Guate, Guate, Guate !!

Wearied by the heat of southern Mexico I jumped on a few buses and found
myself arriving in Panajachel, on the shores of Lake Atitlan, in
Guatemala one rainy afternoon. Marcelle absconded herself from work, and
came and met me on the main tourist strip. It had been three years since
we saw each other last, when she left Australia and I was just starting
that strange period of going to work everyday in a suit and tie
pretending that I was a lawyer and knew what I was talking about.
Perhaps because we see ourselves almost every day we don't notice the
effects of the passing of time, but after a three year gap, the first
impression I had was, my little sister has grown up. (Strange because
she was already 26 when I saw her last !!) Perhaps it has more to do
with the fact that of late I have noticed that I have done some growing
up of my own - must be those grey hairs !!
I spent two weeks in Pana, catching up, hearing all of the latest small
town gossip and meeting those referred therein, enjoying a couple of
sunny days with swims in the lake, finding a whole new library to chew
my way through and checking out the Pana night life in all its glory.
Unfortunately on Sunday the rain started and didn't really let up for
the whole week, so our proposed volcano hiking trek, which had got
Marcelle serious about some training, had to be postponed.

So instead I spent some time helping Marcelle out at her work,
reformatting her resume and rewriting her job application letter (with
such application that I was called pedantic !!!) It reminded me how I
too once had a job, and did work, and made me wondered whether that
would ever happen again.

As I told Marcelle when I left, I will be back for her 30th, I wonder if
anything will have changed in Pana.