Second week + earthquake + chicken buses + salsa

Week #2 Antigua

On Monday afternoon I was super excited to start my placement!
Laurie (staff from Maximo, the volunteer place) my roomie Sarah, and I got on the chicken bus to go out to orientation at our "Guarderia", which is like a day care.

Firstly, chicken buses are famous in Guatemala because the drivers try to fit as many people in as they can! Seriously, we were packed in like chickens (hence the name). In my first week of taking these buses, they were packed every single time - three people to each seat, aisles packed and even people hanging off the side of the bus! Here is a picture of the bus, unfortunately I didn't manage to get a pic when it was busy (there wasn't enough room to move!). All the buses are painted brightly and have names.. I often took the "Primrosa". There are no timetables, you just stand on the side of the road and hope one comes soon!

So Laurie, Sarah and I arrived in our placement at San Antonio (a little village about 30 mins out of Antigua) and there was no one there! Laurie said that they were closed, but they knew we were coming and would be open tomorrow.

The next day Sarah and I caught the bus and when we arrived, we found out it was closed until the next week! Luckily Laurie arrived soon after and she took us to a different placement, at an orphanage - which luckily was where I wanted to go in the first place :)

So from then on we caught the chicken bus to Casa Aleluya orphanage in the morning and had spanish classes in the afternoon.

Salsa

I also tried the free salsa lessons at Maximo! I met some new friends who also volunteer and we went along and had a go! It was really simple steps, like back and forward, back and forward etc but by the end of each song everybody was really puffed haha. 

The salsa teacher was definitely what you would imagine him to be! He was short with a slicked-back comb over and a hawaiian shirt :P For some reason he picked me to demonstrate with him almost every single time! Don't know why he kept wanting to dance with me, maybe he felt sorry for me because I was obviously the most coordinationally-challenged person in the group!

Earthquake

In spanish class yesterday, we felt a small vibration that shook our desks a little bit. Later on we found out it was an earthquake! How exciting!!