Hello, Xela

[the following is excerpted and edited from an email I sent while travelling]

Chicken bus, chicken bus, just my luck

I trust some of you are singing along to this old song, if you know which one I mean!

So yes, I left San Pedro via the chicken bus, on Sunday.  One good sign in heading for Quetzeltanango (known universally as Xela, pronounced ¨Shay-la¨) is that no tourists buses went, at all, from San Pedro on Xela.  San Pedro is a lovely setting, but I was not sad to go.  It's a town divided, and the gringo scene which dominates the pretty lakeside is just, well...totally and utterly 100% not my thing.   Reading my guidebook now, I see that it does refer to San Pedro as a "party town with a certain reputation" but I think all I read was "volcano hikes." I would describe the scene as:  Blissed-out barefooted, tatted and dreaded-out, beer goggling, crass and completly lacking in any cultural sensitivity type crowd, there for the happy hour and the cheap beer and drugs. So, adios, San Pedro!

I rolled out of town on the chicken bus, and I admit I was nervous and feeling weepy.  Travel days just suck.  And chicken buses (old US school buses painted in the most fabulous ways you can imagine) have a reputation for being late, crowded, and driven by maniacs.  Lucky for me, the first bus was not crowded at all at 7 on a Sunday morning, and while the second one was packed I did manage to get half a butt-cheek on a seat, and we did not die on the curves. So I was feeling good to arrive in Xela early.   Things dipped downhill in Xela. Main bus terminals are nerve-wracking affiars, and in a new city your best bet is to get out of there as fast as possible, keeping all your bags in tight grip.  I caught the first taxi I found, a filthy rattletrap, with a young driver. In the short and not-very-fast drive to my school, the driver hit a dog.  It was horrible. We did not kill it.  When we got to the school, my fine young taxi driver arbitrarily upped the price $10Q, and though we'd agreed on the price at the start and I  did not mis-hear him.  Feeling traumatized by the dog incident (and lacking exact change), I didn´t argue, but I felt disgusted and annoyed (the 8 minute taxi ride now having cost almost two times my 3 hour bus ride).  The ribbon on top of this little package was that I was standing in front of my school, which I have to say looked a little scruffy and forlorn, on a virtually abandoned street (everything is closed on Sundays), and my school was closed up tight as a drum to:  no one home, nada, cerrado.  So there I was with all my stuff, hangry and thirsty and feeling annoyed with humanity.  And of couse I had no idea where I was in town.

After seething on the doorstep of the school, having an appropriate mourning period for the dog, and reminding myself that the taxi driver had only ripped me off $1.30 worth ( and heaven knows he needed it more), I gathered up my stuff, asked the first person I saw how to get to the central park, and took myself on down to the park.  Everything is closed on Sunday mornings, but I saw in my guidebook an Indian place that opened at noon (supposedly), and I was in need of some serious comfort food.  I lingered hopefully outside the restaurant, salivating, and was relieved when at 12:15 they did indeed open, and it was indeed a wonderful restaurant.  Fortified by a huge delicious vegetarian lunch and an even bigger pot of chai tea, I walked back to the school (now open) and got myself settled in with my family.

Halfway through a meal that restored all my faith in humanity. 

Xela is a big city, no doubt about it, and as such of course it has its city drawbacks. It is high, about 7700 feet, and therefore chilly. Sunny during the day, tho, like 70s, and I did bring warmer clothing for the evenings.  My family here in Xela consists of one grandmother who is very sweet. My room could only be described as a cell, and it does not have a window (!!!argh!!!)  but I only go back when it is dark, when I do homework, eat, read, and then go to bed.  I eat all my meals with my family.  It is a 5 minute walk to the school.

My colorful cell at my homestay in Xela.

My very sweet abuela, Ceclia, in her kitchen. Note that this is quite a bit more modern than my house in San Pedro. Every morning she sat and drank her hot tea while I ate my porridge.  One morning she served me Fruit Loops. I have never eaten Fruit Loops before.  I did not realize that in addition to their toxic-chemical-coloring, they come in a disgusting variety of fruit flavors, what tasted something like banana-mango with kiwi-strawberry, that kind of thing!  My abuela asked if I preferred Aveena (a watery cream-of-wheat type hot cereal), and I gratefully said "Me gusto mucho Aveena!"  and therefore I happily ate porridge for the rest of my breakfasts.   

Pop the School

The school, Pop Wuj [Mayan word],  is run by a teachers collective, and is night and day difference from the one in San Pedro.  I could not be more pleased!!!  Our first day we had a great intro to the school and its various missions (student scholarships to rural children, a kitchen stove improvement project to replace open fire pits, and a medical clinic).  I´m signed up on Wed to help deliver materials for the next round of stove building.  There are students here learning medical Spanish and helping out in the clinic. Everyone lives with another family.  All the students are here to learn (not learn-while-drinking).  There are fun activities planned including one this weekend led by a teacher up a smaller volcano. I´m already signed up for that, too, of course!!

Mom asked what I´ve been eating.  It varies widely, but it does seem to almost always involve fresh homemade corn tortillas--which I love and hope desperately to replicate in WA.  I practiced making some with my family in San Pedro.  The families know and seem to try to provide a wide variety of food to us foreign students.  I honestly could eat rice and beans and tortillas every day, and some of that has been served (along with plantains, a favorite!), but my first family tried hard to serve other things like pasta.  There are veggies, but it´s still heavy on starches.  Lettuce or cucumber salads at times. Fresh and delicious queso blanco once, but otherwise almost zero dairy.  Often eggs, for dinner or breakfast or both.  Strawberries are in season around San Pedro, so I always had those and/or pineapple, which is cheap here too.  The only thing I really have not cared for is a very mushy form of tamale served in a leaf, usually with chicken inside that I pick out.  The cornmeal is so mushy it just feels slimy, but I eat it anyway.  We had cake for New Years!  It´s a tradition, for dinner and at midnight!  I also tried a local rice/chocolate drink (like drinking hot rice pudding with chocolate) and a plantain drink (tasty, made by my very sweet 11 year old family member in San Pedro, so that I could try it).  My stomach has gurgled at me once or twice in a mildy threatening manner, but that has been it (knock on wood!!!)

Taxi drivers aside, I can honestly say Guatemalans are an extraordinarily friendly and tranquil group of people. While walking down the street, you often look up to find the other person peering at you and smiling.   I was sitting in the park yesterday and a nice older man named Carlos struck up a conversation with me.  I learned about a neat train museum I will need to check out for Dad (Latin Ameria´s first train ran from the coast to Xela).  The best part about this little story is that we conversed in Spanish, and I can honestly say I understood most of it!  I proudly moved my self-described Spanish level up to "conversational" based on that incident alone (tho I confess it goes the other way at times, too, when I suddenly forget even the present tense of a common verb and my head wants to explode).  Poco a poco, as mi maestro said in San Pedro.

Today, I signed up to take a weaving class from a local women´s cooperative!  I was so happy about this I skipped as I left (having set it all up in Spanish, too).  My interest in Guate textiles was one of the primary reasons I wanted to come to Guatemala in general and the highlands and Xela in particular.  The lady who I talked too seemed very nice, and when she smiled I could see that all her teeth were edged in gold, and she had gold stars inlaid in her 2 front teeth.  I think all the lessons will be in Spanish, so that could be interesting, but I trust that show and tell will get me 90% of the way there.  I do know the Spanish word for weaving: tejido!!

I am so pleased with Day 1 in Xela it´s tempting to stay on my third week, but I feel strongly that I must get to the jungle and see some birds, and that means going lower and traveling a bit more.  So right now I am laying plans to leave Xela around about Jan 13 and make my way to the El Peten region, which is also Tikal, which I am thinking I really cannot miss. And, the birding in Tikal is supposed to be oustanding, as one of Tikal´s unique featuers is that it rises straight from the jungle, so that will really be a two-fer.  That will be fully on the gringo trail again, but I think it is a "don´t miss" spot. I miss the birds and butterflies so ubiquitous to my travels in Costa Rica, Nicarauga, Panama, and the Yucatan.

That is all for now!   I know this is a mini-novel, but I am excited to share some of my experiences. Travel is an up and down affair, tho, so all news, stories, ordinary happenings and whatnot from the mother ship are always appreciated and read eagerly when I get online.  Hope the weather is being kind to all, and that all are well.

Hasta leugo,
Rosemary

With my teacher, Zulma, at Pop Wuj School.

Detail of a hand-embroidered wall-hanging I bought from Catarina, a woman who comes during the Pop Wuj breaks and sells to the students.   I loved the bird and butterfly motif.