A day in the life...

My day starts as it ends: with el gallo (translation: rooster; also the name of Guatemala´s national beer). El gallo starts crowing around 4 a.m. and continues throughout much of the morning; that´s why earplugs are a beautiful thing. That, and to muffle the sound of cockroaches scrambling around.

Breakfast is at 7 a.m. sharp and normally consists of cereal, fruit and coffee, or eggs and beans. If we have a new student - pancakes! Instant coffee, of course. I´ll take what I can get when it comes to caffeine. The morning is usually quiet because the kids leave around 6:30 a.m. to walk to school. Maria chats a little with us all and her day is mainly cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for the 8 kids, 3 to 4 adults (depending on who stops by) and the 3 students. She also works 2 hours a day cleaning a house in a nearby pueblo for some extra cash.

La Casa Loca
If you´ve been following along, Maria is Marco Srs. wife. Although they are not officially divorced, Mario lives with his mistress. Marco Sr. (the empire of) told Pablo (a fellow housemate and student) that Maria had sex with him 6 times (thus 6 of his 10 children) and doesn´t like sex, but loves taking care of people so it all works out. Funny how men are completely delusional.

This model of family seems rife in Guatemala. Julio (a teacher at the school, son of Marco Sr and father to 4 of the children in the house) is married to a woman but lives with Paula (also a teacher at the school) and their 2 children. Paula is married to a man in California who lives there with their child and sends money. Pedro, my teacher, also lives with a woman and their 3 children, but is married to another woman in Mexico (who lives there with their son). Pablo says, ¨There´s more illigitimate children in the house than I´ve had bowel movements in Guatemala.¨If someone could only air-drop some condoms into Guatemala...

The kids are great and very used to students coming in and out of the house. I learn a lot from them and I think a lot about their lives and their futures. Dominic´s school doesn´t have enough teachers this year to teach all the subjects so he can´t take enough classes. Alejandra is 16 with a baby due in June. Dominic, Ana, Diana and Valentin´s mom left to be with another man, and left them with their other grandmother (a drunk who couldn´t take care of them). Bruno shares a room with his dad, the tuc-tuc driver (who is rumored to be an addict and drunk, although is a seemingly nice guy that likes break-dancing). The kids are all super happy, friendly and love their family. But it hurts me that they sleep on the couch and that their dad can´t live with them. I know it´s impossible to compare situations - especially when Maria does love and care for them all. I wonder what they think. How can I judge? I cannot. This family, these kids, are doing better than many other familes I´ve seen. Love, food, family - it´s all there. Teen pregnancy, addiction, sadness, corruption and cockroaches - that´s all there too.

Las 3 escuelas
After breakfast, I´m off to school for an 8 a.m. start. The school is also a dysfunctional family (por supuesto, it´s just another extension of Marco Sr.) with all the gossip, drama and intrigue. All the maestros (teachers) are great and friendly and I´m positive that I´ve got the best teacher in Antigua. Pedro and I usually chat for a bit before and after each lesson - about what we did last night, politics, the economy, whether Julio fathered another child yet and what he watched on TV. The Rock of Love and Brett Michaels contines to bring people closer ( and Brett Michaels and his harem of women fit in just fine down here). Pedro likes to talk about las tres escuelas (the three schools): la casa, la escuela y la calle (home, school and the streets). He is a student of all three. He has been teaching Spanish for 19 years and is a person that has a lot of time and patience for his friends, students and people in need. He´s also a bromista (joker) with a bad mouth. I love him.

Spanish books, notebooks and pens, materials in general, are expensive for the teachers and so lessons are intensive one-on-one´s with things written in notebooks and sometimes on scraps of paper. Pedro can write upside down, so he writes out each lesson as we go and I´m slowly compiling a very complete and clear Spanish grammar book. I feel like I am learning a lot, but often get frustrated because I just want to know it already. I am doing 5 hours a day, so by 1 p.m. I am done and off to eat lunch with the family.

Lunch tends to be the big meal of the day at my casa - rice, beans and meat; sometimes pasta and vegetables; always tortillas or bread. It´s a lot of food and I´m missing my runs!

After lunch, I have the afternoon free to study, read and wander around. Mondays and Thursdays I go to a volunteer project in the nearby town of San Mateo to help teach English to kids in a dusty, rundown yard next to the municipalidad. I take a chicken bus to get there (named Samantha, believe it or not) and you just can´t beat pumping electronica acompanied by a hand-rigged flashing light system. Anyway, I´m slowly becoming an expert in card games - a great way to teach English words and numbers (and learn Spanish)!

After dinner, I meet up with whoever is around. Antigua is an easy place to relax, study and ridiculously easy to meet people. A favorite spot is Kafka, a hostel/bar with an outdoor patio and happy hour beers for $1.30. I tend to get there with housemates to have a couple of beers before and/or after dinner. I´ve met a lot of people there and have a rotating group of friends as people come and go. My beloved housemates Pablo and Roberto have moved on, but have been replaced by Billie (English), a couple of boys from Cork and now Ana from Denmark. Antigua is the place to meet fellow travelers and you can easily pick up a travel buddy to continue on with.

I think I chose well coming to Antigua first, to meet people and to ease into the travel. I will, however, be ready to escape gringo-ville and explore the rest of Guate.

I am firmly living a day at a time, the only way you can when countries, towns, travelers, time and experiences stretch out before you. As always, the trail finds you and you find the trail. I´ve met more solo women travelers than any other type of traveler. I have yet to feel as if I am traveling alone. The community of travel is a strange and welcoming environment. You meet and befriend people you may never have had 2 words with in another situation. You laugh at finding someone with the same itinerary, and you change your plans to go with someone with a cooler one.

I don´t know what kind of traveler I am, not yet. But i´ve been inspired by Michael, who talks and dances with any local he can, and gets arrested within 5 hours of landing in Bangkok; Roberto, who sold his house in L.A. and has been traveling since, two and a half years later; Ana, who beat the crap out of 2 guys trying to rob her in Egypt; Sophie, who traveled 9 months from Argentina to Guatemala on her own and fell in love with Columbia.

The funny thing about traveling is you never meet anyone that has just started. So, 2 weeks in and I haven´t yet found the groove - still walking like a city girl, still waking up to perceived urgency (for what?) and not quite used to the layer of dirt. I´m on my way...