Happy New Year

I am feeling happy, and that Xela is my home.

I spent this morning wandering around Democracia market. This is the biggest market in Xela, and it's beautiful. I adore the way the vendors set out their wares so beautifully. Sacks of beans, rice and fragrant herbs. Enormous piles of shiny red tomatoes, glistening tiny potatoes, enormous bunches of fresh coriander and spinach (with the roots still on, so that you can take them home and put them in a pot of water and keep them all week - how sensible!). Dried chillies and peppers, enormous white volcanoes of garlic, threatening to erupt onto the small child selling them to me.

Today is New Years Eve, and not all the of the shops are open, which gives Xela a peaceful and happy air. The sun is shining, and it being relatively early morning, the streets are clean - the ferral dogs having done their work overnight! Santa Maria volcano presides over everything, a beautiful forested dome, dominating the skyline.

As I wandered from stall to stall, growing ever more laden with produce I felt quite proud of myself. I can haggle in spanish for whatever I want to buy, say hello to the kids on the street (they chase after me with their shoe shining kits, hungry eyes fixed on my walking boots) and have a chat with Maria who sits on the corner of 12th avenida selling weavings. I am adept at leaping out of the road and onto the tiny pavements when an enormous chicken bus comes wobbling along. I even have a wide vocabulary of spanish swear words should the need arise.

T and I have decided to renew our passport stamps by going to Costa Rica for 2 weeks at the beginning of February. It's a long way, and it's quite expensive. It entails another bus ride to Guatemala city, and a flight from there. But being as Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, we thought maybe we should have a go, whilst we are on this side of the world!

http://www.monteverdeinfo.com/photo_gallery.htm

We have found a Quaker-owned organic farm that accepts volunteers for $10 per day including board and lodging. This farm is right next to the Monteverde national park - the place where you can walk on rope bridges in the tree canopy and look down to see birds and plants to numerous to imagine, and if you're really lucky - monkeys, sloths, and all other manner of creatures. We're really excited. Although leaving Xela will feel strange. I have a kind of inertia which makes me want to stay. It's so easy here, and the sun shines all the time. My days have fallen into a routine of exercise, laughing, shopping at the market and studying spanish.

All this will change in a couple of weeks when my voluntary work starts. I'm so impatient. The school holidays are timed to coincide with the coffee picking season, which continues to the end of January ARGHGHG! The other organisation that I want to work with is off until January 17th.

Well, I guess I'm learning patience!

A typical courtyard found in the older guatemalan houses. They look nothing from the front, and then you find treasures like this inside!

The Church of Elvis

Ok, as promised, here are the eleven commandments according to the church of Elvis:

1) Follow that dream
If there is one thing that we learn from The King, it is that no dream is beyond possibility. As Elvis states, 'Every dream I have ever had has come true a thousand times'. A sharecroppers child from Tupelo dreamed of changing the course of history. Even though it would have been hard to find anyone who thought Elvis' dream was possible, The King didn't let anything stand in the way - and neither should we. Elvis is the King of dreams, and King of dreamers.

2) Don't be cruel
Cruelty is any wnton and willful act of violence, regardless of form. From a cigarette butt tossed on the ground to race hatred to nuclear warfare, it's all the same. And as we all know, violence is not cool, and begets only fear, which leads to more violence. Elvis is the perfect example of nonviolence, a bottomless well of benevolence and love. The King is never one to cause pain, take advantage, or look the other way. Elvis's example should inspire us all to eradicate cruelty from ourselves and from the Universe around us.

3) Love me Tender
Love is the universal constant that is the linchpin of human existance, and the basis of all community. All of us want love, and all of us need it, even as we grow inside our mother. Elvis tells us that while the concept of love in the abstract is simple and easy to profess, the real challenge we face is to love with tenderness. Elvis is King of love, and King of tenderness. This plea serves to remind us always to accept and to convey the love embrace of the Universe in all its destiny.

4) Shake, Rattle, and Roll
Don't hold yourself back! Feel the rhythm of the cosmos within you and around you. It is omnipresent and incessant. Let your heart pulse to the rhythm and pump it through your blood. When we let ourselves go, we feel its pervasive essence. It shakes our preconceptions, rattles our minds. It rolls another number for the road. Elvis wants us all to know our part in the rhythm, so that we can continue The King's vital Work. Though the rhythm is powerful beyond our comprehension, we must not be afraid--all of us must one day join it.

5) Do the Clam
Elvis urges us to be ever more aware of all of our cousins of all species. Don't just see the clam. Don't just think the clam. Don't just know the clam. Don't just be the clam. DO the clam. DO the clam (or the moss, or the prairie dog, or the homeless person). Only when we become fully aware of our interdependence can we be fully aware of ourselves, and only then can we E-volve to a better state of being. The King's most heartfelt desire is fullness of life for all.

6) Treat Me Nice
Elvis knows that it may not be easy to pass through life without inflicting harm on others--but that's not even half the job! The real effort is in helping others E-volve along with us, and we can only do that through deliberate effort to make life better for all our cousins. Just as cruelty breeds fear, niceness begets kindness. The simplest way to improve our Universe is through plain, genuine niceness. King of nice, Elvis always illustrates how best to treat others.

7) Don't
Are you damned if you do? Are you damned if you don't? No, and no. Fact is, you're not damned at all. Ever. As Elvis says, "As long as we have the strength to dream, we can redeem our souls and fly." But you still have to take responsibility for all that you are and all that you do. So on this monkey-see-monkey-do journey, try to see only the monkey you want to do. In the meantime, given that Saturn always returns, if you get a chance to do something you might have to come back later and undo, DON'T.

8) It's Now or Never
Each moment is precious and irreplaceable, and every moment is rife with what seem to be innumerable choices and options. Of course, we want to make the best decisions we can, but we shouldn't let that stand in the way of living Kingly lives. Elvis reminds us that once this moment passes, it lapses into "never," and we won't see it again. The King reminds us that the life continues on even if we cease, and that we must always strive to live every moment in rhythm and harmony with the Universe.

9) Return to Sender
Elvis is King of life cycles and gyrations. Elvis wants us always to be aware that there is a beginning and an end to everything, and to remember that what goes around comes around. Everything eventually goes back to where it came from, and The King's desire for sustainability makes it our obligation to assist the process in a peaceful and loving manner. So whether it's an old container (that could be you) or some major bad karma, love-tap a little extra postage on it as it passes, to help make sure it gets where it needs to go.

10) Viva Las Vegas!
By definition, life in human form is a gamble. Every decision entails risk. In the desert, even a pit stop at the oasis means taking a chance because that is where the predators lie in wait. Does that mean we should stay away? No! We need it, and all our cousins (be they animal, mineral, or vegetable), need it as well. The King wants us to take the risk--to go there and protect our precious havens from waste, pollution, radiation, and anything else that makes our vital resources unavailable. Long live The King! Long live our cousins! Long live the oases!

11) Wear My Ring Around Your Neck
We should never be afraid to let anyone know how we feel about The King. Odds are, they feel the same way. We should always be proud of who we are, and of how we do The King's Work. One thing we can count on is that just the mention of Elvis's name seems to karate-kick doors open. When we face the world, we should never try to dim our inner Elvis. Let it shine through! The more Elvis we show, and the more Elvis we see, the better our little corner of the Universe will be.

**********
Which just goes to show, you can make a religious text out of just about anything! :o)

Distressing Mary mother of Jesus/Elvis badge as worn by Chruch of Elvis congregation member.

Christmas in Xela

It´s boxing day, and I have spent a really interesting a lovely christmas.

On Christmas eve, many of the shops closed at lunchtime in preparation for the evening´s celebrations. We decided to look in at the cathedral to see how the numerous catholics here in guatemala celebrate christmas eve. The service was at 8pm, and the cathedral was packed - standing room only. In keeping with the relaxed way of Guatemalans, people wandered in and out of the service for its duration, and nobody seemed to mind. The bishop of Xela was confusingly white-european, but we were still unable to understand any of the sermon. At the end of it T and I turned to one another and said ´thanks be to God´, and then dissolved into giggles. Why is it that being in a high church makes me want to giggle so much?

Other giggle inducing factors included the casio keyboard that provided the accompaniment to the christmas carols. The keyboardest clearly wasn´t one of Guatemala´s finest (or maybe s/he was!), and the wish-wash synthetic sounds of the casio keyboard had very little relationship to the carol being sung. The choir, in the face of such adversity battled on commendably, seemingly not concerned by the fact that their accompanist had been possessed by some strange, and not (particularly musical) demon. At one point in the service, a number of people entered at the rear of the cathedral, and started to ring handbells furiously. They weren´t the handbells that you might expect to hear in the UK, playing a christmas carol or similar, but rather a random assortment of clashing notes, bashed mercilessly for about 5 minutes. Then they disappeared.

Perhaps I am being a little cruel of the traditions here. The smell of the incense and the beauty of the cathedral was really poignant, and the christmas carols did make me feel wonderfully christmassy!

After the service, we wandered around the hundreds of stalls that had sprung up around the central square. We bumped into some american friends from our language school, who were making a pretty fine effort of eating their way around the entire square. We joined them for a couple of stops on their journey. I fell in love with Ponche - a sort of hot milk drink make with cinnamon and whisky. Absolutely heavenly on a chilly christmas eve.

I have mentioned here before the Guatemalan love of fireworks. Well, I had seen nothing until Christmas. One of our american friends showed us proudly one of the fireworks he had just purchased - an enormous home-made affair, that looked pretty terrifying! Every stall sold fireworks alongside chocolate coated strawberries, tacos, plantains, tortillas filled with strange-smelling meat, and my beloved ponche. The whole atmosphere was really lovely, everyone seemed to be really cheery, and hundreds of people milled around greeting one another.

T and I headed home around 10, but for Guatemalans, christmas eve is no time for going to bed. The traditional family meal takes place at midnight, and at this hour, T and I were woken by the whole of Xela exploding into thousands and thousands of fireworks. We had other plans however, with our christmas party scheduled for the next day.

Christmas morning really did feel like the morning after. As I walked through the deserted, sun-baked streets, the papery remains of last nights fireworks, being blown into piles by the wind - reminiscent of the autumn leaves I used to kick through as a child. The papers were mostly the red strips of fireworks that are sold by the metre at market stalls around the square. You literally light one end, and run for your life. Well, actually, that´s what english people would do. Here it´s quite common to see children playing with fireworks. On christmas morning, I saw a father and son with some rockets. They would hold them IN THEIR HANDS!, light them, wait for the whistling sound, and then toss them into the air. I think I provided as much entertainment for them as I scuttled by on the opposite side of the road with a look of horror on my face. All that ´don´t play with fireworks´ indoctrination ringing in my ears, accompanied by the music of the whilstles and bangs of the fireworks flying past me.

By some miracle, T and I arrived in safety at the party, and had a most agreeable day. Everyone had brought a dish and some booze to share. It was a fabulous day, with much fun had by all. I am amused to report that I met a girl who is a member of the church of elvis. She gave out copies of Elvis´ 11 commandments. Tragically, I don´t have my copy here, but promise to post them up here in the next few days.

Possibly the most disturbing was the badge she was wearing, which depicted the virgin mary. On closer inspection however, one realised that the face was that of Elvis.

almost dark. Volcano Santa Marie can just be seen in the background

Sunset at our christmas dinner party

Christmas dinner on the roof of Casa Argentina, a big hostel where loads of travellers stay. The weather was hot! :o)

My last day at spanish school

I{m feeling really sad and melancholy, as today I finished my last day at my spanish school. I{ve made lots of friends there, and the director is like a surrogate mother to me (hooray!) .

T and I received our {diplomas{, and made speeches in spanish! I was really proud of the progress I{ve made, although at the same time, a bit despairing of how far I have to go, particularly in growing my confidence to have a go with the language, especially when speaking to strangers. My ability to conjugate verbs evaporates when I have to think on the spot.

People are full of talk of a bus crash that happened in Xela yesterday. It{s pretty tragic, but it{s so common, you almost stop feeling anything when you read about them in the papers. As I wrote earlier, the buses here are discarded school buses from the US, with all the attendant problems driving outrageously outdated vehicles brings. People die needlessly every day in these road accidents. ;o( As buses are the only form of public transport here, there really is no alternative, although if you{re a gringo, you can afford to take the {shuttle buses{, which are slightly newer and safer than the chicken buses that chug around. The flipside is that you{re much more likely to get robbed!!!

It{s lunchtime on christmas eve, and things are beginning to close down for the afternoon. As christmas has fallen on a saturday this year, the people of Guatemala aren{t having any additional days off work. Although no-one seems to be outraged about it. Just one of those things.

Fabulous news is that since my move to my new house, I seem to have left my fleas behind! I can{t begin to describe the pleasure this has bought me! As mentioned before, T and I now share a house with a load of health-freak gringos who have been living in Xela for several years. They run yoga classes in their-our house (which is enormous, rambling and utterly bizarre). T and I are beginning to be health freaks too! We do Chi Gung (or various other spellings) at six thirty in the morning, ashtanga yoga at 10.30 and hatha yoga at 5pm. Apparently everyone does pressups and pull ups at 8.30 but these definitely don{t appeal to me 'urghgh!

The sun is still shining, whilst strains of {white christmas{ can be heard on the radio and in all the shops. I{m feeling strangely at sea a little bit England-sick.

Skyline of Xela from the window of my old house

New house!

Just a quick entry as I've just got a few mins before my session here expires!

Today has been quite an adventure, with T and I being woken up by a crazy landlord, and being told to move out immediately! We had heard some stuff last night about him being slightly ummm, interesting in terms of psychology, as so were happy to oblige!

Luckily some friends of ours have just acquired a big, crazy rambling house where the electricity keeps going off, and the roof terrace is full of sunshine, hammocks and beautiful flowers. So this is our new home! I suspect we'll be turning into complete fitness freaks now too, as at this house, they hold 2 hour yoga classes twice a day! Yippee!

Our old house

Fleas and general ramblings

I've got fleas. I can't believe it! My small coffee coloured companions are still alive, well and numerous. I have reached the stage now that whenever I peer at anything I see small black specks appearing and disappearing. I have got an obsession, I know it.

Potential salvation came to be yesterday, in the form of my yoga teacher. I have been moaning to him about the flea problem, and yesterday I was joking about sleeping in a hammock instead of my bed, which is clearly flea-infested. (Incidentally, the machismo culture in Guatemala clearly extends to the fleas, as T wakes every morning happy and ready to start the day, whilst I stand in front of the small mirror in our room, twisting and contorting to view the bites that have appeared overnight (16 in one night is the record so far). My once-reasonably-smooth pale skin is now covered in massive red/purple blotches - I may never wear a swimming costume again! Oh well...). He darted to his room, and returned with a massive hammock!!! I just have to work out how and where to suspend it in my room, and my flea problem may be reduced!!!

Things are hotting up for Christmas - literally. The sun is shining, and it feels like a warm June day.

All the Christmas decorations are up, and the central park features an enormous white snowman standing in the middle of what used to be the fountain. I find this utterly strange, as not only is it hot at Christmas time, so the odds of finding a Christmas snowman are about the same as me waking up without any flea bites, but the people of Xela have never even seen snow - never. It *never* snows here! So why oh why do they have snowmen, and why do I keep hearing 'I'm dreaming of a white christmas on the radio'??? My Australian pals tell me it's the same there, with everyone clinging onto this bizarre northern hemisphere notion of Christmas. Very strange! :o)

Street Scene, Xela

Thoughts on homesickness

I had a few pangs of homesickness the other day. I was actually rather surprised at the things that caused that melancholy sensation somewhere near to my sternum.

I think there's probably some learning to be had about what I really value by what pops into my head when I'm away from them.

For anyone who's interested, here's a list:

* Looking up at the night sky, and seeing York minster, all illuminated and lovely

* W's flat in Rochester, the smell of it - fruit tea and apple crumble

*Coming out of the swimming pool on a Summer morning, and feeling deliciously alive

* Making up ''comedy'' limericks in the car with dad on the way up to Scotland this Summer.

Outside the central theatre, Xela

Chocolate

One of my dreams has come true!
On Thursday I went to a chocolate factory and made my own chocolate!!!

As with many things here in Xela (and Guatemala in general), the word 'factory'doesn't quite conjure up the correct image. In fact, this was just a house. We knocked on the door, and when it opened we saw that the 2 downstairs rooms of the house contained a few machines and tables to make chocolate, tortillas and coffee.

We had bought our own cocoa beans, that had been roasted that morning. We had 2 pounds in weight of cocoa beans, and 6 of us to shell them by hand ready for the next stage of the process. This took about an hour. We were then taken into the other room, where an old belt-driven machine hungrily awaited our cocoa beans. Jeremaih pulled down on the satisfying large handle on the wall, and the machine cranked into action, its belt flapping wildly, and somewhat dangerously to anyone that might be standing nearby.

The cocoa beans were quickly converted into a bitter tasting powder. Now for the second grinding. The cocoa powder was gathered up by hand and put back into the top of the machine, this time along with 4 pounds of sugar. The mixture passed through the machine for a second time, and a magnificent sweet chocolatey mixture emerged. The addition of sugar doesn't just make it sweet, but also helps to create a slightly sticky, gloopy texture. Together with the heat caused by the friction of the grinding process, the fourth grinding resulted in a magnificent, melted chocolatey gloop, that was heavenly.

When the chocolate had reached the right texture, we scooped it out of the machine with our hands (utterly covered in chocolate! You can imagine my delight). By this time I was literally tripping on a massive chocolate and sugar high, after having eaten so much! Then we used the heat of our hands to shape the chocolate into moulds, ready for solidification.

The chocolate was ready an hour or so later. Guatemalans use this stuff for drinking chocolate, rather than eating chocolate. It's texture is really different from the chocolate that we're familiar with at home. Nevertheless, it was magnificent, and I was very, very proud! :o)

Football!!!

I have been to my first football match.

Those of you that know me will appreciate what an unusal thing this is for me to have done, but there. It sounded an interesting prospect - and it was!!!!

The match was the semi final between Xela, and Municipal, the best team from the capital city. We were the underdogs, and were all set to get slaughtered. With Xela being the second city in Guatemala (so, something like Birmingham inthe UK), I was expecting quite a large stadium. I was surprised.

The stadium was really small, and featured {stands{ of the type that I understand were dispensed with shortly after the Hillsborough disaster. Separating the spectators from the pitch was a high, barbed wire fence. It all looked rather dangerous and painful. We got there are half 4 in the atfernoon, so ensure a decent seat. Although, truth be told, the stadium was so small, none of the stands were more than 10m from the pitch. Our spot was just a couple of metres from the goal.

I think I may have mentioned here before how much the Guatemalans love their fireworks. Every morning I am woken by fireworks at about 6am resulting from the Guatemalan tradition of waking up birthday boys and girls with a number of explosions outside their bedroom windows. Well, they had come well prepared to the football match too. As the time of the match (8pm) approached, the crowd became more and more excited. Almost everyone had got a few fireworks in their pocket, and were lobbing them around willy nilly. At one point, a largish fire started in the stands at the other end of the stadium. No-one seemed particularly bothered, and none of the officials even went over. I learnt afterwards that the fire was put out by a small child, who used the numerous bottles of urine (no toilets here, just some handfuls of straw against the wall at the back of the stands, fortunately, I wasn{t compelled to use this ´facility´!) to douse the flames.

Finally the match begun, and the firework throwing increased accordingly. Sometimes the visibility on the pitch went down to about half a metre, and players continued valiantly with catherine wheels and rockets dancing at their feet, and clouds of acrid smoke whirling around their heads.

There was plenty of action on the pitch, with about 10 yellow cards, and 2 red cards. It{s the first time in my football watching life (yeah, alright, I know that doesn{t amount to much) that I have seen a goalie sent off! Unfortunately this altercation happened at the opposite end of the pitch, so I couldn{t see what had happened. There was much disatisfaction, and lobbing of fireworks in the general direction of the ref, as our goalie was escorted from the pitch.

At half time, a large number of riot police came onto the pitch, and my teacher told me that this is necessary to protect the refs. The police held up their shields to protect the refs, and helped them off the pitch. The reverse happened again in the second half.

It was a great night for Xela, as despite not having a goalie, and several maimed players, Xela managed to been Municipal 2-0. The crowd went wild, more fireworks were thrown, and there was much rejoicing.

A most entertaining experience. Although not necessarily one I will repeat!

misery

I am riddled with parasites.

Or at least it feels that way. My hair is itchy, and I{m convinced I{ve caught nits from the children at the orphanage. Worse than that though, I wake up every morning covered in horrible bites all over my body. I am completely baffled as to what it could be, and have become an obsessive, scrutinising my bed and all blankets carefully on a daily basis, hoping to catch sight of a flea or other animal that might be causing my misery. T, of course, has no discomfort, and wakes every morning with an unblemished body. #snarls#.

This morning, in desperation, I ditched my environmental principles, crawled into the chemists shop and begged them to help me. The girl behind the counter told me cheerily that my bed is probably full of fleas, small ones, too small to see. Then she sold me a big can of spray. I don{t even want to think about what damage I have done to
a) the environment
b) my bedding
c) my lungs and
d) my life expectancy by spraying this stuff, and if I don{t wake up bite free tomorrow....

Apologies for the long delay. I haven{t been able to get onto this website for some reason, maybe there are just too many people spending their lives typing blogs! Things are hotting up for christmas now. There are tacky carols on the radio, and I{ve even spied an enormous inflatable santa claus on the outside of someone{s house (I honestly thought I had left that sort of thing behind in the UK!!!!). I still can{t get the hang of it being Christmas though. I mean, the weather is gorgeous. It{s so hot! It can{t be christmas, it{s wrong. The people here have never seen snow, which makes it all the more strange that so many of the decorations I{ve seen feature snowmen!

T and I went to a talk at our spanish school on Wednesday afternoon. It was given by my teacher, who is a really cool woman - I like and respect her very much. She only teaches spanish at the language school in November and December because the rest of the year she is a teacher at a village school up in the hills. The lecture was about the rural education system in Guatemala - it was a real eye opener.

Apparently, most of the schools in the cities are private ones, where rich ladinos (people of spanish descent) send their children. In the rural, indigeonous areas, education is provided by the government, with disasterous consequences.

Olga outlined the 4 principal problems that she sees as a teacher in a rural school. The first is that the children are undernourished. They come to school without having eaten much, if anything. The result is a lack of concentration, and an inability to recall any information. After a national strike by all the teachers in rural Guatemala, the government agreed to provide a breakfast for the children. Now they receive a small biscuit and a glass of juice. Frequently supply doesn{t meet demand, and when it does, it hardly constitutes a good breakfast. For the children of many families, this meal is the sole incentive for them to attend school.

The second problem is a shortage of teachers. This isn{t because there aren{t enough teachers in Guatemala, but rather that money for the teachers salaries mysteriously disappears before the schools receive it. In a school with 110 pupils and 6 classes, salaries for only 3 teachers have been received, instead of 6. Olga is faced with teaching 3 different classes at one time.

Thirdly, Olga outlined the shortage of materials. The government has recently boasted that all schools are fully equipped with the textbooks, pens, pencils, notebooks etc that they need. Olga{s school has 3 textbooks between 30 students, and no pens, pencils or notepaper. The government propoganda has resulted in bad relations between the teachers and the parents, who assume that the teachers must be stealing the text books, or the money for them. The reality is that the money for these items is never received.

The fourth problem is concerns the structure of the families in rural Guatemala. Their source of income is from agriculture, and by a similar system of exploitation that operates in the UK with supermarkets, the farmers receive very little for their produce, which is in turn sold on at a much higher price. Therefore, it{s really important to the families to have "all hands on deck" to work. This results in children dropping out of school. Apart from working on farmes, many of the children, together with the men of the families go to the USA to work illegally and send home wages. Paltry wages in the USA are less paltry here due to the exchange rate, and so this is considered to be a viable option for the struggling families here. In Palistina, the village where Olga teaches, there are only 4 men. All the others are in the USA. Larger families in the rural areas mean increased pressure on resources. One of the women of the village has 21 children to feed. Inbreeding within the village is also a problem, and virtually the whole village is related. Olga fears that this contributes even further to the lack of achievement in school.

Trevor and I are hoping to help Olga at the school in January when the term starts, and also to set up a small fund to help pay for text books. It would only cost 400 pounds to kit the whole school out with all the textbooks needed. Tragically, money for this sort of thing has already been given through government aid, but has subsequently been lost, or used for other purposes outside of the education system.