The following seven days after her departure flew. I gathered my necessities, saw the people I needed to see, and before I knew it, I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to pack for ten months. Luckily I had shifts of friends to help me whittle down what I could actually live without but didn't actually manage to actually get everything jammed into bags until about 1:30am.Getting up the next morning at 6:10 was surreal. My parents threw my bags in the car, I checked into my flight, said a tearful goodbye to the 'rents, and was suddenly sitting at E17 trying not to think about this being the first time that I've been more than two hours from home for such a long time. But the Big Man looks out for me. A girl about my age sat down near me not long after my arrival, we gave each other the "up down" and exchanged polite smiles as girls are wont to do. We sat in silence until two uniformed security guards went coasting down the terminal on their bicycles. Without thinking I blurted out "well that's just ridiculous" because, well, seeing grown men bike through an airport is ridiculous. But that gave rise to a conversation that culminated into an exchange of contact information - my new friend having spent a semester in Guatemala already and was returning for another. Much to my luck, she had the seat across the aisle from me when we boarded the plane (which we discovered later was not actually her seat, but there were probably thirty people on the flight so no harm, no foul) and thus was able to help me figure out my customs form, then brave the customs and baggage claim together. We went our separate ways at baggage claim but we left with a promise to get in touch. Outside the airport I met Raul, the Christian American School shuttle driver and my ride to Antigua. We loaded my absurd amount of luggage into the car and took off. I quickly learned that he understood a little bit of English and spoke a lot of Spanish. Now, I took about five years of Spanish in high school and one semester of college. Needless to say, I'm rusty. I can understand a decent amount of what people tell me, or at least the gist of things but when it comes down to spitting out grammatically correct sentences a five year old could talk me under the table. But Raul persevered through my broken Spanish to tell me about the city and ask me questions about myself and my family. As we drove on the steepest mountain descent I have ever encountered he even introduced me to his wife, who turned out to be a billboard of a Guatemalan model. After about an hour in the car we arrived at the little town of Antigua. We bounced down cobblestones past colorful buildings, tuk tuks (sardine can on wheels, their version of taxis), and women balancing huge baskets on their heads. Arriving at the guest house that will be my home for the next ten months, we found the owner, Jose, and one of my new roomies, Tom. I got a brief tour, carted my things upstairs to my room, and then was whisked into the back of Jose's car to have lunch. "This will be authentic" he bragged. And authentic it was. About thirty minutes later a woman in colorful, traditional Guatemalan garb set before me a bean soup with a hulking chunk of chicken placed in the center, complete with neck and attached wing. Yum.... At first I just stuck to the soup, which was very good and when I was left with no other option, attempted to saw off some of the chicken meat. Seeing my struggle to politely carve off pieces of meat, Jose's girlfriend jumped in to help, showing me how to break it off along where the rib cage would be. Now, I'm not a picky eater, but watching that chicken crack open made my stomach do a somersault or two.
Now, at this point I've been in Guatemala for a full 72 hours and if I gave you the full blow by blow, we'd be here all day. But rest assured that I'm settling in and well taken care of. Jose, the owner of this guest house is the nicest man I've ever met and has made me feel very comfortable in my new digs. Speaking of which, have exceeded all expectation. The house itself has four bedrooms, two kitchens, and a living room laid out in a square with an open courtyard in the middle. I live on the second floor with my two roomies, Thomas and JP, fellow teachers who have adopted me into their "wolf pack". This is my first go round with having boy roommates - luckily we all have our own bathrooms so it's more like we're neighbors than roomies - but so far so good. We cook together and enjoy meals on the building's roof which overlooks the three volcanoes that surround Antigua. I've taken to drinking my morning coffee up there and the view is so unreal that sometimes I have to pinch myself. The only drawback is that we live right next door to a little carnicerita that specializes in fresh pork, like, real fresh. So yesterday we were treated to the dying squeals of today's chichurrones (pork rinds). Horrifying. But, luckily, brief.
My roomies have been great so far, seems like it's going to be an easy year living with them. We took a little adventure yesterday to the mercado, a covered maze of women and children selling corn, dried beans, rice, fruit, vegetables, meat, hair products, clothing, jewelry, chicken heads (not a joke), anything you could ever need. And today we got on one of the re-purposed school buses that run all over the country for another excursion. Without a real destination in mind, we climbed aboard figuring that we would get off whenever we saw something interesting. Right before the bus departed the "station" - I use station lightly because it was pretty much just a dirt lot right behind the mercado - two white girls about my age jumped on board. It didn't take long to spot their black name tags, marking them as representatives from the Mormon church. I watched them make their way through the bus, stopping to speak to all the riders. They reached the back of the bus where we sat and before long struck up a conversation with us. The girls were really sweet, asking us about what we were doing and where we from, offering advice on places to visit. In turn we asked them about themselves and their mission. Apparently Mormons can get sent anywhere in the world for their mission, no preference list or anything. Sounded a little intense for me, but had to admire their devotion. They hopped off the bus a little while longer, leaving us to decide where we were going to disembark. We landed in a town whose name I couldn't tell you. All I know is that when we arrived in a place that was crowded with storefronts, we evacuated out of the back of the bus. Upon exiting, Tom said to me, "don't look left". So naturally, I looked left and saw some dude peeing on the side of another bus. That's Central America for you. Famished from our super strenuous bus ride (sarcasm, just to be clear) we found a little restaurant advertising fried chicken and sat down to have some of the most delicious, cheapest, and neck-less chicken I've had in a while. With full bellies, we set off for the market which was far larger than the one in Antigua. We explored the aisles for a while, pausing to sort through piles of boots or examine some dehydrated seafood. With a pound of dried fish for Tom and a pound of dried hibiscus flowers for me (I'm going to make hibiscus tea with them - mmmmm) and a storm brewing in the horizon, we headed back to the bus. As some of you may know, college football started today. And between me, the Auburn grad, and JP, the LSU grad, there were certain priorities to be taken care of because of it. So, upon arriving back in Antigua, JP worked some of his techy magic and managed to stream the Texas A&M v. South Carolina game which took up the rest of our rainy afternoon.
I think we're all caught up now. Pre-planning starts next week for school so until then I'll be getting to know Antigua. It's safe to say I'm in for an adventure!
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| roomies take a bus selfie! |
Oh, before I sign off for this evening. One part of our daily routine has become "Tom, JP, and Caitlin do Yoga" - I'm not sure where this came from, the roomies were doing it before I got there, but the guys like to make fun of people who take yoga and the yoga culture really seriously. So, every day we take pictures of poorly done yoga poses in various places and post them on instagram with all sorts of absurd and nonsensical hashtags. Check us out on instagram if you want a laugh at: tomjpandcaitlindoyoga
That's all for now. Buenos noches amigos!
C.
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