Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Photo album
These are the Germans at our language school in Xela. Levi and I have decided that we really like Germans. Aside from being punctual, they´re super fun and chatty. Plus they have fabulous accents when they speak Spanish.
Taking a saint for a stroll: The Catholic church around here likes to take its plastic saints for a walk around the block on large, ornate wooden flats. But I especially love this photo because it´s the only one we have of indigenous Guatemalans, a stylish people. Their skirts and shirts are woven with bright red, orange, yellow and turquoise thread. The women wear silk sachets through their hair, the men wear cowboy hats and embroidered pants with big bulky belts. But the guidebooks tell us that they´re a shy people who would rather not be bothered, so we didn´t snap their mugs. 
The women in the Catholic procession photo were staring at these people, above. These are angry people outside of BanCafe, which had gone bankrupt several days before I took this photo. They all lost their money because of some money funneling deal. I still don´t know whether they got their money back.
That´s Levi in Xela. The woman taking the photo next to him is Mariko, a wonderful language school pal from Chicago.
It rained a lot in Xela. We left two weeks early because, to quote Levi, we didn´t come to Central America to get a cold. But the experience was good, and I now understand now why Guatemalans choose Washington state and Nicaraguans choose Miami.
That´s Berta, my Guatemalan host mom and Guatemalan version of Nurse Ratched. She´s another reason we left Xela two weeks early. When I was in a bad way in the bathroom, she used to yodel out to me, ESTUDIANTE! ¿TIENES DIARRHEA?
Levi and me at the beach on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. The guidebooks told us it was an ugly beach, but they didn´t realize that folks from the PNW aren´t picky when it comes to sandy beaches.
Maxine, the Quebecoise girl I met in San Pedro, her Honduran boyfriend Daniel and her dog, Chicklet, named for the gum. Maxine sells jewelry and does fire dances.
Interested in more photos? Check out Levi´s blog.
