Last day in Xela

Well, T's brother and pal have arrived, a strange mixture of UK life and Guatemala life. As of tomorrow, we will become tourists, moving out of our lovely house and away from the housemates, and starting on our 3-day trek to Lake Atitlan, which I'm quite excited about. Although I've hardly done any hiking at all so I'll be monstrously unfit. Nevertheless, it looks set to be a really beautiful hike, with lots of swimming in rivers and then in the Lake itself. Yippee.

This morning we got up really early and stuffed the bloody bookcase into a taxi, and then on the top of a chicken bus to take it to the school. Now that this is done, the school is officially part of a charity that provides books for rural schools and other places like prisons, which means that if all goes well the school will continue to receive support after we leave, and we can make donations from the UK a little more easily. This feels nice, like we've left a little bit of usefulness behind.

We walked back from the terminal at around 6.30, the market was a hive of activity, with chicken buses rushing everywhere, and people unloading enormous baskets of goods from their rooves to sell in the market. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the sun rose quickly, and Santa Maria was a beautiful blue shadow behind us. Then I saw an enormous mushroom cloud billowing up into the sky - Santaguita, the active volcano just behind Santa Maria had just let go a pretty big eruption, the biggest I have seen since we've been here. I felt a little alarmed for a while, but nobody else in the streets was giving it a second look, so I figured that we were probably reasonably safe. That was 4 hours ago, and the streets of Xela haven''t filled with lava yet, so I think we'll be ok.

Walking round the streets this morning has been quite emotional, it's all so strange to think that in all likelihood, I will never come back here. Much as I would like to, the reality is that there are so many places in the world that I would like to see, and I won't get round to them in one lifetime anyway. So I probably won't come back here. This in turn makes me feel really sad. The teachers at the school promised me that the doors will always be open, and the director of Escuela de la Calle has invited me to the official opening of the new school in August too!

So what else is there to say? It's been a wonderful experience, starting with the loneliness and the feelings of isolation when you can't speak any of the language, the host family, and then moving out into the flea pit. Then discovering that the owner of the flea pit is a psychopath, and hastily moving into our new abode where we have been so happy and put down a few small roots. I am proud of my spanish, and happy with the voluntary work I have done, although I do wish I could have done more. Being in the school, I realise that I should have stayed for a year or 2 rather than just a few months.

I'm also really happy that I did it - just came to live in this random place on the other side of the world for a while. Just to know that I can. It's been great.