The pressure to publish

It has been a long time I posted some new content. The reason is very simple, I have been busy and I didn't feel like writing. That's about it. Also I had a lack of interesting topics to write about and I didn't want to bore my audience. I rather post only when I have something worthwhile sharing.

I have been feeling lately some pressure to write again though, to keep my audience entertained. I also have again some nice ideas for topics to write about, so you can expect some more reading material from me in the coming weeks.

For those of you who are interested in what I did the last 2-3 months. I would advice you to take a look in the picture-section and video-section of this blog. I am not really gifted with the ability of poetic writing, although I do give it a shot from time to time; statistics teached me that with enough tries I should expect to hit goal every once in a while, unless I'm shooting for a wrong goal ofcourse, which is not entirely impossible. Anyway, it seems that like Wim Helsen I like to confuse you with useless sidetracks just to amuse myself, I am sorry about that (but not really). So in a nutshell, Images say so much more than anything I can write (how ever poetic in nature), so take a look there first. To those who are still not bored of me (I applaud You) underneath follows a (short?!) summary of my past 2-3 months. You see what I did there? I called my writing short. I thought that was hilarious. I just realised my humor could use some work.

* 26th of january we celebrated Don Bosco. The oficial festive day is 31st of January (the day he passed away in the year 1888 at the age of 72). The celebration involved us organizing a sports event (soccer and basket) for our children and some teams from nearby educational institutions. It was a beautiful day.

* 4th of February I went (accompanied by the lovely Eveling) to the beautiful archeological site of Tonina. It's situated close to the city of Ocosingo. We had to spent a lot of that day on the road but it was absolutely worthwhile. Tonina isn't a well known archeological site. As I heard, most tourist guides don't even mention it. I think that is due to the fact that it is a bit harder to reach, it is rather on the smaller side and it is located not so very far from the much bigger, better accessible and super popular archeological site of Palenque. Anyway, I haven't seen Palenque yet, so I can't really compare, I can only speak about my experience in Tonina. It is super well preserved and the restauration team did a great job in conserving the site with respect to the original. You are surrounded by nature and you are nearly alone there because no tourist does take the effort to come there. All of this together made the experience absolutely mesmerizing for me (also being in good company helps adding to the magic.)

* From the 1st of March until the 4th, I had a long weekend free. I used it to settle some administration. You see, with my Belgian passport I can only stay 6 consecutive months in Mexico. If you want to stay longer you need to have a work-Visum or a Residential-Visum. For the first type of Visum you need to be able to demonstrate you work in Mexico by receiving a salary or wages and you need to show you will be paying taxes to the government. I do not receive any benefits (except food, a bed and a wonderful time) for my work because, well, that's kind of the definition of working voluntarily. The second type of Visum requieres you to own or rent and occupy a house or appartement in Mexico. Clearly I don't meet the requierements for this either. So there was only one option left, I needed to leave the country. And so I did. You see, there is a loophole. It is not officially forbidden to leave the country and return immediately. And so I did. I could again count on the wonderful company of Eveling. We traveled to the closest border, which is Mexico-Guatemala. It was a long day on the road: Tuxtla - San Cristóbal - Comitan - ciudad de Cuauhtémoc - border crossing - La Semilla (first town of Guatemala). However shortly, I have officially set foot on Guatemalan soil and I have the stamps in my passport to prove it! We stayed one night in my tent on a mountain in La Semilla with a most amazing view. The next morning we returned early to Mexico. Getting back into Mexico was, as expected, more difficult than leaving the country. The customs officer recognized us from the previous day, by the sight of us he became a lot grumpier than the previous day and wasn't willing to let us cross the border. So we had to wait for his collegue, a man who's ability to smile was amputated even before he was born, to show up an hour later. After many useless questions, an official payment of a little under 30 euros, some boring administration, them taking a copy of my passport, I finally received a stamp in my passport granting me again 6 consecutive months in Mexico, which is more than enough to finish my mission in Tuxtla.

* Close to the Mexican-Guatemalan border crossing of ciudad de Cuauhtémoc and La Semilla, there is (at the Mexican side) the domain of Cristobal de Colón, containing Lagos de Colón and the archeological site Lagartero. Again, like Tonina, this is not very well known under tourists. But locals know it is a little paradise. Even many Guatemalans (is that correct? Guatemaltecs? Whatever, citizens of Guatemala it is.) cross the border for a few days to spend them in this paradise. It was Evelings idea to (before returning to Tuxtla) spent 2 days in this paradise to celebrate obtaining the stamp in my passport. I'm very grateful we went there. There are waterfalls, many lakes and streams filled with sweet clear water in every shade of blue, green and turquoise you can imagine. Swimming here was absolutely beautiful and refreshing. In the middle of this wonder of nature you find the little archeological site of Lagartero. Yes, the Mayan people had good taste in choosing building spots. The site itself is really small but beautifully conserved and it gives you a good idea how beautiful it must have been to live there some centuries ago.

* 17th of March we had 'Fiesta de la Gratitud' or thus we celebrated our gratitude to one and another. Especially Sor Lupita, our principal, received a day in the center of all attention. The day was made colorful by a 'free podium' with several Acts. I myself took the effort as well to let my inner singer-songwriter roam free (think I might have broken some glass and at least 7 people's eardrums while "singing"...). Afterwards we had dinner with al of our guests and listened to some traditional marimba sounds.

* Nature scares me sometimes a little. Over the course of the previous months we had at least 2 more earthquakes (biggest one had a magnitude of 6,6). Also did I see several fires in the forests surrounding us (the biggest one I documented in the video-section of my blog).

*Now at this moment of writing, my mom, dad, brother, aunt and uncle are hanging in the sky in a giant metal bird on their way to ciudad de Mexico. Tuesday 9th of April I will be receiving them in the children's home. Starting from the 11th of April the children have a 2 week-vacation and thus so do I as well. The children go to their families (or foster families) for 2 weeks and I will be traveling with my family. I'm really looking forward to see them again and to the trip we are going to make together.

Dear reader, thanks for reading, we'll keep in touch.

As always, best greetings, have a good one.
B. Supertramp.