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Published: March 1st 2008
Suddenly it was our last week in Xela and we had so much to do......in fact it´s taken me a week to find any time at all to write the blog!
On Saturday morning we met a group of other students to take a bus to Zunil, a nearby pueblo or small town that is famous for it´s hot springs. The local buses are old school buses from the US - you´ve all seen the yellow buses in films. The seats are definitely not designed for someone of Hugh´s size although we were quite lucky in that we all got seats as they often squeeze a huge number of people onto a bus.
The town is surrounded by dramatic mountainous scenery with every bare piece of ground in use for growing vegetables. Sadly as with everywhere else here it is spoiled a little by the rubbish strewn everywhere but we have to understand that this is not a very important issue for most people here when they are struggling to afford enough food and have clean water. Zunil is also famous for its effigy of San Simon, also known as Maximon (Hugh saw him in a small town near
Antigua). I thought that he was a mixture of a Catholic saint and a Mayan deity but my Spanish teacher explained on Monday that he is based on a story about a man who gave lots of money to a very poor man living in the forest many years ago. The effigy moves to a different location in the town every year in October and is not a bit like I expected. You can see from the pictures that he looks a bit like a mafia gangster with dark glasses, a sombrero and a cigarette. In the small room in which he is kept there were 2 or 3 people smoking cigarettes and cigars with him and he was surrounded by offerings of cigarettes, alcohol and food. I have still not really worked out why cigarettes and alcohol are so important but people regularly bring him things like this when they want to ask for something. Outside the little room in a courtyard there were also a couple of groups who were burning candles and other things on fires while chanting quietly. The different colours of the candles indicate what they are asking for. However, the fires also have chocolate,
sugar and other sweets on them which are, again, I think offerings to the saint.
From Zunil we negotiated a lift in a pick up truck to the hot springs which are about 12km away high in the mountains. It was hot and sunny in Zunil but we headed into clouds as we went up which was a pity as the views we did see were spectacular. There are 3 or 4 hot pools served by the hot spring coming straight out of the mountain which are set in what appears to be cloud forest - very damp and green. Before getting into the pools we slithered down a muddy path to the stream below which was also fed by the hot water and seemed a little like a fairy grotto it was so green and lush. We then had a picnic lunch with cream cheese and avocado sandwiches before heading for the pools.
The changing facilities are.....basic and it was a little chilly changing outside in the mist but the pools were wonderful and we lounged in the hot water chatting for an hour or two. I think I came out cleaner than I had been for
some time! We had arranged for the pick up to collect us later in the afternoon and from Zunil we caught another bus back to Xela. This time the seat was so narrow that there was no way Hugh could get his legs in and he had to sit with them in the aisle reinforcing our views that travelling any distance on the so called ´chicken buses´ is not for us!
The bus came back a different way and although we knew we were travelling through Xela nobody was sure really where we were. Rachel, appointed our leader because she´s been here a while on and off, suddenly jumped off the bus without saying anything to us and we carried on a little way before we got ourselves together to get off too - turns out she´d thought we were right behind! Luckily we were not too far away from home but ended up passing the house that Hugh and I stayed in the first week so we called in to say hello to the family.
Saturday night ended with a pizza (ok, not for Hugh!) and a hot chocolate on the balcony of a cafe overlooking the
main square. I think it´s a really beautiful place with impressive buildings, particularly when lit up at night but it´s so different from the rest of the city.
I had hoped Sunday would be quiet as I needed to study and have a rest but when the volunteer schedule had been put up on Friday it turned out that we were both going to be very busy and, in particular, I was in charge of a couple of classes (for the first time!). My main concern was two classes on Monday afternoon in a school I hadn´t even visited before, never mind taught in. I didn´t know how many children, how old and what they knew.... I had managed to briefly talk to the girl who had taught them for a few weeks before on the Friday but it´s very hard to really know if you have never met the kids. So, much of Sunday was spent preparing for those classes (& being very nervous about them!) along with a bit of shopping, starting to plan our next few weeks travelling and trying to study a little.
Both of us had new teachers again on Monday - Hugh
had my old teacher, Karen, and I had Lily. I had been utterly confused by the subjunctive ( a tense we don´t have in English) the week before but Lily started me all over again and I started to get the hang of it. I heard somebody at school say it´s not really a tense it´s a mood....see why it might be difficult!
The scariest event of the week for me was standing in front of two classes of 30-odd teenagers knowing I had to speak in Spanish. With the second class there was a stomach turning moment when I realised that they hadn´t learnt what I thought they had the week before so everything I had prepared for them was of no use and I had to make it up as I went along. I hadn´t realised that the children stayed in the class after we finished at 5pm and as the time clicked over to 5 past and 10 past and nobody had rung a bell I was just praying that the class would end. It turned out that it was us that was supposed to leave without the help of a bell but I only realised
this when Hugh stood outside the classroom waving us out!
Actually, for teenagers they were remarkably well behaved and most seemed keen to learn - I don´t think it would´ve been anywhere near as easy for a similar class in the UK if the teacher couldn´t speak much English.
Hugh had a really busy week timetabled for 4 afternoons but he switched his gardening and construction duties to upload some new photos and text onto the school website.
I was helping with another English class later in the week and then was in charge of an art class with the small kids on Thursday afternoon. We were decorating collection boxes that the school wants to put in some of the local restaurants and hotels etc along with making some cards for one of the co-ordinators who is leaving shortly. The kids seemed to have a great time but by the end of the class there were at least 4 small boys sitting under the table using clay dough to pick up glitter and confetti from the floor and throwing balls at each other. The room looked like a whirlwind had been through by the time they´d finished.
Still nobody hurt themselves unlike the boy earlier in the week who had got his finger stuck in the bell used to ring the end of lessons! I must also admit that I never expected to know the words for glue, glitter and confetti (pica pica!) in Spanish.....!
Other activities in the week included salsa lesson, playing football (Hugh only - they have too many injuries for my liking!) and writing group (me) . We missed a couple of things because we were trying to sort out some of our onward travels including a flight for which we kept being given the wrong documentation but which is sorted now.
And suddenly it was our last day. And another cooking day for all of us. Luckily Hugh had made our curry the night before...one of the few savoury dishes as desserts turned out to be the order of the day. The highlight being an apple crumble - yum! After we´d finished lunch there were presentations to the people leaving, including Mercedes who has been volunteering there for 3 months and will be missed very much. She has just retired and we are also significantly older than almost all the
other students and volunteers and Alex, the international co-ordinator tried to explain that, even though we were a little older, how much they appreciated the fact that we had just joined in with everyone. We all knew what he was trying to say but he kept digging himself into a very big hole by referring to our ages and we all couldn´t help but laugh at him. What has been really lovely about being here is that, despite the fact that we´re 20 years older than most of the people, they´ve treated us exactly the same as everyone else. It really is a great example of a place where who you are or where you come from (or how old you are) does not matter, what matters is that you want to get involved with what they are doing.
Hugh had a lesson in the afternoon (supposed to be English but Mercedes has found that with the very small kids it is easier to do art to keep them busy!) and came home very pleased because two of the small girls who rarely do anything in class had actually asked him to make them clay animals and they had
then painted them. I had left after lunch but was very tearful as I walked away from the school. For both of us it seems like we are just getting to know the children and make some progress with them and then we have to leave. We know that it´s hard for the kids too as they have so many new teachers. But it is also time for us to move on as there´s a number of things we want to do and who knows when we´ll get chance to come back.
For our last night, 20 of us went for a curry (another one!) which was pretty good (& we allowed ourselves to eat meat again) and then to a bar and then dancing.....who says we´re too old?! Having said that, by 1am I was flagging and I decided that it was easier to say goodbye there rather than at the end of a long night so it was hugs all round and we walked the short way back to the apartment, exhausted.
And that´s the end of Xela really. While it´s been pretty tiring and there´s been days when I´ve been pretty nervous about what I´ve got to do, it´s been a fantastic experience. It is refreshing to meet so many young people who have the courage to come to a place like this, alone, and commit their time to helping other people in an unfamiliar environment and language. Maybe it all sounds a bit cliched but it´s also great to meet people who are not so cynical about the world, or at least, parts of it. Leaving is very hard and I can´t imagine not trekking up the dusty hill to school on Monday morning but exciting things await us. We´re going to take it a little easy over the next week but we have lots of plans so watch this space......
Hope not too much damage from the winds (& the earthquake - we obviously didn´t need to come all this way!) and that all are well.
S + H xx
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jonathan
non-member comment
Ahhhhh
Bonne chance for the next stage of your journey (yes its French but I have no idea what the Spanish for good luck is - perhaps you can enlighten me!). J x