The tap´s just fine

So, I´m not sick, very much. Sorry to be so anticlimatic. All you readers, you swarming millions, were probably kinda hoping for a little excitement, maybe a story about bumbling through a visit with a doctor here, getting prescribed birth control instead of cipro or something. Sorry to disapoint. What can I say- guts of steel. I get ´em from my mama. We went to the bar last night to watch the USA v. Guatemala soccer game, which ended in a nil nil tie. Basically a win for Guatemala, as far as we can tell. Guatemala apparently usually loses to teams from tiny island nations where they are still eating limbs off the losing players (I can´t figure out how to pun on team member and dismember- help me out?), so tying the White Devils is pretty sweet.
Actually, there isn´t a lot of USA bashing going on here, unless you count expats. Much less than there was in New Zealand, and we hadn´t even been propping up military dictators or funding contras there. We´ll see tomorrow, though, when there is scheduled a big protest/march/parade of students from the 8 or so Universities in Xela through the streets. And then tonight is supposedly this strange event when the Encapuchados, the gowned and hooded student group, goes through the town at night and throws buckets of black paint on the businesses that earlier refused to pay them. A bit of back story: Mariam and I saw these 5 Ku Klux Klan-looking dudes coming out of the bank over a week ago. They had on the full flowing robes, and big pointy hoods with eye holes, in either white or black. They had some patches or insignias on, but we didn´t get close enough to read them. The shotgun-armed bank security (shotgun-armed security is the way to go around here, and everyone from banks to milk delivery trucks to little garages have a coupla pimply Wackenhut-uniformed teens packing serious heat) seemed to know them, or nod to them or something. When we asked our family about it, they seemed to say they were from the University, and that they would be asking for money. A bit more digging, and we found a more complete story. Apparently, 80 or 100 years ago, there was a big protest led by the med students in Xela against government persecution. Then they were all massacred. A politically active group of students from the University of San Carlos then started a protest group in response, and to avoid being identified and killed, they adopted these hoods and robes. They have been protesting and fundraising ever since, and in the past have done some very constructive, proactive things. They had the support of the general public for a long time, but lately it´s been slipping away. They´ve developed this tradition of extortion, where they ask businesses and people for money, and then vandalise the places that don´t pay, and they´ve supposedly been infiltrated by shady people who use the anonimity for even worse stuff than vandalism. So, the governor vowed that the businesses would not be vandalised this year, and to effect this, the semi-militarized police are going to be out in force tonight to stop the paint-throwing hooded students. Should be a blast.
We are really having an amazing time here. There is no other place, I´m sure, that would allow us to do so many amazing things- study spanish, eat amazing food, visit volcanos, live cheap, go to the beach, etc. We´re loving it. As long as we don´t get tear-gassed tonight.