My Life in San Andrés

View all photos from San Andrés: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AcNmzVq5YsWLwg¬ag=1


Life starts early in San Andrés. The roosters start announcing the arrival of the new day around five o´ clock and the first children playing in the street do not follow far behind. My family, with whom I have been living for 2 weeks now, gets up around 6am and with Latin music playing it is hard to sleep past 7am. But that is OK because the nights are quiet and it is easy to go to bed early.

Every morning the first thing I do is to put on my shorts and go for a quick swim in Lake Petén Itzá only 20 meters away from my house, which has a beautifully located terrace overlooking the lake. I have always loved the water so I feel very fortunate to be able to go swimming whenever I want. Usually the swim in the lake also substitutes taking a shower (water is generally only available in the mornings and the water out of the pipe comes straight from the lake anyway). I do not have too much time to enjoy the beauty of the scenery in the mornings because breakfast is already waiting and I leave the house around 7:40 and climb the steep hill up towards the main road where my Spanish school is located.

Spanish class stars at 8am, that is I usually arrive around 8am, take a glass of water and have a seat in the open air classroom. The gentle breeze feels wonderful and quickly dries the fresh sweat (the steep ascend and high temperatures make sweating a permanent state). The teachers tend to show up casually around 8:15 or 8:30 and class begins. Usually the first hour is spent with conversation and then we gradually move to grammar. Time always races by when you are having fun and with the many jokes of my teacher it is hard not to. Class finishes around 12:00 (as casually as it began so not infrequently I stay until 12:15 or 12:30).

In the sizzling midday sunshine I make my way back home through town and down the hill towards the lake. Ariadna, the youngest of my 3 sisters, greets me as I enter the house, reggaeton music is playing and Ariadna is practicing some new dance moves. She is only 6 yeas old but already dances amazingly well. Immediately she pulls me toward her: “Dance with me,” she says with her mischievous smile, “or else you don’t get any lunch.” After a few minutes of dancing we have lunch. After resting in the hammock for a few minutes it is time to leave again. Making my way up the hill again (for some reason it always seems steeper during the midday sun) I am thinking about where to spend my afternoon working. I have joined a volunteer work program that offers several social projects for the improvement of the community. My favorite place to work is the park and there is lot so work to be done (protecting the park against forest fires, working in the botanical or medicinal garden, feeding the animals, helping with the production of several medicinal products or simply sneaking away for a stroll in the park). The other project I like working on is the construction of a library. The work is physical and hard (shoveling sand and concrete, laying bricks etc...) but has given me a unique experience. Most of my life I have worked with my head and have used my body only for leisurely exercise. Going forward I will look at people who work a whole day doing hard physical work with more appreciate eyes. I also am teaching English classes at a local school 3 times a week. I enjoy teaching a lot although the 15 year old students can be difficult to motivate.

I return home at about 5:30pm in time to jump into the lake and watch the sunset on my back swimming though the refreshing water. After a day of heat and sweat the fresh water is always a highlight. After dinner life starts to quiet down in San Andrés. From 7 to 9pm the library has open doors for children and I frequently go to play and chat with the children. Other days I stay at home and spend the evenings talking to my family (which I am convinced is the best family in all of San Andrés). Sometimes I just feel like being alone and visit the hammock in my room reading, writing or relaxing or take a walk along the side of the lake admiring the moon and millions of starts that the southern sky offer.

I go to sleep at night with a smile on my face. My life is good here, very good (I could easily see myself stay here for a long time). But more importantly I feel immersed in a new culture that is teaching me everyday how happy the people of San Andrés are despite living very simple lives (often fighting poverty and economic survival). In many ways I have found the people here much happier, friendlier and more sincere that the people in the much richer part of the world.