As a celebration of our completion of two months in country, on the 18th a bunch of us decided to climb Volcan Pacaya located in san Vicente Pacaya, Escuintla. Such an unbelievable adventure, but more than I think any of us bargained for. I left with my site mates at 6:30am and did not return home until 9:00pm, mind you we had heard that the hike would only take the morning. First let me say that Guatemala has no internal railroad system; to travel throughout the country one relies on “Chicken buses,” “Minibuses,” or hitchhiking, thus the following digression.
The chicken buses are old U.S. school buses whose owners have fixed them up by adding, in additional to mechanical tune-ups, radios, speakers that blast Bachata music, interesting color schemes, and several bumper stickers stating “Dios nos bendiga,” “Jesus es mi senor,” “Jesus Cristo vive,” or any other religious message. Each bus has its female name in big bold letters on the front window such as Brenda, Marisol, Esmeralda, Ana Maria, La Reina del Sur… the list goes on. It’s like the buses are the women of their fantasies! These buses sit three to a seat, and pack in so many passengers that many times people are hanging out the front door… absolute culture shock when I first arrived. Growing up, the idea of opening the back door of the school bus was very taboo for me (only in case of emergency), but not in Guatemala! To beat the line in the front, people pop open the back door and climb right in, it’s also an easy exit out of the crowded buses. Each bus has two staff members: the driver and the ayudnte. The driver's goal is to drive as fast as he can (even around if not especially around sharp curves), and he barely stops long enough for you get on or off. The ayudante collects the fare, remembers all desired stops, and also sometimes accomplishes acrobatic feats in order to climb over passengers on packed buses. There are several bus companies, but no national standard for the companies, therefore fixed schedules and fares don’t exist, and buses will try to make as many stops as possible in order to make the most money. Also, while the interamerican highway runs right through Guatemala and provides a nice paved road for travel, other similar roads are lacking, as well as roads connecting more direct routes. While two places may exist fairly close to each other on a map, there exists no direct road connecting the two.
So even though we left Volcan Pacaya at 6:30 we didn’t actually arrive there until around 10:30 or 10:45. The trip included 4 different buses, one hitched ride in the back of a truck from about 10km , and a 1 hour hike to the start of the volcano hike because we missed the early morning shuttle. Needless to say, by the time we got there, we were tired – definitely hadn’t planned on hiking to the hike. After we rested for about 20 minutes, we began the real hike, and we must have hiked about an hour or so before we even saw lava. So to make a long story short, we all worked incredibly hard to get to the lava... and it was worth every minute of it!!! We hiked back down and took two of the four buses, before we realized that the last two had stopped running. My site mate called her family and they offered to come pick us up. The day ended with the three of us riding in the back of the family's truck, admiring the star-filled night sky while recalling the day's events.
Monday we received our site locations for the next two years. On April 13th, the day after our swearing in, I will be relocating to the department (equivalent to what we consider a state) of Totonicapan. My town is small with only about 2,500 people. All the men and only 10% of the women speak Spanish. The rest of the women speak the indigenous language Q'uiche, which I guess I'll also be learning. I'm the first volunteer ever to live in this site, so I will be setting the tone and establishing my program's reputation in this area. I'm pumped! I would much rather be in this position instead of following in the footsteps, work ethic, or legacy of volunteers before me. I'll be house searching for the first time in my life for the first two or three months in site - interesting that this would happen here in Guatemala as opposed to the states.
Last thing. The teachers in Guatemala are on strike! The government wants to privatize public education, or should I say get rid of public education, and the teachers aren't having it. I asked my Spanish teacher why the government would want to do this, and he gave the obvious answer being that it wants to make money!The only problem with this change is that probably half of all Guatemalan children would be unable to afford schooling. We'll see what happens, in the mean time school has been out for two weeks.
Until next time!