ok... an English version... with a little more detail on the civil war.

I'm at the San Pedro Spanish School, right beside the lake of Atitlán in Guatemala. I've got classes every weekday afternoon with my teacher Lorenzo, who's not just a great teacher but also someone who's keen to improve himself and his English, so there's a lot of two-way learning/teaching going on! We are covering a LOT of ground VERY quickly... so there tends to be a fair bit of homework and revision to do even when I'm not at school.

I'm living with a family here and my local 'parents' are Francisco (or Chico) and Paulina, who are lovely. There are two other students in the house, Lars (from Sweden) and Callum (a Scouser!). We generally eat together at each meal. Paulina cooks really yummy food and it's pretty varied too -- excepting breakfast, we haven't had the same thing twice in over two weeks! Quite an achievement in these parts! She also makes the best tortillas we've come across and Callum thinks they're the best he's had since travelling in Central America. Our other school friends do think we're a bit odd in that we actually look forward to every meal at home as they generally hate the food in their homes.

I get loads of opportunities to practice my Spanish at home with my 'parents' and with Elvira, their daughter, who often eats with us. They are great at helping us with our Spanish and they've also taught us a few words in the local Maya language (it's called Tz'utujil) -- they sound VERY different from Spanish... more glottal stops and guttural sounds... quite interesting. We've also been learning to make tortillas and we've become quite good though I can always recognise mine as the small misshapen ones!!

We also discovered las week that Chico is a bit of a politician and is standing as a mayoral candidate for San Pedro! I'd been wondering why we had all those visitors in the evenings to his home office! The elections are in 2007... and the candid opinion of my teacher is that he will win... so Lars, Callum and I have been talking about coming back to celebrate when he gets in!

Every week the school tends to do some kind of talk or event about the civil war in Guatemala, which tragically scarred many communities here. This place is so beautiful that it's really hard to imagine that the war only ended 9 years ago. The 'disappearances' and the killings, and the extreme fear faced by people like Chico and Paulina every day and every night, especially as it was unsafe to sleep in your own home or anywhere else consistently as that would make it pretty straightforward for the security forces to come get you -- all that seems incredibly far removed from the idyllic present. The fact that almost all the trouble was caused by the security forces rather than the guerillas, at least in San Pedro and Santiago Atitlán, recalls the 'prisoner experiment' (of the 50s??) and is a reminder of how untramelled powers can corrupt and turn otherwise gentle folk into crazy murderers.

Anyway, it's much better now and things are looking good for the good people here, thankfully.
I'm realising every day how great it is to have a much more active lifestyle than the one I had in London... and a fun one too! As you can see from the photos, we've been out kayaking and swimming, and horse-riding, which is SO MUCH FUN, flying past the fields and through forests, with great views at every turn -- though I've learnt that it can be a bit painful after too! Callum had a bit of crazy horse that kept going off into the fields, which was hilarious! It happened twice and both times our guide, Salvador, had to go help him get back out onto the road!

Right... that's all for now... so look for more in about a week maybe!