First week in the Gwat

One week of my three week stay here has come and gone pretty quickly, and I'm still loving it. I'd say that the only 'stain' or 'smear' on my experience in Guatemala thus far is that we're not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet - either its a unique quirk of the plumming here, or the Guatemalans have a wicked sense of humour and like tricking the gullible foreigners. Either way, the bin located next to the toilet to be used for disposal is like footprints in the sand of a beach, telling you about all the people who had been there before you...

Getting to Guatemala from Tokyo was an exercise in patience that tested the very limits of my sense of humour. I left at 3pm on Tuesday, and arrived at 10pm on Tuesday... Either this means that yes, I can in fact bend the fabric of time and space, or that crossing over half a dozen times zones has screwed with my sense of reality.

At any rate, I had crap all sleep that night, and ended up being subjected to a full day (7 hours) of Spanish language classes. Not the most intelligent move I ever made. On the second day, in my less fatigued state, I managed to amaze and astound my teachers with just how much I failed to remember from the previous day. I was so moved by their exasperation and hair-pulling that I redoubled my efforts, and by the end of the day I was well ahead of schedule.

The house I'm staying at is great (will post photos soon). I share it with half a dozen other language students. The house and its surrounding walls are carefully adorned with statues of jesus christ, assorted Disneyland memorabilia, and skin-shredding glass shards and cardio-shocking electrified barbed wire. I can't decide whether it's designed to keep people out, or to keep people in. We just had a bunch of new people move into the house, and we've decided to institute a hazing ritual where they're only allowed into the house if they make their way over the electrified wall. If they make it inside, they can stay. If they make it in alive, all the better... I fooled one of the new people by telling her that we (the other students and I) always say grace before dinner and that it's customary for new people to say grace on the evening they arrive. The girl was distraught and mumbled her way through something unintelligible... and so my reign of terror continues.

In addition to the orchestra of birds, barking dogs, church bells and the occassional explosion of fire crackers, it turns out that my neighbours are budding musicians. I know this because they're reasonably proficient at playing the same few bars of "Stairway to Heaven". I say 'reasonably' because they're getting a few chords wrong, and their either woefully oblivious or they don't let it dampen their enthusiasm and continue droning on, paying no heed to my now tenuous grip on sanity.

That's all I have to report for now.