The Final Fin De Semana: prisons, boobs, and starving artists

So, this is what my final fin de semana (weekend) looked like:

Saturday

John and I are supposed to meet at the front bridge of the town at 5:50 in the morning to catch a bus to a prison about 2 hours away, to take photos and videos of this guy who is making hammocks for the fair trade stuff that our program is going to sell back in Canada (via fair trade parties hosted by people such as myself and Jenna!). So, I get up at 4 in the morning, thinking that i will take a shower before we leave, as we are supposed to go to the prison, come back, and then directly get on a shuttle bus with the others and head for this gigantic garbage dump where thousands of people live in poverty, and I figure I'm going to want to be slightly less disgusting at the beginning of the day...but then i realize, hey, it's 4 in the morning, it's pitch black, and there is no way i'm showering in my cement hole in the dark...so, i remain dirty.

Entonces, John, Myself, his spanish teacher (who knows the dude we are visiting in prison) and Anna Julia, the local baker-ess, and mother to Nick and Cam, head off on our adventure, and 2 buses and 2 hours later, (after witnessing a woman getting goat milk squirted fresh from the teet into her coffee cup, and having the feeling that more and more we were surrounded on the bus by potential prostitutes heading for the prison) we were standing outside the prison doors while a guard told our guatemalan companions that they did not recieve the letter of permission to allow us into the prison with our cameras, PLUS it was women's only day and so even without cameras, john was not allowed in...Now, this prison is pretty much in the jungle, at the end of a dirt road. There is a line up of hooched up women coming to see their men, and then there is john and I, with all our camera equipment, not knowing whether to hop on the next bus (as at this point we were quite sure there was no way we were getting back on time to meet the group for the dump) but instead, we waited it out, and lo and behold, determined Anna Julia got us in, but by very bizzare circumstances...

She said we were from her church, and that she knew the pastor (which was true) that worked at the prison, and that we were coming in to hold a worship service...who the heck knows why we'd need our camera stuff for that...but it worked! However, we actually DID have to hold a worship service, and so, as soon as we got into this prison, we were wisked off to the church building, a little shack in the middle of no where, where teh pastor spoke on goodness knows what for about 5 minutes (through a very loud microphone, i might add, as is customary for churches here...even if you don't go to church, you pretty much here every single church service within 50 miles) and then all of a sudden, he made john come up and say a few things on the microphone as well! Afterwards, Anna Julia sang a worship song into the microphone, and our duty was done. We could now move on to why we were REALLY there.

So, the most bizarre part of this whole experience was the prison itself...Although it was enclosed by two sets of barbed wire fences, once inside, the prison was virtually it's own villiage. People owned tiendas (small convenience stores), people were cooking and selling things on the streets, everything was open, no real enclosed spaces at all. There was a giant football field where men with matching jerseys were playing an intense game of soccer. People's families actually lived in the prison with them, and during the day, there were small little shacks where the families would all hang out (and all furniture was entirely hammocks, because there were no real floors to be had) and at night the prisoners would return to their cells to sleep, and the families, i'm assuming, would go elsewhere to sleep as well. There were small acres of corn and other vegetables that people would tend to, and a large open rec-room area full of foozeball and pool and restauarant-type areas...it was un-real. If i ever have to go to jail, may it be in Guatemala...

So, we had a great time getting a tour of this not-so-prisony-prison, and hopped back on the bus, knowing full well at this point that we had missed the shuttle, but we resolved to make the most of our day, and headed back to Tizate, where I showered and John ate, and headed back into Antigua, where we had a great day full of icecream and exploring the market. Later that night, we met up with everyone at Juliana's GIGANTIC HOUSE where we had pizza and home made pie, and where Andrew and I promptly had ridiculous amounts of fun using excercise equipment at the same time and finding ways to climb out onto the rooftops of julian's house, and reveling in the phrase "pop and piss" for quite some time.

SUNDAY

I don't quite have enough time to explain everything that happened sunday, but it involved art galleries and taking photos of beautiful doors with Jenna, and finding this new cafe called "cafe no se" (cafe don't know) where the menus had bob dylan on the front, and bob marley on the back, and this beautiful starving artist played random songs on the guitar right in front of us. John and I were inspired by his mullet-hawk, and so last night I cut the same hairstyle for John with the ever so popular safety sisscors. Talking to this "starving artist" later when he was done his "set", we learned he was from california, and the love of his life had just gone back to Austria to start med school, and he was supposed to go back to California to start med school as well, but had decided to screw it and start working at that cafe the next morning....an attention seeker for sure, but interesting nonetheless. We then had a chat outside with a just as beautiful australian boy who worked at the cafe as well and was trying to help sell books from the attatched bookshop next door...He had come to Antigua a few weeks ago, and while frequenting another restaurant, was offered a job there, and then, just that day, cafe no se had needed more staff to help out, and so, ta da, he gets another job. I don't know how people just live day to day like that, but I sure would love to know more of them...

I'm sorry I never post photos anymore, it takes a lot of time and a lot of patience...ooooo, one of the spanish teachers just came in and told me that my spanish teacher is not here today because her kid is sick...score? sorta?

Ok ok, so i have more time to finish this post. Last night, before the hair-cutting and watching "The Last King of Scotland"(in a very uncomfortable position as we tried to squish 7 people on a single bed) we had a birthday party for my brother Anderson (who turns SIX in a few days, but we'll be gone by then). We all piled in to their relatively small kitchen and played silly games and laughed at Diana, my youngest sister, being an absolute mental, like normal. It was a happy, loving environment that night, and it just made me love my host family more, if that is even possible.

Certainly a wonderful last weekend. Yo quiero Guatemala. Pero, yo pienso es tiempo para regresso a Canada. Es una bizzare sentir, yo quiero esta aqui, pero a mi me gusta Canada tambien...ridiculo.

*side note, john and i figured out that basically we only need to use about 9 verbs here in guatemala: want, need, like, have, go, eat, sleep, buy, say, think. h'amazing.