construction, soccer, playboy grotto: Guatemala edition...

Getting into the groove of Xela, working our way into week 2! This week was full of a lot of really cool stuff. Habitat is going really well, by Friday of this week we should hopefully have something up that resembles a house (or at least walls and a roof). The weather makes construction difficult though...every day starting at around 1pm it pours like clockwork. Friday was so wet that we had to hide in our storage shed for half an hour, which ended up being awesome because we got some good bonding time with our construction guys. It is a slow process especially with no mechanical tools but we are moving steadily!

This weekend was awesome and jam packed with cool stuff, we have been busy busy beavers over here. Xela is a really funny city...in the last few days I have eaten really good Italian, Middle Eastern and vegetarian food in the middle of Guatemala. We found an awesome hangout restaurant on Friday night after trekking in the pouring rain to find a Thai restaraunt that had closed down a year ago (screw you, Lonely Planet)...and found this place that looks like a house on the inside. I had the best shwarma of my life for the equivalent of about $5 Cdn, got to play with puppies and hung out in a private dining room with six of us (and then migrated to a different lounge with couches after, in the same place. Amazing).

Saturday night was a little wild, our group went on a trip to a party at the Hot Springs which are about an hour outside of Xela. I am, however, convinced that we were actually teleported to the Playboy Mansion and were hanging out in Hugh Hefner´s playboy grotto. The experience was a little surreal...a group of gringos at the hotsprings, which came complete with a bar and a wild dance floor, with people drinking literally in the hot springs (there are no laws in this country). It was a ton of fun and everyone made it back alive, more or less.

Hangover remedy today consisted of our first authentic Guatemalan soccer experience! We lucked out and the game today was against Xela´s biggest rivals, Guatemala City. The game was at noon so we headed down to the stadium at around 10 30 to get jerseys and tickets; we were lucky enough to be there with a local friend of ours who runs the internet cafe right by our hostel, Marcos. He gave us all the insider information (a.k.a. exactly which rude words to yell at the other team and which time, best place to sit, helped us haggle for jerseys etc) which was fantastic. The game was possibly the most fun I´ve had since I have been here. Guatemalans are seriously into their ´futbol´ and it´s definitely contagious! We won, 2-0 and to celebrate, went to a bar which was owned by Marcos´close friend, who opened it up just for us to hang out! It was amazing to finally make some connections with a few local people and I think we are going to make some good friends.

The internet cafe is about to close and it´s another early building morning tomorrow so adios for now! More to come eventually!

xo Caroline