Pana with Ana January 20, 2016
Last Friday we left our little nest in Antigua and boarded a van for Lake Atitlan, destination of our 6 week return stay in the town of Panajachel, known fondly as Pana. This is the same town where we attended Spanish school last year and lived in a homestay with Ana and her young adult daughter. Since we had had a wonderful experience in both situations, we hoped that we could arrange a repeat - and we did! I even have the same maestra (teacher).
Like our ride from Guate city to Antigua, this van, too, filled up completely, with several tour companies sensibly consolidating their customers for the 3 hour ride to Pana. It seemed a bit more well designed for 14 passengers, with a center aisle and a sufficient luggage area inside the van, albeit accessed through an open window. We spent nearly an hour combing the city of Antigua, collecting passengers here and there at their hotels and hostals, until we hit the open road. Outside of the city, little houses perched on steep, steep hillsides everywhere and the highway curved among the mountains. There was a sleepy quality to the tiny pueblos. With a drought going on - and this being the dry season anyway, the fields are dusty, with corn stalks sticking up like sad, forgotten children. We did pass a few fertile and well-cared for fields of blue cabbage and bright green lettuce.
When we got to the Pan-american Highway, we encountered the usual infrastructure problems, although they were being worked upon. Large squares of the cement roadway had been removed, down 6 inches or so, marked off with white painted rocks to alert drivers - or in some places by leafy branches placed in the road as a warning. Our astute driver, the same guy as last year, I think, deftly switched lanes in and out to avoid them. He's an older fellow, well experienced, with no need to break any speed records and unable to do so in his somewhat aged vehicle, anyway. We're good with that!
As we left the city of Solala, perched high above Lake Atitlan, and proceeded down the familiar twisting road, amazing views of the lake opened up before us. It's hard to believe that such an exotically beautiful scene exists, a sort of Shangri-la, this blue, blue water overlooked by three perfectly shaped volcanoes.
Again, the feeling of arriving in a familiar place was comforting. We told the van driver where we wanted to be dropped off, just across the street from the entrance to Ana's neighborhood, right on the main drag. The hustle and bustle was the same - the street clogged with tuk-tuks and chicken buses and motorcyclists, vendors cooking chicken on portable stoves along the street, Mayan women in their gorgeous, colorful woven clothing with arms full of products to sell and babies hanging from their backs, long-haired old gringos and the current version of young hippies, dogs roaming around, making it imperative that one watch one's step.
The main street opposite the "little street" (callejon) that leads to Ana's home.
We crossed the street and entered the wide passageway that leads, after some twists and turns and a narrowing of the route, to Ana's home. Along the way, we saw the same ancient, bent woman who spends her days sitting outside her family's home, the same bakery sending out the familiar delicious aroma of sweet rolls, mixed with the smell of wood smoke, and finally Ana's black metal door that, along with the cement wall, affords her privacy and security.
Ana was glad to see us. It turns out that her daughter, now employed with an American research team investigating dengue fever in a tropical area on the Mexican border, was home for the weekend. We were delighted to connect with her again! Also in the home, at the moment, is another student, a Canadian nurse, who was here with us for a short time last year, as well as a the same young Japanese woman, working in the area for two years.
At the school, Candelaria, the owner, greeted us warmly with hugs and inquired about our family and we about hers. She assured us that her two sons were healthy, which "is the most important thing". Her husband, Gregorio, was off in a rural pueblo with a volunteer group from Minnesota, painting a school.
Sauntering along Calle Santander, the main commercial street in Pana, we even encountered a couple of our favorite street vendors: Juan with his load of jewelry hanginng from his forearm, ready to entice passersby, and Jesus, a 12 year old kid with a big smile, still selling cards that his mom has made so that he can buy school supplies. They both remembered us. We found Jesus - with his cousin - the next day and made a purchase.
So, from our hostess to our school administrators to even the street vendors, we felt very welcome.
Bruce knew exactly which bar he would patronize to watch the Patriots play, soon after our arrival last Saturday. There he met two folks from Maine, one an expat retiree from Bowdoinham and also a young couple from Presque Isle, who are traveling. We expect to meet a couple from Portland in our cooking class at the school tomorrow. It's a small world.
In the meantime, while re-acquainting ourselves with Pana, we've been walking the streets, trying to get our daily steps count up above 10,000 on the fit bit that Matt and Izik gave us for Christmas.
On Monday, we began our tutoring sessions. We've been assigned to afternoon hours, not the best time of day for putting our brains to work but we'll cope. We study from 1-4pm, each with our own tutor. I am excited to have Carmelina again. She is such a hard-working young woman and patient, knowledgeable teacher. After class, we walk back to Ana's house, have supper at 6pm, do homework and read and blog :), have our sleepy-time tea and bed down in our spacious room.
Today I began teaching English to a small class of Mayan teens at our school, Jabel Tinamit. These are kids that Candelaria and Gregorio have identified as having potential, with support, to pursue higher education. At their public schools, they study English, in addition to Spanish and their indigenous language, in this case Kaqchiquel. But, as so often is the case with foreign language teachers, they don't speak English themselves. I was a bit nervous, as usual, but ended up having a great time with my two chicas. We'll meet again on Friday, and a couple of more students will join us.
So, we're settling in and discovering that what we lack in an edgy sense of discovery this year, we are making up for with a mellow sense of re-connection.
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