earthquakes, hurricanes, and breakups

so i was at school last wednesday afternoon in the 6th grade ¨A¨ classroom, in the middle of my first lesson about el suelo or the soil, when all of the sudden the ground started shaking. that´s right, un temblor!! all the kids ran out of the classroom screaming and pushing. obviously they don´t practice emergency exit drills like we do here in the states. (in fact i think i´m going to include an emergency action plan in my next lessons.) anyway so we all make it outside, the kids are shaken up as are the teachers. the school doesn´t appear to have any structural damage, despite being an old piece of crap building. school is cancelled for the rest of the day. the teachers don´t want to risk being inside for any aftershocks. i leave the school and the chaos to go to the office and make sure everything is okay there. it is and i´m at the office for the smaller aftershock. i call noel in catocha about 40 minutes away to make sure he´s okay. he says he felt it too. he went online to try to figure out where it came from. appearently the epicenter was about an hour away from me in san jacinto and it was a 5.2 quake, the biggest one i´ve ever experienced. when i came home, my neighbor selma was sitting outside with a couple other ladies, visibly shaken. she told me to sleep with my door open or better yet why don´t i come sleep at her house tonite with her family? i thanked her for the offer and and told her if i got scared i´d be right over. i slept fine in my own bed.
what´s more pc sent out a tropical storm warning for adrian last friday. we weren´t supposed to be doing any traveling thursday or friday. but luckily guatemala was hardly affected. it rained lightly for about 3 days straight here in ipala, but other than that the hurricane passed us by. i could have used a little more rain given that i still don´t have any water at my house. it really really sucks. a lot.
other big news. noel and i decided to break up last week. we´ll be better off as friends. he´s my best friend here and i really can´t imagine not staying close friends with him. we have supported each other so much over these past 15 months. it´s just going to be hard going through the transition phase given that all our friends are in common and we see each other so often and will continue to rely on each other so much. so i´m trying to keep myself busy. if anyone wants to call, i´d be glad to pick up the phone! i debated about whether to put it on my blog or lot. it seems kind of lame to do so. but it´s the easiest way to get the word out i guess.
oh a shirtless young man just walked into the internet cafe. i mean it´s really freaking hot and all, but that´s just not called for. got to get to the office. something about gps points and making map in arcview. i´m totally serious. the next installment i´ll tell you all about the cobàn half maratòn i went to last weekend. the kenyans won. meanwhile . . . http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2004/mayo/15/88423.html

home sweet home

so, i´m finally back in ipala after being gone nearly a month. it´s nice to be home. and this time, upon my return, i did not find two rats like last time (one alive in the kitchen, one dead in my bedroom), or a pack of baby scorpians, or any other undesirables. i do, however, have a water problem, in that it´s not arriving at my house. usually water comes un día sí, un día no from 10 am to 2 pm. well, they´ve been replacing pipes all over the pueblo and i guess they messed up on our street. so my depósito is frighteningly low and i´m using all the water conservation methods described in ¨50 things you can do to save the earth¨ but i´m still worried. appearently they fixed the problem yesterday, but water won´t be coming again until tomorow so i´ll have to wait and see. that reminds me of another incident with my water depósito. when i first moved in, noel and i were hanging out in the backyard when there was a knock at the door. it was a woman, my neighbor, with her young son. now, this was a time in my life with my spanish was a little more básico, and i wasn´t really sure what she was trying to tell me. something about how when they were building the depósito her son fell in and she wanted to do something so he wasn´t scared anymore. so i let her into the back thinking she would show the finished depósito to her son so he knew not to be scared. well, she did that, kind of. or rather she broke off a small branch from my lemon tree, got it wet, pulled down his pants, and started smacking his penis with it, causing him to start crying. i was in such shock i didn´t know what to do. luckily noel intervened and told her that was enough and said it was time for her to leave. she seemed indignent and said something to noel like ¨you guys don´t believe in this stuff, huh?¨ and if by ¨this stuff¨ she meant child abuse, i guess the answer would be no. anyway, i don´t really remember which neighbor she is (they all look alike) but i think i know which house is hers and her little boy cries and throws tantrums all the time. he´s got to be the saddest kid ever.

speaking of mother´s day. when you thinking of celebrating mother´s day, what do you think of? maybe your mom sleeping in late, bringing her breakfast in bed, some nice flowers. well believe it or not, mother´s day, always june 10th, is a huge deal down here, at least in this part of the country. the appliance stores always have sales (that´s how i got such a good deal on my pressure cooker last year). there are concerts, and public events, and school events. unfortunatley i was feeling ill this year so i didn´t really participate. but just to give you an idea of how things are done . . . i was staying over at noel´s in catocha. at i think around 4 am the fire crackers started. not like pretty, colorful fireworks and shimmering fountains, but bombas. really really really loud fire crackers. so this goes on for about a half an hour, waking up all the roosters and annoyingly loud song birds. then a car starts driving around the town with a way too loud and horrible quality sound system playing music and i think making some sort of announcements about the day´s events. i´m not sure i was somewhere between a state of being woken up scared shitless by the fireworks, trying to ignore it in my sleepy delerium, and all out rage at the preposterousness of guatemalans. ridiculous. then noel´s alarm went off at 5 am. happy mother´s day.

oh just so you know, i´ve got my plane tickets to new york. i get in at 12:02 am 13 july at jfk and leave at 8:30 am 26 july. can´t wait!

3rd world country=sporadic blog postings

alright alright already. here's another post. get off me. not all of us have wi-fi laser beams zipping through our climate controled apartments and thus facilitating easy daily blog updates. so you'll have to be patient, adam. and happy birthday. as my gift to you, a new blog.
well the fact of the matter is, i've been in my site ipala, chiquimula about 3 days out of the past month. i've had various compromisos like a week of spanish classes, safety and security meetings, and a few days of traveling with noel, lindy and their father who came for a quick 10 day whirlwind tour of "the land of eternal spring". we started off in the oriente, showing him the wonders of noel's town and then climbing my volcano. then we headed to the more touristy, cush spots, antigua and the lake. but we didn't just go anywhere on lago atitlan my friends. oh no. this time we stepped it up a notch and spent 3 luxurious nites at hotel casa del mundo. taking into account all my travels, it is one of the most glorious accomodations i've ever had the pleasure to know. the hotel is literally built onto a cliffside and there are dozens of paths leading to new nooks and crannies, pretty patios, and a finally down to the lake itself. we ate. we kayaked (well lindy and i mostly floated around. at one point noel and his dad were out of my range of vision. i think they paddled to honduras or something). we took a day trip to san pedro (the burnt out hippy capital of guatemala - i was not impressed by the drugged out crystal and fairy murals on the walls). we swam . we even fired up the wood heated hot tub the last nite. it was incredible. now i'm in antigua, my (better) home away from home for the weekend. tomorrow it's back to reality. or my ipala reality anyway. i feel like i'm living in about 12 demensions all at once down here. oh and by the way, if you want to send me mail, just address it "la gringa, ipala, chiquimula, guatemala" christine and lee - mail delivered successfully. until next time. which may be a few days.