before i begin, today bush is supposed arrive today at about 1:30 in guatemala. already, i have had quite a number of interesting conversations (condemnations) about/of bush. after he has been here for a little while and there have been protests against him and bad speeches made by him, i will be sure to talk more about it.
LAGO:
yesterday i hiked up a small volcano to see a small sacred lake named lago chicabal with 3 other people. two students from my school that leave for other parts of guatemala today (the german girl, sara, and the crazy italian man, enzo) and a guide (incidentally the brother of my teacher, angelica) and i climbed this little volcano. well, it was definitely vale la pena (worth the pain) for the view, but my god, i felt like i was going to die at times. the hike, when all was said and done, was not that hard, and it was only about an hour to the top, but wow was i tired and winded. we went super slow and it wasn´t that steep. i can only chock it up to the much higher altitude (and the fact that the only exercise i get now is walking around the city, which i only do about half to one hours worth of per day.) i knew to expect it to be harder to breath, but it´s still such a weird sensation that i wasn´t expecting - it was kind of what i expected having asthma to be like.
the end result is that i´m not sure if i could handle hiking other volcanos in the area that i wanted to -there´s one volcano named santa maria that had a huge eruption in the early 1900s that covered xela, killed some 1500 people, and somehow spawned another mini volcano (i think it´s name is migeulito? or something like that) that has constant activity, spewing out gases, rocks, smoke, etc into the area. santa maria takes about 4 or 5 hours to hike, and it´s a lot steeper and higher. you pass a ring of clouds before you get to the top, which seems pretty amazing to me. there is also another volcano that is the highest point in central america (only a little bit taller than santa maria, but i´m blanking on the name), where you can see to mexico on the other side. but, who knows if i will be able to do those or not! my friend xander hiked santa maria last week and was sore for about 5 days later.
LA COMIDA/ FOOD:
i´ve also decided, that i´ve gained weight since arriving. i definitely eat less here than at home (because i actually eat at regular times), but i seem to be successfully packing it on. i think it´s because with every meal you eat francesa*(basically plain white bread) or tortillas. i guess if any a proof needed to exist for the atkins diet, i would be it. it´s hard because it´s mildly offensive to refuse the francesa or tortillas i don´t think i´ve had a whole grain since i arrived, and come to think of it i think that´s what i´m craving. perhaps this week i will go to the bake shop (yes, named so) and buy some whole wheat bread. the bake shop is this little shop run by mennonites that is open only on tuesdays and fridays, and they make their own granola, bread, yogurt, but most everyone comes to buy fresh donuts.**
last tuesday, my teacher from that week, marvin, took me there and we both had mango yogurt, which, a few hours later, i´m pretty sure became the culprit of the horrible traveler´s sickness that i had/have, which has mostly gone, but still is kind of hanging around to bug my bowels at times. so, for the past week, my stomach has been, ehh, iffy and uncomfortable to say the least, but since friday afternoon it´s at least felt liveable.
i had an interesting interaction with blanca, my host mom, the other day, where she explained to me, as she was cooking some potatoes, that the doctor told her not to eat potatoes, rice, or francesa because she had high cholestrol. well, either i misunderstood the word for cholestrol (which is pretty straight forward) or there is some weird medical advice, because i can think of a lot of other things besides those starches that we eat that would be responsible for the cholestrol. additionally, after saying this, she pointed to her sides and her thigh, and said that was the reason she was a little fat (which she isn´t)....which is again, a bit contrary to what i would normally think. but, that´s how it was!
PARTIDO DEL FUTBOL:
so, on wednesday night (bad stomach pains and all), the 4 students from the school went to a soccer game between xela´s team and one of the 3 teams from guatemala city. xela was 2nd ranked and the municipal 1st (and they were only separated in the league by one point), so it was a very contentious match. well, as was expected, we heard tons of bad words, and of course, our fair share of italian swears coming out of our very own enzo. although all areas of the stadium are very, um, enthusiastic, about the game, we had the luck of sitting in an area with a lot of teenagers who had brought with them lots of props. after entering the stadium with much difficulty*** (see note).
the best was at the beginning of the game, when about 4 teenagers climbed up on top of the fence that separates the fans from the field, and straddled the fence holding fire extinguishers. then, right before the game began, from seemingly every different direction, there were fireworks going off (some other time, i will talk about my revelations about fireworks), sparklers, lit torches, noisemakers, streamers, and finally, from the fire extinguishers, colored smoke - red and blue - the colors of the xela team - that they spewed out for a good minute or so. haha, thankfully, my camera takes small videos, and thankfully as well, i had a bandana with me to cover my face because it was impossible to breath during and shortly after the pyrotechnic extravaganza. following the excitement, we were all covered in a good thick layer (and i mean thick) of reddish brown dust. again, thank you bandana, because i was able to dut myself, waterbottle, and camera off. well, xela won 2-0, which was quite exciting for us and meant they upset the number one team. they played yesterday, too, but i guess they ended up losing 0-1.
SO, that´s all for now. i am very much hoping to look at some places to volunteer this week. we´ll see!
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*so, ironically the word francesa (plain white bread here) is the same word you use to refer to a female from france. i was told a story about one afternoon when there was a cooking lesson for the activity. one french student who attended the school turned extremely red when he was told that they needed francesa to cook!
**on a side note, products here seem to be worth more or are more desirable if they have english thrown into the titles. it usually ends up being really repetitious adjectives, but my favorite so far is MEGA BIG soda.
***we had 4 different people working for the stadium try and tell us that we couldn´t bring our plastic bottles filled with water into the stadium, followed by people telling us oh it´s okay we could, followed by no, followed by yes, etc. enzo, thankfully, was able to point out that we were two americans, a german, and an italian, and no, not to worry, we would NOT be throwing the bottles at the players or the opposing fans. after several arguments, and my pleading that i needed water because i was sick, and that we would put the bottles in my backpack after we finished so that other people couldn´t throw them, they finally let us go.
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