Christmas in Bellingham

3 days before Christmas, 10 days before our scheduled departure for Guatemala, I look out my front window to a winter wonderland. The snow began 9 days ago and has continued, off and on, since then. It is uncommon in Bellingham to have snow on the ground for so long. Although I complain about the extra effort it takes to get out of the house, and all of the Christmas festivities that have been canceled, I admit that I greatly prefer the snow to the rain. It is hard to dislike the snow because it turns the world bright (at a normally dark time of year) and clean and, most of all, quiet. Everything is softened by the snow like a coating of spun cotton.
Still, I am ready to leave. Our rough plans are as follows:
Departure on January 1. We will spend one night in Guatemala City and take a bus the next morning to Quetzaltenango, arriving on Jan 2. The name of this city is formed by combining the name of the national bird of Guatemala (Quetzal) and "tenango" which is just an ending for a town. Like "ville" in English. The Quetzal is also the name of currency in Guatemala. However, the common nickname for that city is Xela (pronounced shay-la). I will endeavor to find out the origin of nickname while we are there.
We have signed up for two weeks of intensive Spanish language review in order to get our tongues limber and try to remember the vocabulary that we have lost from lack of use. For the time that we are in language school our accomodations will be homestays with Guatemalan families. During that two weeks we will have much to do. We will hang out after classes at the Education and Hope center and become familiar with what goes on there and help when we can. We also need to find an apartment to rent, and otherwise get ourselves settled in. Although we have spent considerable time in Xela in the past, it has been 14 years and things have changed quite a bit I think.
We are beginning to think about packing. We will not be traveling as lightly as we usually do, but rather thinking in terms of what things are important for some degree of comfort since we'll be there for three months.
There are few things on the "for sure" list, including a down comforter, two yoga mats, my I-pod (with docking station) one concertina, one guitar, and one ukulele, binoculars, and a few books. We'll get to the clothes much later. The down comforter is important because Xela is located at 7500 feet and nights are quite cool. This combined with the fact that there is no heat anywhere, and that I am not very gracious about being cold, make the comforter worth carrying, even though it will, no doubt, be the biggest and heaviest thing we carry (besides the guitar).
.....End of test run......
We'll begin this blog in earnest once we arrive in Xela and find an internet cafe to use.

Happy New Year and Merry Xmas