First Week

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This is my first week, truly my first entry to the blog done in the country of Guatemala. Planning truly is a fool’s errand. Almost all of my preconceptions of this country have been shattered and are currently littered among the cobblestone streets of Antigua Guatemala. Every now and again, I see one of these “plans” ephemerally blow by. I futilely chase after it like a bag in the wind only to allow it to slip from my grasp. There is no strategy to this country every movement is impulsive.

I imagined I would come here and take a million photos and spend my evenings unwinding on my net book, updating this travel blog. I found that if you have time to take photos of or write about your amazing life that life probably not that amazing. I haven’t had 20 minutes to myself in 8 days.

We land in Guatemala City and meet the other volunteers. We drive 45 minutes to Antigua. Traffic signals, lanes, cross walks, are all just suggestions in Guatemala. That being said it is not really dangerous at all, well not as much as the American Embassy would have you believe. It is about as dangerous as any economically depressed area in the world.

When we arrive in Antigua, we find the most commercial city in Central America outside of Cancun. The ratio of tourist and Antiguan is 1:1. We have dinner in a bar called MonoLoco. It resembles a college bar and everything that entails. We watch the Colts lose on a giant flat screen as we are served a TexMex cuisine. On Monday we are began Spanish lesson, 6 grueling hours of private instruction 5 days a week. Our nights are just as crazy as the weekends. I average about 3 hours each night just to wake up to the same sadistic routine.

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