I jumped ahead with a summary of the year I've been here, leaving out a lot of step-by-step learnings about Guatemala and about myself, as I pursue this New Journey. So I'm backtracking a bit in the next posts. Culture and history: My Spanish teacher told me today about the area she grew up in, near the border with El Salvador, which was settled at one time by Germans, so her father looks almost white, with blue eyes, the latter which she also has in her warm brown face. Additionally, at one time a whole cadre of Gypsies from Spain came over there, during some period of persecution. So in the area of her home there are many women with full colorful skirts and blouses with blousy sleeves and big earrings in their ears. And men who are sort of violent, according to her. The group is regarded as thieves by I don’t know who. Now, I would like to see that, (not the thieves and violent part) and possibly hear some music……she says muchas violinas! I’d also like to read about it on the internet, if I could do so (too expensive, now.) So this is another culture in Guatemala! I think my teacher said there were 23 language groups in Guatemala – 21 of them different Mayan languages.
Personal recognitions: Tues. am. And the worst nite’s sleep I’ve had in a long time. Perhaps the barking dog….or the music from the apartment of the Korean couple next door. When I finally fall asleep I dreamed that I am in a two-story house w/ a bunch of women, and some earthquakey things start happening….a big beam gets wrenched up thru the earth, etc., and then the lower story starts being flooded. We are all scrambling up a stairway to the 2nd floor, but some women don’t make it and are washed away….The women I am with don’t seem to think much of the whole event, just seem to be glad they are upstairs…even tho “upstairs” is now resting on top of the floodwaters like a sort of open raft. I wake up rather panicky. I analyze, of course, that this is D. and these other Gringo women who think it’s perfectly fine to be in some other country where you can’t speak the language, and going off for a year, traveling by yourself. And how you manage the rest of it, like your money and going to the consulate in Guate to get an extension, etc. So some part of me is more afraid of this small adventure than I realize.
Wed. nite: and M.C. and I go to a supposedly Cuban restaurant for dinner and spend too much money but I have an excellent ratatouille….so obviously NOT Cuban. The band also is not Cuban…..Peruvian pipes and all, but really excellent. And so after I “wake up” from the immersion of watching a movie with her, and climb my stairs after saying Buenas Noches, I suddenly wonder if I could get lost here and never find my way home. My sweet home in the California mountains seems like Paradise, with no noise, and no people. But might I never go back there???? I never have thought that; I always assumed I will get very old and die there. But I can see how one might get “swept away,” here. It suddenly occurs to me that the thread could just get broken and you might not find the trail home. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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