PDXDIASan Jose, Costa RicaReflections on San JoseSanta Elena, Costa RicaLiberia and BeyondBorder Crossing: Penas BlancasGranada, NicaraguaMia NicaraguaNica CultureLeonSan Miguel, El SalvadorJutiapa, GuatemalaXela (Quetzaltenango), GuatemalaCasa VSuenos AmericanosUna semana mas en XelaZugunruheLago de AtitlanAntiguaSemuc ChampeyTikal, GuatemalaSan Salvador, El SalvadorSuchitoto, El SalvadorSanta Rosa de Lima, El SalvadorMore on BusesGranada, againPanama City, PanamaBocas del Toro, PanamaSan Jose, la ultima vez
 | brendandroz |  | Central American Tour |  | Una semana mas en Xela |
Rating:
Feb 9 2010, 06:00 AM
19 photos
1 comment
Embed trip
View in Google Earth
Rss news about this trip
GPX Track
Journal
Location
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
I'll begin with an event that only comes once a year: Brendan's birthday. Brendan commenced his 27th year in the dark, with an assortment of pastries from Xelapan and a few presents wrapped in spanish newspaper. After thoroughly stuffing himself with pan dulce, he exited the bedroom to find a traditional Guatemalteco birthday breakfast of rice tamales, hot chocolate, and more pan dulce than an entire family can eat in a day. And if he hadn't had enough sugar by 8:00am, our school provided the final dose. During the break, Brendan's cumpleaňos was celebrated with two cakes, 25 hugs, and “Happy Birthday” sung in six different languages. My personal favorite was the Danish chorus. It turns out that our school is currently a Danish colony. Half of all the students are from Denmark. The strange thing is that this appears to be entirely unplanned. Almost all the Danes are traveling solo or with only one companion, and yet there are enough of them to field a soccer team. Among other novelties (and I don't recommend the traditional Danish candy), this circumstance provided for a very entertaining (and very pretty) serenade for Brendan on his birthday. Following an afternoon of searching for a soccer game to watch, we settled on dinner at a restaurant and bar named “Pool and Beer”. They boast their status as Xela's only microbrew and our guidebook recommended the Italian cuisine. The menu was limited (or rather, the pantry was) and we wondered if letting biology go unregulated in the third world was really such a good idea, but we enjoyed playing pool with half-length sticks on a warped table in a room that nicely circumscribed the pool-table.
Friday night was “Cena Internacional” night—a pot luck for students and teachers. Not wanting to evacuate our wallets, but wanting to provide a genuine American experience for our comrades, Brendan and I made peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwiches on white bread. Admittedly, they weren't the favorite dish at the potluck, but our host-brother and sister were so eager to finish off the plate when we returned that our elementary-school taste was justified.
On Valentine's Day we had the great pleasure of spending the day with our host-brother, Vinicio the younger. This consisted in Brendan and I helping him to construct an “Articulated Ladder Truck” out of paper. If you are wondering what that is and why we were making one, the answer is that it is a fire-truck with moveable parts and that we were helping him because it was an engineering assignment and the instructions were written entirely in English of the style quoted above. Besides, fire trucks are cool and it is fun to cut and paste. Our efforts culminated in eating three hotdogs each while watching an FC Barcelona soccer game on TV. We later worked off the hotdogs (or so we hoped) in a student orchestrated soccer game and then rounded off the evening with pizza and chocolate, promising ourselves that we would start running this week.
(R)
Comments |
Log in to add comment |
Birthday and Valentint's Day
Written by mbucy 40 months ago
So many friends! Looks like happy holidays. Particularly the paper play day.