Friday, July 11

This has been one crazy week. I have still been fighting a bad cough which is finally resolving and didn't realize until midweek, with as always invaluable insights from my friend Steve, that I have been so exhausted that I have barely been able to put foot in front of the other. I did a lot of talking with him on my dirt cheap Guatemalteco cell phone with my dirt cheap minutes and have had several good conversations with people here as well.

Several things blew up/resolved this week. On a hunch I sent an e-mail to the new contact person at La U (after two people in a row went back to the States) asking about my pay. Turns out she thought I was volunteering my time to travel four hours and teach four hours every Saturday. There is no money to pay me, so she thanked me for my time, and my stint as a teacher trainer is over. If I weren't so exhausted, I would have considered continuing without pay, but I just don't have the energy. Honestly, the biggest factor was how to get up there some way other than in a chicken bus or in the back of a pickup truck through the mountains. This week I talked with the man who took Cristina back to the airport, and he said two chicken bus drivers were playing chicken around the curves when one driver lost and went over the cliff with his load of passengers.

It is "interesting" to sort out the limits of what I am willing to accept here. I have decided, and promised several friends and my daughter, that my chicken bus days are over. I have finally given up on washing my own clothes, at least mostly, and am paying 4Q/pound (7.some Q per dollar) to have them done for me. Then there is life as it unfolds. I had breakfast at a local restaurant yesterday and got my eggs and beans and bread (a hamburger bun) but no cheese as promised. Turns out the cheese wasn't delivered this week "por la lluvia," which continues to keep us all soggy and a little down. A friend and I had lunch in San Marcos today, but the owner had no change, so paying the bill was a little complicated. It's not unusual to go to a restaurant and discover that over half the items are not available or, as happened today in San Marcos, as far as I could figure, there was no food because the cook had left early. However, the waiter warmly welcomed us to come back any time, and it was a very beautiful restuarant, even with no food.



This week was the first time I thought about packing it up and going back to MN five weeks early. I had a series of frustrating exchanges at the language school after I had broached staying longer (something that is no longer an option, at least at this moment). The two administrators ohter than the owner suggested that we get the classes going before they decided whether it was worth keeping me around. I finally had a long talk with one of them yesterday, during which time I pointed out that I had already proved my worth, as evidenced by the number of English conversations I am generating with the Spanish teachers. I finally realized this week that I can determine my own value as a teacher and don't have to rely on other people's opinions. There does not appear to be a real commitment at the school to get a good English program underway despite my best efforts, and so I am concentrating on the teachers and working with them as best I can given their time constraints.

Today I took the day off from my Spanish classes, feeling that I was at the end of my energy in that regard as well. It was good to have a free day. I plan to spend the weekend away from the school until Sunday when I teach my next class, writing and reflecting and setting goals for the next five weeks.