Slept in (Note: When I write this, I'm getting up between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m., just not at 5:00 a.m.). In the morning I worked on those questions for that position I'm applying for. Around 10:15 I start walking to Ariana's office, which is in the same building as Entremundos, a local non-profit that works to support other non-profits in the area. Naturally, I can't find it, so I have to call so that she can help me find the location.
Regarding my inability to find her office, I'd like to point out that street addresses in Guatemala are very strange. For instance, the street address of the guest house we're staying at is Diagonal 12, 6-58, Zone 1. Now, "Diagonal 12" is the name of the street. "Zone 1" denotes the area of town in which the address is located. I know of at least six zones in the urbanized area of Xela, but there must be more in the rural outskirts, since I saw some land for sale in Zone 10, where ever that is.
We had a nice visit and I learned quite a bit about the project and their needs. She also promised to email me some other documents about the project that would be useful in preparing grant applications. Since we need to see the clinic that is the core of the project first-hand, we made plans to meet at 8:50 a.m. at Parque Calvario, not far from our guest house, so that we could take a chicken bus to the clinic.
I returned to the guest house, where we had some homemade soup for lunch and following lunch, walked over to INEPAS, a Spanish school, that has computer labs located in a number of villages surrounding Xela. The sign on the door stated that they would be open at 3:00 p.m., but they weren't, so I walked over to the Vrisa Bookstore, which boasts over 4,000 used books for sale. After checking it out, I walked back to INEPAS and found it still locked, so I headed over to the North & South Bookstore, which is a more conventional bookstore selling primarily new books. From there, I returned once again to INEPAS and found it still locked, so I decided to walk over to XelaPages, an Internet cafe facing Parque Calvario, to see Tom Lingenfelter.
Tom was very helpful during our last visit to xela and I wanted to ask him some questions. When I arrived, Tom was sitting at his desk by the front window in the Internet cafe he owns (he has other related businesses also). He recognized me (perhaps my hat was a giveaway), but needed help with my name, which isn't unexpected after an absence of over 2 1/2 years. I discovered, to my dismay, that Cubatenango, a restaurant that we had really enjoyed on our 2007 trip had closed because the owner had not been able to find good help. I did get other restaurant recommendations and, after telling Tom why we were in Xela, a suggestion that I contact Entremundos to see if they need any help with their computer lab. Evidently, according to Tom, they do.
After leaving Tom, I walked back towards the apartment. First, however, I picked up some fruits and vegetables that we needed at the corner mercado. As you can imagine, it's really convenient to be able to walk half a block and pick up fresh, ready to eat produce.
Back at the apartment, after sanitizing our fruits and vegetables, I once again worked on my blog and other computer tasks.
For dinner, since Linda was feeling better, we went back to Pollo Campero to try a chicken Caesar burrito for Q20 ($2.40) that we had seen advertised. We each had one and enjoyed them so much, we ordered another to split.
After dinner, we returned to the guest house and I continued working on those questions for the latest job opportunity I've located and continued on that project until about 10:00 p.m.
