sabbatical

Last night Wednesday was a bit different than I thought it would be. In ¨La Sala¨ we played Trivia (Trivial Pursuit in a way with different categories) which was actually fun. Our goal is not to be last and to beat the boys. Camilla and me were dead tired and had problems focusing on the questions in Spanish since the translation wasn’t always correct. We left around 11pm. Before I left Mattheo was asking what is wrong with me being so tired etc. so I told him also that I needed to be fit for the next day for climbing the volcano. He said in that case sees you tomorrow. Got a tuc-tuc straight away and went off to bed.

Thursday: It was a normal school day. Some days depending on the topic I have the feeling that I understand more and all but at others it is same old same old. Feels like taking one-step forward and taking 2 back. Frustrating! The funny thing is though that although my Latin is buried in nowhere land it comes to surface first before the Spanish - go figure! Playing games though is always entertaining and being able to talk about any topic of interest as well. Here they don’t use the ¨vos/ vosotros¨ it is not existent in written or spoken Spanish. At first it was weird but now it is fine just means one thing less to learn. After lunch which was a very quick one and I had asked Ema if she could prepare me a little snack to take along on the way. I was off to the bus station where Vilma was collecting us all to take us to Antigua. There the others from Appe (mother school) were waiting for us. In total we were something like 30 people. Mattheo spotted me and we started chatting. He introduced me to George (Dutch guy) who is really nice as well. They were such unbelievable little geeks playing chess in the bus. Please! The rest was chatting away happily. The bus was an American school bus and in good shapes also the seats. When I heard two rows across from me Dutch I was like wow I can still understand it. I got told that lots of Dutch people are around here but hadn’t bumped into before. I understood them but when I wanted to answer the first thing that came to my mind was Spanish - guess that is a good sign o,) We arrived after more than an hour due to traffic at the volcano Pacaya which is a bit more than 2550m high. We weren’t able to climb the way to the crater since it had erupted 3 days before and had created a new crater and destroyed the normal footpath so our guides were taking a different way. It was great! In the beginning it was wood than plains than rocks and lava. In the beginning we were all sweating in no time since the climb was exhausting on the plains the wind was freezing and at top it was hot. At the top we were like 1m away from flowing lava that was great but very hot and the sulphur in the air made you cough (those with asthma had coughing fits non-stop). Groups formed quickly as to different levels of fitness and liking. I took some great pictures and once I can download everything on CD than I have to find a place to make the image smaller and download them onto my site. Mattheo and me chatted all the way down which of course got rumors started. He will leave soon one of those who are only here for a month that is nothing basically but work is calling. We were all sweaty and covered in dust and had a good time. I was surprised that I wasn’t aching that day or the next day guess although there is no sport to be done here I am still fit o,) That night I thought that I would be beat and only want my bed but after having had a bite and a shower I was fit to go out. We were a group of 10 including some host brothers. We went for a drink an afterwards to ¨La Sala¨. They had live music and dancing. We had only walked in when the first guy was already asking me to dance. I have already forgotten his name but he was nice. I will see him today (Monday) and since he speaks no English I finally get to practice more Spanish o,) Chelsea was holding my jacket and bag so I had to find her since I wanted to have a drink. Instead he bought me water and we danced some more. Every time I disappeared he found me again and we spent all evening dancing. He was really cool and arranged a tuc-tuc for a very good price for Chelsea and me. Home finally by 2am - had calculated an hour earlier!!!

Friday: In the morning I had a very early shower since I had to pack my bag for the trip. At this point it wasn’t sure if we would get the tickets for the trip or not. Therefore we were already formulating back-up plans. School in the morning was exhausting because to get my brain around those stupid irregular verbs takes forever. The second half was better when we teamed up with Stephanie and her teacher to play games. We had lots of laughs and time passed quickly. At home a quick lunch than Camilla came by to pick me up to go to Antigua to meet Chelsea. She was doing the entire running around and chasing since we couldn’t get a hold of Marty who had to give us the tickets for the trip. Chelsea found us at the post office and gave us the thumbs up. JIPEE! We still had some time and walked to Parque Central for the pick-up. Alex had phoned to tell us that he was on his way to meet us. We saw him for a bit over half an hour than he went to meet his sister and we were on our way to Coban.

Mum, no need to worry my health is just fine and I am doing a lot better than some. My theory is anyway having some drinks (alcohol) kills anything unwanted!!! o,)
Time to head off for my date and I’ll write later more about how our trip was!

My wash was already waiting for me in my room all neatly folded and put on the shelves. I thanked Ema and she did not mention any money. We had dinner together and afterwards I had my shower. Since lately it gets colder at night I actually got my hair dryer for the first time since I did not want to have dripping wet hair. Chelsea and me were ready to leave around 8pm. We both did not feel like picking up anyone else or go around knocking on doors so just got ourselves a tuc-tuc and went to Antigua. Under way we saw this huge accident involving a car and three ambulances and police. It really did not look good at all. (Today in the paper it said that a guy on a bicycle had hit a car. He was in the hospital and the bike was in three pieces.) In Antigua we went to Monoloco and got ourselves a big table. The only joke was that normally we need one that big to fit like 10 people but this time we made up a group of four in the end. We were early but not on time for a spot under the roof since the night air can be rather chilly when you just sit there and chat. So in the end Bianca and Co. ended up sitting at our table. Great! On the other hand they bugger of early anyway and do not drink really either. I got to meet Franz that night and we hit if off straight away. Thanks for being my warm water bottle otherwise it would have been really cold and poor Hedda could not have borrowed my sweater. Since it was his last night we went dancing for the last 45 minutes in the place right next to it. Surprise, surprise it was still enough room to move on the dance floor in comparision to Saturday night were entering was already an art. You certainly know how to move, Schatz! When it closed and the others went home. We felt like chatting some more and we ended up in his hostel. Sitting in a TV room exchanging life stories when suddenly we got a new companion - a little black baby kitten! How very fitting since the place was called The Black Cat! I thought I will stay until around 3.30am since his shuttle had to come and pick him up around 4am. Instead there were no taxis to be had at that hour (new information and you can not just call a taxi by phone like at home!) and walking the streets at that hour is different because it is all empty and quiet but not dangerous if anyone wonders. I had to return to the hostel since there was no way that I would stay in the street all night. Franz was rather surprised to see me again but that way he actually got his personal good bye committee. Hope all went well since the shuttle was not on time wih checking-in etc.! I did not have any paper to write a letter to stay awake but had some pictures with me so I played games to stay awake. At 6am I left and it was freezing cold. People around me were going to work or just arriving to stack up there place in the market; clothed in heavy woolly sweaters, caps and the whole lot and little me still in the out-going clothes from the night before. I got lucky and got a tuc-tuc to take me back home. I arrived home shortly after 6am. Ema and Mario were already up and running and just said Buenos dias. I went straight for a shower which felt hot and that is only an indication for how cold I am since here the shower is never more than just below body temperature. Once I got out of the shower Chelsea handed me our cell phone and just went for you. Sweety thanks for the call which means my cell phone is working now! To whoever cares to call Chelsea/ me on our new cell phone: +502-555 11350!! Chelsea and me still have to figure out how best to distribute the phone between us. I was up and running and went for school and although the sun was coming through I was still very cold. With no sleep at all I made more sense today than yesterday in conversation. Only when trying to do the irregular verbs it was getting a bit hard to focus. The vocabulary is there and the more it gets activated the more comes back. Sometimes I look at words and the meaning eludes me which is kind of frustrating. Today after lunch I made the decision time to get some sleep since I want to go out again tonight.

The plans for this week are tomorrow after lunch to go with the school to the volcano and Friday to Sunday Chelsea, Camilla and me will go to Coban if things work out the way we have it in mind.

the pictures turned out well and i left the negatives to get copies made {1 copy cost 2 quetzales}. they will be something to remember that weekend by. i did watch a bit of TV and did some homework and went of to bed around 10pm.
didn´t sleep well at first i was too hot than i was too cold and woke up at 4.45am and an hour later and than every 15 minutes for no good reason. school wasn´t a big success today so we played memory with pictures and words on it and i had to always repeat the opposite of what was on the card so to practice my vocabulary, good huh'

this keyboard is the weirdest i had yet because i can´t use it the normal way although they are all in English. i can´t get it to write with caps and all the extra signs next to the numbers also don´t work.

after class i went home, had lunch and than wrote a bit and checked my email. i met some of the others for after school activity and today the program was go visit a macadamia farm. i got to meet some more students from the school in Antigua. the bus ride was wonderful when you all squeeze on a two seater with three people and the middle is completely blocked but the guy still tried to get through to collect the fare. the farm was interesting but since my mind wasn´t as clear as normal i understood like half of it. really don´t know what is going on but i am not sick. afterwards i managed to finally get the mobile activated now all i have to figure out is how to use it but i am sure that Chelsea is dying to do just that. time to head home now and check if all my wash is dry and how much that will cost. i want a shower and fresh clothes than it will be dinner time. we will go out tonight probably until the end but the good thing here is that all places close around 12.45-1am so you always know when you will be in bed if you stay til the end.

After I had written my entry yesterday it was time to go home. Being Sunday here means that students don't get any meals served only some families will put cornflakes on the table in the morning or if they have a family get together than we sometimes profit from it as well and get some sort of dinner. In our case we went to the local bakery and got some fresh bread and bought some juice. The thing is here that we drink lots of water and tea and that gets a bit boring after a while. Juice, smoothies or so are a real treat than! Some of us long here for sweets and they have different sorts here than we are used but they aren't bad. Chocolates as Camilla found out today aren't always so delicious since they have partly melted and than gone hard again and look really odd! Since Chelsea and me didn't have much sleep we decided not to go into Antigua but crashed into our beds around 9.15pm. Originally we were debating if should go for a poker game but decided that we will see everyone again Tuesday since locals and foreigners go out to " Monoloco" being ladies night. We needed our beauty sleep and wanted to be fresh for work and class.
I have a new teacher now called Carmen. The first two hours were fun and I had the feeling that I wasn't doing too bad. After the break though I had the feeling that the words were all in my mind but they just wouldn't come out right. By the time I came home for lunch I was beat. Now that we have changed to morning classes there are more people to chat with and new arrivals are also in between. One more German girl who is really nice called Susanne who arrived Friday and had no student in her family and therefore got dumped in the deep end. She had a kind of lonely weekend so she is with us right now and we show here what little information we have gathered so far. I had lunch and unwound in front of the TV. My family has got cable so we have all sort of channels like FOX, HBO and even a German channel. The funny thing is that on some channels you can switch the language from English to Spanish and vice versa. If you switch to English than you end up with Spanish undertitles which is really funny because they aren't even accurate. At 2pm we started walking from door to door to collect everyone. Here it is common that no one has door bells you just knock on the door or gates. In the bus we met some more students from our school and we went to Antigua together. We split up though since we all needed to do different things. Today is the first time that I actually bought anything. Found some earrings (had not taken any jewelery with me) and a little bag over the shoulder in which I put a pen, camera, money , house key etc. so far I have tried to always put things in pockets put only one pair of trousers can handle everything. I had to bring some film away for development an had a conversation about how much that costs and how long it takes to get developed. Gee, my words at first didn't want to come out but in the end it was okay. The same thing for asking prices for a SIM card and trying to find out what provider offers what. Seems that you can only text in Guatemala and than the only other consideration would be if you want to call the US since one seems to be cheaper. No we just want a phone to text friends or be called. I got around to change money so we aren't broke anymore since Chelsea and me help each other it. After Ema heard that we were close to being broke since we had missed the opening hours of the bank she also told us that we could borrow from her and pay her back the next day. Somehow all the others had disappeared so now I am with Bianca, Susanne and Tobias and guess what they are ll Germans - how boring! Once I am done here I need to buy a SIM card and get the film and buy a new one. No guys, don't worry no one has stolen my digital camera. Chelsea had forgotten hers one night in the bathroom of a bar and went back but it was already gone so she bought a real cheap one here. Now we are both curious how the pictures turn out. Tonight it is dinner at 7pm and than I want to have a look at my Spanish book and do my homework. Afterward maybe watch a bit TV, have a chat and go of to bed.

Seni, Du kannst mir auch emails hier schicken. Ich weisse Deine email Addresse leider nicht und habe sie auch nicht in meiner mailbox sitzen, aber ansonsten ist es claudia_boegel@yahoo.com! Du wirst lachen, aber ich hatte sogar auf meinem deutschen Handy gesehen, das jemand angerufen hatte, weil ich eine text hatte mit den Details, aber in dem ganzen Tumult ist es dann irgendwie untergehen, sorry!

Since the leaving drinks were over so early Chelsea and I slept in. I wanted to but her tuc tuc (like a 3 wheeled bicycle but with a motor and roof) driver showed up at 7.30am and made a racket under my window. I turned around again and emerged from my room somewhere around 9am. Chelsea was already up and watching TV. Ema and the rest of family were out and about. I had breakfast and than we both just chilled and watched TV. Later on we decided to take the bus to Antigua because we wanted to change money, book up a seat for the shuttle to the beach for the next day and a trip for the next weekend. We walked over the market and than in the street bumped again into her tuc tuc driver. He kept on babbling forever so we missed going to the bank since it was closed. Chelsea has been sick for a while and decided to get some medicine here. The pharmacy we were in was well stocked and she got what she needed. Isaak stayed with us and I wanted to go on on line so I did that and afterwards we sat in a patio and had a drink. So far the best smoothie ever and definitely worth the 20Q! I´ll be going back there. WE walked back to the bus stop and once back at home. Ema and Mario showed up from a visit with relatives. Mario and Milton went to church since it is the yearly Mormon meeting partly also in Jucotenango. Ema fixed us dinner and we had a little chat. Chelsea tried to call a friend no luck so since she had never gone out before on a Saturday and we only knew that it would be crowded we were debating if we should go yes or no. In the end it took us forever to find an empty tuc-tuc to get into town. We met a real fun crowd of 10 people and ended up sticking with them for various bars. The best part was that they couldn´t´t remember anymore where they had parked their car and the running joke is now ¨Dude where is my car?¨ They had come from the City just for the night. In the end it was Alex, Alex, Paulo and us two who headed for the City together. I would class where we are staying around middle class (mid section). The fact that this group was paying with credit cards, had been abroad frequently gave me an indication that they were well to do same goes for the car. Cars are a status symbol here! Chelsea and me only looked at each other once we saw the place from Alex - it was awesome! Chelsea didn´t sleep at all, while we all crashed for an hour of sleep more or less. Got to meet Alex´s brother as well Nikolas and his friend. Basically we had the music so loud that it woke them and we all had good laughs until 6am. Once we all were awake more or less and were dressed they took us to a restaurant to get some food since we had ransacked the fridge in the morning hours. They drove us back to Jocetenango. We all had forgotten that due to Eastern all the processions are going on and to get into Antigua was something that took forever. They dropped us off at our door step and we got the cell phone numbers to call. It might be interesting therefore to meet up again. Alex is a darling he gave us an old mobile of his and I will buy a SIM card tomorrow and than we are finally mobile since we didn´t have our home phone number with us to call Ema to tell her that we would be staying out over night. Alex speaks pretty good German as does Paulo and we had some good laughs!
Now I am freshly showered and had a change of clothes. When I get back to the house wonder if Chelsea managed to reach Enzo who owns her a dinner at his restaurant for being his good luck charm at poker o,) Would suit us perfectly since we are short cash in local currency!

Guatemala in general here in this area doesn´t even come close to what is described in on the web pages of the Foreign Ministry. People are very friendly and so far on one had a story to tell where anything had happened to them. I am glad that I am not blond since that means they get the whistles, cat calls and the 3 top questions here are what is your name, how old are you, got a boy-friend or such if yes than comes in that case we could be ¨amigos speciales¨ wand otherwise they just bug you. The climate is easy to adjust to and I have gotten already a bit of color. My stomach isn´t acting up and I am not sticking to everything 100% like brushing my teeth with bottled water e.g. For them the weather here is a really odd because it is really hot here during mid day and than at night it cools down (they get their heavy sweaters out, jackets; we tourists are mostly fine with a light blouse) and we already had our first rainy afternoon. That is for them very unusual since it isn´t winter yet! Here in Jocotenango I am finally getting my bearings since in the beginning the four colors made it kind of difficult to make sure were you are going since none of us look at street names. We get around by picking up landmarks o