Nebaj Farewells

From Iain: Today was our last day in Nebaj and we went with the Grupos for a farewell excursion to "Boxbolandia," a hotel resort with recreation facilities that is open to the public.  I played futbol with some of the hombres, while Bethany and Sierra played basketball with some of the mujeres.  Tanya watched and took some photos.  I'd also played futbol with the guys at the indoor field that is opposite the hostal on Tuesday and Wednesday too, so I was pretty dead on my feet by the end of today's game.  There were various outdoor pools and slides at the resort too, but it was way too cold to think about going for a swim.  Although we're not too far from the equator here, we're high enough up that it's pretty chilly here just now.
After being treated to lunch, the Grupos had a ceremony to thank us for our work while we've been here.  They also gave us some gifts - traditional, brightly coloured, woven bags for me, Bethany, and Sierra, and a beautiful, hand-woven shawl for Tanya.  Here's a photo of us with the Grupos taken just after the ceremony.

Grupos de Mujeres y Hombres por la Paz, Nebaj

From Sierra: In the three weeks that we have been here, we have helped around the hostal by teaching English, cooking, and computer classes. It was fun.

From Bethany: I liked the English classes best because it was fun watching everyone learn some English words. We also taught them some songs like "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" and "round and round the village."

Volunteer Teaching

From Iain: We're in the thick of three weeks of volunteer teaching in Nebaj now.  I'm doing computer and cooking classes while Tanya is doing English classes for both children and adults.

Simon Says "Touch Your Nose"

The cooking classes are for the restaurant that the group will be opening shortly.  A chef is coming from the U.S. in a few weeks to teach them to prepare Indian main courses so I'm showing them some simple baked goods.  Two challenges are the limited ingredients and equipment available here, but so far we've successfully made bread, cookies, and carrot cake.  If we can find chocolate we'll try brownies tomorrow.  Bethany and Sierra have been helping in the English and cooking classes.
I've also been helping to update the group's laptop computers and to eliminate the plethora of viruses most of them are infected with.  I wonder if the bozos that write these viruses would be at all bothered by the knowledge that their actions have prevented this organization - who cannot afford to pay for computer assistance - from being able to use their computers to help their community.  It's dispiriting how long it is taking to undo the damage to those computers that I can fix, while some of the computers are beyond my limited ability to repair them.  Thank goodness for freely available antivirus software.

Arrival in Nebaj

From Iain: We chickened out of taking a chicken bus from Xela to Nebaj and instead arranged to be driven by car.  With our luggage, the buses sounded just a little too daunting since they would have involved at least one change, possibly more.  Since Nebaj is a little off the beaten track, taking a shuttle van didn't seem to be an option, but after trailing around a series of travel agencies in Xela we managed to knock the price of a private car down from US$200 to US$130.  So, on Friday a friendly chap called Jorge drove us to Nebaj in his Toyota Corolla (about 90% of the vehicles in Guatemala appear to be Toyotas).  I'm not sure he didn't bite off a bit than he'd bargained for since he evidently hadn't driven to Nebaj before (he asked for directions from bystanders on five or six occasions).  He also had to drive over about 23 million speed bumps on the way and with each one scraping the bottom of his car his grin got more and more strained.  The already throaty sounding engine of his car sounded noticeably rougher when we finally rolled into Nebaj about four and a half hours after setting off.
The main reason we're in Nebaj is to do some volunteer work with Grupos de Mujeres y Hombres por la Paz, an independent community organization of Ixhil Mayans.  Some of the members, Abraham, David, and Miguel, met us when we arrived and showed us into our home for the next three weeks, their recently acquired and renovated hostel.  It's very basic and it looks to have been a struggle to make the building that houses the hostel habitable, but the members of the group are all very friendly and eager to make things work for us while we're here.  It appears that we'll be helping them with English and computer classes and also with learning to do some baking for the new restaurant project that they have.  This is all still a little up in the air as we've only been here a few days , so we'll post more details on this later.  In the meantime, here's a quick view of Nebaj and some of the group members who accompanied us on a walk yesterday:

Nebaj

Guatemalan earthquake

From Iain: We left San Antonio early this morning on a chicken bus bound for Quetzaltenango (nicknamed Xela) in the Western Highlands.  After about two and a half hours we arrived safe and sound and found a taxi to take us to our hostel, Casa Renaissance, near the city centre.  About 10 minutes after arriving we heard some low rumblings and then felt the floor beneath our feet and buildings around us begin to rattle and shake quite violently.  At first I held the girls close to me under a door frame but then we quickly scurried to join Tanya in the open courtyard of the hostel.  The ground seemed to be moving around as we stood there with the other people in the hostel, almost like being on a ship in rough waters.  The movement lasted probably 30-40 seconds.  The power went out right away and has just come back on about an hour or so later.  Fortunately the hostel kitchen has a gas cooker so we were able to make some tea while we waited for the power to come back on.  One of the other hostel guests went out to the street and heard from a taxi driver that there has been some damage in Guatemala City, perhaps even some people killed.  There was minor damage to the hostel, with some plaster falling from a wall and a light fixture breaking in one of the rooms.  Apparently the earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 7.4 and was centred just off the Pacific coast of Guatemala, about 115 km from where we are now.  There is more information on the BBC News website and pictures here.

From Bethany: Did you hear about the huge earthquake in Guatemala? I was in it. We'd just arrived in this new hostel and like 20 minutes after we arrived the earth starts shaking. Me and Sierra are like, "big deal, an earthquake." Then mommy tells us to get outside, so we do. It was really cool because the windows were all rattling and it felt like we were on a boat. The ground was actually moving!!! Later it was all on the news and everything and apparently it was the biggest earthquake since 1976 or something like that. It was strange because I wasn't actually scared while the earthquake was actually happening but afterward I was when I realized that while Sierra and I were laughing and having fun that other people in Guatemala were dying.

Chilling by Lake Atitlan

From Iain: I was wrong, the bus we took from Antigua to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan was a chicken bus.  The chickens had to ride on top of the bus, however.  Not only do the extravagant paint jobs brighten up and differentiate the old school buses, they also make them go about ten times faster.  Ideal for zipping round blind bends on mountain roads.  The driver tries to keep the bus moving at all times, even while passengers hop aboard or jump off.  There are also no delays while the ticket guy puts the larger items of luggage on the roof with the chickens - he simply climbs onto the roof with the luggage while the bus is still moving and then climbs back down into the bus through the back door.  In fact he kept popping up to the roof - maybe he was feeding the chickens too?
We're now spending a lazy week on the eastern shore of Lake Atitlan in a small town called San Antonio Palopo.  Since the tourist season hasn't really picked up yet, we're the only guests at what would probably be called a boutique hotel in North America, the Hotel Nuestro Sueno.  Unfortunately the shower head in our room broke the first time we tried to use it and, after a heavy rain shower on the first night, the roof leaked a little.  So, we're now in a grander room with an even more impressive view of the lake.
So far while we've been here we've eaten some fine breakfasts and dinners at the hotel, explored the town, gone kayaking on the lake,  eaten chocolate-covered frozen bananas and strawberries on a stick, and flown kites along with half the town during the All Saints' Day holidays.  Some of the kites flown by the townspeople had a diameter of at least 10 feet.
Today we ventured out of town and rode in the back of an open pickup truck to Panajachel, where we caught a public lancha (small motorboat) to San Pedro on the opposite side of the lake below the volcano of the same name (one of three volcanos ringing the lake).

San Pedro Volcano, Lake Atitlan

It turns out that San Pedro isn't much of a place to visit unless you're an aged (or not so aged) hippie or are looking for a Spanish language school.  Still, it was a good day out and we had a great, very filling lunch at Cafe La Puerta, where we sat outside right by the lake.  Whereas the boat out had taken an age, the boat back to Panajachel fairly whizzed though the water at a tremendous speed, giving the girls quite a thrill.  We had a bit more trouble catching a pickup back to San Antonio as a sudden downpour seemed to dry up the supply of pickups going our way.  We finally managed to find one and squeezed into the back with another twenty-odd people (who knew little Toyota pickups could haul so many people at one time?).  The sun was setting as we made it back to our hotel.