Slightly late weekly update.

Blog Entry – 22/3/09

Yesterday was my two-monthiversary in Guatemala. Perhaps it’s time for a bit of a review; be prepared for some self-indulgence later on. First though, this week, which has been a bit more interesting than last.

Firstly, no scorpions this week, though I did have to kill a cockroach on Saturday morning. This week has been mental, I’ve taught 30 hours of classes, which is a lot I can assure you. I’d be interested to know how many hours you guys teaching at home do, and if it’s as much as this, how you do it. I am exhausted. Still, I am looking forward to a pretty big paycheck at the end of this month.

Football this week was a little disappointing. We were only six out of seven again so a 6-3 defeat sounds like a respectable effort, but that hides the fact that the opposition never even got out of a jog. I think the big problem is lack of practice, but there’s not much opportunity. Guatemala doesn’t really do parks, they just build houses on them. There’s very little green space here, except in the middle of the main east to west highway. This is closed each Sunday for people to use as a park, which is nice but not really ideal. Apparently London is about 50% green space: in Guatemala the figure is more like 5%. Football-wise, I’m starting to favour the idea of joining a softball league instead. I was rounders captain in primary school, so I have experience.

On Friday evening our taxista, Freddi, invited housemate Andrea and I to his house and to watch a religious procession in El Pueblito (the little village), where he lives. I’ve talked before about how religious Guatemala is, but it’s worth mentioning again especially as we are in the run up to Semana Santa (Holy Week). Every bus you get on has numerous figures of Jesus and other religious minutiae, and most of the ‘camionetas’ are painted with “Jesus Es Mi Pastor” or suchlike. This obviously doesn’t help too much with keeping them safe though, as the number of bus-drivers murdered this year is already in double figures. Freddy, by comparison, is not so fanatical, keeping the iconography down to a small pendant of Christ on the cross hung from his rear-view mirror and ‘D-I-O-S’ written on the side of four pads of post-its on his dashboard.

Anyway, Freddi’s invitation poses a couple of problems. One, it threatens a whole evening of speaking Spanish, at which I am still less than proficient. Secondly, watching religious festivals make me feel rather awkward and slightly perverted: I’ve never quite seen why people who are wholly irreligious choose to get married in church. I can respect that people worship, but going to watch seems a little weird. I put these concerns to one side though, as this is something that few foreigners get to see in Guatemala -you can’t just wander into a village here, order a cream tea and potter about in the churchyard like you could in England. So, after work on Friday Freddy picks us up from our house and drives us up the hill south of the city to El Pueblito.

Freddi lives in a three storey house constructed of concrete blocks. It’s pretty austere but homely, and contains a nice stereo, big TV complete with Nintendo Wii for his nephew, Davide. He shares the house with his wife, three daughters, one of their husbands. He also has three cocker spaniels, who live perched precariously on the roof. His uncle lives next door, with several other relations. When we arrive, his family are engaged in building a shrine outside the house for the procession.

The procession takes the form of several of the women from the village carrying a statue of Jesus dragging the cross through the village. They are followed by a battered Nissan with a huge amplifier lashed to the top. From this emerges a stately march at deafening volume. Each house in the village has constructed a shrine outside, lit with candles or floodlights, and featuring variously pictures or statues of Jesus, melons, bits of tree and incense burners. The procession halts at each house, the music is turned off and the women say prayers through a microphone to the kneeling population. I stay back and observe while Andrea takes photos. I think about how privileged I am to be seeing this, and then about how many houses are in the village and how many stops the procession will make before it gets to Freddi’s house at the top of the hill. I reckon about 15 instances of listening to unintelligible prayers before I get some food. The children of the village prove to be more entertaining, they seem to be excused from the procession and amuse themselves playing football. Some of them speak a little English and shout “How are you?” They don’t really seem to understand when I answer them though. I try in Spanish instead with no more success. The only person who I seem to be able to communicate with is Davide, who is six. I think our Spanish is probably at about the same level, though that might be unfair on him.

Andrea meanwhile is proving a hit with the children. She is surrounded by them, showing them pictures on her digital camera and chattering away in Spanish. Andrea was definitely born to teach kids. I cower by Freddi’s side: “Muchos amigos,” he says pointing at Andrea. “Si,” I reply, then after a pause “Ella es muy beuno con los ninos”. I suspect that this is less than perfect Spanish, but I get my point across.

After about an hour of prayers and singing the procession winds its way to Freddi’s house. I stand next to him on a step. His daughters kneel in front of the shrine. Prayers are said and songs are sung, he looks at me and smiles. I can tell he’s proud. After one more halt, the procession makes its way back to the church. We follow it and bathe in the stares of the villagers who weren’t involved in the procession. Normally I feel fairly foreign just walking around the city, here I feel triply so. When we get to the church, the lady pastor gives a mercifully short speech and then thanks everyone for coming, including personally thanking “our visitors”, prompting everyone to turn around and applaud Andrea and I. I wonder if this is really deserved, all I’ve done is stand around and look out of place.

We retire to Freddi’s house for tacos and sweetbreads, both of which are delicious. I spend the rest of the evening murdering the Spanish language in an attempt to communicate, and confessing that yes, the English do drink a lot (well, we do). Then we go back home through the ravine, which Freddi tells us isn’t that dangerous after all, and is absolutely amazing. I set my alarm for 6:30am (on a Saturday!) and go to bed.

Saturday night is birthday night, no less than three people associated with the school had birthdays around last weekend, so on Saturday night we went out for some drinks and a bit of dancing in Cuatro Grados Norte, a small, slightly bohemian area which is springing up in Zona 4. It’s definitely the best part of the city I’ve been to. The bars are cool, the crowds are good and you can row about drink prices in pigeon Spanish. We go to a bar where we are the only white people, and show the locals how you should definitely not go about dancing.

Since I started writing this a while ago more stuff has happened. Yesterday we all got sent home early as Guatemala City was ‘kicking off’ a bit. The gangsters here murdered 8 bus drivers for not paying their extortion monies, and also two Koreans for no good reason at all. Then the bus drivers blocked the roads, the army came out and martial law was looking like it might get declared. In the end I don’t think that it did. It made little difference to me anyway, I went home, went for a run, ate some soup and watched ‘The Last Castle’ with Robert Redford. It’s a hard job living here, but someone has to do it.

So how is it going? Well, actually really good. The teaching’s going well, though in terms of grammar it’s a very steep learning curve especially as I prefer to teach higher levels, and the people at the school are great. They kind of have to be though, as it’s not the easiest place to meet people here. There’s little nightlife and what there is is eye-wateringly expensive for poorly paid English teachers. The house is also fine, I’m enjoying things being a bit more simple, though the electricity cutting out halfway through your shower is never a good thing. I’m not that sunburnt, though not at all tanned either. I’ll end with two wishes:

1) The school recruits a teacher who’s halfway decent at football, but not so good as to upstage me.

2) Someone brings me a computer, or points one out that I can afford here.

Thanks for reading all this. I’m also attaching some parade photos, courtesy of Andrea.

AG

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

Still alive, yo.

Hey team,

Apologies for the lack of hot blog action of late. Truth is I've been very busy of late. My teaching schedule is now up to 23 hours a week, with 8 hours of travelling to and from to business classes and another 6 hours of Spanish tuition. That's all before I've started lesson planning too. All this means I'm not a very exciting bunny at the moment.

That said, the teaching is great fun and to be honest, there's not really that much to do here anyway. I did manage to go to some bars and talk to some Guatemaltecos in halting Spanish last weekend and as soon as I finish writing this the school is taking all the staff bowling. Then I'm off to empty the pockets of Arnout, our Dutch teacher, in a game of poker.

In football news, we keep getting thrashed but we have now recruited a 7th player and we we're even ahead for a few minutes last week, so things might be looking up. No suntan (obviously) or Guatemalan girlfriend yet to those keeping score on that front. My sunblock just needs to last another couple of months and the its rainy season and cloudy skies for six whole months, whoop whoop!

My future plans include a trip up north to our other school in Coban, and maybe escaping down to El Salvador for a weekend if I can ever get some time off. Reports on anything exciting I do will be swiftly posted on here, possibly with photos once I've attacked the charger for my camera battery with some 'No mas claves'.

That's about time up for this blog post. Thanks to anyone who's emailed - I've tried to reply to all correspondence. If anyone fancies visiting feel free, although bear in mind there is bugger all to do here. Also, if anyone fancies bringing me a laptop from Asia, the US or Britain that would be awesome.

Laters, potaters...

Mas Futbol

Oxford 0 - 6 The other lot

Early kick off at 8:30pm this week, and the leap forward extended to the Oxford team. At least, it did in terms of performance, though not in number. The fact that Adna, our first choice centre-forward lives in an area too dangerous to drive through at nights rules him out this week, so we started a man down.

What followed was a gritty defensive performance, and an Oxford side with genuine shape. OK, we only managed a couple of shots on goal, having deployed a Kevin Davies-esque stand in forward with no ball control skills (me), but we defended stoutly, with Wisconsin born Ben again impressing in only his third game. Are you watching Alexei Lallas?

Anyway, on to next week and perhaps, even more impovement...

Antigua & Volcano Climbing

So, I have something exciting to report: on Saturday I left Guatemala City for the first time! Actually, I'd left it before, apparently our football pitch is just outside the city limits. But this was an extended time outside doing exciting stuff, so in a frightening break from what you've been used to on The Guat Phone, here's something interesting.

After Saturday classes we got a lift with our director, Bryant, over to the neighbouring town of Antigua. Antigua is a little different to Guatemala. For one, it doesn't have a population of 3 million people. For two, it has things that you might want to see, and for three, you can walk about at night with only a negligible risk of someone trying to shoot you. Antigua was the old Spanish colonial capital until 1776 when the people got fed up with their homes being completely flattened by earthquakes and so gave nascence to my beloved(?) Guatemala City instead. Anyway, it's everything Guate is not: relaxed, pretty with an excellent nightlife. It feels a bit like cheating sometimes though, as it's far too easy to get around not speaking any Spanish at all. Anyway, here are some pictures of it:

The old colonial palace. Not sure who the chap doing The Bartman in the foreground is though.

The fountain in Parque Central.

If you go to Antigua you have to take a picture of this arch. Its like, the LAW.

We didn't really do that much in Antigua, just aprpeciated being able to walk around and breathe without choking on bus fumes. We had a couple of beers in Monoloco (Crazy Monkey) which was very touristy, then a burger at a Tex Mex place, then went to Cafe No Se (Cafe I Don't Know), which is an entertainingly arty self-proclaimed "dive-bar". It's OK, though I think it tries a little too hard, and the Gaelic folk band covering 'Losing My Religion' was trying to say the least. It does publish an excellent free arts magazine though, called La Cuarda. I decide to leave trying their "Illegal Mescal" until next time though, as we'd booked a tour to the Pacaya volcano leaving at 6am.

So, at the appointed hour, Andrea, Tamara and I climb bleary eyed into a minibus and set off in search of hot stuff. The drive to Pacaya is twisty and we probably go up and down several thousand feet. At one point, on the opposite carriageway we see an BMW on its side dangerously close to the edge of a steep drop into the valley below. It looks like it has been in collision with a "chicken-bus". Having seen Guatemalan driving first hand, I suspect this is not uncommon. We turn off the road onto an unmade track winding up through coffee plantations and tiendas (there is seemingly nowhere without one in Guatemala) until we reach the entrance to the national park. We are told our group is called Panteras (will they call the next one Sepelturas I wonder?) and that our guide is called Karina. She doesn't speak any English, which I would have said was fairly essential for guiding tourists through a rapidly shifting landscape of molten rock, but hey ho, up we go.

The climb starts winding up through a forest. There's surprisingly little wildlife here, apart from the dogs which accompany tour groups up the volcano in search of snack foods. Although the forest is quite dense, there's little birdsong or rustlings. Maybe it's a bit high for them, we're about 2,000 metres above sea level here. After this the forest clears out and we are faced with a view of about twenty mobile phone masts. Ah, the romance of the mountains. A few hundred metres on though, and we are faced with our first view of Pacaya. A scorched, black, lifeless landscape which sweeps up to the cone, which is busy belching steam into the sky. We walk down onto the black plain, formed of tiny, lightweight gravel type rocks. The going gets tougher as it's rather like walking through sand. My walking shoes are webbed and quickly fill up with black dust. As we start to ascend, the rocks gradually become bigger and the effect is more like being in a ball-pit. Every step sets off a mini landslide, so you are forced to avoid rocks being dislodged by people in front, as well as trying to keep your footholds. I find, due to my 'scrabbling' technique, that volcanic rock is pretty sharp. Fairly soon there's a fair amount of blood on both hands, but I carry on nonetheless. The guide leads us on to a lava flow, which gets hotter and hotter the further we climb. I wonder what the working tempreature of my soles might be. Eventually though, we reach a point where we can actually see the lava. The heat is searing, robbing the breath from your lungs, but I stand there for long enough to point a camera at it, then escape to a safe distance. This is what we came for.

After a drink and a snack (shared with the dogs) we head back down. This proves to be even more difficult than getting up. A technique which combines surfing, jumping, running and falling over seems to be the choice of most people. I do further damage to my hands, but escape relatively lightly compared to some, who sport quite nasty gashes to the legs. Life tip: If you're climbing a volcano, take gloves and don't wear shorts.

So all in all, a short, but satisfactory expedition. We get the "chicken bus" back to the city and are home eating a resorative salad by 2pm. For my next trick, I plan to climb the highest volcano in Guatemala over Easter...

Is this a good idea?


Essential volcano climbing equipment: Marshmallow, Stick


Yep, that's a jet of superheated steam and molten rock spurting from the top of my head.


Guatemalan volcano dog. Species: unknown. Diet: Sandwiches, Muffins, Chocolate. Possibly rabid.

Futbol Mundial Numero Dos

Oxford 2 - 10 Some other Guatemaltecos

So, once again we wind up out of the city into the hills toward Pradera Concepcion for gameweek 2 of the Oxford season. Confidence is high(er) tonight. Rumours of not only a full team, but a substitute as well abound. Personally I'm more confident tonight, having managed to eat something in the two days preceding this week's game. No rum either, as we're running late - all in all the omens couldn't be better...

On arrival, I'm presented with a slip of paper detailing my 20Q fine for last week's (scandalous) yellow card. 20Q is about 2 quid, forex fans, but gets you a cooked lunch, drink and change in one of the local comedors here. I promise to pay next week and wonder what the Spanish for 'appeal' might be.

With a full team the opening exchanges of the game are quite even, you might even say that Oxford are shading it, particularly when my speculative affort (left-footed too) crashes against the bar and out. Then, unfortunately, a shot finds a way through a throng of bodies and nestles itself in the bottom corner. How will Centro de Idiomas respond to this setback? Very well, as it turns out, as impish striker Adna robs a dithering defender and slots into the top corner. Turns out this was a bit of a false dawn though, as the opposition quickly rack up another three goals to go 4-1 up. Just before half-time some neat Oxford passing brings just, if ungraceful reward as your correspondent shins in a volley for 4-2.

The half-time team talk consists of lots of heavy breathing and imbibing of water. Someone wheezes "we're still in this". And we are, matching the opposition blow for blow for the first 10 minutes of the second half. Then, disaster: goalkeeper Hergil, in attempting to save a corner, succeeds only in turning the ball back to the lurking striker, who rolls into the empty net. Oxford hearts break, and knees start to give way. Truly, playing at altitude is no fun at all; you feel permanently breathless, unable to recover any energy whatsoever once its gone. I find myself praying for just a couple of gulps of good old Sussex air, but there is none. The last fifteen minutes is a parade for the opposition, slotting in six more. After the game, training is half-heartedly discussed, and dismissed. Better luck next week I guess - I'm off for a run.

My So-Called (Guatemalan) Life Pt. 1

So, I’m yet to really say much about things here. In between bouts of New-York related lexical diahorrea (and some bouts of the more real kind) I’ve been too busy to write much about what I’m actually doing here. Over the next thousand words or so I’ll try to put that right.

I’ve now been here for about two and a half weeks, though it feels quite a lot longer than that. My weeks have taken shape now and its clear that I’m going to be very, very busy over the next year. I did point out to people before I left that I wasn’t going on holiday, but to have to be up before 7am six mornings a week was rather unexpected. I’m up to teaching about 21 hours per week, to a mixture of young and old, Korean and Guatemalteco at the school and at two local companies. Once you factor in lesson planning as well as six hours of Spanish per week, then you can see I have a pretty packed schedule. The good news is that I do really enjoy it. Most of my classes are a joy to teach and we have a great deal of fun. It also means that I’m going to have more disposable income than I’ve ever had, and absolutely no time to spend it. I’m beginning to think that some traveling after this may well be in order.

The school itself is great. A large, cool building set in a tropical looking garden. We get hummingbirds feeding on the flowers just outside the windows I’m looking out of, which was tremendously exciting when I first noticed it. The people here are lovely and we are well looked after. The Spanish speaking receptionists also make sympathetic conversation partners for learners like me.

Similarly, our house is a joy. I live with three other teachers in a terracotta brick house with marble floors. It’s so huge that we don’t use half of downstairs, though this is also partly due to the current lack of furniture. We have a lovely back patio with built in barbeque, ideal for parties for the half of the year when it’s not raining (see photo in previous post). The house is set in a ‘residencia’, a gated community which is staffed by shotgun wielding guards. They are terribly efficient at stopping anyone unless they are ogling a pretty ‘chapina’ walking past, in which case all and sundry are allowed to enter. While I feel slightly guilty about locking myself away from the city, it is a relief when I pass through the gates. Everyone here lives behind some form of security – I’m afraid that it is a necessary evil. Anyway, we do walk to school through the local neighbourhood, which is more than most of our neighbours do.

In terms of going out and doing stuff, I’ve done fairly little here so far. The truth is it’s not very safe to go out after dark, and most of us are too tired after school anyway. We have had one epic night out around ‘Las cien puertas’ (The hundred doors) in Zona 1 but we were chauffered there and back. Our plans to escape the city at weekends have been scuppered by the fact that either myself or one of my housemate’s has been ill almost continuously. I think it’s due to adjusting to the food, and the recent cold snap that saw temperatures fall as low as 13C! I am plotting escapes at the weekends, though having just given most of my cash to Banco America Central only to be told I can’t access it for 8 working days, I may have to put those plans on hold. The good/bad news is there’s no such thing as ‘going to the pub’ here really – the closest we get is strolling to our local taco stand and buying a couple of litres of ‘Gallo’ from the shop next door to drink with our meal. Last time the owner sent his infant son to get our beer for us - I don’t think there’s much in the way of licensing laws here. The food is great here. We buy fresh vegetables on our way home and eat an awful lot of salad (I know, how the carnivorous have fallen) and it’s heartening to know that anything you eat has been picked within a few miles, rather than flown across several oceans and then polished to within an inch of its life. Local comedors (eateries) provide most of our meals out, often eating there is cheaper than cooking yourself - a meal and a drink will set you back no more than 20Q (about $3).

So that’s really it, in a nutshell. I get up at about 5:50am, usually get back about 8pm and go to bed soon after that. I’ve not been shot or stabbed as of yet. As I’ve said before, I think I’m more likely to get run over. Expect news on any adventures soon, hasta pronto!