problems.what problems?

Heres a photo of the tallest Guatemalan I could find. She works at the school and has 8 children. A mayan language is her first indigenous language and Spanish her second. The younger generation tend to speak Spanish as their first language, but you can still hear the local dialects in the market. It sounds a bit like Gaelic!



The weekends I have been climbing the local Vocanoes, I was up Tajimulco last weekend, which is the highest in C.A at 4200m. On the main route up theres pine forrests and cattle farming and on the other side theres marijuana fields. Theres some snow on the top but it's still warm, its not really exploited as a tourist destination. All there was at the start of the trail was a pole with a Guatemalan flag and some stray dogs, although Guatemala is usually better at flaunting its other tourist spots, like the lake Atiglan and Tikal Mayan ruins.

Was at the Local football game on Saturday, I missed the only goal as was trying to find the male toilet(as there was none, use the pillars under the stand). Atmosphere was a bit tame, but was amusing when the away side goalie was at our end due to the chants. Tried some of the local Quetzaltecca rum during the game, its $1 for the half bottle, but needed a bit more to make the game interesting. There were kids that looked about 7 working in the stands as food and drinks vendors. Hot pineaple juice, tacos and soup, no pies unfortunately.

In the spanish classes I made the mistake of asking about Guatemalan problems, which opened up a can of worms ["desatar la lengua" is the spanish phrase], as lili my teacher went off one a 1.5 hr rant. I've broken down what I can remember here;

Education - theres a low standard of teaching, teachers missing out silent letters, and relying on volunteers in some schools for English classes [AKA.me - sometimes people like me who don't have a clue how to teach]. Corruption in university is common for example taking money to mark a thesis.

Hospitals are overcrowded, apparently 6/10 women die giving birth. The water is Contaminated - chemicals in the water supply, and lots of amaebas to contend with, which make number 2's like number 1's.

Minimum wage is $75+ dollars a month for local services work, $187+ for banks and government and $750+ if you have a university degree. Indigenous Mayan families are large due to factors like parents wanting more kids to work for them, the Evangelicals and Catholic religions encouraging it and banning contraceptives. Child labour is commonplace.

There is no benefits system for contractual workers (like those fantastic agencies we have in Britain). There are many disabled people as punishment for thievery in rural areas used to be to cut of the arm. As the police force is untrusted and corrupt people still take law into own hands in the rural areas. There is a guy with no arms and legs, who delivers papers on a skateboard in Xela, the city i'm in.

There is a machista culture, chuvenism, inequality in the sexes. Although there may be a female president running in the next election. There is no confidence in rural communities as indigenous farming co-opratives in the past were destroyed the government, due to being communists . . . i.e. It did not adhere to the US intrests of creating a neodependent state, with a one crop export economy.

and the world is going to end in 2012.