I want to live here forever!

Please refer to subject line. I think that is about the 10,000 time I´ve said that here. Yesterday I was casually flipping through a local newsletter that had job announcements (for English teachers or English/Spanish exchange) and housing options... the thought of putting school off for a year seriously crossed my mind. People here are just so amazing and even though the weather is TERRIBLE these days the city is still amazingly beautiful.

I´m loving my new teacher, Marielos, but the negative thing is that I think she can read my mind. I identify with her a lot and it seems that everything she tells me about herself, my response is, "No way, me too!" (in Spanish, of course). Tomorrow she is going to tell me about my sign on the Mayan calendar. :) In addition to being a former mayor, counselor, Spanish teacher and Quiche teacher, she also happens to practice natural medicine and reiki. She started telling me about this weird disease she got earlier this year because of all of the pressure she was under to finish her thesis (and a multitude of other things) and turns out it was shingles. She went to a Cuban doctor that lives here in Xela and he told her that shingles doesn´t exist in Cuba because the levels of stress aren´t as high as they are in other countries. I´m moving to Cuba! (After I live in Xela, that is.)

This afternoon I went to a cultural museum that´s an NGO run by Mayan women. In the museum, they have over 300 traditional "trajes" (outfits) worn by Mayan women, men and kids. The woman who did the presentation showed me all the different styles worn by the different groups (there are 22 languages spoken in Guatemala, and each of the indigenous groups has a different style of dress depending on location). The intricate designs on Mayan clothing are all symbolic, generally of what can be seen. Suns and moons can frequently be seen, along with serpents (representing movement of life), two-headed birds (representing the good and bad sides of every person), 20 rings, each one representing one month of the Mayan calendar, figures with four corners representing the four directions, as well as colors that represent the different elements. I can´t recall what each color represents, but they have colors to represent "el ancho, el alto y el profundo," roughly all around us, above and the depths of the earth. The color white represents the air, or anything abstract that exists yet cannot be seen.

As a side note, I found my way back taking the crazy microbuses all by myself and I am extremely proud. :)

One of the teachers at the school of dance (I love how all of my grammar has turned into Spanish grammar) stopped by Ulew Tinimit today to let us know that they are doing lessons at La Sahara, the same rockin´place we´ve gone a couple of times now. So, another fun night on the town is ahead! I just wish I had some clean clothes to wear. The house I live in has a washer but no dryer, and unfortunately with all this rain the clotheslines on the roof are not drying very quickly (as one might imagine). That´s all, folks!