1. Thanksgiving at school. So the school I teach at here has developed a tradition of serving a huge Thanksgiving lunch for the whole school/staff. They caught on to the holiday/traditional foods since basically all the teachers are from the States. It's actually a quite lovely gesture, and was an extremely extravagant affair. Tents, tables, music, food. (And for the food, the families all share the recipes so the food has come to be quite similar to what you would find at a typical table in the US) It was a half day at school-- so after a Thanksgiving re-enactment with the kiddos, we all went outside to join the festivities. Very tasty and very fun.
2. A Night in Guatemala City. After school on Wednesday, the teachers headed out for various vacations. Its one of our few opportunities to travel a larger distance, since we had a 4 day weekend. I was headed to El Salvador with 3 others. But we made our way 3 or so hour trek to Guatemala City that afternoon so we could catch the connecting bus first thing the next morning. We wanted as much time on the beach as possible. So we arrived to our little hotel, right outside the bus station. (Our bus the next morning left at 5:30 AM. I told you we wanted as much time there as possible). After dropping off our things, we headed to the mall. The other teachers I was with were dying to watch the new Harry Potter movie, and they don't have it in English here in Xela. So we went to this mall. And our mouths dropped the second we walked in. This mall could have easily been pulled straight out of Short Pump. It was incredible. And like nothing I have seen for the past 4 months. We got Pizza Hut and sat underneath the giant, beautiful, lit up Christmas tree to eat. Spectacular. And then we watched the movie. Which didn't start until 10:30, and therefore, we didn't end up getting back to our hotel until around 1:30. Worth it though.
3. El Salvador...all 45 minutes of it. So after about 3-4 hours of sleep, we groggily woke up and boarded our bus for El Salvador. 3 or so hours later, we came to the Guatemalan/El Salvadorian border. And here's were it gets a little crazy. And confusing. I'll try to give you the simple version. The school is in the process of getting all of the teachers 2 year missionary visas. Without those visas, you are supposed to leave the country of Guatemala every 90 days. We haven't been doing that, because we haven't needed to with our current in process visa status. We currently have photo-copies of official Guatemalan papers stapled into our passports that state what is going on. Our school's lawyers advised us before we left that they might give us a little trouble, but they had verified things with the Guatemalan consulate and we had what we needed to get through. Yeah... about that...
We got to Guatemala and held up our entire bus for almost an hour while the El Salvadorian border patrol people explained to us over and over why they weren't going to allow us in. Apparently our little paper was good to get us out of Guatemala, but was unrecognized by El Salvador. We called our school lawyer and put them on the phone, we had El Salvadorian friends that we made on the bus try to argue for us, but all to no avail. After an hour of pleading, they made us take our things off the bus and leave. The walk of shame. Being kicked out of a country like drug smugglers. We were actually escorted across the border back into Guatemala. Embarrassing. Frustrating. Ugh. It was surreal. Words can't describe how we all felt. Tired, angry, and all our plans were going to change. After riding 3 hrs. we had to turn around and take a bus back to Guate-- wasting a ton of our hard earned money to travel somewhere that wouldn't even accept us. Although, let me point out just how lucky we were. We just happened to catch the bus back to Guatemala City at just the right time. Our current bus driver called to make it wait for us on the other side of the border. And good thing...other wise we would have had to sit on the side of the road from 10 in the morning to 6 that evening when the next bus came by. Let me just say, I'm not the biggest fan of El Salvador right now. Oh, and let me point out to you that I had not showered. For those of you who know me, you know that this was a big deal and only added to my frustration.
4. Change of Plans. Monterrico for the Tortuga Festival. So after this fiasco, we spent our 3 hr bus ride back to where we came from trying to plan a new trip elsewhere. We still wanted to go to the beach, so we figured our best bet was Monterrico-- a beach town on the coast of Guatemala. However, we ended up going all across Guatemala to get there. Transportation wasn't easy. We got a taxi to take us 30 minutes from Guate to Antigua-- where we hoped to catch a shuttle to Monterrico. Turns out we had missed the shuttles-- they apparently only run at 8 AM. This just wasn't our day. So we called our taxi man and arranged a deal for him to drive us the rest of the 2 1/2- 3 hrs. to Monterrico. We spent approximately 15 minutes in Antigua-- enough to figure out that I definitely want to go back and visit at some point.
Oh yeah, we also discovered that Monterrico was going to be having a special Sea Turtle Festival while we were there. That lifted our spirits!
5. Activities in Monterrico. Getting taken advantage of/ relaxation/ beauty. The next few days were awesome. Things definitely worked out. We got our relaxing tropical beach vacation after all! :) The beaches on the Pacific coast are black sand which is something different. It was blazing hot the whole time-- which was much different than what we are currently experiencing in Xela. Since it was the turtle festival, we payed to go on a night walk to watch sea turtles lay there eggs. We were all super excited. Only to be let down once again. No sea turtles. None. It was a terrible experience, because the guide just walked us 5 miles down the beach in pitch black, as we were all sweating like pigs. And he occasionally flashed his flashlight, for approximately 2 seconds. It was seriously as if he only did it to make it seem as though he was looking for turtles. But I really don't think he was. It was definitely a major bust. BUT, we did get to see baby sea turtles released into the ocean the next day, which was pretty awesome. We also woke up at 5AM to go on a sunrise canoe ride into a local lagoon. That was pretty awesome. We didn't even have to paddle. We just got to enjoy the serenity and the beauty and all of the cool wildlife. My favorite was these fish that basically walked on water. We also got to hear some great live music, do a lot of reading and relaxing, and enjoy some delicious food. Highlight was the seafood-- we capped off the weekend with some amazing ceviche.
5. Dead Body. Only fitting of all our mishaps of this trip-- our last day was quite interesting. Just as it was getting dark, the power in our hotel went out. We could see the electricity poles (I'm having trouble remembering what they are called) shooting out what looked like fireworks. Not good. We were given candles, and luckily the power came back on a little later. Fast forward to that evening. We all went to bed and quickly fell asleep. Around 3 or so in the morning I was startled awake by 3 loud pops/bangs. I literally jumped 5 feet in the air. None of the other teachers were really stirring, and I didn't want to wake them up, so I just rolled back over. Weird noised happen in Guatemala all the time. But the bangs were followed by Guatemalan men yelling and causing a loud ruckus. I was half asleep, but I remembering thinking something wasn't right. And also being concerned that someone was going to come barrelling into our room, since we had only closed the screen door because of the heat. It took me a while to fall fully back to sleep. And the next morning, the first thing I asked upon waking up was about the loud bangs. Well, one of the teachers left the room to go get something, and returned a few minutes later to inform us there was indeed, a dead body, mere feet from our hotel. I thought they were joking because I had made such a big deal about the bangs. But they weren't. I left the room a little later to find the area blocked off with several police and yes, a body-- covered with a white sheet, with the feet sticking out. Lovely (that is sarcastic). And absolutely mind blowing.
6.) Emmanuel. God is with us. As we were packing up and walking to meet up with the same trusty taxi driver to take us home, one of the teachers I was with pointed out something neat that I hadn't noticed. He pointed out that both our taxi driver and waiter for the weekend had the names Manuelo. Which is the Spanish form of Emmanuel, which means "God is with us" in Hebrew. Both of these men had become vital aspects in our trip. Amidst all the chaos-- these two had been the biggest source of joy and peace and help. And their names happen to mean God is With Us. What a beautiful little reminder, that God was and is, indeed, with us through it all.
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