What a month

So, this is one of those times when i'm not going to apologise for not blogging more. I´m just not going to. And, if we´re honest, it´s most likely that nobody noticed I haven´t written anything anyway... (sigh with distant self depricating look).

This month has been nothing if not dramatic, and not always for all the right reasons. Natural disasters, muggings, kidnappings. Oh Guate, sometimes I dispare.

After Hurricane Agatha, things were hairy for a bit. I´m tempted, in fact, to use the expression DARK. Yes, in fact I will. Things were DARK. The clean-up effort has been impressive but, at points, hugely frustrating. For the first week it felt like the hoardes of people who descended on the village of San Miguel Escobar wielding shovels, tins of beans and lashings of good will barely made a dent. Tonnes of stinking gloop covered everything, burying cars, houses and people alike. And, without the help of machinery, I have come to the educated conclusion that mud is pretty hard to shift.

They still dont have the figures for how many people died or are still missing, even in this one village, let alone in the rest of the country, but the statistics kind of fade in importance anway when you're raking through the remains of people's lives as if participating in some viciously warped version of the generation game....a mud stained text book, an abandoned cuddly toy, a half-made loaf of bread which will never be finished...

Rather lower down on the devastation-scale, I was mugged a few weeks back, which was, actually pretty bloody scary though i´d never admit it coz i'm, like, well 'ard. Yes, walking back from my beloved Rainbow, I was accosted by a delighful gentlement who decided it was imperitive that was mine became his, and lickety splick. So, with the aid of a knife and bit of good ol' fashioned brute force, he made away with my computor, cards, money blah blah blah. Awesome. Happy times. It could, however - as people are swift to remind me - have been worse, hence the reason I am now the proud owner of both a taser and pepper spray (thanks to a friend here who, lets just say, it's best not to delve too deeply into his business dealings).

Swings and roundabouts though, eh? Taking a break from Antigua and Guatemala in a few weeks time, bound for Honduras and some sunny seaside action. If, that is, HSBC pull their finger out and decide to provide me with some means of withdrawing cash before 2012 and the impending apocalypse.