Break Time Today

My 4 Star Pupils at break time eating their bananas dipped in chocolate.


The Tuc Shop where the kids buy their treats.


Myself and some of my pupils this morning just after our first class of the day. We had just had our inspection for ´piojos´ (head lice)!! I was included in the fun but had to kneel down to be checked as I was too tall!!


The very naughty Boys from my class, they are exhausting to say the least.
Once they have lost interest (which doesnt take very long) they either jump out of the glass free windows or bash each other over the head repeatedly with empty plactic bottles, both of which I have now learnt to ignore as they eventually get bored with that too!!

No school tomorrow for me, we are spending the day
´Blue Peter Style´ making things for the class.
I need to make a 3D world so that together with my torch, I can demonstrate how the earth spins and how plants and animals all get their share of the sun.

That will be interesting when it´s time for me to lable it without a map, (something which you can´t buy in San Pedro).... Oh well, at least they won´t have the resources to check up on me!!

Hmmm....Think I know roughly where all the Countries belong, bit too scared to ask anyone here. No problema, panic over, I just rembered I have the world wide web!!

Agua Para La Escuela

Well I arrived today at 07:30am to be met by a grand mission indeed!!!!
There is no running water for the toilets at the school. So every Thursday each pupil and parent (that doesnt live too far away), brings with them, a bucket, bottle, pot, bag or container of water in order to fill the a large water tank inside bathrooms. Then each time a puplil, teacher (or Volenteer) uses the toilet they scoop a bucket of water from the tank to flush their toilet!

Simple but effective!














Sindy and her Amiga














My mate Winking Melvin and his enthusiastic helper.














Where as the women here carry everything on their heads, the men carry heavy things on their backs and the kids learn young.














This is me this morning with my 7yr old 2nd grade students, it was taken by Freedie a 7yr old who has also never used a camera before, hence the framing!

First Day Nerves

Oh wow!!!
What a day!
I loved every single second of it and have definitely found my calling but it was chaos, total and utter CHAOS!

I was nervous at first and felt a bit out of my depth but there was no time for that so I reminded myself of why I was there and just got on with it!

Firstly Im there because the school is under threat of closure.
It’s the central public school and is owned and run by the parents of the town. It’s located right in front of the only market in San Pedro which is very small, dirty and not undercover.
So the local Mayor took it upon himself (without consulting anyone) to start demolishing part of it in order to extend the market to an indoor market to attract more tourist. The parents quite rightly didn’t want that, so they organised a sit in demonstration at the school which is still ongoing and with the help of the project I am working for “Down to Earth’ they managed to get an injunction for the time being, on any further demolishment. This was on the grounds that it is an historic building.

Its 300 Years Old and you can tell, it has no glass in the windows (something we are trying to get fixed this month) and some of the roof is missing. This means that the sound travels through out the school so the teachers have to shout their lessons, which is not ideal.
The school is not just a school, at night it’s also a meeting place and an important part of the social infrastructure of the town. It has a Television for those who want to watch and it’s also somewhere for them to go and meet and sing and play instruments until the early hours of the night to keep me awake, but that’s another story.

Anyway, the mayor kindly built another school for them but it’s much further away, a bus ride in fact and there are joining fees which mean most of the Mayans can’t afford to send their kids there.

We were introduced this morning to the director of the school he is wonderful, hes in his 70’s but has come back out of retirement as he is concerned about the future of his school. He is very enthusiastic about our project even though he doesn’t really understand it fully and wants to do all he can to help us.

So this morning at 7am he marched us through the school, past the quietly protesting parents and round all 20 classrooms and introduced us as ‘the Gringo’s who are going to teach you some stuff about the planet and get you 25 computers’ so they all had to clap!!!! Most embarrassing and not sure where he got 25 from but it’s something to aim for I suppose.

Then we were split up to one per class and left! ´
Ahhhhhh! The class was chaos and consisted of me demanding silence as the teacher struggled to keep there attention. Whenever pupils passed outside in the corridor they stuck their heads through the empty window frames and disrupted our lesson which just added to the general mayhem.

Today I made quite a few friends though and they are keen for me to go back tomorrow which is a bonus.
I even managed to make friends with the boys who sat quizzing me as to which footballers I had worked with. See everything happens for a reason and those times I went trotting around the country to various stadiums bored and cold, filming Lampard, Campbell and Ronaldinho to name but a few kick a ball around a soggy pitch, have all been worth it now. It’s true it’s not what you know it’s who you know!

I also got 3 lovely messages from kid saying that they wanted me to be their friend or that I was nice and I got one paper aeroplane thrown at my head with a heart on it from a boy who wants me to go to his house tomorrow at 8pm to watch the wrestling, cant wait!

Anyway, I’m back again at 7am tomorrow morning so more news from Senorita Lucia to follow:

Half & Half

Living here is not for the faint hearted, it’s a real tug on the heart everywhere you turn, the streets are so dusty they cover everything in dirt, they smell, its over populated, everyone has the same trade and there is not enough to go around.
I haven’t started school with the kids yet, that’s Monday, as I dont graduate from my Spanish classes till Friday but the kids went back 2 days ago.

Its strange theres no real difference between vacation time and school here. There streets are not filed with the sound of kids playing in the streets as they should be.
It’s a hard life being a kid here its an endless struggle that never goes away.

Most kids, since I arrived, have been spending their school holidays working the streets selling bread, nuts, orange juice and oils for their parents to earn a living.

Thing is… now that school is back they are still required to bring in the same money. Some of these kids are as young as 6, but they are used to the daily grind of walking up and down the steep road from the dock to the market & from market to the mountains and they simply take it all in their stride.

What most families do if they have more than one child is ‘half and half’ they send one child to school in the morning and one in the afternoon, this way they can sell on the street when they are not at school. This also means that after school and work they have to catch up on the work they missed during the second part of the day from the other sibling. In my house at least they also help around the house in the evenings, running out to the shops for forgotten bits and pieces, cooking and pealing and cleaning the dishes which I have insisted I take over.

You can’t help everyone all the time and I have to have that as my mantra so as not to keep beating myself up and feeling down.
I have made lots of local friends though here and try to help them as much as I can, just remembering their name puts a smile on their faces, they still call me Amiga Lucienne is a bit of a mouthful.

Every morning I have to pass Brenda, (not a typical Guatemalan name) but shes fab! She is 11yrs old and picks oranges up in the mountain. She brings them back and squashes them to sell fresh Orange juice on the street. I have one each morning to kick off the cold I bought with. She shouts up the road as she sees me coming "jugo de neraja Amiga" and I shout back "Si" (good at the lingo hey).

Juan sells nuts which I buy for my break at class and then there’s ‘Pan girl’. Her name is Nancy, she’s only 7 but she’s really street wise. She makes and sells Banana bread ‘Pan de Banan’ hence the name ‘Pan girl’. I always buy it, it tastes like shit, but I buy it all the same, I have totally fallen head over heals in love with her.

The other day I was doing my homework with my Hello Kitty Pencil and she was mesmerized by it so I gave it to her. I asked if she had any sisters and realising that it was a great way to get loads more pencils she listed me all the girls in her family, shes pretty sharp. So next day I had to bring 7 pencils with me, she kept forgetting the names of her sisters as we counted but hey, theres alot of them to remember I suppose!!

I also found somewhere to get myself an ice cream I offered her a taste and she ate it for me in 3 mins flat. She then decided we should make an arrangement for the following day, same time same place, more icecream kinda thing. She’s so cheeky but so cute, yesterday morning she helped me paint my nails in glitter nail varnish and at the weekend we are going to set up a salon on the street painting nails and doing hair.

She thinks there’s a gap in the market, we’ll see. I’m not sure she’s a great business partner as it’s me who is going to buy all the stock and bring the tools but I’m sure we’ll have fun. We are not charging money anyway the only fee is that they practice Spanish with me as I work and if they get peckish they buy her bread.
The weekend is in serious need of some playing and laughter in the street so that’s my mission, not sure how it will go down with the boys but hey I suck at football!

All creative & fun boy ideas welcome!

My Mini Break

Well, after 10 days here in San Pedro surrounded by dusty roads and street dogs, I decided to take a mini break. I was told there was a great place to swim in the lake in San Marcos which is about a 30min ride across the lake from San Pedro.

So early yesterday moring (Sunday) I took my swim stuff and jumped on a boat and off I went.

It was beautiful, as we arrived at the dock, well plank of wood, I was stunned by the lush green vegetation and green grass. People hung motionless in hammocks passing the day suspended in the air as well as in time. Hippies farmed in the gardens yoga classes were taking place on the lawn, and quiet meditation and contemplation was all around us, it was blissful.

I climbed the rock face to the swimming spot which was steep and narrow to get to but well worth it. I had to pass 2 local girls on the way though with huge machetes which was very unnerving when you’re not used to being up close and personal with such weapons.

But eventually after slipping and sliding in my flip flops I found it. It was such an amazing sight. The rocks are almost white so the sun bounces onto the face of the rocks and gives you a feeling of being on a proper vacation. Locals washed their clothes and played whilst gringos (foreigners) hurled themselves off high ledges into the clear crystal water bellow.

It was so peaceful, as it is a hippy town, most people by the water were naked including Chard a 50yr old naked guy who helped me climb the last steep little bit to the final ledge which was interesting. Never the less I spent the day till sunset, sunbathing and swimming and practicing my verbs!

Eventually I had to go as the penultimate boat (well they don’t really stick to timetables so I thought I should go) was about to leave so I made my way to the dock.

Wow Magic Hour!!

The Journey back to San Pedro was stunning. The sun, which was fast disappearing and pink bounced off the 3 volcanoes that surround the lake and danced on the lake like diamonds.

The boat was packed of course but it was ok as I was at the front taking it all in.

If I had to leave tomorrow, I would be happy. You know when sometimes all the money in the world just can't buy you certain moments of pure contentment and that warm glow you get when things could not be any better.
That was until the boats engine grounded to a Holt and stopped. I don’t speak loads of Spanish but I definitely heard one of them say the word 'finito' so got the picture that we had a problem. We sat on the boat wondering what would happen next only the water in the afternoon is rough and without the speed of the engine we suddenly realized how big the waves were.

After 30mins bouncing up and down I started to feel a little bit sick, I hadn’t eaten as I had been on the rock all day and the smell of gasoline started to have a nasty effect on me. I stuck with it and after about 45min the last boat from Panajachel passed us and saw our driver stood helplessly on the roof of our boat. We exchanged our empty huge plastic container with his full one and off went the boat.
Our driver pumped the gas and tried the engine but just as the other boat was out of sight our boat wouldn’t start. Shit!
He kept trying and trying but nothing, it was getting dark and without any light on our boat things were not feeling good. The locals started helping and moving around the boat which didnt help matters. Our boat was being trust up and down enough as the waves toyed with us. I looked up, 3 life jackets and 22 people. I started to worry but not as much as when the only other tourist on the boat pointed out that we were freakishly aboard the aptly named ‘Titanic’. I edged my body towards the jacket nearest to me and started to sing a bit of Blondie 'One Way or another' in my head to distract myself.

After what seemed like forever and several crap pop songs later our driver eventually got it started YEY and we made our way back to dry land. That was yesterday Sunday and I haven’t stopped swaying since.

I was quite upset with our driver and refused to pay at first, I told him in my freshly learnt Spanish he needed only one thing to drive a boat gasoline and he didn’t even have that, I remarked that I felt sick and that it was not acceptable. Then I had a quiet word with myself on the dock and remembered that I wasnt production managing the journey (coz of course I would not have run out of gas) it was less than 12p and was his living so I changed my mind and paid the poor apologetic man.

Anyway, I am safe and on dry land for the next week at least, until I run out of money and have to take my chances again to Panajachel as the small bank here has no money, not sure what it does but it doesnt do cash!!

Man, this place is so random!

My Head Hurts!!

Well...Today at 2pm will be my 3rd day of Spanish classes and wow, my head hurts!

Every day I have 4 hours of tuition 2pm-6pm with a 15min break at 4pm by which point I can’t even remember who I am. It’s just the teacher and I talking and listening which takes so much concentration that my head is full to bursting point!
Its weird as you get older I suppose you don’t use as much of your brain, but when it comes to the break we all walk to the central meeting point looking like our brains have just taken a physical bashing and no one wants to speak. Yesterday I couldn’t even see properly, I was totally out of focus.

In real life now, I have adapted to my inability to concentrate for long periods of time and I have tailored my job accordingly so I can get everything I need and get it right unnoticed, however, yesterday my teacher found herself slightly challenged. It bought back echoes of being at school as I became bored and figety and balanced my chin on my dictionary until it fell off and I bit my lip which bleed everywhere then while she was talking I looked up and translated Ýo Tengo Un expolsion en mi cerebo. ´
When she finally realized I was not listening she took my book and read ´I have an expolotion in my brain´. I went to the bathroom 5 times not including my dictionary accident and went to get a coffee 3 times just to get up and move around and to stop my teacher from talking for a few seconds.
As long as I am in front of her, her mouth doesn’t stop moving íts truly unbelievable.

Anyway, we have come up with a plan to compensate, I have asked the director of the school if we can do 2hrs in school, which is in the gardens of the school with the most spectacular views overlooking the lake so I don’t know what my problem is and the other 2hrs walking around San Pedro. I now have special permission to do this and am told am the first since it opened. I knew I was different growing up, or was it difficult?

My family are fantastic; the mother is called Vicenta the father Antonio and the 3 kids are Deborah, Sarita and Josue. They are all really lovely and keep me on my toes. My room is very basic with a bed, desk and chair but I have bought a colourful blanket to cheer things up and hung my Paris Hilton Calender on the wall. I did a little shifting around when I arrived and moved the bed next to the wall, only to be told that I should move it back as the scorpions like to climb the walls at night, ooops.

I have to use my mag lite to get to the toilet at night which I only do once if I have no choice and I have a cold outside shower across from my room. My house is really close to the school where I will be teaching the Kids from next week but my Spanish school classes are at the bottom of the hill and I mean Hill. I’m trying to think of anywhere in London that I’ve walked that’s that steep but I cant its worse than walking up Primrose Hill twice with a hangover and to make it even more difficult it is cobbled with stones which are roughly 10” x 6” with a 3” hole in between with nothing to fill it apart from my clumsy feet in my Havana’s, mmmmm, sensible walking shoes they said!!!!

Anyway, Im going to sit in the sun to practice my Spanglish and ponder on life. Oh here´s something to ponder next time you sip on your Starbucks or Instant Coffee.

The coffee beans here are beigh when they are put out to dry and thrown onto large black tarporlin sheets to go various shades of brown as they sit in the sun. I pass these each day on my way to school and was thinking yesterday how much they look like giant litter trays. Well, last night when I ventured out I passed the beans and strangely enough the street dogs had the same thought as me and were putting the drying beans to good use!

Mmmmmm Nescafe!

Tres Dias ( 3 Days) Londres - Guatemala

I was supposed to fly London – JFK – Miami – Guatemala City – bus to Panajachel - boat to San Pedro.... in a day, impossible you say, even with gaining 6 hours time difference, well yeh, it was a bit of a long shot….

I arrived at JFK very excited just to be standing on New York Soil firstly coz I hate being in the air and secondly as I have never been to The Big Apple. Anyway, no time to be excited I had 2 hours to change planes and terminals and get through the notorious immigration process with my new chipped passport and all on 10mg of Valium!! So, full steam ahead.

Once I got to the gate an announcement told us that we had to change gates and it was a 30min walk to do in 15mins. Grabbing a very confused but very smiley German girl who didn’t understand the announcement I hot footed it to our new allotted gate. It was kind of a bit like a comedy assort course as we had to negotiate people in wheel chairs, doors leading nowhere, wrong way escalators, various other hazards and as I very quickly discovered the New Yorkish are very unhelpful so it took a while but eventually after 15 mins of running we made it to the new allotted gate. We needn’t have bothered as they delayed the JFK - Miami plane indefinitely meaning that I would miss my connection (of 1hr) in Miami to Guatemala.

It was fairly chaotic loads of unhappy passengers shouting and gesticulating madly to deal with so the American Airlines staff did the best thing they could, they hid, leaving us all to ponder our futures together at gate number 12.

When they eventually turned up to check us in 3 hours later it was madness. I decided to opt out at that point and sat at the back with the German girl who could only speak pigeon English. We managed to find out we had one thing in common though, we had both met Robbie Williams. I had worked with him and she had won a date with him, well I say a date but it turns out that they weren’t really alone as 26 other girls had won the same 50min date which took place at the sound check to his Berlin performance of his Intensive Care tour. She got to look at him in a small room but they were not aloud to ask for autographs or take pictures and his management were worried he would be too exhausted if he talked too much, so pretty uneventful really but hey she was happy enough.

I decided that instead of flying to Miami and doing an over-night there I would stay in NY and see the sights. I gave my seat on the plane to a hysterical girl on standby and off I went luggage less to the sky train!!

The hotel was OK nothing fantastic but I was really happy to be on the ground and in NY so didn’t really care. After a few enquires into taxis to Manhattan which were over $110 for a return trip, I managed to persuade George the ‘off duty bell boy’ to take me in his Cadillac to see the sights for free. Bless him, he did and he did the whole tour guide talk too! We went over the Queens Borough Bridge, to The Rockefeller Center, Time square, the Empire State building and 5th Avenue it was great and so was he, I didn’t realize until the following day though once I was without the effects of Valium, exactly how fuzzy I was the night before and how cheeky I had been. Oh well se la VI.

Off I went the next morning to the airport just 30 mins before boarding as I already had a boarding pass, gate info, and no luggage to check so it was quick and 2 plane rides later and some lost luggage too, I arrived at 8pm in Guatemala City. I was met by my hotel shuttle bus and driver which was then escorted by 2 armed public security guards to my hotel. I asked Rodrigo my driver why they were there and he simply replied "it’s for your safety Mam".

The next morning, a bit nervous about the stories I had read and the previous nights escort, I took my bus from the City to Panajachel. I was told not to go through Patzun as the roads were very isolated and prone to Armed Bandits so I practiced my 2 sentences about not wanting to go that route over and over and conveyed this to my driver several times. He told me to calm down ‘Tranquilo’ and that all was ‘Bueno’. After 2 hours of driving we came across a huge sign in the road as big as a building so you couldn’t miss it, welcome to Patzun. I spent the next hour and a half with my heart in my mouth watching out of the window men with machetes walking along the road (obviously workers) with their heads covered (to avoid sun stroke) feeling like our bus, full of 13 tourists was taunting and tempting them as we passed.

Anyway we made it to Panajachel eventually and I jumped out of the bus so quickly and happy to be out that I left half my stuff inside (none of which I have now). A small sacrifice for the feeling of security I gained from no longer being a sitting duck in a truck.
It took about another 2 hours to make the 30min crossing in the boat as we had to wait for it to be absolutely full to bursting point before they would leave. A full and almost sinking boat makes about $12 I worked out which I wanted to pay myself just to leave there and then but thought it best not to get out my back up cash which was strapped to my leg under my clothes at the time.
Anyway I am here now and happy to be alive and well!!

Finally in SAN PEDRO LA LAGUNA and what an Awesome, Magnificent and Spectacular view, a lake completely surrounded by Volcanoes, Wow, this is what its all been for and it was definitely worth every single second of my journey so far!!

‘It’s really too much of a good thing. It touches the limit of the permissibly picturesque.’
Adolph Huxley