¡No tenga pena! Week 7 now and we’re getting into the busy stage of the project where all our plans need to be realised. In the coming weeks I should have some news for you about the beautiful waterfalls at Semuc Champey and Tikal, the Mayan ruins in Guatemala’s northern province. But for the moment, a chance to catch up with some of the other realities of San Cristóbal life.
Everyone seems to be ill! I’ve spent much of the last week taking our team members to the doctors as the new environment seems to suit some better than others. We had parasites a couple of weeks ago, so this doesn’t seem to want to let up. You’ll be pleased to hear that so far I’ve been in pretty good health *touch wood*, but now I’ve said that I’m sure I’ll spend the remainder of the trip in the hospital.
Zona Extrema I promised to talk about some weeks back and never did, sorry! I still don’t really have good enough pictures to justify it, but it’s really great. It’s a youth club run by John, an American christian missionary open Monday-Saturday 3-8pm. They started off with a table tennis table and table football in a garage and over 8 years have built up into a large house on the edge of town that has everything a teenage boy could ask for. There are table tennis tables, a large gym, every board game you can think of, a half pipe, grinding rails, at least a dozen table football tables and even a music room with drum kit, guitars, keyboard, the lot. If all that wasn’t enough, they even have their own game (which needs a much better name admittedly) called “carpet ball”. A long and thin table covered in carpet with wodden carpeted sides too has two sunken ends for the balls to fall into. The aim of the game is to use the cue ball to knock your opponents four snooker balls into the pit behind before they knock yours off. It’s a really simple game that anyone can play and is quick and fun. As if to demonstrate how inclusive it is, the best player at the club is a deaf boy that manages to knock all the balls in before you’ve even got one or two of his! The club gets about 90-150 kids a day and offers a place for bored kids to socialise and do something constructive, rather than sitting on street corners causing trouble.
In the central square last night, I got to watch my first open air film screening in Spanish. Claro, the phone company here that seems to be advertised on literally everything, put on Disney’s “Planes” for the town outside the municipal government building. It was quite hard to understand as they speak so fast, but I got the gist and could understand some of the slower scenes. I love watching films outside and now feel all in the mood for Cinema Paradiso. While I mention films, my lack of films here has been tapered by Liv’s tablet that has been picking up films on bbc iPlayer. This week I watched “we need to talk about Kevin”, it lives up to the hype. Being able to catch the odd film is keeping my longing for the plane home at bay with its limitless supply of recent films.
Finally for this week, I have been offered to go and aupair in Spain for the month of July. This will mean I’m back in the UK for only a week before I head off to my second Spanish speaking country of the year and ever. I’ll try and see what I can do about seeing many of you while I’m back, but keep 23-31st June free as I won’t be back in the UK until August otherwise!
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Town Screening of “Planes”.
Zona Extrema- doing so much good for San Cristóbal
“Carpet Ball”- it really deserves a better name
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