Wind, Radiation, Pestilence, and a merry month

November is known as a windy month here in Guatemala, gusts blowing down from the mountains, up from the ocean and the valleys. This might explain how the month flew by so quickly. Seems like just yesterday I was waking up from my birthday, trying to figure out what needed to get done in this month before winter vacation and my trip back to the States. Now I've got just a little over a week left before departure. Busy, busy month, lots of goings-on in my head. A sea overflowing with emptiness.

That last bit there may have sounded sad, and I did not mean it to. I have been on a rush these past weeks, still excited about my work, still loving my situation and satisfied with large majority of my choices over the last few months. Nice to think that I am taking a trip with a return flight -- first one of those in a good while. Not to mention how fucking excited I am about the trip itself, getting to see family and good friends that have been out of sight far too long. It is an underrated pleasure, having more than one "home" -- "home" in the familiar sense, a place to relax, feel comfortable, surrounded by loved/really liked ones. Therefore, I am a lucky man.

Speaking of lucky, I went with some of my housemates and a few other friends to the beach last weekend. We arrived very late Saturday night and then left late on Sunday afternoon. Incredible. Pulling up to a little beach house-shack at 2 in the morning, stumbling out of the crowded van and realizing all at once that those smooth sounds in the distance are the sounds of night waves crashing down on the beach, and that they aren't so distant, and that taking a few steps towards those sounds leads your footfalls over rough black sand -- and everything is black at night, everything except for the 10,000 stars beaming and twinkling overhead, overwhelming your sense, craning your neck back until you can't help but lie down on the night-time sand. The shooting stars, comets, flashing through the illuminated darkness with an excited frequency. And it isn't even cold or hot, no goosebumps, enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes busy. Just a sliver of a moon paints the sky, and we fall deep asleep. Tomorrow will be a day of hot sun (yes, mom, suntan lotion too), playing childishly in the waves, beachside smoothies and a delicious lunch, running barefoot across the black sand -- now burning coals under tropical radiation. Some days there is just never enough tomorrow.

One thing I do know about tomorrow: I will be hungry. I am afflicted by pestilential hunger, latin name: hambres muchos. It is a terribly delicious disease. Day in and day out, practically non-stop desire for food, unabated by even the most filling of dishes. A never-ending presence in my mind, this Hunger. Speaking of which...