Via Byway, My Way.

As I wind my last few weeks down here in Central America, I wanted to have one final look into my past life in Xela, with the people and places that made it a special time, not to mention a time where I lost quite a bit of weight!

 

My final farewell note to my first host family, Claudia and her little 5 year old firecracker.  Beside it is a plate that I forget to return to her neighbor, the neighbor who cooked me 2 lunch meals while Claudia was away on family business.  For those of you that can read Spanish, I tried my best so don’t be too hard on me!!

 

Parque Central

 

Parque Central, pic 2

 

Kathy’s last night before returning to the States.  Its Mitzi, Kathy and Yuh Wen, enjoying some drinks at an Arabian restaurant.  It was here that I had my ill fated Liquado made with spoiled yogurt that contributed to my horrible food poisoning as I attempted to climb Volcan Tajumulco.

 

 

 

Card playing from the patio of a restaurant that overlooks Parque Central.  We were kicked out soon afterwards, apparently there is a no card playing rule.  Mitzi, Kathy, Markus and Joker study their hands.

 

I tried, I really tried to learn Spanish.  Here I am after school, trying out these English instruction videos for picking up the Spanish Language.  I made it through tape #8, but then the video instructor did all her lessons in Spanish, and of course that’s when I got fouled up.  But with each video lasting 45 minutes, I think I put in enough extra time to try and learn best I could.

My first teacher, Rosario!  We started out doing the ABCs and 123s.  Had to start somewhere, and the Basics is definitely what I needed.

 

My first and last teachers!  Rosario on the right, Etma in the middle, and Etna has the empty chair.  I also had Carlos for 3 days, but he doesn’t count since he wasn’t a very good teacher (the 3 previous students who had him ended up leaving the school entirely).

 

 

Potluck dinner!  I brought wheat rolls and jam from Oregon, a gift I was supposed to give to my host family but after how well my Oregon calendar was received, decided to keep the jam for myself and let others enjoy it.

 

The church at Parque Central

 

The creepy haunted house that freaked me out late one night, and then I returned to an empty home and the lights all went out.  I believe the house is still for sale if anyone is interested in buying the property with its extra assets, or liabilities depending on how you look at it.

 

My favorite liquado at the Indian restaurant!  I usually got the Mixed fruit one.  Yum Yum YUM!

 

The view from the classrooms of Sakribal, looking down at the common area.

 

Chelsia’s last day, we go out to celebrate after the futbol match at “Tres Tacos X 10 Qs” and I have an order of nachos…bad choice, my cheese is the fake CheeseWhiz stuff!

 

Kathy gets me a surprise…donut holes and I just about flip out!  Kathy can’t contain her laughter as I make a bunch of noises showing my excitement.  And as you would expect, after 6 donuts I felt sick to my stomach.

 

A McFlurry afternoon.  First Joker gets one.  Then Mitzi.  Before you know it we all have one….except me!  Me, the exception?  Yeah, just didn’t feel like one.  Plus when you have Sarita Ice Cream just round the block, all expectations are for only the best.  Go ahead and have your weak, low quality McDonald’s McFlurries!

 

One afternoon activity found ourselves walking out almost an hour to this soccerplex where the students took on the teachers in an intense shootout.  I just watched however, as I have no experience with soccer (I lie, my one and only experience damaged me for the rest of my life, all those 5th graders giving me nightmares as us adults were helpless against their onslaught)

 

Joker after her fall on her bike.  It was dark as she rode on the sidewalk and didn’t see the stepwell and then BLAM!  I quickly turned around, helped her up, and had to get this shot of her surprised look.  The next day she declared her body sore and in pain 12 hours after the fall.

 

 

Guatemala has a lot of drunks, and many find little cozy places in which to nap, sleep or just sober up.  Every night we walked Mitzi to her door because she usually had an unwanted visitor.  Here she is stepping over the slumbering man, trying to open her door without waking him up.  2 seconds later he did wake up, as my blinding flash from my camera got him up and down to the next doorwell.

 

Pizza pizza pizza!  This was after our hike up to Cerro Buel and those concrete slides.  Mitzi had 2 slices, I had the rest.  Cheesey, gooey and filling!  But not quite as good as Hot Lipps or Pizzacato.

 

One of our school’s Friday night dinners where we say goodbye to students leaving the program.

 

My bus station terminal.  Could it be almost 4 months ago that I was dropped off here, waiting for my ride to the school that never came until I called on a payphone and spoke gibberish before a student got on the phone who could speak English finally helped me out and got Olga, the school director, to come out and get me.

 

One final look at Parque Central…

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 9:50 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.