Good Morning, Xela!

I can't imagine what could possibly bang so loudly at 6:30am right outside my window, and then I remember: Guatemaltecos love fireworks. The barrage of kapows stifles any further desire to sleep, and as soon as I sit up, I realize that once again, last night's tea has moved quickly, and I rush down to the bathroom frantically gathering my shower stuff as I go.

I flip the electricity switch and hope that I can turn the shower on only sighly enough for it to become warm. I figured it would become easier to create the perfect temperature, but time serves only to give the shower more opportunity to be inconsistent.

Later, I greet the other travelers in our community kitchen at the hostel. We, with our various accents and purposes for traveling, negotiate whether our shared language for the meal will be English or Spanish. Usually it becomes an odd mixture of the two. Someone always persists that we must use Spanish since we are in Guatemala in fact, while another quickly says, "It's too early for my brain to use Spanish." I agree with both of them.

I rush through breakfast with a fresh appreciation for tea, and I step outside the hostel hoping that I've planned my clothing for the various seasons we will experience today.

Outside, I am immediately greeted by the smell that I adore more everyday: the enchanting mix of tortillas frying, exhaust, coniferous trees, crisp air, and metal. I enjoy my 25 minute walk to the school with growing enthusiasm. I see some new faces and some familiar, which both paints my foreign-ness and erases it. I see the Mayan women with their friendly faces, and the business men with umbrellas in hand. I see Carlos' brother, the Xelapan guy and later the Xelapan girl. I see the serious teenager and wish for an opportunity to talk to the Adam Sandler child look alike.

I walk the same path each day, but always there is something new. I measure the walk by the tiendas and businesses. First stop: Mercado de Flores. Right turn: Casa Argentina/Quetzaltrekkers. Top the the first hill: Copy shop and wide turning buses. Second corner: Oil Change place and bus stop. Merge right: Dirt road and El Nahual sign. As I walk, I pace my breathing to coincide with the passing of the chicken buses, and when I get to the lumberyard I make sure to breathe in a few extra.

I struggle up the last hill, panting more with each step. The only fuel that propels me to the top is the thought that, even if quite slightly, the climb was easier today than yesterday.

I meet the dogs with blood in their eyes. I am forever suspicious of their intentions yet when they walk me home, I could not trust them more. I've named one Shadow; no matter how I try to escape him he remains connected to my steps. Ever the hunter, he sniffs for food as we walk. When I offer him a bit of my cracker, he graciously declines.

Santa Maria is an ever-present companion. If the landscape were a conversation, she would be pressing her megaphone to my ear. And when she hides in her screen of clouds, that is when her presence is most immutable.

I see the cows clambering towards me, their heads bobbing. We have one thing in common: we share an eternal optimisim. Just as I forever hope that my bedbugs will decide not to haunt me each evening, so the cows anticipate the next bob of their heads will free them from their ropes. Perhaps we're all silly.

The farmer is only slightly behind the herd. He trots on as if being pulled by the cows against his will. He offers a slight "buenos dias" ever so politely. The lines on his face and the light in his eyes reveal a preoccupation that I do not know.

The clouds are painted more majestically each day. Living among them has its perks as they are more beautiful up close.

And though I am merely a few hundred feet higher than my other world back at home, as I walk the last few steps to the living gift appropriately named El Nahual, I have the feeling that somehow upon this hill I am walking a little closer to heaven.