Journal DECEMBER

Monday 29 December 2003
Fly to Guatemala with one husband and four suitcases, arriving on time around mid-day. Travel from Guatemala City, a bustling, noisy, polluted, sprawling urban center, to Antigua Guatemala, the old colonial capital, and, since 1979, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I was based in Antigua when I worked in Guatemala in the 1970s, so it is a familiar and welcoming place for me. We spend tonight and tomorrow in a small hotel just off the main plaza and next to the house where I am renting an apartment. During the afternoon we talk with my landlady, move in some suitcases, and do errands in town. Our 4:00 a.m. wake-up call this morning combined with hours of travel and an altitude of 1530 meters makes us tired early!

Tuesday 30 December 2003
More errands -setting up a bank account, establishing a mail service, getting a cell phone, moving more suitcases, unpacking boxes, making various calls to friends and colleagues.....the day seems short but we did manage to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and coffee! The thing about a Fulbright Fellowship is that you live in a foreign country for a substantial period of time, so there are many arrangements to be made. I have the advantage of being familiar with the place and having many friends here who can help me with details. And my landlady doña Aura, is a very special person whose forty years of experience living in Antigua will be an invaluable resource for me.

Wednesday 31 December 2003
New Year's Eve Today I move completely into my apartment! So we learn where the big grocery store is and the little speciality stores for bread and cured meats and good yogurt. We unpack and arrange and get to know the ins and outs of my home for the next six months.

And all day long we hear the early sounds of New Year's Eve with snapping strings of firecrackers and the booms of the bombas in the streets.In the afternoon, our friends Florencio and Lidia and their young son Alex stop by to say hello and later Juventino Galvez from the environmental institute at Landívar drops off festival tamales for us to enjoy for dinner. At about 10:00 pm we go out into the streets of Antigua to see what New Year's Eve is like here and it turns out to be like nothing we've ever seen before.