I Journeyed last week from Guatemala to Costa Rica where I met Sandy in San Jose. We took the bus into San Carlos where we will begin volunteer work. It is incredibly so wonderful to be back and there´s more to say on that in future journal entries but todayy I need to write about the insanity that is taking place at this very moment...Election Day. Time for a new president here in Costa Rica, and here it is through the eyes of a gringa: I didn´t believe it when they told me, but it was true. It was REALLY true. [View Full Entry]

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I know I could run off important facts and statistics about Antigua and the Guatemalan lifestyle, upload beautiful postcard-photos, but that's why there's Google. Plus, honestly, I never can remember all those facts and statistics. What I do remember when I travel are the people I meet, the smiles and connections, comforts/discomforts, nostalgia, sounds, smells, the things that give me goose bumps, the things that make my stomach turn, my skin crawl, or the people or places that make my heart beat faster. The key to my room (aka Joe never dies) [View Full Entry]

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Sunday is a visit to the market of Chichicastenango, which goes on my top 10 list of favorite words to say. Here you can buy and bargain anything from Mayan textiles and jade necklaces to telephones and safety pins. My best purchase was a chocolate covered banana for the equivalent of 10 cents from a Mayan woman sitting on the church steps. Located next to the market is the church, Iglesia de Santo Tomas, which dates back to 1540. It is still the scene of Catholic and Mayan rituals. The market is smoldering with the smell of incense that burns constantly [View Full Entry]

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There are Mayan villages surrounding the Lake. We stop in Santiago and it is here that I can see the poverty of the Mayan people, who have gotten some pretty crappy deals over the years. As the boat pulls up from the dock natives run to meet you. I am accustomed to this from other countries, but I have never seen it under these conditions before... the dogs on the street look like skeletons, flies swarming around them, I don´t know if they are dead or sleeping. children pulling at my arms and legs, begging for money for food, not all [View Full Entry]

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This weekend was a 2 day excursion to Lago de Atitlan (Lake Atitlan), which is about 2 hours from Antigua. about the lake: the massive Los Chocoyos erruption of 85,000 years ago, which blew volcanic ash as far as Florida and Panama, caused a quantity of magma to expel from below the earths crust and the surface terrain to collapse, forming a huge roughly circular hollow that sooned filled with water - the Lago de Atitlan. Smaller volcanoes rose out of the lake´s southern waters thousands of years later and now surround the lake. The dramatic volcano vistas are what make [View Full Entry]

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and no, not chips and salsa. i mean salsa dancing. ok here´s the thing. goal number one for this trip is to volunteer. but my goal in guatemala is to speak spanish more fluently, i planned not to plan anything else for the short time i´m here. posted at the school are dozens of other activities. but two catch my eye in particular...one for salsa classes and one for volunteer opportunities....now i´m in quite the pickle....work with children. salsa dance....work with children. salsa dance. ok. how can i justify this? perfect...i´ll dance here, and then i´ll add it to my teaching [View Full Entry]

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i always like finding out things that i never knew i never knew. tuesday night i met jorge and ronald, guatemalan locals, who started their own business selling poinsettias to the states...did you know there are 30 different types of red poinsettas, and 20 white ones?? fascinating...i´ve made a deal with them to help them with their english and i´m getting my own tour of the flower farm with over 30 million flowers outside antigua next tuesday. lisa don´t forget to water the poinsettia! [View Full Entry]

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today i took a chicken bus to a macadamian nut farm. there are even more types of macadamian nuts then there are poinsettias. [View Full Entry]

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that´s the first sound the morning greeted me with...5am roosters...as opposed to the 5am septa bus zipping down brown street. here it is, the transition. bienvenido a guatemala. after a long flight and layover in miami, by the way, note to self, if you want to learn to speak spanish go to miami airport. the plane landed to fiona apple´s shadowboxer and i was picked up by my host family, barbara, jorge and their son, carlos. driving through guatemala city....burger king, mcdonalds, blockbuster video....and yes even a HOOTERS. the family is looking at my reaction to see if i am relieved [View Full Entry]

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