In the meantime, monster repellent suggestions would be most welcome!

Yarmouth woman killed in Guatemala crash

A woman from Yarmouth who started an organization to help destitute children living in the dumps of Guatemala City has died in car accident.

Denning started Safe Passage in 1999 when she was just 29 after visiting Guatemala to study Spanish and experiencing the harsh living conditions of children who scavenged for food and anything else of value in the city’s sprawling dump.

She sold her car and computer to start the program, which now educates some 600 children.

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She tried to hire my mother a few years ago, and called her a few weeks ago while my mother was in the States... this is one of those times when Guatemalan life seems to be all about those who die.

It also reminds me uncannily of a few years ago when I came back to Guatemala, checked the news the next day, and Saddam Hussein'd been captured. What? Do I alert press agencies each time I book a flight back here?!

Now I'll go have a cigarette to try and wipe this dazed expression off my face, then start unpacking. It's good to be home.

It's 3am and I need sleep so in the meantime, I'll just point you at www.cloud-dance.org.uk

Normally after class, I stretch for about 15 minutes, chatting with Maria if she’s there. But as rehearsal now starts as soon as class finishes, I either stretch with Maria in the corridor (if she’s there), and chat with her and others at length, have a cigarette, and miss the first 20 mins or so of rehearsal.

Today, the plan was to have a quick cig, make a quick phone call, and dash back into the studio. Not including quick hellos with people from my dance group, I chatted with about seven people while I was outside, texting Laura a few times before she turned up out of the blue, and – cough – accompanied me to the pub (an hour and a half before the end of rehearsal, cough cough).

That in itself wouldn’t have been so bad, except that I was still at the pub at 10pm when one of the guys from rehearsal turned up.

Worse still, however, was when the dance teacher friend and I went to O’Neills after the pub closed, and standing outside the window… were another two people from rehearsal.

I smiled, waved, and raised my glass to them.

After about half an hour of checking every news site I could think of to find out where this had happened... it turned out to be Jucanyá, the Indian barrio of Panajachel, which is where my mother has her lake house - and where she was at the time!!

Thankfully she didn't go out all day, and didn't hear a thing, but damn this world gets a little too small at times!!!

On a side note, I texted Laura earlier to tell her the full horror of my realisation on Friday, after her visit: if I do Jen’s performance workshop (at the dance school), I won’t be able to go to the pub after class this term. That’s a seriously tough call. On one hand, I can wait out next week (this week) to see how many Dancers of Mass Destruction are likely to turn up; on the other hand, the last time I did the performance group (with Jen), we were already a fully-formed group of friends at the time (except for Maria), and I can’t really say the same is true of now. And damn it, I want to be able to hang out with Maria after class and not only blubber about my home conditions, and I want to be able to go to the pub on Wednesdays with Fran’s students who don’t much like me, and travel back with a tipsy Laura….

On another side note, I checked Gumtree earlier (as you do when Msn won’t bloody well work), and saw some ads for rooms to rent around the corner. I’m very tempted. Well, as a tourist. This house is great, even if the wireless router should be painfully dismembered.

That leads me back to the homicidal thoughts I was having a few paragraphs earlier, so maybe I should just wrap this up and go for a fag.

In the meantime, I can heartily recommend some websites about 419 scammers. Health warning: they’re seriously compulsive reading.

(And hopefully I’ll be asleep soon and able to exercise said homicidal impulses till Khaled’s ‘Sahra’ wakes me.)

God I hate packing.

Preferably once I finally have a replacement laptop!

Café No Sé is away from the centre of Antigua (Guatemala), so rarely attracts tourists except by word of mouth. Past flyers have advertised it with "Uncomfortable Chairs, Two Dogs, Great Coffee, Deranged Staff and Deviant Behaviour". An on-off regular, LaVon, is an artist, so his paintings fill the high walls. There’s an electoral map of the States on the wall, with ‘Dumbfuckinstan’ written over the Republican areas. A guitar hangs from the wall, with a small chalkboard underneath listing the songs which are banned from being played. A large sign on the wall says “For all your copyright infringement needs, please go to Mono Loco, because that is where we rip off all our music". The table nearest the door has a chessboard built into it. On the door which leads into the garden/seated area/tequila bar, there’s a random bizarre t-shirt hanging up for sale. According to my mother, they only started stocking dark rum after learning that that’s all she’d drink.

Bo’s story is a bit hazy to me – maybe as I’ve avoided thinking about Guatemala since I’ve been away from there. Apparently he met John, the owner of the place, in Belize, and was offered the job of managing the bar (John goes to Mexico frequently, and just so happens to stock up on tequilas while he’s there) – though that may have been more to give Bo a sense of purpose and groundedness than any likely candidacy for the role. And in doing so, he became a key feature of the whole place – maybe the great-uncle we never had, friendly and caring and almost always way over the limit, almost always wearing his red patchwork jacket. Apart from Cristina, he was the only person I’d always greet with a huge hug – then again, Cristina was usually behind the bar, and he rarely was. He’d always ask after my mother with genuine interest, and he always gave you the sense – maybe because of his age and the fact that he was in Guatemala – that he’d led a full life, however tired of it he was, although he always seemed happy and positive (and again, very drunk).

He was found this morning. Given Guatemalan rules, he’ll be buried today or tomorrow. No time to find out what got him in the end, although my mother said that from what she’s heard, it sounded like he knew he was dying, and didn’t have much longer left.

I want to end this by asking myself how I’ll remember best, although it’s not a happy memory, however appropriate it might be. It was only a few weeks after my grandfather’s death, and my mother’s first time out since then. Bo wasn’t aware, and made a number of cold statements about death, his views on it, and that loved ones dying was simply a process of life. His wife died from a simple accident in Portugal – slipping down some stairs or tripping on something – and has drifted for the several decades since. His comments were making my mother cry, and even when I told him about my grandfather, he ackowledged her grief, but did not change his stance. I felt closer to him after that night – the three of us were sat at the end of a long table; I don’t remember if I actually got a chance to say goodbye.

Bo was a fixture, and I can’t imagine Café No Sé without him. It’ll be something to experience when I return.

In nearly 11 weeks, I’ve not paused long enough to stop and think, or so it seems. I’ve been working hard at enjoying my time in London, however temporary it might be, but then something shitty like yesterday comes along and blows it all.

I don’t know why I’m thinking of Mexico instead of Guatemala; although life in Guatemala was far from enriched, at least it was mostly predictable: the sun would shine, I would avoid my old office, and I’d go out once or twice a week and see the same faces. When I found that Dikla’d left, I was devastated.

Probably the reason that life seems more complicated in London is that I have more friends here, each with their own schedule and agenda, and juggling those can be exhausting. Or frustrating or depressing, but that depends on the day. And person.

San Cristóbal – I think I’ve not yet described (on here) the epic journey there – but arriving there finally after about 14 hours, and 7 ½ years – 14 ½ years in my mother’s case. Dinner in the restaurant of the hotel we’d stayed at all those years ago; drinks afterwards in the bar where Margarita and I’d watched the World Cup semifinal. Spending our days trying to revisit mine and Margarita’s haunts, always ending up back at the same bar for our final tequilas and cubas. The bliss of real-life Mexican tacos, only for my mother to get violently ill; no more tacos after that. The shock of finding that San Cristóbal, probably the poorest mini-city in Mexico, is turning into a mini-Barcelona. The Zapatistas starting their tour of the country; though I didn’t see Marcos, we caught them on various occasions during the day, and at night, when it was around -2 degrees Celsius, I wandered through the park as they settled, amazed by the range of people within their group. A week or so ago, I saw that they’d finally made it to Mexico City, and silently cheered. It’s impossible to see something like their procession and not be moved.

Maybe I wasn’t particularly happy in Guatemala, but at least I didn’t spend my time trying hard to keep positive. Life there, and in Mexico, was simple and straightforward; it never feels like that here. Here, I have friends I don’t see nearly often enough, I have my dance classes, yoga and pilates classes – I’ve had to abandon my 10-mile Sunday walks, and yet of that list, the dance classes are the only things I really do for myself. I have friends with varying stages of emotional deficiencies – and a profound sense that London doesn’t want me to be here, most profoundly reinforced by yesterday’s break-in – and Friend’s complete indifference to it, as to the fresh scabs on my face.

The week before last, I bumped into Maria – my best friend from several years ago – at the dance school, so we caught up briefly after class. Tuesday was my only evening at home, and I spent that horribly stressed while trying to work on the latest website. Wednesday I was out with my dance teacher, a few of the students, and her former accompanist (after her teasing me the week before about always being the last one out of the pub, even back then, I had to shove her and the rest out of O’Neills around midnight so I could catch the last tube home). Thursday, my uni friends, and some authentic Mexican food. Friday, a Project party; Matt and I relocated to the Rose & Crown, probably the first time I’ve actually seen him on his own since I’ve been back. Saturday, Martin – we’d had a detailed agenda for the night’s conversation, but not only did it not stand a chance due to me arriving so late, but the night carried on till about 5am.

Weeks like that are lovely, if exhausting and draining. The way I feel now, I can bottle the memories and value the diversity of the week; or I can use it towards grounds for staying longer-term. I suppose I really need to set aside Thinking Time to decide either way, but for all this time, all decisions have been in the hands of someone else who seems to have no inclinations to decide, much less talk.

The psychic I went to see a fortnight ago told me to go easy on Friend, not to rush anything, and to more or less wait till the end of next month (as opposed to this one) before making any rash decisions. I’m almost tempted to throttle the crap out of Friend (watching TV downstairs, studying or not studying) if only to get a reaction out of him, but I suppose sleep is more important.

I’ll deal with next week when it arrives. Albeit in a few hours.

Saturday morning routine: wander downstairs for a cigarette, maybe clean kitchen in the process, wander into the living room for my laptop, bring it to the bedroom and spend the next few hours online.

This morning: wander downstairs for a cigarette, (idly noticing that the back door is unlocked), get heavily rained on in the process, wander into living for my snazzy brand-new laptop - and it's not there. Its predecessor, however, has been moved from its dusty corner of the last month or so to the arm of the sofa, and it's sitting open, as though someone's turned it on and lost interest.

Fume for a while, decide to go to an IT job fair, chat with Max for a bit, then head off - only to notice that my keys and Oyster card are missing. A short witch hunt later, and we realise we've been broken into - the only other missing item is Trevor's Oyster card, admittedly with all his credit cards.

I've been kicking myself over not having taken my laptop to the bedroom last night, or even yesterday when I had a strong urge to do so; I'm now mentally blaming Friend for inviting me to stay in a house where out of all of us, I'll get the most stuff stolen.

Roll on large quantities of rum - and maybe a flight back home...

Once I managed to get on the Tube, it was to find myself standing a couple of people from a previous boss’s doppelganger. Worse still, once I got a seat, it was right opposite him. (The photo I took as proof didn’t turn out too well). He got off at Hammersmith, and a woman sat down next to me and promptly nodded off. Thankfully she never noticed the large spider crawling down her leg.

I texted Gonzo once I got to the Tube platform, but within minutes of arriving (and cheerfully distributing the post), I received a meeting invite with both Gonzo and Daisy (line manager and boss, for those who don’t hear me call them that on a daily basis.)

I skipped my gym session, treated myself to a salad from Eat instead (but the chile oil salad dressing from the canteen really had never met a chile), and spent the last few minutes before The Meeting breathing deeply and trying to turn myself from a sarky git to a Meek Pleb.

The meeting was to inform me that if I arrived after 9am again, I would be issued with a Written Warning. Apparently I had alarm clock (user) malfunction a few weeks ago, but I have yet to send out my disclaimer which says, no, the Piccadilly Line was suspended en route to work. Still, it’s a plus; I’d expected to spend the meeting discussing whether I got one week’s or one month’s notice.

Had my salad from Eat for lunch – the chile oil salad dressing from canteen seemed to be missing chiles; mind you, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to make the short distance to Eat that I barely remembered how to prepare the salad. Also I had to buy some more tea, as I’d left all of mine back at the house. Bugger.

I’d just paid for my dance class and was heading off to the studio, when I saw an oddly familiar face – Maria. (She was a few people behind me in the queue).

Maria’d been one of my best friends 4-5 years ago, and I’ve not seen her since; I spent much of the class thinking about her and glowing about having seen her again after all this time; we caught up briefly in the pub afterwards, hopefully I’ll be doing her Monday class from now on, and her my Wednesday class.

I’ve been grinning like an idiot since.

Ach, hell, I’ve been grinning most of the day anyway….

This week has turned out to be an unexpectedly sociable week. When I’m home, I have websites to work on. When I’m out, I have websites to work on when I get home. I’ve been knackered for a week, and I’m starting to forget how it feels to be otherwise.

On the plus side, not only have I regained all my former flexibility from dance and yoga classes past, but surpassed it.

On which note, I need to find some bizarre stretches for my lower back so that I don’t spend tomorrow in agony. (If I could count on a seat on the Piccadilly Line, I could at least bring some ice with me to ice away the worst of the aches on my way into work).

Sleep well.