Other than India, this is the busiest, dirtiest, and most colorful place I have traveled. For some reason I thought Guatemala would be very similar to Mexico, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. In some ways it is, but in most it is totally different. My mainstays of food here have been rice, beans, tortillas, bananas, and packaged crackers. Lots of carbs, sometimes a whole plate-full! Everyone has been incredibly kind to me, offering me assistance whenever I am lost, or need to know something about a place. I have been at the mercy of strangers a few times, and have been in good hands.
I am learning that there’s no use in trying to get any sort of business done at lunch-time, unless you go to the huge chain-style grocery store, because everyone closes and goes home. The few people you see working may decide it’s the time to hang out with their children. Every day I learn more than I think I will manage to remember (where to take the bus, when to get off the bus, pay when getting off the bus, not getting on the bus, where I live, where certain streets go, what the word is for something, who people are that I have met before, etc.). I think after a few days it will all start to sink in to something more uniform and natural. Right now it feels like a constant chaos of new experience. In a good way. Very good.
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