• 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…