The (more than) half-way mark: five months in Guatemala

Today marks my sixth month living in Guatemala, and I'm loving it more and more each day. I'm forever grateful to be doing what I love and surrounded by amazing people.

Work is going great, and my students continue to capture my heart (teaching stories over here and part 3 coming soon).

But life here is not all work, and there's some play! Here's a bit of a roundup of life lately. :)

One Saturday, we had heard of an event in the city called "Una Noche en la Calle de los Museos" (A night in the Museum Street). Starting at 6pm they closed off the street where there are several museums, and there were different stations and events along the streets. There were art stations, activities for kids, live music (the marimba one was so nice to listen to!), and many more things going on. All the museums were also free to enter for the night. We just walked around checking out all the stations, but didn't really plan on going in the museums because the lines were really long. As we were ready to leave though we noticed one museum that had no line, so we went in. It turned out to be the modern art museum (Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno "Carlos Mérida") which I had been dying to go to. So it was perfect for me, and I really enjoyed it. 

Then on one Sunday we had a roof day out, and headed to Zona 2 to check out the mapa en relieve (relief map). It is a huge map of all of Guatemala in relief, depicting major towns and cities; rivers, lakes, and other water bodies; mountains and volcanoes. And it was actually really really cool.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was truly amazing. It was designed by engineer Francisco Vela at the request of one of Guatemala's president. It has the whole country to scale, and it was impressive because it was constructed way back in 1905 when they didn't have the technology we have now.

On Sundays, they also close off Avenida Simeón Cañas, the main avenue in Zona 2, from 10am to 2pm, and you see a lot of people jogging, riding bikes, walking their dogs, and the like, and it was a lovely walk to the park. It was my first time in Zona 2, and it was nice to see a new part of the City.

Walking down the avenida

There is always hope

We stopped by the Parque Central on our way back, and I parted with the others to check out a book fair that was happening that day.

 

Then since I was in the area, I decided to hear mass at the Cathedral.

The beautiful cathedral

Up on the roof, life has been good. We continue to have community dinners every Thursday night. While we usually buy food and cook together, the past couple of weeks we’ve been taking turns sharing some favorite dishes. I started off cooking some Filipino food. When my mom came to visit she brought me packets of powder mix of my favorite food sinigang, so I cooked some for everyone. It was a success(I hadn't cooked it in a while), and tasted so much like home. 

sinigang dinner night

The week after Marlene and Jose made us some chile rellenos (roasted bell peppers stuffed with cheese and then deep fried; so good) with red rice, (fried tomato rice; also so good) arroz con leche for dessert, and horchata to drink.

Chadd followed by cooking us some butter chicken (on his camping stove!), and Natalie made us spaghetti with meatballs the week after (though I missed out on the pictures for that one).

A few weeks back, we were also informed that there would be no water in the community for a week (story goes that they were going to paint the tank). Our building has some water on supply, but it wasn’t enough to get us (the volunteers living on the roof + the school + the bakery + the clinic + all the other services) through the week, so to ease it a bit, classes were half day. We had the water turn on mid-way through the week. We weren’t sure if it was temporary or back for good, but we took no chances and filled up the pila along with all the buckets and pots we had.

Filling up the pila

On one of our half days during the week, we took the bus to downtown Villa Nueva and went to El Frutal (a commercial center) to watch a movie.

Watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Then from no water we now have an influx of water. Rainy season is upon us. It's a bit hard to tell from the photos, but it was flooding a bit up on the roof. We get a lot more rain in the Philippines during the rainy season, but I'm still not used to it!

On yet another Sunday, Natalie, Chadd and I did a day trip to try and hike one of the nearby volcanoes. It was a really small volcano (more like a hill), and it was quite the adventure to get there. From the Terminal station in the City we caught a chicken bus and got off at El Cerinal (the driver was nice enough to announce when we were at our destination).

Trying to capture a photo on the bumpy chicken bus ride

We walked a bit from the road in the direction of the volcano Cerro Redondo, and ended up taking a tuktuk that spotted us. Unfortunately the tuktuk driver didn't know exactly where to take us, and neither did we know exactly where to get off, so he ended up taking us further past where we needed to get off, and we had to walk back for an hour. It was a fun adventure though (and a good walking exercise), but we finally made it to the finca (farm) where the "entrance" to the hill was. After getting some verbal permission to climb, we headed up.

At the "entrance" of Cerro Redondo

It took us about 45 minutes to get up; quite funny since it took us much longer to actually get to the hill in the first place. It was a nice chill hike, with good conversations along the way. After we headed to Laguna El Pino which was nearby (about 1km away from where the bus dropped us off). We had lunch, and had planned to kayak or something around the lake after, but unfortunately it started to rain. I snapped a gloomy picture of the lake, but I'm sure it is much nicer in the sunshine. Nevertheless still a fun day of adventure!

Just the past Friday we had no classes and instead the teachers of the school headed to Lago Amatitlán (a lake south of the City, at the edge of Villa Nueva) to participate in a race. I thought the race would be 10k so I opted out of running and just cheered on the five teachers who ran (it ended up being 6.5k, but I only found out after). It was my first time at the lake, and I found it really pretty despite the drizzle. We didn't go all the way down, so it would be nice to go back another time to actually visit the lake.

Lago Amatitlán

With one of my co-teachers

I also got to meet up with two more CISV friends. One of them was living in Antigua so we grabbed lunch and coffee. As usual, it was wonderful catching up with them (twelve years after our camp!).

The other one I met up with at Antigua Boreal, a green space near Antigua that cultivates flowers (gerberas). We had a nice breakfast together (with her daughter and two of her friends), and then toured the flower farm after.

We also checked out Earth Lodge, an eco-friendly lodge and avocado farm. It was a nice place with a chill vibe. It was a lovely day, and we headed back to the city shortly after.

And that's life lately. :) I have a few more teaching stories to share (plus the rest of my trip during Semana Santa!), and at the end of June we have a week long mid-school year break (I'll be traveling to Nicaragua with a friend). In the meantime, here's to more adventures and exploring Guatemala!