The Scorpion King!

So, I’ve had a nice weekend. I wish, for the sake of interest, I could say it was a nice weekend enjoying the spectacular scenery and fascinating culture that Guatemala has to offer. Sadly for you, dear reader, I’ve hardly left the house.

Everyone seems to have been away this weekend. My housemates are, as I write this, on their way back from Antigua Guatemala, the quetzal reserve and a hippy festival at Lake Attitlan. I was invited to the festival, but the thought of a ten hour round trip simply to come back smelling of Patchouli wasn’t too appealing. Besides, I had to work on a Saturday and shouting at a corral of ten Korean kids of a morning is my best paid class all week.

So that left me with nothing to do except to tell my housemates that I intended to spend the entire weekend naked, and head to the supermarket in search of steak. “Could you grab some toilet roll while you’re there?” they asked. No problem, I thought. I got in to Paiz (basically Wal-mart) and located the toilet rolls. A big special offer sign grabbed my attention. “I’m in here,” I thought, “Cheap toilet roll and steak, awsomeproso!” Then I looked at the price: 60 quetzales for 12 rolls. That’s about £5! I’m not sure what the going rate for bog roll back at home is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that much. Even if it is, as a proportion of my earnings it’s huge, I only earn around £500 a month here and I can’t afford to be shelling out that much just for a wipe. It’s not even good quality either, Andrex shits all over it.

The relative cost of things here is mad, anything vaguely western or middle class is hugely expensive, largely as you are also funding the men with shotguns who guard the store and keep most of the local populace out. Being a ‘canche’ has it’s advantages here as you never get challenged going anywhere, as people just assume that you’re rich. Anyway, by way of a comparison, I bought three bags of fairly basic sweets for one of my classes on Friday (due to a foolish bowling bet). They cost me 75Q, about the same amount I’d spent on full, cooked lunches with drink and sometimes dessert in the local eateries that week.

Basically, a lot of things are damned expensive here. I’m keen to buy a laptop as my lesson planning is causing the destruction of great swathes of rainforest, and my room is starting to resemble that of one of those old people they have to dig out of their flats as they’ve kept every newspaper they’ve ever bought. Sadly, the cheapest laptop here new is about 7,000Q. This is once again because of security issues, and the fact that there’s no internet shopping whatsoever here means the prices are prohibitive to say the least. Fortunately, I might have found someone with a laptop to sell for nearer 2,000Q, so that would be nice. It might even mean more regular bog updates. No doubt you’ll be pleased to hear that.

Definitely the most terrifying thing that’s happened to me this weekend involves an encounter with some of the local fauna. Having woken up from a little late afternoon nap, I was sat downstairs doing my Spanish homework. Grappling with relative pronouns, I was distracted by a movement on the floor. Initially I thought it was a cockroach, but looking again I espied a scorpion sauntering toward my flip-flop shod foot. I squealed, and ran upstairs. Scorpions are a bit of a childhood fear: I used to check under my duvet each night after my Dad told me they snuck into England in banana crates. Having calmed down a little bit, I decided it was time to man up and go scorpion hunting. I changed into some more appropriate footwear and crept back downstairs. I armed myself with a Tupperware box and peered into the dining room. The scorpion was sat by a table leg. At this point I should say it was all of an inch and a half long, and probably as scared of me as I was of it. It wasn’t the fleetest either, and sat meekly as I threw the box over it. I considered keeping it, my flatmate Ben would have been very interested in a scorpion, but I decided that I should set the noble beast free. Sliding a folder under the box, I scooped the intruder up and deposited it at the edge of the patio. Hopefully we won’t be seeing it again, as I’m fairly sure Alice would go absolutely spastic if she saw it.

That though, was about as exciting as anything got this weekend. I watched Fracture in Spanish (awful film) and then a bit of Slipstream with Vinnie Jones (even worse) while supping a litre of Clos Cabernet Sauvignon (surprisingly good). I had steak twice and chips once, and of course the obligatory Friday night tacos and beer. If anyone wants to come and see me, it will be worth it just for a trip to the taco stand by the way. I went for a quick potter round the residencia this evening and peered into the barranco, and said good afternoon to the pretty girl cleaning her car, but that’s about as far as my flirting Spanish (or English) extends.

Maybe I’ll do something next weekend. It feels like I should. If I do, I’ll be sure to tell you about it. Hasta la proximo vez. Grev