Jason Harley's Corner of the Web

Guatemala is a strange place, not only is it the poorest nation on the American Continent but it also is in the top 10 of Amnesty International’s list of poor human rights, and it could hardly be said to be a democracy when most of the indigenous people are not allowed to vote because only the descendents of the Spanish invaders can read and write. However it is a place visited by many westerners and Americans who come to learn Spanish and sample this fantastic culture

In addition to the historical problems of civil war and corrupt government after corrupt government the country is also a dangerous place. Every day the newspapers carry news of missing money, and more worryingly, one paper has a daily murder count - we are up to 27 in July alone (and that’s just the ones the newspapers know about).

The country doesn’t escape from natural problems and Guatemala has 33 volcanoes, 3 of which are active, 1 of which is so dangerous you can see smoky eruptions every 1.5 hours, 1 of the others erupted 15 days ago... so we decided to climb that one to see what the fuss was about.... read on!

Antigua 16th July to 3rd August 2004

After our flight to Guatemala and the potential dangers of the capital city we caught a bus direct to Antigua where we planned to undertake Spanish school. Antigua is a colonial town that Zoe had visited 8 years ago when she lived in Belize. The streets are sided by walls with large doors and during the night it not possible to guess what is behind them; however the daytime allows the doors to open revealing restaurants, bars, cafes, shops and banks. Unfortunately, one door hides the dreaded McDonalds - a change for the worse in the 8 years since Zo?s last visit

We based ourselves in the actual hostel that Zo?had stayed in before and set about planning our 2 week stay. This was going to be the longest we’d been in one place since we began travelling as we wanted to study Spanish and live with a local family.

Birthday Boy 18th July 2004

Zo?made plans for a very special day, as we got up at 6am to trek for 3 hours up Volcan Pacaya. It one of 3 active volcanoes in the area and last erupted 15 days ago. The plan was to get to the top and see the lava and with a beautiful day we had a fantastic day and view. We could ´safely?get to within about 20m of the lava and took some great pictures. The volcano crater occasionally spewing out molten lava and encouraging everyone to take a step back!. The afternoon was a different pleasure as Zo?had organised a day of pampering in the form of a massage followed by Sunday Roast at the English pub. It was here that we met one of our future class mates, Ben.

Ixchel Spanish School 19th - 30th July 2004

We came to Antigua to learn Spanish at Ixchel Spanish School, (www.ixchelschool.com) over the last 3 months travelling in South America and a bit of pre learning in the car we had bumbled our way round speaking ´spanglish?but not understanding Spanish. The aim was to get better and learn the necessary skills to hold the odd conversation. My teacher was Helen and her stunning good looks and nice smile made me feel immediately that Spanish was for me! I don’t remember my French teacher at high school having anywhere near the same motivational factor. After she’d assessed my current level of ´spanglish?with a Liverpool accent we got on with learning some proper stuff like verbs and grammar!

The teaching comes at a one to one level and its tailored to your needs so by Wednesday we both felt that we’d learnt enough to want to learn more and booked in for another week.

As part of the school you get to live with a family so you can practice Spanish - we were placed with the school director (a bit like living with the headmaster!) and his family of Georgy (his wife) and 4 kids. In the house there were also 3 other students, Jason a 13 year old Taiwanese boy living in Belize, Lina a Danish girl and Andy from America. Food is included so the Casa de la Familla (Family House) has proved a cheap option.

After 2 weeks we cannot pretend to be fleunt but we are both able to converse with confidence in all sorts of situations. It's truely amazing that we can both speak spanish - I guess the trick now is practicing and learning those verbs!

Hermano Pedro Hospital / Orphanage 19th - 23rd July 2004

We had the opportunity to do some voluntary work in the afternoon of the first week and we decided to help in the local children’s home based in the hospital. 95% of the children have both severe physical and mental disabilities the other 5% have one or the other. A third of the kids are orphaned, another third are abandoned and the rest are there because their family cannot cope.

To say our first day was emotionally draining was an understatement as the children seemed to kept in their metal cots for hours on end as the ward of 41 kids only had 6 nurses and changing clothes and feeding is about as much as the nurses could physically do. As for stimulating the kids, it seemed a television was about it. A few of the kids were hitting their heads against the cot sides and others lay there expressionless - totally depressing. We decided to stay and within 30 minutes we started to make some break-through, both having experience of kids, getting a smile was easy, feeding was more challenging but slowly and surely we got to know the personalities of the kids.

By day 2, we had the confidence to start taking them outside in wheel chairs and even managed to enjoy a trip out to McDonalds with 3 of the more able kids. Each child’s story can bring a tear and in England some of them with mild cerebral palsy would not be in such an institution but over here there seems to be no other option. However with a few colouring books and a day of water balloons (the nurses were not pleased with me but the kids enjoyed every second) I hope we made a small difference.

By the way the picture shows (from R to L) David, Roberto, Zo? Baudillio, Moyses, me and finally Gasper.

La Casa del Mundo 30th July 2004

To celebrate finishing 2 weeks at school. 14 of our classs mates booked a trip down to Lake Atitlan for a night of partying in Panajchel and then myself and Zoe moved on to 'the best Hotel in Guatemala' for some R&R at La Casa Del Mundo, (www.lacasadelmundo.com) spectacular because of its location on the volcanic lake and the ideal escape from it all as we spent most of the time chilling in hammocks and hot tubs all for less than a 10 pounds per night.

Onwards and downwards

It was never our plan to visit Honduras but changes to our plans later in the year and lots of travellers recommending it highly, meant that with a bit of shuffling of plans we change direction and head towards another country in Central America.