Hola de El Nahual!

19 hours of travelling, 1 hour of greeting, and 10 hours of sleep later, I am at the school I will be volunteering with! There were a few notable things about the trip that I think will be most effectively summed up by bullet points:

-Upon entering the plane at 4:30am (you know, when everyone wants to kill themselves with exhaustion), TACA airlines is quite loudly playing some latino dance mix song featuring the words ¨this is lady´s night¨. Only on South American airlines would suggest partying on a flight at this hour...

-Officially in Guatemala time. My driver shows up 40 minutes late to take me to the bus station (it turns out the school told him I was arriving an hour later than I did). We then try to find an ATM for 30 minutes, finally the fourth try is the charm. He tells me he needs to pick someone else up at the airport at 11:30. It´s 11:30. So he decides to get his ID recovered with the ¨extra time¨.

-The four hour wait for the bus was fairly uneventful. Oh, except that they were filming a movie or something in the lobby. So that was interesting. They also asked me to sit in front of them as if I were a five year old. That was probably my first ¨am I going to regret doing this?¨moment.

-The bus ride itself was like a roller coaster. We also got in a wreck within the first 20 minutes, but no biggie. We just held up traffic for 20 minutes while talking to the police, then left. Best part of the bus ride? This:


This mom and her son were absolutely adorable. He´d wake up sleepily every once and a while, look at his mom, then clonk back out. They were picked up on the side of the road, which was pretty common. The bus would not even come to a full stop, pick up some locals, and then the driver´s assistant would go ask them for money after they had been sitting for a while. Sometimes he´d give them some money back 20 minutes later. I didn´t really understand the system, but I´m glad they´re making it work somehow.

-Getting off the bus... I go into the station, and no one is there. I figure my family is just a little late picking me up. Then the bus station starts closing. They are locking the door and pulling the metal over the windows. I start panicking. I try to call the volunteer director at El Nahual with their phone, but to no avail. I remember I have the address to the host family on my itouch and go to a taxi. I accidentally delete the email (stupid touch phones), go to the trash, and since it is in the trash it will no longer let me read the e-mail. The taxi guy is trying to understand what I am saying... I am nearly in tears because it is dark, a little sketchy, and I have no idea where I am or where I am supposed to go. Luckily, a car pulls up and the lady in it says ¨Maria?¨ Thank god.

So now I am here, at the school, having been well fed and well... slept? I am excited for the next few weeks to come, and I hope communicating gets a little easier!