Besides the six students in the house, there are five other members of the family living together. They somehow all shared one room, but I guess they had to in order to fit everyone in the house. Mimi, the youngest girl no more than four years old, was so adorable that I was actually looking forward to coming home just to see her. She would murmur some unintelligible gibberish, but I think she understood more
Spanish than I.

On one of our outings, we went out to a field to plant trees. I thought well since I haven’t been going to the gym, I would give some sweat to a good cause. It wasn’t until we got there when I found out that there are no trees to plan. In fact, the field where we were to plant trees was not even tilled. For a couple hours, we used primitive tools to flatten the field. It seemed like we were getting nowhere; the stubborn roots of the grass dug in deep and held on tight. We were the beginning of an ambitious plan to plant one million trees in Xela. The plan is to start five nurseries to seed the trees and once they get bigger, they will be moved to bigger locations. There we were; building the first of five nurseries. As we worked the land, Alan, a 6’6” student from Canada, told us stories from his military training. After a couple hours, between the 7 of us, we tilled a total of probably 8 feet. What hard work! I am glad I am not a farmer. Later on, over a couple beers, Alan told us that the land for all five of the nurseries could be tilled by machine for Q200, which is less than $30. From that perspective, it was probably the biggest waste of human power. I have wasted many hours physical labor in the gym lifting dumb weights and producing nothing other than stimulating my muscles. This work was at least a little productive.

At the end of each week, the school hosts a dinner for all the students and teachers. Some people brought beer and wine to go with dinner. I happened to walk past a piñata shop and saw a lucky red Elmo. I stuffed him with candy and got a decorated yellow beating stick. After dinner, Alan got his diploma from the school, made a little speech in Spanish of course, and afterwards, onward to the bar. Many pitchers of beer followed. And then Elmo got his can of whoop-ass. As he laid there with his insides hanging out, a random guy at the bar ran to Elm, grabbed him and busted out the door like a lightning. “What just happened?” “Dude, he just kidnapped Elmo!” We all were laughing at the randomness of that. And then out of nowhere, the same guy busted back in, turned his head left and right as if he was looking for something. Then he ran to his chair, swiped his jacket and then just like that, he was gone again. I hope he got every lollipop out of Elmo. On the other hand, I don’t want to think about what he did to Elmo that night.

Pictures here

One of the things I am beginning to miss a lot is a hot shower with gushing buckets of steamy water. Except for the few nights of luxury hotels I stayed in Puerto Rico, I have been staying in private homes or local inexpensive hotels. All of the bathrooms didn’t have two lines of water, one hot and one cold, like in the US. What they have is an electrical shower head which heats up the water right before it comes out. The device only turns on when there is enough water going through it. But if too much water goes through, the device can not heat up enough water, so the water ends up being lukewarm at best. It’s a game between me and the showerhead every night. Sometimes I have no problems getting at least some hot water, but at other times the water pressure changes and when not enough water goes through, my little bit of hot water turns cold suddenly. By the time it got to my feet, the little hot water on my head and shoulders usually were mildly cold. When the water is hot, however little, my showers have become extended ceremonies because who knows when I will have hot water again!

Originally I only planned on staying in Xela, the second largest city in Guatemala for one week, but like many travelers who make a pit stop in Xela, I ended up staying for two weeks. Besides the smog that comes with the city, Xela is a pretty comfortable place to live. I enrolled in a Spanish school called Utatlan, which is right next to the center of Zone 1. One thing I don’t think I have mentioned before is that Guatemala cities are divided into zones, usually something like fifteen zones for a large city like Xela, which has about one 150,000 people. Each zone has its own road names and numbers, so there could be 10 different 12^th streets in one city because different zones could all have a 12^th street. Utatlan is one of the bigger schools and offers after school activities ranging from visiting Mayan town, taking salsa classes to hiking local trails. I also stayed with a local Guatemalan family to get the total immersion experience, but as it turned out, there were other students Erin, Casey, Karen and Sarah from the US and Rob from the UK living with the family. I felt like I was going to a boarding school again, meeting new people, going to classes and living together. After traveling for almost two months, having a regular schedule is a nice break.

Surrounding Xela are many worthy sites to visit. On my second day, we hiked a few kilometers up the mountain south of Xela to Los Vahos, a natural steam bath. Along the way were fields, plantations and a secret meeting house where leaders in Xela at one time point planned to secede from Guatemala. To their misfortune, the Guatemala government found out about it and executed them all in the central park. Xela has had a long tradition of independence from and mistrust of Guatemala city because of its population make up; Xela has a very high percentage of Mayan population while Guatemala city has mostly Ladinos, mix of Spanish and indigenous people. Despite Xela being the second largest city, it receives disproportionately small amount of financial aid from their federal government.

The natural steam bath is a hut built upon two holes that spew out geothermal heat. There are two separate rooms – each one seemed hotter than the other. Within about fifteen seconds of sitting in the room, I was entirely soaked from the vapor. Think of the time playing sports when you are just drenched in your own sweat and then imagine getting that hot and sweaty in fifteen seconds. That sums up the experience pretty closely. I tried to blow cold air on my arm, but by the time the air reached my arm, it felt like a fire torch on my arm. The eucalyptus leaves covering one of the steam hole made the air smell very fresh. My lungs though toasting have never felt better and my sinuses cleared. I felt like I was getting cooked, but in a good way. When I couldn’t take it any more, I would jump out under the cold shower outside for a bit and then go back in. I definitely haven’t felt better since the beginning of the trip.