From a Scarborough visual art classroom to Guatemala
Apologies for the silence on the blog front. Since I last blogged, I finished my last 4 weeks of classroom teaching, thus completing the requisite number of hours required by the ministry of education to receive my teaching license. I also turned 30 (most everyone reading this was likely at the party, which was an absolute blast. Thanks to all those who attended, for making it totally memorable. Well, except for some brief forgettable moments later in the evening, and the next day, which I´ve since chosen to forget.)
As you can see, it´s been a busy past month. I should also mention that I´m in Guatemala. I´ve spent the past week trying, with marginal success, to learn spanish. I´ve taken classes every morning this past week for 5 hours a day starting at 8am, with Rafael, my teacher. I´ve attempted to tell him my life story, along with details about the geography of canada, all in spanish, while trying to properly conjugate verbs (as long as they´re in present or future tenses... I have no idea about past tense), and the difference between "por" and "para".
My hotel is amazing, and Antigua is an incredible city. It´s a maze of decrepid colonial architecture, painted deep pinks, yellows, oranges and reds, all surrounded by volcanos. One Volcano looms to the south, remarkably close to the city, and another to the West, Fuego, has been having small eruptions lately, sending plumes of grey smoke into the sky. Yesterday, I hiked up Volcan Pacaya, another active volcano just outside of the city. I didn´t get all that close to the top, but I was close enough to see rivulets and bursts of orange-red from near the apex. I climbed through black volcanic rock as far as I could see, while bursts of heat came from cracks in the rock below my feet. In short, it was awesome.
On Friday, I went on a tour of Camino Seguro, the school where I start volunteering tomorrow. Most of the various buildings they use were modest but clean and functional. A couple of them, including the building that houses the grade 2 class I´ll be helping out in, are quite new. The neighbourhood is basically a slum, consisting mostly of shacks constructed from corrugated iron. We also drove to the Guatemala City cemetery, which overlooks the garbage dump. There were clusters of hundreds of people swarming around the newly arrived trucks of refuse, trying to pick through the mess for recyclables they can sell. Overhead and perched on nearby crypts were at least as many vultures as there were people in the dump. Making all this even more surreal is the bright Guatemalan sun shining down through the haze of methane gas that hovers in the air.
Anyway, that should mostly bring things up to date. This week will be a busy one. I´ll try to get pictures online soon, along with another Guatemala update in a week or two.
Apologies for the silence on the blog front. Since I last blogged, I finished my last 4 weeks of classroom teaching, thus completing the requisite number of hours required by the ministry of education to receive my teaching license. I also turned 30 (most everyone reading this was likely at the party, which was an absolute blast. Thanks to all those who attended, for making it totally memorable. Well, except for some brief forgettable moments later in the evening, and the next day, which I´ve since chosen to forget.)
As you can see, it´s been a busy past month. I should also mention that I´m in Guatemala. I´ve spent the past week trying, with marginal success, to learn spanish. I´ve taken classes every morning this past week for 5 hours a day starting at 8am, with Rafael, my teacher. I´ve attempted to tell him my life story, along with details about the geography of canada, all in spanish, while trying to properly conjugate verbs (as long as they´re in present or future tenses... I have no idea about past tense), and the difference between "por" and "para".
My hotel is amazing, and Antigua is an incredible city. It´s a maze of decrepid colonial architecture, painted deep pinks, yellows, oranges and reds, all surrounded by volcanos. One Volcano looms to the south, remarkably close to the city, and another to the West, Fuego, has been having small eruptions lately, sending plumes of grey smoke into the sky. Yesterday, I hiked up Volcan Pacaya, another active volcano just outside of the city. I didn´t get all that close to the top, but I was close enough to see rivulets and bursts of orange-red from near the apex. I climbed through black volcanic rock as far as I could see, while bursts of heat came from cracks in the rock below my feet. In short, it was awesome.
On Friday, I went on a tour of Camino Seguro, the school where I start volunteering tomorrow. Most of the various buildings they use were modest but clean and functional. A couple of them, including the building that houses the grade 2 class I´ll be helping out in, are quite new. The neighbourhood is basically a slum, consisting mostly of shacks constructed from corrugated iron. We also drove to the Guatemala City cemetery, which overlooks the garbage dump. There were clusters of hundreds of people swarming around the newly arrived trucks of refuse, trying to pick through the mess for recyclables they can sell. Overhead and perched on nearby crypts were at least as many vultures as there were people in the dump. Making all this even more surreal is the bright Guatemalan sun shining down through the haze of methane gas that hovers in the air.
Anyway, that should mostly bring things up to date. This week will be a busy one. I´ll try to get pictures online soon, along with another Guatemala update in a week or two.
posted by Dooner at 4:33 PM
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