Remember how I said my roommate was thinking about quitting? Monday was payday and Tuesday she didn't come out of her room in the morning for the bus to school. When I got home that afternoon, her things were packed up, and a pile of ungraded papers and textbooks was stacked on the kitchen table. She must have left just shortly before I got back because she'd done her dishes and they still had water droplets on them in the drying rack.

Now it's just me in the apartment. Empty bedroom here, in case you want to visit.

A couple weeks ago I was reading in bed when I saw
 this happen. Mono lifted up Manchas' while he
 was on the computer. Look closely at the paw.

The past few days have been more of the same at school, with lots of meetings to learn about the curriculum, procedures, etc. I really love the Primary Principal, Carola. We end up getting off task quite a bit during our meetings, and she tells me about Guatemalan history and politics, immigration and social welfare. Hearing about those things from people in the country is one of the things I really appreciate about traveling. Today she told me I touched her soul when I asked why the kids weren't using leveled readers in class. Then she brought me to a back room of the Coordination office where one wall was covered in leveled readers. Carola had advocated for more independent and guided reading time, but the school didn't want to do it, and none of the teachers are using the leveled readers, so I now have my own private library for my kids.

My kids are cuter each day.

And today I had a meeting with the rest of the new-ish teachers to meet the Head Director. I'm the newest but about 7 teachers have arrived in the last month and a half. This was weird actually. It was rumored that the meeting was arranged for us to voice our complaints to the administration, in light of my roommate leaving unannounced. The teacher I'm replacing did the same thing.

The Head Director came out and she's old. Like 80 or something. Shaky when standing. She apologized for not coming down from her upstairs office to meet us because her toes have been hurting her. She kept staring at me for uncomfortably long periods of time. So much so that people brought it up to me after the meeting. Anyway, the teachers were planning a trip this weekend to camp on some mountain. I wasn't going to go because I'd read that it's dangerous, and then later I couldn't because Carola asked me to come to the new parent's orientation on Saturday. The Head Director said that she's heard we were going but we shouldn't because it's dangerous. Making sure to include appropriate pregnant pauses she said, "There are people there and they might rob you . . . or you might get killed." Another person from the school told someone else that some people had been robbed on the mountain but one guy didn't have money on him so they killed him and threw him in a crater. Now, I don't know about the crater thing, but I don't doubt that the rest is true. Many of the teachers are mad about it because they think the school is just trying to be controlling, but it was also a surprise to them that it was dangerous, so maybe they should listen.

Anyway, it was weird nonetheless to hear a "Welcome to our school," and a "You might get killed" all in the same breath, especially from what felt like my Grandma. I did want to hug her, I did. But as you can see, it did not make for the ideal introduction to dialogue time. Then we were whisked out of the room and unfortunately I overheard Ana Luisa talking to two other teachers, who were asking about when they could talk about the issues they're finding. Ana Luisa said, "That was your chance to express your concerns; she asked if you had any questions." Really not what you'd say if you were interested in making things better.

After school today I walked to the mall by myself. That was a big deal because I was afraid of getting robbed, but instead it just looked like I had a boob job because my money was stuffed in my bra. Guatemala City does not feel like a welcoming place to walk around as a foreigner. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but it's a sausage fest out there on the streets. A lot of places also have armed guards at their entrances, which is not a comforting thing. They freak me out even on the base in Cozumel. But I went. I bought two sweaters because mornings are cold here, for serious, and I walked home with one boob bigger than the other.

Hello, hello, welcome to Guatemala City. I live here now.

I don't even feel like getting into the process of how this happened, but on Saturday I woke up early and traveled with Mono via ferry and then bus to Cancún. Flight to Mexico City. Connecting flight cancelled so seven hours in the airport in which I realized I need to up my heels game if I'm going to make it with Mexicana fashion, and then finally after taking the hour long flight at 10:30pm I arrived bleary eyed and slightly bewildered to Guatemala City.

Thankfully I was picked up by Ana Luisa, who works as a secretary at the school I'll be teaching at for the next year. She and her husband drove me to my new home, which Ana Luisa had kindly supplied with some groceries, toiletries, a new towel, and a cell phone. Hi. My bedroom has a pretty nice view of KFC, Pizza Hut, and some mountains in the distance. I also share the apartment with one other person, but after talking to her for several hours last night she confessed that she's quitting early on her contract. Right now she's just waiting for payday at the end of the month and then she'll be on her way.

View from my room.

Today I went to the school and it seems like a good place to work. There was a lot of somewhat pointless time scheduled in for me to read the Parent Manual and the Employee Manual and watch DVDs about rather basic teaching strategies, but I also met my new class and observed their math and science lessons. The kids were cuuuute, seriously. Their initial teacher got married and left with no extra notice in April - the school's on a January to October calendar - and the kids have had a bunch of teachers in the interim. Currently they're with Claudia, a local. Claudia would ask the kids questions and some of them would turn away from her to face me on the other side of the classroom when they gave their answers. Cute, I mean but cute! And two girls gave me notes decorated with hearts and the message "I love Mega."

There are twenty kids in the class, which is great, and I think they seem like a really sweet little bunch but in need of a little classroom management. Claudia seems really patient and able to deal with the rest of the class talking while one student speaks. I'm not so fluffy I suppose. They've probably had a new set of routines taught with each new temporary teacher (about six), but they're going to need to relearn it. I have two weeks of orientation and then I take over the class on the 11th.

There are about 20 foreign teachers at the school, and all of the teachers and administration speak English - at least manageably. I've been fighting to speak Spanish. It makes me feel a little bit less far away from Mono and it's feels unnatural to me to speak English here. Mostly I've been met with, "Oh! You speak Spanish very well!" But they say it in English and so I have to respond in English and quietly be sad inside until I can force myself on another unsuspecting Guatemalteca. 

That's it for now. Bedtime.

Manchas protecting the house even
though the ghosts are inside.

There's a ghost in our apartment. For the first several days that we were here I'd keep feeling like someone was standing behind me and looking over my shoulder, and I'd think I'd see things in the many mirrors this apartment has, then look closer and there'd be nothing. One night when I was home alone one of the giant mirrors fell off the wall and then last night the guardian angel painting that I mentioned in the last post also fell off the wall. Ghost?

Mono has a haunting story about his aunt that I just had him retell me so I'd get it right. It's a true story and it goes like this.

Once upon a time Mono's aunt thought that her husband was cheating on her so she went to a shaman. If you watch "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," which you should, you may have seen these magic-medicine-people cast fertility spells on Kenya. So Mono's aunt went to the medicine woman and asked her if she could help her figure out if it was true and with whom he was cheating. Plot twist: he was cheating with the shaman. 

Again, this really happened.

The shaman mixed up a drink and told Mono's aunt that it would help her husband fall in love with her again. She drank it up and immediately felt dizzy. The shaman asked her if she'd had any visions and told her that the dizzy feelings might last for awhile.

Aunt went home and things started to happen. It started out with odd behaviors when the family would pray before meals and at night when the aunt would bless the kids before they went to sleep. During both of those times she'd get very agitated and go into a bit of a frenzy as Mono's grandma said the prayer. Then it started to get worse to the point where she jumped atop and crouched on the table, shoveling food into her mouth during the prayer.

Things ended with the cheating husband and the aunt moved back in to the family home, where Mono's dad and uncles still lived. They put her in a room and hung pictures of saints on the walls, which she destroyed. One time Mono's dad brought in a picture of the Virgin Mary, framed and with a glass front. Mono's aunt crushed it, her hands all bloody with the splinters. On Palm Sunday the family brought the palms and laid them under her bed. They didn't tell her they were there, but instead of getting into the bed she started rocking back and forth on the floor. Later they got her in the bed and she wouldn't lay flat, instead arching her back because she said the mattress was burning her. The other thing the family said is that when you looked at her she had tiny crosses in her eyes.

The family tried to do a couple of exorcisms with a priest from the area and then later from the state and finally they had to have one come in from Mexico City. I guess that did the job but Mono says even now around thirty years later something is off with her. She's very submissive and will zone out of her surroundings pretty frequently.

Well. Sweet dreams!