Third World Countries

Guatemala is home to 13 million people and about 1/3 of them live on a few dollars a day. There's a small middle class and income inequality is high. It's funny because in a lot of ways things are the opposite here as they are in the US as a result.

• Clothes, electronics, appliances, etc. all cost more here than in the US because they know only the wealthier people can afford them to begin with
  
• The wealthier people live IN the cities (particularly with Antigua) and not in the "suburbs"
• There are enormous state of the art malls in Guatemala
  

Last weekend we went to Guatemala city to see Batman. It only cost us 9 Quetzales (about $1.25) to take a "chicken" (tourists call the public buses chicken buses because residents put chickens on top of them) bus there, which is great because the trip is at least an hour. We get off at our stop for the mall and right in the heart of one of the poorest cities in Central America there's this amazing mall, nicer than any in VA that I've been too. It was really strange, because I felt like I should be in VA Beach or Short Pump. It was actually pretty sad to see wealth and poverty so closely intertwine.

Espanol ha estado muy bien. Lately we've been going to a cafe near our house around 2:30 every day and studying until dinner at 7pm. They have great coffee here and I think I'm getting addicted.

Below our some pictures of a few places we've been to in the last few weeks. We went with a Students International team to an active Volcano in the area. We also went to one of the most beautiful places in the world this weekend: Lake Atitlan.



This is the view from the roof of our school. That's smoke coming out of the Volcano in the background...


This is also from the top of the school. That Volano is the biggest in the area and is directly south of the city. It's a useful reference point when navigating avenidas and calles.


Coffee...The plant


Lava. We climbed Volcan Pacaya last Saturday. Most of the hike is normal forest but the last 30 minutes was a trek across volcanic soil searching for places where lava was spewing out of the ground. We got to that point and I was literally walking on rock (hardened lava) and underneath me were lava rivers. This picture is where lava boiled to the surface where it immediately begins to turn into rock. This lava spew was about 3 feet from me when I took this picture. It was so hot that the soles of my shoes melted a little.


Antigua's Patron Saint day was July 25th. There was a big parade and all the area schools marched and their band played music.


These students had signs about different aspects of Guatemalan history.


Every year on July 25th there's a "clasico" between Antigua and Guatemala City's futbol team. It was an exciting game but Antigua lost.