On the road again

Well, during three weeks of Spanish school I learned six verb tenses, and now my head is more muddled when I try to use them than when I arrived. But yesterday I rode the "chicken bus" (the local buses which are 5x cheaper than the tourist shuttles but 3x more crowded and slightly more dangerous) without too much difficulty. I would like to say I "conquered" the chicken buses, but that would be a bit presumida since it was only a 3-hour journey and I felt victourious simply because I came out of it with all of my belongings and no major mishaps. (However, I did have to change buses twice and I learned how to ask them to put my mochila--backpack-- in a safe place.)

Now I have sprayed half my clothes with Permethrin, a killer bug-spray for clothes, in preparation for a week on Roatan off the coast of Honduras. Tomorrow morning I leave quite early (need to be at the bus station by 5 am) to travel over land to La Ceiba, where I will fly 15 minutes to the island. I am going now so I can start my open water scuba course, a 4-day mix of book/video learning and dive practice.

Once again the New Mexican connection came through for me; tonight I am back in Guatemala City but safe in the home of Bryant, director of the Oxford Language School here in the capital. We spent the afternoon in a nice American fashion--watching American football and drinking beer with his dad, who is also visiting.

When I return from three weeks traveling in Honduras and east/central Guatemala with mi novio, Jon, I will be volunteering for Bryant and some colleagues at Camino Seguro school here in the capital (but living in Antigua with a Guatemalan family.) I am excited to get started doing some work that hopefully will allow me to practice my spanish as well as use my library experience in a productive way.

I don't know how much I will be writing while Jon and I are on the road, but I am sure I will post some fresh photos at some point!

Until then, take care mis amigos and thanks for reading!