School Activities, Birthday Parties & A MASSAGE!


My school has pre-planned activities for the students six days a week. Some of them interest me, others don't. I did two activities this week. The first one was a trip to Zunil, a farming town about a half an hour down the road. I had passed through there last week on my way to Tapachula and found it fascinating and was eager to return.


The reason for the trip was to go see San Simon. San Simon is not a saint that is recognized by the Catholic Church. He started as a legendary figure in the Mayan cosmovision, and morphed into a saint after colonization. 


San Simon is considered the patron saint of vices. His picture often hangs in bars and brothels.  Bar owners, drug dealers, pimps and madams make him offerings to ask for success and protection.


Every department (the state-like unit in Guatemala) has their own San Simon mannequin and every year he is placed in a different community within each department to be "taken care of."


I didn't take any pics of San Simon because they charge you extra to do so and he's pretty creepy looking. It's worth a Google image search to see him. Also, I didn't really care about San Simon; I just wanted to check out Zunil.


What fascinates me about Zunil is that all of the farms are right smack in the middle of the town. In fact you can see all the farms in the lowest lying areas, then houses, and then more farms on the steep sides of the mountains.  Also, as you may have observed from the previous photos, there is an enormous covered farmers market. It smelled amazing! They had everything. Flowers, celery, carrots, beets, cilantro, basil, and green onions.


The activities coordinator at my school is a chic named Hanna. Since I'm the only student right now it was just she and I on the trip to Zunil.  Zunil has another major attraction that I haven't checked out yet. The volcanic baths at Fuentes Georgina's. I hope to get there soon.

Yesterday I did my second activity with Hanna, and this time she brought her friend Emilio along because this activity was a little bit dangerous. We hiked to the top of one of the smaller mountains around Quetzaltenango called El Baul. At the top, among the pine trees is a gorgeous city park. There is a lookout point, many picnic shelters, playground equipment that looks like it's from cold-war Russia, enormous slides built into the ground, and a tall cement pyramid built in honor of Tecun Uman, the last Mayan K'iché emperor. There are three Urban legends that exist about El Baul. The first is that Tecun Uman is buried there. The second, that there is buried treasure there. The third is that if you take something from there, you will be forced to return it within 24 hours. Somehow you will wind up there again. I don't have any pics of this outing because I didn't bring my phone in case we got mugged. I took my Nikon digital camera but my battery died half way up the mountain and now I can't get it to turn on. Hanna took some pics but I forgot to ask her for them. On the way back down the mountain, we were tired and hitched a ride with some campesinos in the back of their pickup. 


Apparently, it is Guatemalan tradition upon one's birthday to light fire crackers outside their bedroom window at 6:30am. Scared the shit out of me. My host family had put these signs on my door, they played Las Mañanitas, and we had special birthday tamales for breakfast. There was even a tiny piece of pork in mine! 


At my school, there was another little party during the morning break. We had tostadas with guacamole. They played guitar and all the staff and teachers sang Las Mañanitas.


This afternoon I got a massage at my gym. They are only $20 here!! Well folks, let me tell ya- you get what you pay for. The room has two huge windows and is freezing. As you can see, I had one of those lovely Guatemalan towels to cover up with. The massage therapist was very sweet and kind. She used "we" all the time. "How are we today?" "Do we exercise?" "Okay so, we take everything off and cover up with the towel but we leave on the bloomers."

"Oh, well, I don't use bloomers." 
She got a long hard laugh out of that one. 
I think this chic had only ever massaged dead bodies or 400 lb men. Man, she pulled me and pushed me so much she was huffing and puffing and moving the table across the floor. Also, she had long nails. No likey. 😩


The best part of my life here is the shower at my gym. It's glorious. I no longer shower at my house.


The view when walking from my school to the central park.


My teacher and I moved up to one of the rooftop classrooms where it's warmer and there's more sunshine.


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