museum, with it's history of money, corruption, and politics, all at the hands of the railroad authorities.

   There is also some spectacular architecture in Guatemala City, what really interested me was the aqueducts dating to the first European cities in the area.  I've made a few jokes about Guatemalan infrastructure in the past, but in all honesty, some of the old bridges really astounded me.  This one was built in 1894!

As a reference, the 35W bridge was built in 1967 and survived a total of 0 earthquakes.

   While I would have loved to stay and experience more of the big city, the doctors from Catholic Healthcare West arrived in Esquipulas on Friday, and I had to return to meet them.  While it was nice to escape the monastery for awhile, it I'm actually looking foward to returning to non-street food and a little routine.

     My AWkward Foreign Language Experience of the week (AWFLE) came upon my return to working in the library.  I was sitting behind the counter as Willy was helping some very cute girls.  At one point, one of the girls looks at me, cocks her head to the side and says "que chulo sus ojos" (you have pretty eyes).  The mixture of me not expecting her to talk (I was thinking in english) and the fact that "chulo" means either "tacky" or "ugly" in Chile left me staring at her like a complete idiot.  She looked at Willy and said "oh, he doesn't understand spanish?" as Willy broke down laughing.  I sat there flabbergasted, trying to trying to regain a foothold in the conversation, but by the time I actually figured out she was complementing me, the only spanish I was able to spit out was "gracias" as she was leaving the library.  I guess I can chalk that one up to experience.