The Greenest Lights

Its a great day.

My friend Moran has come back to Antigua to take me to Semuc Champey this weekend.

I got my tax return from my accountant and it seems I wont be coming home right away.

My cold is improving rapidly.

I am having full conversations with people in Spanish.

Life is good!

I miss my little bro. If you´re reading this say "ho!"

Positve Mental Attitude

Nothing really to say right now, just a few things that made me smile in the last couple of days:

• Being able to hold full conversations in spanish despite still sounding like a child
• Waking up and looking out the window to see the volcano
• Sunsets over the volcano
• Falling asleep to the sound of reggae
• Reuniting with Luis
• Missing new friends after only meeting them once
• Charging my Ipod
• Having dreams about mums house in Newcastle. I can be there without having to be there!
• Joel El Bombero coming back from Semuc Champey

I have 5 more days of school left and then I am off again. To where, I have no idea. One part of me thinks I will go to Honduras to see the Copan Ruins and then to dive in the Bay Islands. The other part of me wants to see some more of Guatemala. I will stay open and be prepared to see the signs telling me which way to go.

BTW, in Antigua, its too hot for teeshirts but too cold for singlets. What then, I ask you, is the answer!!!!!!!!?!?!?!

The curse of introspection

The best thing about travelling alone is that you have to be more outgoing in order to meet people. You talk to people more than usual, you go to places with complete strangers, you look after people´s stuff for them, you share food, its all very communal and cool. But when thats all done and dusted and there is only you, you start thinking....

I think thinking too much about yourself and your life is one of the greatest burdens we can create for ourselves. It achieves nothing, it wastes valuable braincells and it creates a feeling of inertia that is completely disempowering. Since travelling by myself I have been thinking way too much about everything and coming up with nothing. So I have been writing in my journal lots, smashing some stuff out in the blog, continuing to write bad poetry and above all, am trying to live in the moment, enjoy my beautiful surroundings in Antigua and the people that I have in my life.

Already I have a little family here in Antigua. Its nice to know the people around you and to be able to speak with them in spanish. I have been having great conversations with Jeremy who is 6 and is the hostel owners son. I guess because my spanish is equivelent to that of a 6 year old we are quite compatible. He tells me about school, his teacher, his girlfriend and sometimes I have no idea what the hell he is talking about but he is so damn cute I just nod and say si si si!!! So I am well taken care of, am feeling tranquilo and am using my brain for the first time in months it seems...

In a week it will be time to move on. To where, I dont know...how I am getting there, no idea...the question mark remains but with the sense of anticipation that good things await!

More later...

Doesnt matter if you´re black or white...

Alot has happened since my last post...its been almost three weeks and things really have changed!

So backtracking a bit..

After my awesome birthday party, we went to Rio Dulce, a small town on the river about 7 hours from Antigua in Guatemala. We only spent a day and a night there but in that time went to an amazing waterfall that consisted of 12 meters of cascading hot water into a cold rock pool. Amazing!

From Rio Dulce we took a serene and beautiful boat trip to the small town of Livingstone, home of the Garifuna people and my new friends Luis, Steven, Stewart etc from the band. A tiny place, it was so friendly, had great food and music, more beautiful waterfalls, beaches and good vibes...loved it!

I was keen to cross the border and get into Belize. I knew basically nothing about Belize before this trip except it is the only place in Central America that has English as its first langauage. It was weird to suddenly be understood again after 4 months of bad Spanglish and hand gestures to get us by.

We hit Belize City and were met with friendly faces and helpful people. One in particular was really nice to me as soon as we arrived, helped me to find a cheap beer and gave me some tips on where to go on the island of Caye Caulker, our destination. Kenroy Elijioh turned out to be one of those rare people that I like to label Friends For Life.

Caye Caulker is a gorgeous tropical island 45 minutes from Belize City on boat. It has white sand for streets and is surrounded by sparkling blue water. Great seafood, great snorkelling, yumy coconut rum drinks, and some of the worst racism we have encountered on our trip so far.

Here, when a white girl hangs out with a black guy it means two things. The black guy is with the girl because she is rich and the white girl is with the guy for sex (sorry if my dad is reading this). But thats the stereotype and no amount of One People mentality is going to change it. I spent a lot of time with Kenroy in the time we were there: walking around town, eating fish burgers, watching TV with him, going to the club, it was awesome. But I was so aware of the stares we got, the comments in Creole that the guys made about us (blah blah White Girl blah blah), the looks from the neighbours when I would go to his house....I talked with the girls about it and made the point that I would never refer to the guys on the island as Black Boy so what was the difference? The worst case of it was at the club when we were all dancing, me and Jodie, Kenroy and his friends when one of the guys he knew wanted to dance with Jodie. She declined politely because she was having fun doing her own thing. His mates blew up and started dissing her, talking about her in Creole. A little later one of the guys asked me when she was leaving the island because they dont want people "like her" to be there. To that I say such double standards my friend, how are we ever going to repair the wrong doings of our ancestors if its 2008 and we are still thinking in terms of colours???

By the time we left I was glad to go. I know my skin is white and I am privileged in many ways because of it. I take things for granted that other people have to worry about...I dont get stopped on the street and asked for ID by the police, I dont get frisked when I walk into nightclubs, just some of the things I have seen happen here.

But racism seems so fucking antiquated a concept...its up there with the abortion debate...is it really an issue anymore?

I guess until we have equality, it is.

Birthday Wrap Up

In the events industry, we live by two things. The Run Schedule and the Wrap Up. Despite being out of my job for almost 8 months now, I cant help but think that sometimes these two tools are vital to most activities and events.

I turned 32 the other day and have to say, despite being as old as the hills, I had the best birthday I think of my life and experienced a feeling of contentment and inner peace that I havent felt in a long time.

It started on the eve of my birthday. The girls were tired and went to bed early so I sat at the bar in the hostel drinking a tequila sunrise and writing in my journal. It was a quiet night at Los Amigos with only a few people chilling out in conversation, some nice laid back tunes and just a generally cool vibe. I spent a couple of hours writing and reflecting then sat and talked with Tops for a couple of hours about his own journey to Antigua. Before opening the bar and restaurant in the hostel, he had been going through a tough time - his girlfriend of 6 years had broken up with him so he hit the booze and drugs and did his darndest to self destruct when, coming home from a party in Guatemala City one night off chops, he was mugged and assaulted to within an inch of his life. He lost his job, looked like the Elephant Man from his injuries and realised that when he needed his friends, there were none to be found..So he packed his backpack and jumped on the chicken bus to Antigua. It was there he found Macanace, the Rasta Chef extraordinaire, who had nothing but a bag and a broken guitar found in some rubbish. Together 2 lost souls came together and created one of the best bars and restaurants in Antigua. So the night before my birthday I realised I had made yet another great and special friend....what a gift!

The day of my birthday started with a bowl of cornflakes with my two girls, a visit from Luis and Stewart, and lots of love sent to me from Beautiful People Worldwide! So much love, it was amazing to think that only 3 months ago I didnt know half these people...I was then given instructions to get lost for a while so the girls could construct the party. So I went frock shopping and bought myself a bright blue dress the colour of the Guatemalan flag!

And so, the fiesta.

The party started with a huge table of party snacks. One thing they dont do here is snack platters. No dips and chips, cheese and biccies or anything like it. But, Jodie found a deli and went nuts on the food, even finding brie! Unheard of! So Nikki, Jodie, Johnny, Ari, Nina, Tops and Macanace joined us for great food and pink champagne, beautiful gift giving and generally spreading the love. I was given beautiful earrings, a necklace made of Jade, a GUATEMALA bracelet, a bottle of Argentinean red wine, a joint and condom, of which both went missing by the end of the night! HA!

After snack platters we hit the cubre libres and got the tunes going until my new crew from Livingstone turned up. This is the band I wrote about in a previous post, who quickly became my new friends despite my bad spanish. Luis, Stewart, Steven, Jessica and Juan rocked up and within minutes had the bongos and maraccas out to sing me Happy Birthday and a bunch of other tunes. It was such a beautiful gesture and I felt honoured to have these guys at the party in my life, even if only briefly. We jammed some more, drank some more, then hit the club for some Salsa and Reggaton. It was an awesome night and one of my most memorable on my trip!

So 32 and here I am in one of the most beautiful countries I have seen so far on my travels. The rest of my life seems to be just one big question mark at the moment but nothing about that scares me...its just another sign of opportunity...

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place.

Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known .

Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.

Sometimes a man hits upon a place which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known , as though they were familiar to him from his birth, here at last he finds rest.

Punta!

Had a great night last which was one of those rare unique experiences I was complaining about not having a couple of posts ago.

Macanaca and I went to a club called El Pelicano last night, a teeny bar in the backstreets of Antigua. His friends band was playing and he asked me to come check it out with him. All he could tell me was it was Garifuna music which meant nothing to me but turned out to be AWESOME.

The Garifuna people are Guatemalans of Afro descent who live on the Carribean coast of Guatemala. They speak Spanish and a Mayan language called Kekchi and are just beautiful people. The band was made up of two drummers, a guy who played the shells both as a percussion instrument and to blow into like a trumpet, two singers and three hot lady punta dancers, all dressed in traditional get up, rocking it hard. I was initially really conscious of being the only white girl there but I was welcomed with open arms, was given a free shot of some crazy cherry booze and the punta chicks got me up on the floor and showed me how to shake it. Wicked fun! And I now have a total groupie crush on the drummer hahahaha!!!

So I am going back tonight.

Ha!

All aboard the chicken bus!

We have been in Antigua Guatemala for a few days now and already it feels like home. After 11 hours on 5 chicken buses from San Cristobal to the side of a highway near Antigua, we made it into the town and met Pablo. Pablo took us to a great hostel, helped me to enrol in a good Spanish school and generally was a top bloke. Some people want to rip you off and some just want to help you...so we had a nice introduction to Antigua.

Antigua is a dramatically beautiful town surrounded by volcanoes, mountains and villages. The town is gorgeous, a bit too pretty but with enough traditional character to make it interesting. My spanish school is gorgeous and I have been spending my afternoons in the garden with my teacher, trying to get my brain to work again. But she is telling me I have potential so we will see!

We had been moving around a bit before then so its nice to be in one place again for a while to meet some people, make some friends, feel comfortable with the place. The bar at the hostel is called El Chillout and is run by two locals, Tops and Macanaca, who make great vego food and serve cheap drinks. I wake up every morning to Nina Simone and the smell of fresh coffee...ahhhh! They both helped us to celebrate Jodies birthday which was complete with firecrackers in the street! It was a wicked night and up there as one of the most memorable.

Its my birthday in a few days. I will be 32.

Fark!!!!!