Guatemala #3

Walking home tonight from the super market was somewhat surreal. Uneven streets made from rough rocas. (rocks). I'm feeling not so much a stranger anymore even though I am. The bustling people and traffic going home for the day. Women carrying baskets of goods on their heads and babies in their arms. The clouds roll in as the afternoon progresses and as I sit here in my room I can look out the window and see yet another light show behind and above the volcanoes. Horns honk and eventually I'm sure music will be coming from somewhere. Life here is simple. When you want fresh tortillas you look for an open door and you can find young girls making them fresh right inside the door. At night when you see a red light above a door you can find fresh tamales. Life is simple for most people. Family, food, and work. Friends and church. There are those who have become caught up into the electronic world but not nearly as many as our country.

The wash hangs to dry above the roof lines after it is washed outside in a bucket or maybe inside with the one large sink. Cars are washed in the street. The lights flicker from power surges. Most people greet you with genuine smiles as you walk along the street. Buenos dias, Hola or just the simple buenas. The women who do not where traditional clothing all wear heels of some kind or another. Very daring from my western perspective. As I said above, the streets and sidewalks are a bit precarious. Young people openly show affection for one another. Old men pull carts full of goods down a side street. While chicken buses roll down the larger streets putting out fumes of diesel. Young men stand in the doors of these buses. I realized after a ride in one yesterday they are simply there to help navigate. There are very tight roads and bus mirrors will sometimes literally be an inch from one another after a group effort of young men directing each bus to enable them to pass one another.

I enjoy the tranquility and the odd craziness so different from our surroundings. Soak it up I tell myself soon enough it will be a memory.

Guatemala #2

What a day. I was woken up at midnight by what sounded like fireworks. Again and again. I finally went outside but was disappointed to not see anything. Then I went back to bed and 6am more Kaboom! Luckily I was getting up anyway to start school this morning. My instructor definitely does not speak much english. However, I think she will do a good job. We covered a lot in 3 and a half hours. Many of the other students here are much younger. They seem to be very adventurous people and will be fun to talk with. There are a lot of students. The area we study in has a beautiful garden in the middle and at our break we have yummy traditional food. Eventually I will know what it is called, the food that is,  for now I can say that is mini tortillas with meat inside. Then they fry it and cover it with guacamole and some sort of cabbage like mixture. It's good.

 After class I finally met with my host family. I think it will work out very well. The "mom" is a year younger than me and is very patient when we talk. She has a son and a daughter. The daughter is on vacation from school so is away visiting family. The husband works in a sugar factory far out of town. I believe I will meet him on Saturday. I have a nice little bedroom upstairs with my own bathroom. Very private. The roof is right beside my room and has a great view of the mountains. Hopefully all the clouds will leave eventually so I can actually see the view.The locals are saying it is unusually rainy for this time of year.

After meeting with my family I went back to the school. They have an activity each day for the students. Today we went to a macadamia farm. Very beautiful. All natural process. A long time ago someone invented a very rudimentary machine that would shell the nuts. They have brought this to many indigenous people so they can have better nutrition and a way to make money. Since they usually have no electricity it uses a small gas motor. I wish I could post pictures to better explain. It was a neat little tour. The owner, Lorenzo, a retired fire fighter from New York moved to Antigua in the 70's and started the farm. He was quite the character.

So far I have met one couple from PA. We went to dinner on Sun night. Mon I met this great Aussie lady. She's a riot. I think we will see more of each other. It is nice to be in school where I know it will be easier to meet people.

On Friday, which is there day of the dead. The school buses us to one of the villages where there is a large kite festival. I'm excited to be able to see that and sample many traditional dishes.

I have now had several conversations with my hostess suheidy. We talked about the culture and the differences from our two countries and we even spoke about religion.  I have also been able to talk to my instructor about several interesting topics, divorce, culture and I have tried to help her not have as much pain after she irons for 2 hours. Trying to explain what Taylor does for a living is somewhat difficult but it is fun to try. All this in just 2 days. I'm having a great time!

Nos vemos, mis amigos! mas pronto.

Guatemala #1

I'm finally going to use this again. It's been forever. It's a fun way to share my adventures. My trip began with a long afternoon and overnight trip to Guatemala City. Luckily, I was wisked away by my taxi driver Larry.  Being that it was 5:45 in the morning we were able to leave the city very quickly. I was able to talk to Larry a little even though he spoke no english. I was happy to make some small talk. He was very patient. Guatemala City was cleaner than I would have imagined. Although, I did not see a whole bunch of it. It is so green here. Lots of happy foliage. Large mountains of green all around it. Nice roads.

 I arrived at my B & B at 6:30. Fortunately one of the guests was able to let me in. I was not very excited about cruising around with a backpack that early in the morning. Especially on only an hour of sleep in a 26 hour period. But it all worked out. The little spot I will spend the first two nights is lovely. Beautiful spacious room and free wifi!

I was able to explore a little today. It is a very friendly walk around kind of town. Lots of Buenos dias as I walked to the bank. It was a very small bank that had two security guards. One even had a shotgun. Somehow they seemed friendly even with bullet proof vests and guns.

The streets here are made it seems from river rock. They are very bumpy. I believe it is cobblestones though. Being that it was founded in 1543 they are holding up very well. There are about 35,000 people here. I have only seen a small portion but it does not seem that crowded.

For a first day in a foreign city I'm feeling very relaxed. I had a great lunch and there I was reminded how happy I am to be here learning more spanish. The waitress got a few blank stares as did the super market clerk. I'm making along well enough though. Thank goodness for my spanish teacher the last 3 months. I would be a deer in headlights when talking with people if not for her.

Until next time...

I wear black socks

Earlier today as I got dressed for a bike ride I looked in the drawer and made a choice between several different sport sock colors. I chose black. Why? Well, many years ago I read an article in Outside magazine (or maybe it was a mountain biker mag) that wrote about being passed by some old geezer wearing black socks. So does choosing the black socks make me an old geezer? Not by a long shot. I am a woman in her prime training for her first tri-athalon and did I choose the simple distance, the sprint? Nope, I went for the big guns and chose the Olympic distance. Doesn’t that just sound cool? As I was donning my super comfy black socks for some reason that article went through my mind. I think it reminded me that perseverance pays off and if you keep trying hard you will one day be the person that you think you can be. Training for a tri isn’t as bad as I always envisioned. In fact, I think I like it more than training for a marathon by a long shot. Always something new, never getting tired of the same old thing.

So now that I have that under way I think of my other goals. Mainly, writing a novel. Yep, I still have that kindle of a dream burning in my brain. Do I have this strong propensity to write at every spare moment, no. However, the spark still stays alive and I choose to believe that with this tiny spark something great will happen. It’s like the old cave man days when they had to carry the coal from home site to home site. I will carry my kindle of fire until one day it can become a bonfire and burn for a good long time. This will require a lot of hard work but it will be worth it. So as I write this with a little help from a bit of white wine I look forward to the time when I can put that kindle to a small stack of wood and watch what blossoms out of it.

Good bye 2010

What a year 2010 was. We started the new year wondering what it would bring. Wondering what it would end up looking like. Taylor had an opportunity of a lifetime but we weren't sure it would even happen. Now I sit here with amazing memories of what that opportunity brought to us. I learned so much about another culture, even not being in a little remote village in southern Sudan, I learned we are blessed with so much here in our country. That we are lucky to be able to have opinions, have water in our homes and have the freedom to explore.


I learned that even being 10,000 miles from the person you love that the love you have can continue to grow. I learned many new things about several different cultures that makes me yearn to learn more. I learned that you can make it through hardship and grow from it. That friends are everything to me. That I love the little town I live in. Mostly, I learned that it's all supposed to happen. I don't know what the big picture is but I sure like all the little pictures I get to see on the way.

Am I excited for 2011? Hell yea!. I am excited to sit on this very couch with my amazing husband and live again under one roof even if it's for a small amount of time. To treasure all the little moments and plan for the big ones. I know that this will be an amazing year because life is simply amazing. I feel so lucky to live the life I live. So I welcome you 2011 and look forward to what you have to show me.

Here are some of my favorite photos from 2010 on our adventures that only happened because Taylor was willing to leave all he knew and loved behind to go on a huge solo adventure. So much good came of it. Thank you, Taylor. I love you so much!

Happy new year everyone! I hope this new year brings you all sorts of happiness and fun adventures. Take a moment one of these future days and say thanks for the wonderful world we live in. We are all so very blessed. 

Hello again

Well, for the few of you that actually follow this blog you will have noticed that my whole "going to do a small segment of Cape Town each week" has been a flop. I am blessed with lots of work and not much time to be creative with the whole blogging concept. But there are certain moments that I experience throughout my days that I feel I should write about. Simple things like:

As I left the coffee shop the other morning a smile slowly grew on my face as I thought about that very moment in time. It was a brisk morning and my spicy Chai was slowly warming my insides. Down town was just waking. I walked by a stranger and we shared a smile. "What a wonderful little town I live in" I thought to myself. My work day was just beginning and I was hoping the snow would begin to fall again.

It's these little moments in time when I truly feel blessed to be here on earth. To live in a time and place where I have the leisure to grab a morning tea and then amble to work with a smile. No rushing around, just enjoying each moment.

Cape Town 1st entry

In my attempt to get my creative juices flowing and to get a lot of photos out for everyone I am giving myself a writing assignment. I am going to break our Cape Town trip into several vignettes. So here goes.


Taylor and I planned to stay at a guesthouse the whole time in Cape Town. The day I was leaving I get an email from the innkeeper and it turns out that they have had a huge sewer problem come up and they had to re-locate us to a different location. Not only did we get a new spot, but for 8 of the 10 nights we were upgraded to the suite for no extra charge.

view from balcony

view from window

view from balcony

Our guesthouse was located in a darling section of town named Tamboerskloof. We were able to walk right out our door to the popular shopping district of Kloof and Long St. After a really yummy breakfast in the sun room and two pots of tea we set out to explore this new city. People along the way were of every color and so spoke different languages. We curiously watched parking attendants direct people to parking spots and wondered how that worked. The system here does not rely on meters but people. For a mere R2 or R5. (really cheap parking) you could get a spot and the attendant was always watching your car and even helped you park by directing you into the spot. We never did brave the driving on the other side of the street thing. We walked through the city centre and down to the V & A waterfront. Lots of large ships, neat  foot drawbridges that pivoted out of the way when boats needed to pass. We found an outdoor lunch spot and listened to xylophone players and then an acapello group.

looking back at the city centre and Table mtn

 

 

 

After a bit of shopping. (Taylor has been seriuosly deprived of this) we headed back up the hill to find a good place to grab a bite in the neighborhood. It looked like this was going to be a wonderful place to hang for 9 days. It was so nice just to be together again.