Sleep Tight!

Well it’s been just over three weeks since we arrived in Guatemala but it feels like three months. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been away from the U.S. for so long that I may forget my English (American).

Since our last blog post, we’ve moved from living with a local family to a hostel that is directly across the street from our school. Telling our host mom that we wanted to spend our last two weeks in a hostel (rather than at her place) kind of felt like breaking up: “it’s not you… it’s me.” We told her that we wanted to move so we could have more independence and so we could stay in the same room together. More accurately, our reasons for moving were:

1. We didn’t want to continue living by her schedule (waiting on her to eat and to turn on the water heater for the shower, for example)
2. I had difficulty conforming to the desk in my room (it was designed for a 7 year old child)
3. I was getting bitten by bed bugs

Yep… take a look at my bed bug bites



When I showed these symptoms (among others on my thighs, calves and forearms) to our host mom, she immediately finalized the diagnosis: allergies. I told her that the symptoms first appeared on my legs but, since then, I’d been isolating my legs from the hypothesized bed bug system by utilizing my cocoon (a synthetic liner intended to fit inside a sleeping bag to keep it clean, thanks Shi). I then handed her the bed bug test results: discontinued development of symptoms on my legs. There was a pause… she had to ignore my test results because, if my test results were correct, then that meant that there were at least 2 shots fired and if there were at least 2 shots fired… that meant conspiracy



Jokes aside, I think it was in her best interest to deny the existence of bed bugs because, if it were so, she could potentially lose her income. She had my sympathy, but I wasn’t about to continue getting eaten each night and I’m not about to put another student in the same position by failing to report the matter to the school.

Moving to the hostel was like crossing the Berlin Wall (except that we didn’t get shot at). I kept feeling like the differences between these two living situations were sort of like the historical and functional differences between communism and capitalism. All of a sudden we had hot water whenever we wanted it, we could cook whenever and whatever we wanted, we had a cold place to store beer, our sheets smelled of laundry detergent (not mildew) and no more bed bugs!

So needless to say, we’re happy with our move. Take a look at Sheer drinking Guatemalan rum and using her headlight (AKA: nerdlight) to read "The Poisonwood Bible" on her kindle at night in our hostel room.



Also, since our last blog post, we hiked Volcan Santa Maria (the second highest peak and most difficult hike in the area). We left for the hike at 5:30 am with a group of eight from our school. Everyone was from the U.S. with the exception of Will from London. In the microbus, somebody asked, “Has anyone done this hike before?”
Sheer said, “I have.”
Somebody again, “How long does it take?”
Sheer replied deliberately, “Four hours up and three hours down… if nothing goes wrong.”

The way Sheer was talking reminded me of omens from a foreboding sailor like in "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" and the storytelling style of Large Marge from “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”. Sheer had her reasons though: two years ago she hiked this same volcano but had a lot of trouble with the altitude. This year, however, Sheer was the first of our group of eight to make it to the summit!

The summit was beautiful. We had banana bread for lunch beside praying, evangelical Christian Mayans (they make the hike to bring prayers and flowers closer to God) and before a sweeping view of not only the surrounding towns and villages but also the Pacific Ocean.

Here's the village where we started the hike.






Then we reached the summit.






That's the Pacific Ocean in the background.


There were cows on the summit too!