In which I get a hair-cut and take a vacation

It has been a good long while since my last entry. As expected, things are different and things are the same. I let certain things drift away, and pulled other things closer. I got my hair cut and took my first Guatemalan vacation. I ate and drank, and sometimes made my stomach unhappy. Sure: I tried to think some Big Thoughts, but found that the future can be a wet bar of soap in the hands of rationality and logic. Which explains why I've had some shower-free days recently. Doesn't it?

Work continues unabated, and this month promises to happily fill up my schedule. We've got our 10th Anniversary celebration mid-October, and there's plenty of things to organize and plenty of crazy stressed-out rants to listen to. I might even get my own rant! I've got some other time-intensive projects as well, and I should be starting to help out with our Men's Literacy class next week. Should be a well-needed challenge, hopefully.

Next week I will also be moving out of the home I have been staying in since arriving in Antigua two months ago, and moving into a house in Guatemala City. The other residents are 4 girls who I know through work, and 2 guys who I don't know. I am looking forward to this: A chance to cook. A chance to live in a new place. A chance to hang out with cool people. All this of which I am a fan. I am, however, not a fan of sad goodbyes, which is what I will have when I leave Amparo and Lili, my host family in Antigua. I will be letting them know about my plans tonight. I am not ready for tears, at all. No.

In a crying-free segment, I took a trip last week over our Guatemalan Independence Day long weekend to visit my friend Louise at Lago Atitlan. This was an excellent trip:

I arrived at Lago "Lake" Atitlan early Saturday morning in a collective van -- that is so say, collectively, I was the only passenger. The van took me to Panajachel, the only major town on the lake. From there I boarded a lancha to ferry me over to Santiago Atitlan, a smaller town on the opposite side of the lake. Lady Luck provided me with a bright, clear morning, and we zipped across the calm waters, staring out at the volcanoes which ring the lake, the fluffy dancing clouds streaked across the blue sky. The color of the water is nothing short of magical. It is a dark blue which seems almost alive, as if there is some primordial light-energy held captive under the waves, waiting to burst through and let us know that everything, everything is going to be OK. And yet we are content to just know that it is down there, below the reeds, the shimmying fish, the murky monsters of the imagination, way down -- but still there.

I spent three nights with Louise and her doctors friends at Chez Medicos (Fact Check: I just made that name up), a ridiculously nice house with property stretching down to the lake. They are an international group of doctors and med students volunteering at the local Hospitalito Atitlan, a 5 minute walk down the dirt path towards town. These were all also excellent people, and I felt very much at home during my time there. We cooked dinners, lounged around during the heavy afternoon rains, watched movies on laptops, and played with their dog and cat. The two animals did not get along, but the humans did with only minimal assistance from beer. We also pulled off some rightful trespassing in order to jump off a dock into the lake. I decapitated a scorpion with my shoe. Louise and I took a short sojourn to nearby San Pedro for ice cream and booze. In fact: that was not the original purpose of the trip. But plans change. We met some of San Pedro's more upstanding citizens, had some nice lounging and chatting time overlooking the lake, and one of us learned about staphilococcus and listeria (I learned the easy way, Louise was forced to remember the hard way). I decided to stay a little longer back at Chez Medicos, and so took the super-early bus back to Guatemala City on Wednesday morning. In summation: an awesome long weekend. And I decapitated a scorpion with my shoe. In case you missed that first mention of my coolness.

I wonder if many of you readers have had the experience of another person trimming your moustache. Not to be missed. I could barely control my laughter while "Willy" took his trimmers to my upper lip. I tried to use the old "think of something horrible" trick. But it's hard to concentrate on anything when someone is trimming your moustache. This is the sort of information we need to be passing on to our children.

If it wasn't clear from earlier comments, I am moving towards spending more time down here in Guatemala -- almost certainly until the end of the year. I will start receiving a stipend, which should cover most of my monthly expenses. Assuming, of course, that I continue with my diet of fried rat tacos and moldy-green refried beans. With vulture blood and cilantro salsa. Mmmmmm...

Just kidding about the food. But I will be staying here longer. I don't know that my life is any less up in the air than it was before. Still all questions and no answers. But is getting older finding answers, or just becoming more accustomed to not having them?

On that note...








day 127