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Well I have had the most eventful day ever and an unexpected extra destination added to my itinary!
Yesterday I left San Pedro Sula early in the morning for my flight to Guatemala which went through El Salvador. I was meant to just be there for one night before my flight up to LA which was meant to go from Guatemala City today. Then Pacaya happened. It is a very active volcano in Guatemala, which some of you who follow my blogs may remember I climbed when I was in Guatemala before back in March. Normally it isn't too dangerous it just has a costant slow moving flow of lava. However, yesterday it decided to have it's first major eruption in 10 years, meaning a miniture Iceland volcano situation. I couldn't get my flight up to LA which for me set in a major panic because I have my flight tp New Zealand leaving from there tomorrow so I can't miss it! I didn't know whether to believe my friend Fernando who lives in the city when he rang me to let me know what was going on, as in Antigua there wasn't any effects, but he told me there was ash falling everywhere. So upon arriving in Guatemala City I was shocked to see to what extent the ash situation was. It was crazy!! All the roads were covered ith black ash and people were shovelling it from the road infront of their houses and from there cars. It reminded me of England when we had all the unexpected snow!
This being the case, to not miss my onward flight to New Zealand, I decided the best thing to do would be to get a bus to El Salvador and change my flight to leave from there instead, which I managed to do relatively easily. The frustrating this was that I was in San Salvador just yesterday anyway to get my connection to Guatemala!! The us ride down was ok it just took ages and I was starving, but I met some friendly Israeli girls who I could chat with. Crossing the border was a bit of a nightmare, they took ages checking passports and everything then five minutes past the border we got stopped by the police. Twice. They insisted on checking everyones passports again and checking all our hand luggage, which was so annoying! It was kind of scary too because they were carrying guns and everything. Needless to say I'll be glad to leave El Salvador tomorrow! It's not my favourite place I've ever been! I just went out for Mexican food with a nice American girl I met who was put in the same situation as me and had to get a flight home from San Salvador as she needs to get back for her graduation from Princeton on Monday! and Guatemala City airport is supposedly going to be closed until at least Wednesday.
I am very tired now and have to get up early for my flight to LA. I am disappointed because I was meant to be staying with my friend Sally's house, she is a good friend who I met in Guatemala, she was also a GVI volunteer when I was. Oh well, I am going to see her in a month anyway. All this cuffufle has been more than slightly annoying, but that being the case, it was still worth it for me to go back to Antigua in Guatemala for the night, as I got to catch up with a couple of my good Guatemalan friends who I love loads!
Ooo also, I bumped into the project director of GVI who I volunteered for in Guatemala when I was back in Antigua, and he told me some pretty shocking news. A boy from the school in Itzapa called Selvin, affectionately known as "the tickle monster" as he runs up to all the volunteers and tickles them for hours every break time, had died that morning. It was very unexpected, apparently he was fine the day before, then he just started coughing and vomitting loads in the night and died in the early hours of the morning. He was 6 years old. It is really hard to deal with having been with him for 3 and a half months, he is one of the best kids, absolutely loved life and didn't have a nasty bone in his body. I am thankful that he wasn't in my class, if it was one of my kids who died I would be absolutely distraught. It wasn't great news to come back to! But that is life, and it just hits home how tough it is for them out here. Very hard to deal with. RIP Selvin.
Photos of ash-covered Guatemala City roads to come!
Hasta luego,
Joelle xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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