I’m in Livingston, a weird little leftover from the past. Here, a bunch of black people who speak Spanish live without any roads to the mainland. Their food is very different than mainland Guatemala, and they sprinkle Carribean slang into the middle of their Spanish. Kind of strange. Also, there are more hustlers here, and they are very good. So good in fact, I got cheated out of a tour this morning. Luckily I still had time to get signed up for another tour and take that. I have a plan to get almost all the money back that the guy nailed me for. He is in cahoots with the place I’m staying. I have not yet paid for the last night in the hotel, and it so happens the hotel price is just a few quezales less than the amount he cheated me out of. So I plan to stiff the hotel and leave a note telling them to get their money from him. The worst that happens is that the hotel lady calls the police on me, to whom I can explain that she helped her friend steal from me. Should be interesting. I’ll tell you how it turns out, as long as there is Internet access in the Livingston jail. ...

I wrote a couple paragraphs as a homework assignment, and I thought it would be fun to post them here, to look back on when I am more fully literate. I have applied all the corrections my teacher made to the essay here. They were mostly small changes, but at least one sentence needed to have it grammar all sorted out by her! Mi padre en San Andrés y mi abuelo tienen elgo en común. Ambos hombres trabajaron como operator de sierra en una fábrica de madera. En inglés, le llamamos “a sawer”. ¿Le llamamos en español un serrador? ...

I’ve had a lot of time to think, and wanted to put down some of the stuff I came up with in the last few weeks. Here’s a rather disorganized ramble of stuff. Guatemaltan Engineering Guatemalan engineering is remarkably similar to Senegalese engineering. I think this stems from a basic prinicple at work in poor places, which is do it just well enough to get the job done, and cheaply as the job will tolerate. This is a common reaction sharp humans have all over the world, but in less developed economies, the handicraft of the clever engineers is somehow more on display. ...

After three weeks in San Andrés, I have decided to move on. A different crowd has moved into the city (I’m one of the old hands now!) and though some things are better, it feels like the right time to move on. The new crowd is a 40 person group from TrekForce.org.uk. They have had a 2 month adventure in Belize, and are now here for 4 weeks learning Spanish. There are four of them staying with my family, so it is easy to slack off and speak English instead of Spanish. In fact, it is required right now, because they don’t speak a word. Some are learning faster than others, but as 18 year old British youth, they don’t have very broad horizons and are taking a while to catch on to Spanish. ...

I have been off the radar for a while. The reason why is that the Internet is a 30 minute boat ride away, or a 1 hour bus ride. So I don’t get over here to Flores to send out updates very often. When I do, the unreliable power system has been foiling me. Last time I was in Flores, I hardly had enough time with power on to get critical stuff like bills taken care of. Then the power inside the Internet cafe failed, partially. During this week’s visit, we have already had two city-wide power outages, so I am going to be saving this early and often! ...

Some people have asked why I do not allow comments on my blog. The answer is that this is my space, and I want total control of what’s here. Fighting comment spam is a losing proposition, and I don’t want to be involved in it. I have trackbacks turned on, so if you are using a blogging system that supports them, anything you say on your blog that links to my blog will be crosslinked between the two blogs (and i will see it, just as if you posted a comment to my blog). If you don’t have a blog and feel like you are muzzled by my decision to not have comments, I have a simple solution for you: get a blog, and post to it. (If you don’t know how to get your own blog, ask me and I’ll help you.) ...

Some answers to questions I have gotten… Yes, mom, I am drinking plenty of water. The water system in San Andrés apparently used to be unreliable, but seems to work fine now. However, it is untreated water, and used for everything but drinking. Drinking water is delivered by the aqua pura man every morning (unless mi madre yells manaña out the door to him). I have no idea how much it costs, or when he gets paid. I suppose it is weekly or something. Drinking water is readily available at the school and at home, and I drink about a liter and a half every day, including several glases at dinner. Sometimes mi madre serves heavily diluted pineapple juice instead of the fruit punch they call fresca. It tastes great! ...

Last weekend I took a trip with some other gringos from San Andrés. We rented a minibus for the weekend and drove south to Semuc Champey. It is an area with lots of limestone and lots of water. Predictably, there are caves there, and other interesting things to see. We caught the bus at 5 AM from the shack with no walls that serves as the bus station in San Andrés. We drove south for a couple of hours over fair roads, then headed up into the mountains. The driver knew a “short cut” that would make the trip take less… something. We weren’t clear what, but he seemed to know where he was going. 6 hours later, after 70 kilometers of dirt road, we got there. It turned out that the short cut was meant to save diesel, and as we had neogotiated a fixed price for the trip out and back, it was to his advantage to try to save gas. I’m personally highly skeptical that a mountain road traveled at less than 20 km per hour saved any diesel over the slightly longer trip over pavement, but who am I to argue with a Guatemalan bus driver? ...

I have more time to write today, so here is a better description of my new life for the next few weeks. First, a look at how my day goes. At 5 am or so, the roosters start making noise, which in turn wakes up the pigs who make snuffling noises in the street. In some parts of town, diesel powered corn grinders start up to grind the corn for the morning torillas. One gringa friend of mine here has one next door, and cheerfully uses it as an alarm clock. There are happily none near me, so I can sleep in. (I think my mama gets her tortillas from a tortilleria down the road.) ...

Those of you who have been wondering, I made it to little San Andrés, Guatemala and am settled in with my family. I do not have time for a full update today, but I am doing fine and am really happy with my choice of programs. Already I have had 5 hours of instruction and have homework, and got to visit an animal rehabilitation clinic. More in a few days when I get back to Flores. San Andres does not have Internet (but does have electricity, gas, and cold running water). ...