The take away is that I did NOT start an international incident.

Classes are going well.  I have no expectations of being fluent by the time we come home, but I´m sure going to know a lot more than I did coming in.  My instructor continues to crack me up, with long side conversations detailing the difficulty he has deciding whether Salma Hayek or Sharon Stone is the sexier star.

Thursday after class Maria, the woman who runs the school took David and I and another student (from Montreal) to another village close to town called Xunil.  We saw another beautiful church, and went to a weaving cooperative where the local woman sold their clothes.  Interestingly the patterns, colors and style of their clothes was quite distinct from the village we had visited on Tuesday, even though they are but a few kilometers apart.  

We also visited San Simón, an effigy of what I think is an evil spirit of vice, but one that the locals take very seriously.  Maria only speaks Spanish, so a lot of what she told us about him went over our heads, but the short version is that he is worshiped in several villages across Guatemala, and each village depicts him in a different way.  Here he was a plastic mannequin with shades and a cane or, as David put it, sort of like Michael Jackson.  He was located in the garage of somebodies house, and is moved to a different home every year so no one family has a monopoly.  People would come in and light candles for him, and there were far more people here than we saw at the church up the road.  Even Maria lit a candle for him as we left.  I wasn´t able to find anything googling him, but definitely need to get some more information on what I was seeing there.  (Also, I wasn´t going to post the photo, which I had to pay about sixty cents to take, but I´ve seen other photos up and around so I don´t think I´m violating any beliefs by doing so.)

Part of the reason I missed a lot of what Maria was trying to tell us about him, was that a very, very drunk man came in while she was talking, and began shouting and weeping at the effigy, yelling in his ear and then cuddling up with his head on its chest while he cried.  This, as you might imagine, was difficult not to enjoy.  He finally went over to light a candle, barely able to stand, and I was anticipating having to save him when he fell into the sea of flame.  Luckily another group of people came in, and he shuffled over to the side where he could crouch with his back to the wall.  (That is him in the photo, holding the can of beer.)

Saturday though, was on of my favorite excursions we´ve yet taken on the trip.  Seven of us met Maria at the school at 6am, and we walked through town to catch a minibus to an outlying village about an hour away.  Oh, and did I mention the village is on a volcano?  Because it is!  On a volcano!  From where we were let off we had to walk up a very steep road through the hillside village.  On the way up the village was just walking up, so we didn´t see many people, but the homes were all on plots of farmland, with cows and chickens running about.  We walked I think like three kilometers, which for David and I isn´t that far, but it was steep going the entire way.  I was worried about the thin air, but I guess my blood has thickened up finally and we both managed better than most of the others.  We reached a small office to pay our entrance fee, and then had to hike another 2 kilometers just as steep up to the ridge of the dormant volcano.  From the ridge we could see across to two other volcanoes in the area, one of which is still active and belches steam and smoke about every 45 minutes.  (Awesome.  We want to go there next weekend.)

But the reason we came was on the interior of the crater, where a lagoon surrounded by lush foliage sits.  The lagoon is considered a very sacred place by the Maya, so visitors are asked to be respectful and, for example, swimming is strictly prohibited.  We hiked down and had some snacks while we recovered.  Then we walked around the entire lake.  It was ridiculously beautiful, with beautiful flowers and orchids and berries all over.  As we walked the clouds started rolling in through the crater, and these huge clouds of mist would envelop us before being blown away again. Maria told us that people believe the water in the lagoon has beneficial health properties, so people will run their hands in the water and then pat the water into their hair, which is supposed to give you energy.  There were a few groups of locals sitting in groups, talking and singing and chanting.  At one point I was looking over at a group of people singing, and I glanced down at my feet just in time to avoid walking through a pile of black ash, were clearly a fire had been burned recently.  I looked up to see Maria, who was walking a ways in front of us, motioning madly at me to avoid the fire pit. Thank goodness I missed it, who knows what sort of riot I would have started had if I´d disturbed an offering the people were singing about.  (David, walking right next to me, didn´t notice it at all, so it wasn´t like I was being unusually aloof, it was just a flat circle of black ash sitting on top of the sand beside the lagoon.)  The offerings of flowers were easier to avoid at least.

To top it all off, we finally found some awesome bugs.  One was this fly/bee like thing, with a yellow striped abdomen.  We found it crawling on the beach, and when we disturbed it it fell back on its haunches to show us its red legs and underbelly.  It was a big sluggish, so it was hard to tell if it was just awkward, or whether it was a defensive posture trying to scare us away.  In any case, it was by far the best bug sighting we´ve had since we arrived.  (Sorry I can´t figure out how to rotate the pic.  But stop being lazy and just turn your head to the right!) Later as we were climbling back up the crater, we found another huge beetle that freaked out the girls (especially when David picked it up) but made us giddy with delight.  We didn´t see any parrots, although we found a pile of fresh green feathers, but David saw a small red finch-like bird, and I saw a pair of large bright blue birds with big crests on their heads.  Gorgeous when the sun hit them as they flew away.  

On the way back down the village was up and going, and just about every person we walked by had a smile and a "Buenas tardes" for us.  Even better were the kids.  In most places we´ve gone, the kids are either a little shy, or aware of us but generally nonchalant and uninterested.  Here the kids would wave and giggle and say hello as we passed.  So adorable.

We are doing great with our budget here, and continue to try and figure out where we want to go next.  I think we are pretty much settled on going to Lake Atitlán next week, and Antigua for more class after that.  Our South American plans have been changing rapidly as well.  For one heady day we decided to cut our trip short by a month (and cut the scuba) in order to fly down and out to Easter Island, but I think we´ve decided that for now it is just too big of a sacrifice.  So we are back to figuring out which route will take us to the Bay Islands in Honduras for dive lessons before we go to Belize and with the least amount of backtracking.