I ended up getting a hold of the school in Xela later that first morning at the new hotel, after having to call the office in the States and figuring out that they ahd published the wrong number on their website. Later that night, on Sunday, I was using the internet at the hotel, reading news about the landslides that prevented me from getting to Xela, when I struck up conversation with the woman sitting next to me. She told me she was going to Cuba soon to get married and she showed me pictures online of her future husband. She was so nice at the first meeting and we seemed to click, so we made plans to meet the next morning at 9am to go out together because she was also nervous to go out by herself in the city. I figured the buses probably wouldn't be running by then anyway. Her name was Esmeralda, and as I found out the next day, she has an amazing story.
Esmeralda was 2 hours late for our date, and I couldn't wait to eat. I had already gotten up at 6am to see if there were any buses to Xela, but no dice. The receptionist at the hotel, Pedro, who was very nice and accomodating, recommended that I get take out for breakfast so that I wouldn't have to go out searching for food by myself. So I did it....I can't believe I did it.....I had McDonald's take out in Guatemala City! I never even eat McDonald's at home! But I have to say, it was better than having to go to the bathroom every few minutes. Finally Esmeralda arrived and we went walking together to a mall, where we would meet up with a friend of hers for lunch.
Esmeralda looked to be about my age, late 20s, maybe early 30s. She wore tasteful, modest clothing and had a charming laugh, which she used often. Throughout the course of our conversations I found out that she is from el Petén, the department of Guatemala where the Tikal ruins are located, and is staying with a "poor, Christian family" just across the street from my hotel in the City, while she waits for her and her fiancé's papers to come through so she can go to Cuba for the wedding. After they marry there they want to come back to Guatemala to live. He is a Cuban doctor who had done a 2 year mission in Esmeralda's town, which is where they met. He had left 3 months before, which is how long she's been waiting for these documents to come through. She was hoping they would be ready by the 9th, just a few days away. I also found out that she has 4 children, the first one she had at 15 years old, with her first husband, who died. I didn't want to ask how. She also said her parents have already died, in an accident. And now she's a grandmother! With a 1 month old granddaughter named Ghiseline. Did I mention that Esmeralda is only 31 years old? I was glad that she wasn't offended by incredulity, she could hardly believe that she was a grandmother either. I couldn't get over that she's only 31 and she's already had more than a lifetime of experiences! I asked if it was normal in Guatemala to have families so young and she said it is in the rural areas but not in the cities.
We talked as we waited for her friend to get off work for lunch. She told me all about the experiences she has had with her fiancé in Petén, where she assisted him at the hospital. One story involved a 19 year old boy from the States who went skinny dipping in the river and literally swam into the mouth of a crocodile. He succeeded in escaping by sticking his fingers in the croc's eyes, but not without severe bite wounds around the face and neck. He crawled naked up to the road where he got a ride to the hospital. He didn't know much Spanish and all that he said while Esmeralda's fiancé was stitching him up was, "estética, estética!" Apparently he was more concerned about scarring than about the fact that he was almost eaten alive by a crocodile!
Later we had lunch with her friend Jaime, who was very nice but liked to make little jokes that were hard for me to understand, being a non-native Spanish speaker. We all got along really well and later Jaime took us to see a movie in the big mall, Miraflores. A little taste of great American entertainment in Guatemala City.
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