East meets West

The other night, Pablo and I walked down the street to the night market for a late night snack. The staple food in El Salvador is called a papoosa. It is basically a tortilla omelette. It's a tortilla with cheese and meat on the inside. They are amazing! They also put avocado, chile, and spiced cabbage on top. Anyhow we were sitting at the stall eating and all of the sudden the power goes out in the entire city. The power goes out a lot but usually not for so long and not the entire city. At first no one could figure out what to do. The woman cooking our food has this huge open grill where she makes everything and all you could see were shadows. She couldn't figure out how to continue cooking. However, east met west, as it so often tends to do and about a dozen people pulled out their cell phones and used them as lights over a cooking set up that dates back hundreds of years.


It is amazing how the east and the west, the old and the new, and probably most importantly, America and Guatemala meet here everyday. Antigua is a colonial city and is preserved by the government as such but regulations can't stop change. In Antigua and the cities surrounding it, gas stations provide both gasoline and are often the site of the municipal well. On any given day, an ordinary ladino(of Euro descent) Guatemalteco and a Maya might be at the gas station at the same time. The Ladino puts gas in his motorcycle, picks up a jug of pure water, and grabs bread (yes very often at the gas station) for his family's dinner. The Mayan fills his family's water jar from the well, buys the family's bread, and maybe grabs himself a soda. They never look at eachother, never acknowledge the other's presence, but all the same they are doing the same thing. Same age, same religion, same country, they are so different yet so alike. Bringing home the bread, taking care of their families, they are just living.

Things for the most part have settled down here. I just graduated out of Grado D. Grado E is huge! My goal is to get through E by the end of my classes in a couple weeks.

Socially things are changing here. There is quite a crew of friends going home this week because of Thanksgiving. It is definately a really sad thing. I don't think anybody really realized coming down as individuals that we would all find such incredible friends. However, just as quickly as we came, we go home. Thank God for Facebook!

I am coming into my last few weeks here in Guatemala. There have definately been a lot of adventures. I'm sure there are more to come.