Final Day in Xela

My final friday night in xela was great. I checked out Being John Malcovich a great movie you should all see if you haven't already. It was a refreshing dose of American culture which has been sorely missed at times. The theater was a cafe with a 30 inch tv and a pretty impressive sound system. I have been told that Guatemalans do not go out to see movies frequently they just watch them at home because they hit the movie theaters and cable simultaneously anyways. So there are a couple small cafes in xela which show video tapes to audiences of mostly gringos.

Following the movie. I headed to a bar with a couple friends. We were just hanging out grabbing a couple beers. And we got into a conversation with a couple guat dudes that were completely rip shit. Have I mentioned that the guatemalans have a problem with the fire water. They get all shades of wasted down here. It is pretty sad really, includes stumbling, vomiting, hitting on nasty chicks, etc. I have never seen anything like it and I saw some pretty bad stuff at school. The dudes convinced us to get a bottle of rum. So Saturday morning I was greeted with my 1st Xela hangover. It was a fun night though. Oh... and on the way home we noticed that the two guatemalan dudes were making out in the park, which was interesting.

On Saturday, I returned to Lake Atitlan. This time I was at Pana which is a city on the opposite side of the lake from where we hiked to the weekend prior. Pana is very touristy and full of hippies. The food was good but I don't see my self returning to Pana again. We took a boat ride around the lake and visited a couple other small pueblos (Santiago and Santa Catarina). The lake is huge. It took about 30 minutes to cross at cruising speed. But it is absolutely beautiful and the weather is great. I am feeling good about my decision to live down there for the two weeks following my trip to Honduras next week.

On Saturday night after dinner, a group of us hit a bar on the main strip in Pana. We were about the only gringos in there which was pretty cool. Although again there were many completely wasted guatemalans in there. One of which was adament on having a conversation with me. My spanish is decent now. I can understand most of what people say except when they are slurring all their words together and very excited to be speaking to a gringo. The enthusiasm was appreciated, the steady stream of syliva was not. Also, some large guat chick wearing a pseudo belly dancer outfit was doing an excellent job of bumping into me constantly on the dance floor. And a lot of you know how little patience I have when getting bumped into at bars. Luckily, I didn't make a scene - well she was bigger than me - a lot. Came back on Sunday.

Have I mentioned the prostitutes in Xela? I think not. But if I have don't get the idea that I am hung up on them. Its just an interesting part of the cultural experience. I was headed to the Menonite Bakery (best donuts in North America, I mean ridiculously good - I am a frequent customer). Anyways, I was headed to the Bakery with my teacher and we passed a group of girls on a street corner. They were saying something to me, but I was oblivious (dad's gift to me of not being able to hear background noise). My teacher indicated the sales proposition and I was pretty appalled. Don't get me wrong, I like young girls as much as the next guy. But these girls were pretty gnarly.

An interesting thing about the Bakery. It is only open Tuesdays and Fridays, I guess the menonite schedule is cook one day, sell the goods the next day and rest a day, then repeat. So Monday is cooking, Tuesday is selling, Wednesday is a day off, Thursday cooking, Friday selling. Weekend free. I think this is a schedule that we can all live by.

The main excitement of the week is that I finally got on the phone with the person I have been corresponding with via emailing in Bolivia for about 2 months regarding the volunteer work opportunity. And it looks like everything is good to go. The plan is for me to help a man named Peter McFarren (director of Quipus an NGO in Bolivia) with a new business venture that is he has underway. Peter has an impressive resume which includes founding Quipus, opening a couple museums, an orphanage, etc. and is an accomplished professional photographer. Peter is starting a company called DESATEL which will provide power, phones and internet service to small pueblos in Bolivia. DESATEL is a company with three directors, Peter (Quipus), a director of the University of NUR, and a director of CARE Bolivia. In reality it is a private for-profit company being formed by 3 NGO's in Bolivia. I will be working with Peter for January - June. It is a little bit of a leap of faith but I have been told great things about him by several people.

Today is my final day in Xela. Which means there is a reasonably good chance that I will wake up with a hangover tomorrow for the bus ride to Chiquimula. Tomorrow morning I am hopping on a Pullmen (1st class) bus to Guat City and then switching to another bus to Chiquimula. Have to crash in Chiquimula for the night cause the border closes at 6pm. Then heading to Copan Honduras to check out the ruins there on Saturday before heading to the Bay Islands for a week. There will be 4 or 5 of us hanging out on Utila for the week. Getting scuba certified, laying around on the beach, etc. Yes, I have a very tough life.

BTW - to those who were unhappy with no digestive update in the last email you will be glad to know there was an incident this week but after a few stressful minutes it was over and all is back on track.