I just plain didn’t feel like going to school today. I did everything I could to divert my teacher’s attention from imperfect verbs. I don’t know why I was so ornery but maybe it was because of last night’s dream: I’d returned to high school to study Latin with my old friends Pat and Kate. On our first exam, Kate got a 98 percent and Pat got 100. When they saw I got a 62 they wouldn’t talk to me any more because they didn’t like stupid people. I ran sobbing through the halls until Nurse Carveth caught up with me. But I was inconsolable.
Would you want to study after a night like that?
So instead of verbs, we talked about how to put on a Guatemalan diaper, and since there wasn’t a spare baby lying around, Silvia demonstrated with paper.
This is the traje that another teacher’s two-month-old baby wore on a recent saint’s day.
A headline story in today’s Prensa Libra“¦
935 Mentiras de George W. Bush
El presidente y otros altos funcionarios del Gobierno estadounidense no tuvieron la menor consideración por la verdad en el período previo a la Guerra en Irak, al haber mentido 935 veces en un lapso de dos aí±os…
I wish the Maya of Iximché could help us cleanse our country of the malice he leaves in his wake.
Silvia and I had to make our third trip of the week to the mercado where I was to pick up the custom-made pens I’d ordered, but el hombre no es responsible, Silvia said. We found another guy and, while waiting for him to finish, made our way deeper into the narrow maze of stalls. I was looking for a cowboy hat windshield ornament like the ones Don Mario has on his car, but no suerte. From all sides came calls of Mira! and Un buen precia!
There’s a sort of church in the market, which stays decorated for the Christmas season until February 2.
The mercado is a visually amazing place, but generally I don’t like taking pictures because it’s rude. There are exceptions. Here’s a photo of the young man making my bracelet, and of his wares.
Today I wore a cheap shawl I’d bought yesterday in the Tecpí¡n market. Several teachers — inveterate shoppers — crowded around to examine it. Silvia told them about the bargain I’d gotten (yes: un buen precio) and they were envious. One woman held up her hand to me like a gun and cheerfully said they’d discussed offing me for my ropa. I went to get tea. When I returned, one of the teachers was wearing the shawl.
Here are my purchases from the past two weeks.
And here’s little video of Silvia. As you’ll hear, I can say “sí” very fluently.
[flashvideo filename=wp-content/video/sil.flv image=wp-content/video/sil.jpg /]
Tomorrow I attempt to make my way to Lago de Atitlí¡n, to meet up with Maria at the Volcano Lodge in Jaibalito. I hope I don’t get lost.
_
Haha! And who can blame them?
Silvia’s cute. Your Spanish accent isn’t *too* awful.
Why didn’t you bring me?
I think I didn’t bring you because you didn’t want to be brought … something about college, I think you said. But I miss you, particularly whenever I go places we went two years ago. Let’s come back some day. You pay.