true life planet

Everyone, here´s the basic update on me:

1. I am still at El Nahual Spanish School. Earlier this week, I was planning on changing schools but after a talk with the directors, have decided to stay on there for the remainder of my time here.

2. I am still volunteering with El Nahual, teaching art classes to tons of kids twice a week, until the end of December.(Maybe a bit longer)

3. I am moving to La Esperanza, and taking a bus into Xela Monday thru Friday. I think the move to La Esperanza will be better for me..it´s more remote, it is not a city..and I have better opportunity to experience how most people live here in Guatemala…it is more agricultural, more traditional. Plus there are animals, nature…and silence!

4. I am busy with volunteering and school, so I don´t have much time for the internet(as I have had when I was living in Xela) Additionally, there is no internet in La Esperanza, so the only time I can go online is when I have free time. Currently, I have set aside Wednesday afternoons from 2-4 for being online.

I will be doing some traveling thru Guatemala and Mexico, also Honduras, keeping La Esperanza as my home base. I will also be traveling to Tikal with a woman I met here from Norway and a Guatemalan woman I have made friends with here. This travel will take place during January. I will not be visiting Nicaragua or Costa Rica…as I am deciding to stay here longer.

I will then travel to Guatemala City and hop on a plane to Panama City, then take a bus to David, Then one more bus, then be working for the organization MEDO for 2.5 months or so.
Target daste for flight to Panama City:January 29th. I will be working with the Ngobe indigenous people there, and will be there for Easter.

I will then fly from Panama City to Los Angeles to Sacramento on April 15th. I will be back in Winters, California from April 15th until I leave for Madrid, Spain, on 29th April.

I will spend a few lovely days in Madrid, then travel to France for the start of the Camino de Santiago, I plan on starting the Camino on the 8th of May. I hope to finish as much of it as I can-hopefully all of it-by June 12th. This is a total of 36 days. This should be enough time, I hope, to do it the way I have in mind..and hopefully not be walking when it´s impossibly hot.
If I can do it in 30 days, that would be ideal.

For those of you who have been thinking about joining me for part of the walk, the above details should help. You could meet me in Madrid and go from there-althought the start of the walk is difficult, so it is podssible to meet me later on ….let me know (Mom, you in particular!)

This then gives me some time for rest at the end, as well as some short term travel to Portugual from Santiago, from June 13th until June 27th (about 2 weeks).

I don´t have the schedule for ferries yet, but then I will be leaving from some destination point in either Potugual or Spain by ferry/ boat to Plymouth, England. The ferry stops overnight in France. I will be arriving in Plymouth at the start of July, target date is July 2nd.
In Plymouth I will meet Sande Kay of Winters for conversation, travel, and fun…as we travel up thru England to finally end up at a monastery in Etwall, Derbyshire, to volunteer there together for a week or so.(Sande, email me for exact timeline, por favor!)

Then I travel to London, to get on the plane for Liberia, where I will be for 6 months. I have some stopovers in several countries in West Africa as well.

I fly out of Liberia on the 19th of January, and fly back to London. From London, I will be flying to Istanbul, Turkey. Target date for arrival in Istanbul is the 21st of January(Unless I get some crazy stopover). I plan on being in Turkey for 3 weeks..two weeks traveling around, hopefully with friends from Winters in the more typical tourist sites..then at least one week traveling on the east side, towards Georgia, where I will be for one month. I will arrive in Georgia sometime between the 20th and 28th of February. Also will be visiting Armenia while there.

Well, that´s more than the next year ahead in a nutshell!

Also, Hawaii is no longer on the itinerary as I have decided to return to California.
I have been offered several jobs in South East Asia as well, since leaving for my trip initially…also of particualr interest at the moment is that I ahve been asked to work with the elephants longer in Southeast Asia, as well as do some work on the Bengal Tiger reseave in India..all of which sounds more interesting to me than what I was going to do in Oceania….so I am considering skipping Oceania and Australia and New Zealand, and focusing my travels and efforts from India and Nepal onward to solely South East Asia, with possibly more time in China than I had planned initially-as well as the additions of Japan, Korea, or the Phillipines. The South east Asia itinerary remains the same.

WE shall see. Just trying to go with the flow of doors opening, of which there are so many it´s difficult to choose.

I am in good health(now!) I was very sick here the first couple of weeks, but a stay in the country has made me well. I was very homesick at first, but now am really enjoying myself, and getting into the traveling experience. Part of what helped was a new friend here telling me I was lovesick..and agreeing that I was! Ergo, the quick trip home for a short bit to see my boyfriend and my dogs.

Additionally other than having some sort of flu, and some sort of god knows what horrible thing(thank you Dr Davis office¨s Amy for that Cipro prescription!) I had pulgas…ah, fleas!
Yes, I had them bad! All over the place. I was getting bitten in the night..finally stayed up one night, ready to shine my very powerful flashlight on whatever was biting me to bits everynight…was surprised to not find bedbugs..but fleas..tons of them.

Very awkward indeed to explain to my host family. Much hilarity until I looked up the words for fleas…they told me that often volunteers get fleas here, that I was not the first person to bring fleas into their house! Pretty funny, and my madre here in Xela made me clean my room until it was spotless, and well as every single thing I owned and the bed was washed!
I think I got them from two sources..a starving looking dog I befriended, and have been feeding upon occassion..and the kids at the school..some of whom are not very clean. i have heard stories of volunteers in Xela getting lice, too from the kids..not at my school, but elsewhere…although as far as I know I haven´t got any of those..YET!

Also. the water filter I brought is probably the number one most useful item that I packed. I have saved so much money not buying the bottled water her..which is not really purified half the time anyway. I was concerned it wasn´t working, but we tested it and it is working great. The doctor here thinks I got sick from undercooked food that was left out all day(common practice here).

The second most use item? Keen shoes..amazing on these nutty roads here. I haven´t fallen-or broken my ankle once!(for those of you who know me well, you know how amazing this is!).

Third most useful item , or rather items are the Macabi skirts I brought. God, I love these skirts. So easy. Problem is, all of the gringas here wear jeans. Actually, all of the people here wear jeans and american style clothes when not in Indigenous clothes. But, of course, that´s just Xela. The skirts have garnered my much respect from older women here, and I think have been one of the main motivating factors in my being invited to so many places.(like a Mayan religious service, for example!).

What I miss most? Jerry, friends, dogs…Jerry´s daughter, Jenny…and strong coffee. It doesn´t matter if I even buy ground fresh coffee here..what I get is sort of brownish clearish water(unless I go to an expensive cafe!). Also, doorways one can walk thru with ease. And vegetables you can eat raw-I really miss salads. I´ve eaten them a few times, but it´s nerve wracking, because you be asking for it, health wise here.

What don´t I miss? Hot cocoa in the USA has nothing on the chocolate here-it´s like a life peak experience drinking chocolate here…Also, I don´t miss how much stuff everybody has in the USA-here it´s just so much simpler. There´s alot of making do, and here there´s nothing wrong with making do-it´s a skill, an art form. I´m trying to learn it myself.

Please, friends and family..send an email. It helps so much on the strange days, when things are difficult(for example the day I discovered I had fleas!) Gracias.

That´s about it for now. gg

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