Rob and Carlos in baby contest, May 30, 2003
Hola,
Oops, it's been a while (early May). I hope you are all well. Life here is good and happy. Lots to catch you up on.
The main purpose of my vacation/trip was to visit friends in Honduras and attend a friend's wedding in Guatemala.
So, I spent a few days in Honduras, visiting a couple of friends and I enjoyed my time there. I spent a couple of days on the beach at Tela and a bit of time in San Pedro Sula as well. Also, stopped at Copan Ruins (probably the second most famous Mayan ruins in Central America after Tikal) in Honduras on my way over to Antigua and the wedding, which was nice, but I unfortunately didn't have the money to spend on all the tours I wanted to do.
I met a friend Mark that first night in Antigua around 10pm after some mix-ups and long searches for a mysterious non-existent hostel and we chatted for a few hours in before nodding off to sleep. We enjoyed breakfast in the market the next morning with fresh fruit, wandering around Antigua running odd errands and just relaxing mostly.
In the evening, we got our freshly ironed (although still somehow wrinkled) shirts on and made our way over to the hotel for our friend, Mario's ceremony. We were starkly underdressed, surrounded by suits and tuxes and women in fancy-smancy dresses. Oh well. We were happy to see Mario, and vice versa - he didn't have a big entourage - not many of his friends could come up from Costa Rica... We took seats, near some disturbing art that was for sale (portraits of some people with a red background that was splashed over the faces slightly - looked like blood. Yuck.
The ceremony was blissfully short, Mario said some beautiful things and his bride got nervous and just said maybe one sentence. It was cute anyway. Then we went to dinner. We chose a table with some young people, I thought maybe that would be more interesting than the old fuddy-duddies, but they mostly ignored us until some Asian friends of Mario's showed up. They were loud and obnoxious and fun. They certainly livened up the place. We ate, then we danced. Later on, they kicked us out. Apparently Antigua shuts down at 1am. At 1:30am we looked for another open bar and they all seemed to be closed/closing...
The next day we were off to Nebaj, in the north of Guatemala, for some adventure. The bus rides were of themselves an adventure, but I'll talk of that another day. In Nebaj, we found great, cheap food and beautiful mountains of scenery, if the clouds weren't too thick and a simple life again for a day or two. We did a two-day walk, one day to a 15-family community, with its own politics and internal divisions, inherited from years of civil war (it was a bit sad). Slept there, hiked up the mountain the next day, which made me think I am getting out of shape. I think we stopped 6-8 times in the two hours hiking up. It was very steep and I guess we were above 3000m but... maybe I should buy a bike again, although I do still walk to work mostly (although not as much as I used to). It was nice up there, but the clouds were coming in, so we only saw 5 of the 7 volcanoes that you can see from there. We were too tired to even visit the families up there. We rested and then returned. All the way back, hitching a ride in the rain in the back of a truck (clearly against my ingrained YCI policy :-) for the last bit. Back to Antigua, shopping and bargaining frenzies, and the next day, Mark flew out and I headed back on the chicken buses to Honduras.
In Honduras, visited again with my friend Jason in San Pedro Sula, we went out to enjoy the night life of Honduras, but really he was tired and we both had to get up early to leave the country, so, we called it a night early.
My birthday was interesting. It really started on the 29th. I had a date with a new girl, Zayda, that I met just before my vacation and we went to her friend's birthday party. After, a few people went dancing and we stayed out until 3am. Oops, I was tired, but it was fun.
Got home, got up early for work, as usual, as my birthday is also Mother's Day and we had arranged some Mother's day activities at work which I had volunteered to help with. The event, scheduled for 10, started around 11am. There were various poems, prayers and songs and games. One game, which I (perhaps foolishly) volunteered for, was a race between two teams of mothers. I and the other volunteer, had to be "babies". We had to be diapered, bottled, sung to and put to sleep. The first team to finish would win a prize. There are pictures somewhere, perhaps I will send them to you someday if I get a hold of a copy. But, I imagine they are pretty funny - me and Carlos in diapers and sucking back a baby bottle, filled with beer of course. I lost, because Carlos clued in faster than I that you needed to bite off a chuck of the bottle nipple to be able to suck the beer faster. Oh well. Live and learn. Next year I will know better.
Rob and Carlos in baby contest, May 30, 2003
Rob with colourful diaper and baby bottle, May 30, 2003
After work/lunch, (it is a half day holiday here for Mother's day) I had a nap, and then with some friends from Esteli that were visiting, we went to a friend's to watch a video - Romero. I had already seen it many years ago, but it was good to see it again. After that, we went to Maria Eugenia's house, as her sister shares my birthday and sang Happy Birthday and ate cake. Home and in bed by 12. A perfect birthday!
As for June, it has been a bit of a whirlwind. Mostly because of this girl Zayda. Our first date was on May 27 and in June I saw her probably more than 20 times. Seems to be a bit serious, I suppose. She is Nicaraguan, just graduating from International Relations/Diplomacy.
Our relationship has been a bit accelerated because when we met, she told me that she was just finishing her thesis and then would be moving to Romania for a job she has arranged there (at the end of this month). We started going out anyway, and then discovered that we seemed to like each other. We both realise that it is probably not the best idea, rationally speaking, but well, we are enjoying each other's company a lot. Maybe I will go to Romania to see what it is like.
Who knows, there is a lot of time still and I am kind of stuck here until my contract is up in November, so it gives us time to figure things out I suppose... For now, we are just enjoying the time we do have together and having lots of fun. Movies, dancing, the beach, parties, scrabble, pictionary, etc.
I'll keep you posted.
Work is busy in general, but I have to admit I have been a bit of a slacker lately, tend to leave at 5pm sharp to go and do social things, especially this last month or so. Seems like we have way too much work and never enough time - sounds like North America. We just had a planning meeting tonight from 6-8pm because we are never all together during the day it seems... Looks like we are set for going to Uruguay in September as well, so that should be fun. Supposedly we are all going, but if they really thought about it logically and fiscally, there is no reason for them to pay for me to go... We'll see...
By the time I know, I might be able to churn out another update...
Still attending weekly vigils at the US embassy to protest the illegal occupation of Iraq. Also attended one this week to protest the electric company that was privatised a couple of years back. One of the people from work was on TV last night apparently... Fun.
Anyway, no complaints. Life is great...
Take care,
Rob