Two months of events [Taken from Live Spaces Blog, 06 mayo 2006, 11:11]

CHEAP, MINDLESS NARRATION

I just read some of my own blog entries... it seems I haven't logged any physical events since 66 days ago. OOPS.

I'll try to make up for it. Headlines ahead:

• SAW ICE AGE 2!

(circa March 17th, 2006): Alhvi invited me to go see a movie with her and lots of her friends through MSN on a friday night during March (I think it was on the 17th). So, after our Unix class at college, we got together and waited to go pick some other people up. We were really a bunch, and the movie didn't start till 2 hours later. To kill time, we talked awhile. Somehow I found out that Sam likes to jump off from heights and climb walls not meant to be climbed. I like that too... and since our college is FULL of stuff like that to do, we went outside and tried out our skills while we waited. We jumped off heights up to 2.5m, I learned to roll, and we walked on building edges... until some old lady teacher told us to stop doing it.

After all the waiting, we picked Marta up at her place, and went to Miraflores. Since we had to wait a while there too for the movie to start, I played DDR. Then we saw the movie (which was great: 9/10), and then Henry very kindly took 2 of us (Arturo and me) to each of our houses.

• PARKOUR PRATICE!!

I know some Spanish kids (from Spain) through Messenger. One of them always had nicknames with the words "PULKIE" and "PARKOUR" in them. I had no idea what that meant, but he was nice and we got along well. One day I asked him what kind of sports did he like, and he said "PARKOUR!!!". I asked what that was... and was delightfully surprised. (www.parkour.com) I had NO IDEA that was A SPORT!!!

So now I'm trying to find out if there are any Parkour!!! enthusiasts here in Guatemala... and contact them, learn from them, join with them, if there are. I already know ONE: Xam. And we've practiced a lil bit with long jumps, high jumps, high climbs, floor rolls, jump rolls, handstands, forward flips... Xam even filmed some of it! We're trying to recruit more people to join if possible, but most of all: we're trying to get better!! (SO IF YOU WANT TO DO STUFF LIKE THIS, CONTACT US! 55033553)

• MUGGED TWICE ON WAY HOME FROM WORK!

March 22, 2006: I left work with Bidkar (yep, we're still working!) at 1300 and rode the 63 route. We sat on the backmost seats and waited for it to take us to the next bus stop. I had my eyes closed and was thinking of nice abstract things, when a girl started yelling something about closing the doors, I opened my eyes, and I saw this guy with a moustache and a gun yelling at us, threatening to kill us if we didn't give him everything we had. "Geez", I thought. "I don't want him to take my wallet! My ID cards are in there!". So I took out Q50 out of my wallet and put it back, and then looked at a bulge on my pants, marking the location of my 1-month old V3 Motorola phone, with about 200 pictures inside. "Geez, I don't want to let my pictures go!". But a gun and a death threat put together can change one's mind, so I handed it to the guy along with the Q50. Then he yelled at me and hit me on the left part of my head. When I looked at him again, he hit me on the right part of my head. Then he continued collecting stuff from other people, and then he and the yelling girl left the bus. Some guy in front of us also had his cellphone taken, and he was SO mad that he broke a bus window just with his hand. Then we got off the bus and went home. The left bump on my head lasted almost two weeks.

April 10, 2006: Monday, first day of work after Easter week, Bidkar and I left work at the same time (1300) and took the same route (63) we did every day. We were sitting on the mid-left part of the bus. I was gazing out into space, and suddenly Bidkar alerted me about the robbery. Half a second later, I saw a guy (I think it was the same one) with a moustache and a gun in the front of the bus. He threatened in the same way, but this time he really hurt a guy. I don't know why, but he went up to this guy in the back of the bus, and hit him on the head with his gun. This time I lost Q200 and ANOTHER cellphone (which wasn't even mine), while Bidkar safely kept his cellphone in his backpack under his seat. The poor guy that was hit was bleeding all over the bus when I noticed him again. The purplish red bruise on his head was evident. Poor guy. I wish I had known how to help him. I guess he went to a hospital afterwards.

So now I have ANOTHER cellphone: the third official one this year. And I've been taking Bidkar to/from work on the white car every day. That should stop us from being mugged on the 63 route at 1310 back from work again.

I wonder if the muggers really need to do that all the time... are they so desperate for money? Is it just their usual line of work? Or are they proving something to others by doing that?

I also wonder... I've ridden urban buses since I was 12. Never mugged. 10 years later, mugged twice, 20 days apart. Isn't that curious? I hope we're not getting a crime wave in the city or something.

• WATCHED A THEATER PLAY THREE TIMES IN TWO DAYS!

April 1st, 2006: A friend of mine invited me to watch a play she acts in: "La Vía Dolorosa". So I went on Saturday night to "La Frater", and I liked it SO MUCH that I went back on Sunday to watch it again. And then again, on the same Sunday. It's a Jesus play, and I liked the music, lights, singing, and performance a lot: it's all purposely made to be touching.

• TRIP TO PANA DURING EASTER!

The only vacation we get from college during the first semester is Easter Week. So I tried to organize a trip with my friends to the best vacation place I know of: Panajachel! (Google it up if you don't know what it is). But all my invitations were rejected, so I decided to go alone on Thursday. Just before leaving, my mom decided to go with me. So we went. It was really awkward at first, but then we tolerated each other, and spent quite a nice night in Panajachel. It was almost dusk when we got there (it takes Q28 and 4 hours to get there by bus). We looked all over the place for a nice, cheap hotel. God knows we looked. But all were either cheap and full or available and sky-high expensive.

Luckily for us, my mom met a man who offered to take us both into a room in his house for Q30 each (bout $4). We said yes, so we were introduced to our room. WAS IT SOMETHING! It sized 5mX5mX2.5m, and it did not have a single piece of furniture. It had a door, a window, and green ceramic tiles on the floor. PERFECT. After we organized our stuff, we walked around, bought some corn "juice" (atol de elote) (Q3 a cup), walked out to see the lake (a most beautiful sight)... we also saw dozens of drunk rockers shouting, sometimes fighting, on the shore. After the sightseeing, we went back to our room. Then I went out again, and looked at lots of young people (SOME LOOKED 12!) having fun at the discos and parties. I remembered the time I went there with my cousin Joel, and had TONS of fun with all his female friends... then I bought and ate some cake and tea, and then I found a cool black bracelet made out of magnet and bought it for Q10.

The next day, we had some breakfast for Q12 each (scrambled eggs, fried plantains, coffee, cheese), and then my mom and I went to the lake shore and got in the water. I swam about 500m (for which I suffered by lack of practice and an early breakfast), and at about 11:30 we left the lake. We walked around some more, and then got on a bus back home for Q20 each. But the bus took a long time to start moving (it was waiting for passengers), so I got off, and found a fake wooden wall with fake rocks stuck on it, where people can climb... for a price. I paid Q5 to try, and got all the way up.... Then I failed, and then I succeeded again. Then we rode the bus back home, and... end of story.

• WEEKEND ROADTRIP TO PETÉN!!

Last weekend (April 29th-April 30th) was a long weekend because May 1st is Labor Day, and curiously enough, we celebrate it by NOT laboring. It is a national holiday. Xam invited me to his farm in Petén for the weekend, to enjoy the long weekend, have fun, and practice PARKOUR on grass (where wrong falls hurt much less). We met the 29th at 1230 in college, where he told me we still had to wait for Henry, because he was in class. We passed these 90 minutes by practicing some Parkour on college grounds. We climbed new places, jumped TO new places, learned new routes, and some more stuff. Then Henry came by, and then a friend of Xam's, Jocote, picked us up.

We stopped at Jocote's place, then began the journey to Petén. (It was already almost 1500, and it takes 8 hours to get there). We met some more of Xam's friends on a gas station on the way, and then we continued. The whole trip was pretty standard, we talked about Parkour, mental arithmetic operations, and about the farm. We stopped at Morales, Izabal to buy beverages and ice, and at midnight, we celebrated, because daylight saving time had officially just begun. (It's a new measure to save on energy). Then, after an hour of singing, laughing, and celebrating, we got to the farm. What a fabulous place. Their white-block house is on an even grassy hill, bordered by a river 8-10m wide. It reminded me of The Shire. The river didn't have a bridge, but it DOES have a little canopy-style hanging house, where up to 3 people fit comfortably sitting down. We moved our stuff and ourselves to the other side, found our beds, and while some went directly to bed, some stayed up till 0500 talking and drinking.

The next day, we woke up late (1000), and several activities were realized: We had breakfast, we splashed around in the river, and then four of us (Xam, Jocote, Somoza and me) rode on horses. I was the only one who got a mare. She was blond and pretty, so I called her Jenny. It was fun riding! But then we met a free black stallion, grazing around, who Jenny seemed to like. He seemed to like Jenny too, cause while waiting on one of the hills, I felt two black hooves on my arms... the stallion was mounting Jenny. I got off Jenny as fast as I could, and then Xam scared the black stallion away. I continued riding Jenny and all after that, but this event will be pretty well-remembered for a long time, they say.

During the rest of the day, we swam, had lunch, did some Parkour, and at night, Henry, Xam, and I began walking through the forest on a straight line, to see where we could get. We managed to walk about 1km, before the stories of people with amputated legs because of snake bites and of dead little girls appearing out of nowhere scared me enough to make me refuse to keep on going. We got lost on the way back, but then, thanks to the and the s, we got UNlost, so we got back, we went to sleep, and the next day we came back home.

Oh, and during the trip, a girl called Nancy found out that my sister Elisa was her classmate along with Claudia, Xam's sister, during high school. Small world.

Lots more stuff happened on the trip, but this is enough to tell. I'll just mention a few more words for me to remember, and for you to ignore: Chelys, no ice, blowpipe and dog, yellow machine/Henry's finger, milking, forward flip, card tricks, dienética, mind chess, soft grass at Shell, !(hoy==ahorita), doble click.

I think these are the most tellable events I've experienced these last two months. Stay tuned! hehe.