Whew! Recovering from a wonderful Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Guatemala...

The strike as officially ended, which is great (especially considering that the teachers were successful in getting the government to follow through on the funding issues)! But last week was semana santa, or in American, spring break for most of the country. The celebrations are very different to what we're used to in the U.S., but still vary a lot based on family. Starting on Thursday the Catholics held processions through Almolonga. Imagine a parade float (or a gigantic coffin) with around forty pall-bearers all carrying a intricate statue of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. It was really amazing, sensory overload, lots of insense and music. But as I said, this is a Catholic event and the Evangelicals celebrate only Resurrection Sunday here in the form of attending their churches.

Poetic Moment of the Week: On Good Friday I went out to take pictures of the alfombras (rugs) that people make in the streets using flower petals (the above is one from Antigua, but here in Almolonga they were more simple but still beautiful). So, it's about to start to storm but I really wanted those pictures so I threw on a blue scarf to cover my head and ran out the door. On the way, two forth grade girls who attend one of my schools stopped me and wanted to accompany me. Their names? Maria and Magdalena. There I was, running through the streets with little Mary and Magdalene holding my hands and my blue scarf blowing as the thunder rumbled and the rain remembered a similar scene some years ago...

My family had a large lunch on holy Thursday: fried fish, mayo salad, pasta, tomale, and hot sause of course! It was such a great feeling to sit all together and share a meal, something that I really value (no matter where in the world I find myself). It was a day of laughing in the kitchen, my amazing culinary skills cause quite a stir (especially lighting the gas stove)! My host family is just so warm and kind, I've never felt such a connection outside of the U.S. before over so sort a time!

Still on the hunt for a K'iche teacher... But I'm more determined than ever. I tend to really resent English and now it's morphing to resenting Spanish too. You see the thing is that I hate that there are so few options for learning languages in general. English, Spanish, French, Mandrin, German? There are thousands of languages out there, and the more we focus on the biggies, the more we lose the amazing diversity of culture on this planet. (I am very thankful that I've had the opportunity to learn Spanish in my life, don't get me wrong, but I'm just beginning to understand how much is out in this world of ours, that's all).

I went to Lake Atiklan for a couple of days this week! Stunning and delightful to get to know a new part of the country... But it was accompanied with lots of internal conflict surrounding the tourism industry. Panajachel is a little tourist trap right on the lake and I just kept thinking about my number one development rule: First, DO NO HARM. It's still up for debate whether the mass influx of tourists is damaging the local culture and creating a dependency both economically and socially. Just thought I'd share what I've had cooking on the back burner in this brain of mine.

p.s. really all, your overwhelming response to the previous entry blew me away... so much for opening a forum for participatory discussion here!