Last weekend in Xela and a new look for Benny La Barba

June 16th-June 19th
Xela, Quetzaltenango Guatemala
and
Chichicastenango, El Quiché Guatemala (via San Pedro, La Laguna)

New Look, Same Ben
The midnight hour of Friday the 16th marked the halfway point of my trip in Central America. Already I´ve been here 4 weeks and I have 4 left. I´m both happy and sad to be at this point, but I´m glad to say that the time hasn´t flown by too fast, and I´m confident that I´ve stopped at all the right moments to look around, and take in what is around me, and appreciate that I´m here. For hours on end in the stacks of Emory´s Woodruff Library I dreamed of being here, and in a few short months I will once again look out the same window from my spot in the stacks and recall my time here, and recall this very post I´m writing now.

I had told my family that I would change my look before leaving Xela, and I stuck to my promise. Sporting hair and a beard which had not been cut in 6 weeks (you have seen the photos), I guess I began to look like quite the mountain man. My hair was longer than I like it and my beard was just getting crazy, so I decided to do away with all of it, Friday after class. On the advice of Jesus, my 19yo brother I went to a barber shop and I paid 10Q for a haircut and 15Q for a shave. This is the first time in my life I have ever let anyone take to my face with a straight razor and it was both an exciting and frightening experience. I honestly think I would have enjoyed it immensely, but I feared for my life because the Mexico-Angola match was on in the barber shop (Guatemalans really hate Mexico´s futbol squad and root ferverishly against it). I was mortified that at any moment I might have my throat slit should mexico or angola score a goal. Thankfully this did not happen.

So I asked the guy to shave my face completely clean, and shave my head nice and close, but leave a stripe of hair across the top from my forehead to my neck. ¿Como se dice "mohawk" en Español? Well I may never know for sure, but I do know they have a nickname for this haircut, "El Beckham" in reference to soccer legend David Beckham´s mohawk which he began to sport a couple years back (but not anymore). Here´s a look at the "new me." I still feel the same and forget I´m sporting the ´do at times. My younger brother and little cousin at home began calling me "otro Ben" because they didn´t even recognize me:

I´d be quite interested to hear from some of my friends who I met along the way who might be reading this blog, to find out if they recognize me with the next look. Here are some more photos from that same evening. Friday night there was a "graduation ceremony" held at the school. There´s always a dinner on friday nights at school and if anyone is leaving they give them a "diploma." Since I announced my intention to leave Xela this week they gave me mine at the dinner. Then Lindsay, Meena, Michelle, Andres, and Stewart (the latter two students from the US and Australia, respectively), proceeded to get quite liquored up for a night on the town. We ended up going to one bar (King and Queen), one club (Coco Loco), and then to an afterparty, which is bascially an unlicensed bar in the back of a house kept very dark and locked so the cops can´t find it (Zepe´s). This is justified since 30 policemen armed with shotguns and machine guns came at precisely 1am to enforce the national closing time and break up the party there. It was a great night spent in Xela.

Myself, Lindsay, Michelle, and Meena, the night of the school dinner:

Saturday morning I got up and spent another half day with the orphans. Call it redemption for the debauchery of the previous night. I was really happy to participate that day because it was "día de deportes" for the orphans, the Guatemalan equivalent of Field Day, like we had in elementary school. We counted heads and took them all to the park, which was a great treat for them since they are basically never allowed to leave the Hogar. We divided into 6 teams and donned colored bandanas. Each team was split amongst the volunteers present and Fili and I took the green team. We put green bandanas on all our kids and painted their faces green. We played tug of war, and even had a spoon race, with spoons in the mouth and eggs on the spoons. It was so gross!!! all the orphans shared two spoons. Unfortunately the race ended early because one of my little ones dropped his egg (hard boiled) and it cracked and he started crying hysterically, and the other kids knocked him down, mobbed the egg, and ate it... no joke. We had no more eggs to play with.

Saturday afternoon I got washed up and took off with Lindsay to get back to San Pedro La Laguna. We wanted the others to come with us, but they preferred to get up very early Sunday morning and meet us in Chichicastenango for what is the largest open air market in Central America. I went with a short list of things to buy and came back quite happy. I was impressed with all of the goods that the girls bought- bags, jewelry, etc... and I think we all got really good deals. I would have like to have shopped more for all the folks back home but money is still tight for my trip, and even more tight is the amount of space I have in my very large backpack.

Linds and I crashed at a very very hippie hostel called Trippy´s and it was a blast. By coicidence I ran into two guys named Thom- both of whom I had met in different places- the first an Englishman from the Dive Shop in Utila, the second an American from Indiana, who I met that loud rowdy night in Tikal. Needless to say we had another rowdy night. Then Lindsay and I picked up and took a ferry across the lake and a microbus to Chichi and met our friends no prob. The chicken bus back was SO packed- like more than 100 people, but we had quite a blast. Meena took photos of the market at Chichi, and Fili has some photos of the day out with the Orphans. I promise to post them when I have them.

I would also just like to say that I´m really stoked that people keep sending me comments. They get sent right to my inbox and they are great. I´m glad so many people are enjoying my tale and I´m happy to take time out to post pics and update this blog so that everyone back home and that I´ve met on the road has an opportunity to share the adventure with me. Keep posting your comments and your thoughts!

Love

Ben