Saturday, July 19, 2003

 

i ahve to make this quick because the others are waiting but i just thought i should let the world know about the smarm of the salsa club we went to last night, torreos. o my goodness you have noit seen smarm until you have seen this place. all night loren was warning us not to make eye contact because they will take it as invitation to come over and try to get you to dance and they don´t give up easily. but amy and i certainly enjoyed ourselves watching their antics. there was one man, always dancing with girls half his age, who was constantly making thrusting motions at them. another man was dressed all in black, tight black trousers and shirt and dancing heels (complete with cuban heels) and the hair was slicked back. he was very smarmy and he goes about all day in his dancing outfit. but the dancing was very good, we commented how we felt like baby in dirty dancing when she first sees the dancing ("i carried a watermelon?!") gaping at these amazing dancers (every bit as raunchy as the dacers in the movie, in fact more so). est i wished you had been there to laugh at it all with me.

posted by Brianne 12:49 am

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

 

So I am in Guatemala. It feels quite surreal, i have been planning to come to central america for a while now and so it feels strange to finally find myself here. Where did the time go? will i wake up one morning and find that this time went as quickly? I´ll be back in newcastle one september day and be amazed that not only did i make the long awaited trip to central america but that i also survived to tell the tale...and the tale was shorter than i thought it would be. Is that something about getting older? the closer we are to death the quicker the time seems to pass. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, Amy and I arrived in Guatemala at about 9.15pm yesterday (i think it would have been 4.15am in uk) after a long flight and very rude cabin crew and the people in houston were scarily mean (take your shoes off!!!! if you do not comply you will be shot!!!). While you all slept amy and i dragged our weary bodies out of the airport into the wet Guatemalan night. We met Loren there and took a taxi to the boarding house in antigua. I looked out the window at Guatemala city flowing past and then the hills enclosed us as we raced around windy roads (no seatbelts and i was holding a cup of tea as i was thrown about). In my corner of the shadowy taxi i couldn´t help grinning as i thought we are no longer in kansas toto. We arrived in antigua and drove along extremely bumpy cobbled roads. Everything seems so different i don´t know where to look first, i can´t take it all in...i feel a bit lost in all this colour and language. So much to see and do so little time. We are in guatemala until saturday and then we are going to el salvador. We might be travelling in something called chinken buses, which are apparently old american school buses painted various colours. People have to sit three on a seat designed for two 5 year old kids and people stand down the middle but this is not legal so they have to duck when passing the police. Sounds like fun, i´ll let you know how it goes.

posted by Brianne 7:56 pm

Sunday, July 13, 2003

 

I had a strange dream a couple of nights ago and Est, Lam and Amy were in it (appearing in my dreams, i can't seem to get rid of them).I was most perplexed by a scene with a dog and seat belts, not quite sure what that was about. I was sitting in the back of a car with amy and lam and a dog sat down beside me and laid his head in my lap. The driver turned around and told me to make sure the dog was secure but when i tried to put a seat belt around the dog (who puts a seat belt on a dog???) the driver told me not to because that used to be the dogs designated seat belt but now it was too tight and would hurt the dog. So then i hold the dog close instead. The driver warns me that one of the seat belt clasp thingys (whatever they are called) was so placed that it might stab into the dog where he lay and i had to make sure he didn't get hurt. Later in the dream Lam, Amy, est and i go out and we are sitting in this pub garden very late at night and groups of men keep walking in and out of this place and we somehow know they are dangerous (*hissssssss gringa hee hee*). We decide we need to get away so i run to the car and get in the back. The dog is still there and once again the driver warns me about the seat belt etc. I'm holding the dog and i'm happy that the dog is sitting with me but the driver turns around and says "well now the dog is here aren't you going to speak to him?" and i'm at a loss, i look at the dog and i try to speak but i can't (would the dog have spoken back? was i dreaming of talking dogs? o dear). The other thing was that the seat belt that used to be the dogs but was now too tight had the dogs name on it. but i knew the name and it was the name of someone i knew, so why was my friend represented by this dog in the dream? and what was all that seat belt stuff about?

If anyone reads this blog i apologise for having to read about the strange goings on in my head.

Tomorrow i leave for guatemala and i feel very excited and a little scared. I have been thinking of all the things i'm going to see and do...and i am worrying about what may go wrong? Do i have everything i need? do i have enough money? will amy and i be safe? will we get there safely? will we get back safely? do my parents mind? am i being a bad daughter running off for 7 weeks? i don't know. I'm sure once i get there all these worries will evaporate. but i would appreciate the prayers of my friends that everything goes ok on my placement and that amy and i are safe.

posted by Brianne 3:28 pm