Week five sneaked up on us, and we decided Julien would benefit from another week of Spanish classes, also giving me time to make a rough plan of the rest of our travels through Guatemala. And so started our fifth and final week in Quetzaltenango.

Chicken tenders, brocoli, and mashed potatoes. Julien remembers Christy’s homemade mashed potatoes fondly.

The second week of August was supposed to bring with it meteor showers. Early in the morning for much of the week, Julien could be found outside in the driveway, trying to capture shooting stars. Alas, only stationary ones were captured, including those making up the constellation Cassiopeia (the one that looks like an “M”) off to the left.

Salchicha, black beans, and rice

With Julien at school all morning, I was left to my own devices, coffeeshop-ing, of course. I was reading a book of 16 short stories by Latin American authors, and this exerpt of an interview with the Cuban journalist and screenwriter Senal Paz caught my attention as I was preparing another blog post.

“Escribir es un intento de comprender la vida, de comprendérselo uno mismo y de dialogar con los demás. Muchas veces es un disfrute, un gozo, una felicidad, porque te sientes muy bien creando personajes e historias y sabes que éstos tendrán algún sentido para otras personas. En otras ocasiones es sufrir: sufres por lo que hay en el destino de los demás y el tuyo propio, o sufres simplemente porque no puedes escribir como quieres, porque no logras que tus historias, sobre el papel, sean tan buenas como en tu mente, crees que nunca lo vas a lograr, que es imposible. Escribir es un trabajo difícil, duro, que pocos logran hacer bien. Demanda mucha paciencia, mucho estudio, mucha perseverancia.”

“To write is to try to understand life, to understand it oneself and to discuss with others. Many times it is a joy, a happiness, because you feel very good creating characters and stories and you know that these will have a some sort of meaning for other people. Other times it is to suffer: you suffer for the destiny of others as well as your own, or you suffer simply because you can not write as you want, because you don’t manage to get the stories down on paper as well as they are in your mind, you believe that you are never going to achieve it, that it is impossible. To write is a difficult job, hard, that few do well. It requires much patience, much study, much perseverance.”

Our family provided us with our own water distributor, very conveniently located at the foot of our bed. I don’t know what prompted shining a flashlight through the top as the new jug filled up the bottom container, but the effect ended up being mesmerizing as the bubbles glugged up.

Julien graduated!

And with his graduation, we got to carry out the tradition of signing the school wall. Julien and I drew animals that had made debuts in conversation with our teachers, me a quetzal and Julien a narwhal.

Salpicón, guacamole, rice, and slices of the largest radishes Julien and I had ever seen.

Living in a place for five weeks, you get a chance to observe and appreciate the quirks of the city. Here are a few Quetzaltenango quirks we noted and duly photographed.

The sidewalks: generally very narrow, many allowing for only one person, or rather one being. I have had a street dog step off the sidewalk to let me pass and have even found myself stepping aside to allow a particularly determined looking canine continue undisturbed. Such narrow sidewalks sometimes supported electricity poles, which took up the whole walk, meaning if one didn’t want to step into the street, one had to swing urban-Tarzan-style from the electricity pole, blackening the pole at shoulder height, as seen in the following photo.

Example of pole blackened from many-a-hand gripping it to not descend from the sidewalk.

Bake Shop: Curiously enough, Xela had a prominent Mennonite population, ex-pats whose first language was definitely English, but many of whom spoke Spanish quite well (some even taking classes at our school). They owned this bakery north of town, a bit off the beaten tourist path, and they were only open Tuesdays and Fridays, exclusivity that resulted in systematically selling out of all the baked goods by closing time. Their pastries were amazing, and it took a certain amount of self-control for us to not make the trek both times a week. They had peanut butter cookies, M&M cookies, banana, zucchini, and carrot breads, yogurt, cheese, delectable donuts of all flavors, and our favorite, donut holes.

I fear you may not have been able to spot the happy customer leaving the store with his goodies, so I’ve zoomed in and lightened the photo to show what you may have missed.

Fresh goat milk: not hard to come by, delivered to your doorstep.

Puente de los Chocoyos: there are several of these bridges, oddly placed over dry cobble stoned roads, but they do indeed date back to the early 20^th century when Xela’s streets would regularly flood during the rainy season. Now they serve as oddities of the city and nice observation points.

Cafés: we really hit the right city for cute café spots. This café, El Cuartito, was but a tattered-looking door from the street, but upon entering revealed a quirky cafe with chairs on the walls, a blackboard-walled bathroom inviting chalk-scribbled notes, and this lovely courtyard where we exchanged photos with our fellow travelers/classmates on our last Friday in the city.

Electric lines: enough to make an electrician uneasy. We had an electrician-friend at school and when we would pass a particularly large bundle of knotted wires he would just sigh and look away. This isn’t to mention all the wires hanging down that we under 5’5” passed seamlessly under, but that Julien had to be on alert to avoid.

One day I wondered aloud if Xela will just surpass underground wiring for the next thing technology will have to offer, leading to Julien’s quick response “like night-vision?” Much laughter was had by Alex and me.

Dogs on roofs. That’s really all there is to say about that.

Spaghetti and green beans

La Cantina, I suppose Xela’s version of a dive-bar, decor complete with bikini-clad models and crucifixes.

A last photo of our home for five weeks! The hall to the kitchen and dining room, where many a delicious meal was enjoyed. The family name-plate is attached to the wall on the right, Familia Cifuentes de Léon.

A goodbye photo with Willy, Christy, and Leisha!

We grabbed coffee before heading to Comalapa where we would spend the next week, and the barrista sent us a little message, we like to think from Quetzaltenango as a whole.