Friday, June 30, 2006
sorry bout that...
turns out that i didn't write any more yesterday, i got caught up applying for a scholarship and then i had class and then it was night time. so anyway, on sunday morning we woke up, there was still no water in the hotel, and anyone who wanted to shower had to walk like 20 minutes down the street to another hotel. luckily, i did not want to shower, and so avoided that. we were supposed to leave for chichicastenango (gringolandia) at 9, but due to the shower situation, we left at about 11. we arrived in chichi at noon and decided to meet at a certain restaurant at 2:30 for lunch. i shopped around a little, bought a skirt and some magnets, but i ran out of money pretty fast. so then i went to a bank to try to change my $20 bill for some quetzales, but they wanted to see my passport for that, so i didn't do it. #1, i didn't have my passport with me, and #2, i think it's ridiculous to ask for identification when someone wants to change cash for cash. ugh, i hate banks here. i'll talk more about them in a minute. so anyhow, we had lunch and then piled into the vans to go back to xela. on the way back, i got really carsick. not throwing up carsick, i don't do that, but just really quoozy feeling and miserable. also, we were listening to the weirdest music. the radio first had a shakira medley, then a reggaeton medley, then a music from the u.s. in the 70's and 80's medley, which included selections like "i will survive", "another one bites the dust", and "video killed the radio star". it was so odd.finally, we got back to xela and i went home, had dinner, and went up to my room with the intention of sleeping. i'd been taking pepto bismol all day and my stomach still didn't feel better, so i decided to try one of the herbal pills, the huang lian su. BIG FAT MISTAKE, let me tell you. about an hour after taking it, i threw up all over my bed, sleeping bag, and pj's. luckily, it was only like 9:30 at that point, so dulce was still up and she very kindly cleaned up my barf. also luckily, my room has two beds, so after the barf was gone, i went back upstairs and slept in the other bed. 11 hours later, i woke up and decided that i needed to go to the bank, because i only had 5 quetzales left.
now, let me tell you, the closest bank is about a 25 minute walk from my house, and with my acrobatic stomach it felt like an hour and 25 minutes. once i got there, i discovered that the bank i went to last time had a line out the door of people waiting to cash checks or something, i don't know. so i went to a different one. last time i went to the bank to cash a traveler's cheque, all they wanted was my driver's license, and when i used them to pay for language classes at ica, all they needed was my passport number, which i obtained from the copy of my passport that i carry with me. however, the bank i went to on monday wanted my original passport, and nothing else would do. so back home i trudged.
about an hour and 15 pepto bismols later, i arrived back at the bank, original passport in tow. there are three banks in a row, we'll call them banks 1, 2, and 3, because i can't remember their names. bank 1 was the one i went to last week which was very busy. bank 2 said something like "western union" on the front, so i decided to try that one.
thing #1 that i don't like about the banks here: there are at least 4 armed guards outside each one, and they're very polite but they have very big rifles which make me very nervous.
thing #2 i don't like about guatemalan banks: WHERE IS THE LINE? WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT? IT ISN'T CLEAR AT ALL! in bank 2, there were several tellers and a block of 6 chairs set up in front of one of the tellers. all the chairs were full, so that looked to me like the place to go. the teller helped one person, and then dissappeared for about 7 minutes. then she returned, stared at us for awhile, and left again. she finallly came back, and a woman who had just sat down went up to the window, did her business, and was redirected to another teller. when the teller in front of us returned, i decided not to worry about courtesy, and that there were still four people in the chairs that had been waiting longer than i had, and up i marched. the teller informed me that her bank could not cash my traveler's cheque, and that i should go to bank 3. argh. i was so frustrated.
so off i waddled to bank 3, clutching my poor stomach, which was having an identity crisis and thought it was a boy scout learning how to tie 15 different knots. after some more awkward waiting, i finally got my 377 quetzales, and slowly plodded back up to my house. when i arrived, it was lunch time, but i requested plain white rice. after eating, which made my stomach hurt even worse, it was time for language classes.
since today is friday and i'm still talking about monday, i'm just going to sum up my language class experience so far. #1, my teacher, mynor, has nose hair that is out of control. it curls around of the nostril about 1/2 an inch, which is a lot for nose hair. also, he has a really high pitched laugh that he launches into without warning. aside from that, he's very nice. i've been reviewing the subjunctive, both in the present and past tenses, because that's the last tense i learned and therefore the one i am least comfortable with. we also spend much of the 5 hour class just talking, which is good practice too. he's also really into playing competitive chess, and he had a tournament on wednesday in which he won 3rd place and 100 quetzales.
wednesday morning i went on a school trip to fuentes georginas, which is a hot spring, and that was fun and relaxing. wednesday night dulce, kirsten (who is doing much better), amelia, andrew, his girlfriend (who's name i can't remember), and i went out to kokoloko's which is a discoteca. kirsten's friend from home's boyfriend is also in xela, and it was his birthday, so we were meeting up with him to celebrate. here's what i don't like about discotecas in guatemala: people are allowed to smoke inside, and do. it's disgusting. now i have no voice, and i think that's part of why. the other part of why is all the air contamination. but anyhow, my stomach feels great now, i think i just had food poisoning from the gross little restaurant in santa caterina.
now it's lunch time again, see you all later!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
update continued...
ok, so i left off with dinner saturday night, yes? yes. after dinner, some of the people in the group wanted to go dancing, but i was not in the mood to be wiggling my sick stomach all over the place, so i went back to the hotel with most of the group. when we arrived, we discovered that the water to the hotel had been shut off. this is not uncommon in guatemala, and the hotel management just told us to hope it came back on in the morning. to digress a little, the water was turned off in xela last week, maybe tues. or weds.? i don't remember. however, the funny thing about having the water turned off is that i never know it's off until after i poop and then can't flush it. since there's no water, there's not really anything that can be done... just hope no one else tries to go to the bathroom and remembers that it was me who was in there last. so anyhow, i found out the water was off and then we went to sleep.mm, i'm bored of this, i'm going to go find myself a snack, and i'll write more later tonight.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
not quite all it´s cracked up to be
| well hello again. on friday i was planning on writing more and putting up more pictures, but i didn't because kirsten was really sick. i walked into the house at quarter to five, and she had thrown up on the floor and was wrapped in a blanket, shivering. she told me that she had a fever of 104 and could i please find a doctor or something. i hurried back to ica and got the doctor who works there to come with me to the house, and when we returned dulce had arrived and cleaned up the floor. the doctor got a urine and blood sample, and about an hour later determined that kirsten had a urinary tract infection and gave her antibiotics. now, she's still sort of feverish, but is feeling a lot better. we were both really scared, because it's not actually good for your body to have a fever that high, but i'm super relieved that she seems to be on the mend. on saturday, i went on the school trip to the lago del atitlan, which was an experience. we rode in two 15 passenger vans, and on the way there everything was fine. when we got to the hotel in panajachel (which is right by the lake), things started going wrong. first of all, they were asking who wanted to share a room with who, which we had not been warned about in advance. i ended up in a room with josta (that's how you spell yosta, apparently) and sonja, which was fine... however, our room had not been cleaned yet, so we were directed to leave our bags in the reception office. then we had an opportunity to use someone else's bathroom, and we were off for our tour of the lake by boat, or lancha. at this point, it started to rain pretty hard. luckily, our boat was shrouded in plastic, but this also meant that we couldn't see out of it, and neither could the guy who was driving it. i mean, i guess there's not really anything to hit out in the middle of the lake, but it made me sort of nervous and seasick, not knowing where we were boldly going at like 30 mph. after a good 45 minutes of blind sailing, we arrived at our first destination. we learned that there are twelve pueblos around the edge of the lake, all named after saints. i don't remember what the first place was called, but it was wet, that's for sure. we hung out in the rain for a little while and then had a whirlwind tour of the market there. just as we were about to leave, the rain stopped. we climbed back into the boat, rolled up the plasic cover, and set sail for our next port of call. by this time, it was about 1:30, and we were all getting really hungry and seasick. however, the teacher who was accompanying us, elisa, assured us that there was a really great restaurant in santa caterina, our last stop, that was worth waiting for. we continued on to the second pueblo in peace for awhile, but then we noticed something funny on the horizon. "is that a cloud?" aaron, a musician from memphis asked. "no, it looks like rain" mused quinn, a recent college grad. indeed it was rain (there's a picture of it in the following entry), and we were headed straight for it, without any sort of protection. within a couple of minutes, i was soaked through (i had been sitting in the first seat, enjoying the view). someone suggested that the people in front open their umbrellas, which helped a little, but by the time we got to our second pueblo, most of us were really not interested in being there, especially since we weren't allowed to eat. "wait for the restaurant in santa caterina!" we were encouraged. "it had better be good" the 30 of us collectively grumbled, as we waded our way out of the boat. we were quickly escorted to the church, which was apparently the first catholic one in guatemala, and then to the current resicence of san simon, who is apparently a little wooden man with quite a following who travels all around the highland pueblos. after seeing him, we trudged back to the boat, to embark on another soggy half hour joyride across the lake. by the time we reached our lunch destination, it was 4:00 in the afternoon. we were all hungry, cranky, thirsty, seasick, and damp. must have been a really attractive crew. at any rate, we sat down in the restaurant and tried to find out how we could get some agua pura, which is clean water. "i'm sorry, we only have gallo" the waitress informed us, in spanish of course. for those of you who don't know, gallo is the national drink of guatemala. remember the beer factory i can see out my window in xela? that's gallo. some of the participants decided to have it, but i didn't think that putting alcohol in my already queasy stomach was the greatest idea, so i stayed thirsty. then we had the menu read to us. they had enought shrimp for 7 people to have that, enough fish for 5 people, and then the rest of us could have chicken or cheese sandwiches. i opted for the chicken sandwich, which was a mistake. anything else would have been a mistake too, though, so we were all dissatisfied together. the shrimp came out first, and the woman across from me started in on them. you know how shrimp look in the u.s., like a cute little pink comma, sometimes with a tail attached? well, not only did these shrimp have a tail, but they had eyes and legs as well. and the fish? more of the same - it was an entire fish, eyes, gills, fins, tail, bones, everything. my chicken sandwhich had lettuce, tomato, mayonaise, and like three little eraser size pieces of chicken, buried somewhere in the depths of the mayo. needless to say, i didn't eat most of it. luckily, once that was done, it was time to go back to the hotel. we spent another 45 minutes careening around the lake with the rain plastic down, blocking everyone's view. it was sort of like being in one of those virtual reality rides, where you're sitting in a box and it moves around, like star tours at disneyland, except our virtual realiy box was real and there was no tv screen inside. we got back to the hotel around 6:00, and planned to meet at 8 for dinner. i showered and then josta, eriko, camila and i decided to go take a look around panajachel. i bought a duffel bag sort of thing for 45 quetzales, which comes out to something like $6.50 (the guy first wanted me to pay 85, so i was pretty happy with my bargaining). then we all went to dinner together at this really pretty restaurant that served pizza, pasta, and a variety of hispanic foods (i had nachos with beans and cheese and they were really good). at dinner, there was a guy who was playing the keyboard, but he was singing all songs from the u.s. in the 60's, in english. i didn't know most of them, but he did do "tambourine man", which i liked. also, smoking is allowed in restaurants in guatemala, and one of the guys in our group, a german named daniel, ordered a carton of lucky strikes with his dinner, which i thought was really odd. i'll write more later, but now i've got to go pick up my clean clothes (hopefully they're done... i miss laundromats) and have lunch. |
lago atitlan fotos
mayan barbie. is there anything she hasn´t done?
here´s how our group looked most of saturday... umbrellas up, surrounded by little guatemalan kids trying to sell us stuff.
one of the stalls in the market at chichicastenango, also known as gringolandia.
a loom and some finished products at the weaver´s co-op we visited.
me by the lake sunday morning, before it started raining.
here´s me and sonja, my german housemate, by the lake. too bad you can´t see us.
we boated right into this. so much for sunny central america.
some random fisherpeople, out on the lake.
here i am on the boat, at one of the rare moments when it wasn´t raining.
el lago atitlan. too bad it was overcast.
the hotel we stayed in saturday night, that´s our window.
a selection of fabrics from a co-op that we visited, which was along the edge of the lake. Thursday, June 22, 2006
mi casa
here´s me in my room with the hat i made on the second flight
the view from my window... it´s the gallo beer factory
the guatemalan version of a dresser, or at least the only thing like that that´s in my room... it works out pretty well, although i wish there was one more shelf.
my room has two beds... there they are. i sleep in the far one.
my room as seen from just outside the door
do you like how the stairs in my house have no railings? i love that, especially when i´m up high and accidentally look down.
the water heater uppper... the more water pressure you turn on, the colder it is, it´s really fun.
another view of the bathroom, it´s really an all-in-one sort of deal
the bathroom in my house... notice the showerhead up above the toilet? yeah.
my house from the front... the windows on the right are my room
the giant building in the background is the gallo beer factory, which is right across from my house, it takes up and entire block.
here´s xela shortly after the afternoon rain
i don´t remember which street this is... something colorful
the streets get really floody after it rains... also, there´s the beer factory again
the street in front of my house... it´s not very trafficky
playground games
so, i´ve figured out that when we're playing tag, what you yell is "tenta", not "trienta". i still have no idea what it means. also, i figured out that the london bridge game is called "campanita de oro", which i think is "little gold bell". we played that again today, as well as policia y ladrones, which is where i'm a policeperson and all the little girls are ladrones (robbers) and i have to run after them and when i catch them i put them in the house, which was a specific spot on the wall. then, when i'd leave to go catch someone else, all the ladrones in the casa would run away. basically, i couldn't win. it was fun though.after el receso, we all went back in the classroom, and continued on with a color game that yosta had devised that the girls really liked (we did color in english today). seña yoli didn't come back for a really long time again, and most of the girls ran around all over the school like crazy people because they don't really listen to me. then the teacher stopped in for like 5 minutes to write the letter "q" on the board and explain it to the girls, then she told me she had to go to another class and would i mind watching the little hellians (well, that wasn't her exact wording, but it should have been). i kindly obliged, and off she went. some of the girls were really good and were really trying hard to copy the letters and words correctly, but others, for example doris and lorenza, were more interested in running around wrecking havoc. i let them, because it was too much trouble to go get them from outside, and out there they weren't disturbing anyone who was trying to work. also, strawberry shortcake, the cartoon character, is really popular here.
next week the school doesn't meet because of teacher's day, which is a national holiday, so i might try to sign up to take language classes for a week, because i know i could improve and i don't know what i would do with myself for a week without some sort of regular daily activity. i have to think about it. also, i think i'm going to try to teach the girls "heads up seven up" because that's a nice quiet sitting down game.
now i'm going to xelapages to post pictures, anna took some more today. feliz dia!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
some thoughts...
ok, so i've been making a note of things i want to write here but keep forgetting to, so here you go. first of all, i don't think cars here have to pass smog, becuase none of them would. the chicken busses are especially horrible, spewing great clouds of black black smoke from their behinds. also, it rains pretty much every afternoon, around 3:00, but is warmish in the mornings. there are funeral homes everywhere, i'm not sure why. i guess maybe a lot of people die? who knows. also, everything here is super cheap (at least the stuff that i buy is). today kirsten and i went out with dulce to look for a sweatshirt for kirsten, and i told here that i wanted to buy a watch (i've been carrying around my alarm clock) and a calculator (so that i know how much i'm paying for stuff). i got the watch and the calculator for 10 quetzales each, which is about $1.40 each, and i also bought a bottle of water and a box of tic tacs for 5.60 quetzales, which is around 65 cents, i think. dulce also showed me a yarn store, and i bought two skeins of really pretty wool for 6.50 quetzales each, which is like 85 cents. also, a house call from a doctor is around $20. i like guatemala a lot. furthermore, i saw a gym called shaddai gym, and if i'm not mistaken shaddai is another word for god. the moral of the story is, the gyms here have weird names. also, when people answer the phone here, they say "alo?" and when they hang up they say "feliz dia" (literally, happy day). i'd never heard other spanish speakers say either of those things before. another thing i hadn't anticipated was the music. the radio is usually on in my house, and yesterday i heard "hollaback girl" and "another one bites the dust", both sung in spanish. it was hilarious, and dulce told me she likes the english versions better. for something completely different, last night i had a dream that sophie brinker (sorry if you don't know her, she's a friend of mine from band) was driving me somewhere in her car, and we were driving on a river, and then a great huge snake came underneath the car and lifted it up, and then we crashed into a family who were riding bikes on the river, and there was a little boy in front. then we went to a university to get medical attention, and part of my skull had been ripped off but they just put ice on it and told me it would be fine. anyone want to interpret that?so, last night another student came to live at our house, her name is sonia and she's 19 and she's from germany. she's really pretty, but also really quiet, because she doesn't speak any spanish and her english isn't great. she's staying here for three monthes though, so hopefully that will change. this morning we taught the girls numbers in english, which some of them already knew, so it was a little easier, but they were still really squirrely. in like 10 minutes yosta (i think) and i are going to meet to make a plan for tomorrow, when we'll teach them colors in english. today on the playground we played tag, but when you tagged someone you were supposed to yell "treinta!" i think, which means thirty. i don't get it. maybe i heard them wrong. also, the youngest in the class is 4, and anna, the old one, is 12. we had them all tell us how old they were in english, that's how i know. tomorrow night they're having merengue lessons here, i hope i meet some people so that i can stop hanging around with kirsten. she doesn't seem to mind, but i'd like to diversify my options a little. also, she's 27, i'd like to find some folks closer to my age. there's a guy who's also volunteering at manuel ortega named matt, and i think he's my age... anyhow, i know they're out there, i just have to find them.
hasta luego!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
photos otra vez
well, i didn´t mean to include this one, but i can´t delete it... that´s what´s inside my pillow.
the view of xela from outside ica
this is not the one i meant to post either... argh! oh well, it´s some volcano as seen from the bus window, that´s why it´s green.
photos
First day with the chicas
first of all, last night i went to a lecture here at ica about the war in guatemala that happened in the 70's, as far as i can tell. the man who was speaking joined the guerrilla army when he was 13, and was in it until the peace accords were signed, some years later. i didn't realize that this kind of thing was going on in guatemala, and he had a lot of really horrible, and a few nice, experiences to share. he spoke exclusively in spanish, and i was pleased that i understood the vast majority of what was being said - it appears that my spanish is coming back to me.so, today was my first day at the manuel ortega girl's school, and when the website said that walking into the school was like walking into chaos, they weren't kidding. i went with 5 other volunteers, and the four of us who hadn't been there before were assigned to classrooms. myself and another woman, whose name is... well, i can't exactly remember, but it was along the lines of yorfa (she's dutch) were assigned to one of the first grade classrooms, and told to teach english for 45 minutes. i've never taught anyone english in my life, and the other woman didn't know english or spanish that well, and the kids didn't have any experience with english, so it was a whole lot of, uh, what should we do? (i can't find the quotation marks, argh!) we started with good day (buenos dias), then very good (muy bien), and then we moved on to my name is (me llamo). after that one girl asked us how to say cat in english, and from there we decided to do animals. we covered cat, dog, horse, rabbit, elephant, lion, frog, chicken, chick, hen, caterpillar, monkey, sheep, and donkey (at least as far as i can remember). we had the girls draw pictures of all the animals and then write the name in english.
it's been quite awhile since i've been in a first grade classroom, but this class was nothing like anything i've experienced in the u.s. first of all, the girls were all different sizes, from a couple of six year olds all the way up to one girl who looked to be 10 or 11. also, those children did not understand the concept of staying in their seats while the teacher is talking. they were constantly milling about the room, talking to each other and asking me and the other woman questions. finally, the chaotic 45 minutes of english was over (i don't think any of the girls retained any of it) and it was time for recess. at this point, the rest of the volunteers left, because they had to get back for language classes. hey, someone just showed me how to change the keyboard so that it speaks english, and now my beloved " are back! hurray!
anyhow, i told the teacher, the kids called her seña yoli, that i didn't have any other obligations and could stay and help out after recess if she wanted me to, and that was fine with her. then a couple of the younger girls wanted me to go play outside with them, so i gave that a go. let me just say, if you don't know spanish fluently, a playground is not the best place to learn it. the girls were trying to explain some game to me that looked to be a variation of duck duck goose, but they were speaking so fast and it was so loud outside that i didn't catch most of it. they were trying hard to explain things to me, but they weren't terribly adept at substituting words i didn't know for ones i did, so we spent several frustrating minutes trying to find a game that i could understand. after attempting duck duck goose, we moved on to something that seemed to be a hybrid of ring around the rosy (without the falling down) and blob tag. we made a big circle around one girl, and then went around in a circle singing something, and then everyone unexpectedly ran away. the girl who had been in the middle grabbed me, and said that we were the lobos (wolves) and had to eat everyone else. that wasn't terribly, successful, so next we moved on to london bridge is falling down, which i understood, more or less. the tune of the song was different and it involved something about "here come all my children, and this one is the worst" at which point the girls with their arms forming the "bridge" would lower them around whoever happend to be between them. after that, the trapped girl was asked, "do you eat watermelon or oranges?" and then she would go stand behind one of the girls forming the "bridge" - one girl was watermelon, and the other one, oranges, apparently. then we'd begin again. after everyone had be captured and chosen a side (i went with watermelon), everyone started to push each other, like a reverse tug-of-war. i did not participate in that part, and had to give hugs and sympathethic looks to several girls who got their feet stepped on or scraped their knees or fingers. the girls spent the remainder of the break pulling each other's skirts up, something which was enjoyed by all (i'm wearing jeans, so i didn't have to deal with my skirt being pulled up).
after the break, we went back into the classroom, and the girls all started drinking atol, which is the color of coffee with cream, and apparently consists of four different cereal crops, corn, wheat, and two others i didn't recognize. it was warm and very sweet, and reminded me of pureed oatmeal. some of the girls also had large sheets (probably about 6 inches square) of something fried (they looked like giant tortilla chips, but thicker) smeared with ketchup, i think. several of them were also eating something pink and slushy looking out of ziploc baggies, like a slurpee sort of. the teacher didn't come back for quite awhile, twenty minutes maybe, so i broke out my camera to entertain them. the oldest girl, anna, wanted to take pictures of everybody, so i'm going to try to post those for you. yesterday the internet connection at the place with usb ports was down, but i'm going to go back there soon and try to put up photos.
when the teacher finally came back, she taught the girls about the "c" sound, and they spent the remainder of the afternoon practicing that and writing it in their notebooks. the teacher and the girls write exclusively in cursive, which i think is interesting. they also sang some songs, and were all very happy when i promised to come back tomorrow. the girls wanted kisses on their way out, and after i figured out what they were asking for, i obliged (most of them kissed me when i first came in).
that's all for now, and hopefully i'll get some picture up!
Monday, June 19, 2006
I´ve arrived
hi everyone, i´m finally actually here in xela. this keyboard is kind of weird, so don´t get mad when my apostrophes are actually accents, i can´t find a button that makes an apostophe on this computer. there´s a button for it, but none of the buttons do what they say they´ll do.so anyhow. yesterday morning i woke up at 4 in order to leave the house by 5 to get to SFO on time for my 9:55 flight (i made that colon using the period and greater than key. and i can´t find a slash either. oh well. so at any rate, i had plenty of time at the airport and arrived in dallas at about 2:50 texas time. i hung out in the dallas airport for awhile, and then took a flight at 5:17 for Guatemala City, which arrived at 8:30 Guatemala time. how long were the flights, you ask (can´t find the question mark! argh!) the answer is i have no idea. but i got here safe and sound, and that´s the important part. i was really nervous on the second flight and was having some little mini panic attacks, where my heart would beat all fast and i´d get all sweaty, because i was super nervous about being in some foreign country by myself and wasn´t sure that it was such a good idea after all, but i´ve sort of gotten over it. i still wish i´d found someone to come with me, but i´m surviving.
on the second flight, i was sitting next to a man who was going to meet up with his wife in guatemala, and we got to talking and i found out that he was in the peace corps in colombia after college, met his wife there, and stayed for 18 years. he was a really interesting man, and we stood in line for customs together and waited for our checked bags together, which was nice. sometimes i like to do things on my own and be independent, but in this case i was really happy to have an experienced male traveler sort of looking out for me. aside from that, the flying was uneventful.
after i finally got my checked bag (i think it must have been the last one off the plane), i went to meet gilda, who has a bed and breakfast kind of thing outside of guatemala city. the car ride was sort of awkward, because i´d just met gilda and didn´t really have anything i wanted to talk about and was mostly just tired, but it would be weird not to talk... so at any rate, it was just sort of odd all the way around. we got to her house and she showed me my room and then told me she´d have breakfast ready at 5:45 the next morning, since we had to go to the airport to pick up someone else at 6:15. i took a quick shower and climbed in bed. i´m not sure if i really slept at all, but the moral of the story is that i was awake most of the night at least. i had synched my alarm clock with the clock that was in the room, and it went off at what i thought was 5:15, plenty of time to brush my teeth and get dressed by breakfast time. however, it turns out that the clock in the room was about 10 minutes slow, so i was sort of rushed and didn´t really finish my breakfast. oh well, i didn´t know, and we couldn´t be late to pick up rachel. once we found her at the airport, gilda drove us to the bus station, helped us buy tickets, and went on her merry way.
rachel, who we picked up, seems nice, and it was good to have someone to talk to and sit with on the bus. she´s from san francisco, is 30 years old, and is an art teacher. the bus ride was pretty uneventful, we went through some pretty countryside and it was a first class bus, not a chicken bus, which means that it was not too crowded and the seats were pretty comfortable. partway through, my eyes got really heavy, so i thought i´d rest them for a little while, and i think i fell asleep, because when the bus driver honked really loud and my eyes opened again, i felt more rested. those of you who have been on long bus or car trips with me know that, much to my chagrin, i can´t sleep sitting up, so i was very surprised that i was able to, which just goes to show how tired i actually am.
the bus ride, which was supposed to be four hours, turned out to be more like 5, and therefore the person from ica who should´ve picked us up wasn´t there when we arrived in xela. luckily, there was a woman from another language school picking up someone else who called ica for us and drove us to the school in her pickup. i was a little nervous about that, but she seemed reputable, and she did get us there. had she been a man, i would not have gone in her truck, but i trust that women aren´t out to rape and rob me. maybe that´s a silly thing to think, but anyway, i felt safe and it was the middle of the day, so it was fine.
once i arrived at the school, i was instructed to go with kristin, another student, because i´d be staying in the same house as her. the house is about 3 blocks away from the language school, which is nice, and it´s clean and spacious, which is extra nice. no one was home when we arrived, but kristin showed me around a little, and then dulce showed up. krisitin just got here on wednesday, but she said that as far as she can tell, dulce is the one who cooks for us and looks after us, and she looks to be about my age. her parents live in the house too, but kristin said they work a lot, and she just met the dad yesterday. it´s not really the family situation i was hoping for, but i figured out that why i was put there was because i told them that i didn´t eat red meat, and this is the vegetarian house. i was planning on being vegetarian here anyhow, since i´m suspecting that the chicken i´d be served wouldn´t be organic and free range, and maybe wouldn´t even be refrigerated, so this is fine, but it will be different from living with a younger family, certainly. we had a tasty lunch of some sort of veggie soup and corn on the cob and tiny tortillas, and then kristin and i went to xela pages, a nearby internet cafe, so that i could call my mom and let her know i got here.
after that, i had been instructed to return to ica at 3 to meet with martin about my volunteer assignment. the interesting thing about ica, or maybe it´s guatemala in general, is that things aren´t terribly structured. i´m glad that meghan warned me about that beforehand, or else i´d be having a minor heart attack right about now. luckily, there´s another woman who´s taking classes at ica and volunteering at the girl´s school, so i talked to her and we´re going to meet at ica tomorrow morning at 8:45 and walk over together. aside from that, there are no plans. i´m supposed to introduce myself to the teachers and see who wants my help - there´s no assignment, no introduction by the school principal, i´m just supposed to try and make myself useful. we´ll see how that goes. luckily, i can use the free internet at ica, and can go on their outings on the weekend, so i´ll hopefully make friends and have a good time, one way or another.
i don´t know what i was expecting, coming to guatemala, but it´s definitely different from the u.s. for one, the light switches are horizontal, not vertical, as are some of the the stoplights (green is on the right). there are people walking around wearing traditional mayan garb with baskets on their head, like you see in pictures of guatemala. i don´t know why i wasn´t expecting to see that, but it surprised me. it´s kind of like seeing a celebrity, where you weren´t really sure that they´re actual people until you see them in real life. drivers are insane here, and i never ever want to drive myself anywhere in this country, i would for sure crash because i´d had a nervous breakdown and passed out at the wheel. luckily, i don´t forsee myself having to drive anywhere.
there are things that are the same as the u.s., of course. there are fast food chains (i´ve seen mcdonalds, a lot of burger kings, and a pizza hut so far), and we even passed a hooters on the bus, which i thought was hilarious. there was an aikido dojo and something called ¨gym scandinavia¨, which had a giant poster out from with very aryan looking people working out, which i thought was a little odd, considering that basically the only aryan people here are just visiting and wouldn´t buy a gym membership, probably. i suppose it´s because america is all powerful and everything, so maybe guatemalans figure that if they work out at a place with white people on the front, that will somehow make them whiter, i don´t know. anyhow, i thought it was weird.
there were also a lot of cows tethered by the road, which is not something i´ve ever seen before in my life, although there were not as many mangy looking dogs as i´d anticipated seening. there was also something called the autohotel kama sutra, which i think is interesting, and a ways down the road there was another autohotel, i´ll have to find out what that is.
my spanish is coming back to me, which is good. i´m going to try to put pictures on here, but i can´t find a usb hookup on this computer, so i´m going to try going back to xela pages and hope that their computers are newer.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
packing time...
well, i'm leaving tomorrow and we can't find the pepto bismol anywhere... i got some as a birthday present, and now it has disappeared off the face of the earth. even my mom can't find it (and she always finds stuff i lose). maybe we'll just have to buy some more... although i'll give myself a good kick in the head when i find it 6 years from now. also, i wanted to see if i could put pictures on here, so that's really why i'm writing this post... hopefully with picture.
haha, it works! hurray. hopefully you can see some guatemala pix once i get there.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Game Plan
so here's what i'll be doing, at least according to the ica language school website, which is guatemalaspanish.com :Walking into the Manuel Ortega girls´ school at recess is like walking into chaos. A welcoming chaos where girls come up to you to say hello, to practice the few English words they know and find out where you are from. ICAmigos volunteers work as teachers´ assistants in classes that have between 45-55 students. They assist in teaching math, geography, history, English and social studies.
ICAmigos became interested in developing an educational project within the city of Quetzaltenango after several years of experience working in the Bilingual Education project. Over the five year period of 1997-2001, we worked in the rural school, San Jose La Viña, which is located just 20 minutes from ICA . It is a school with more than 500 children and they had the opportunity to receive help in the form of math tutors, geography, natural sciences and English classes by way of foreign volunteers. In addition volunteers participated in ecological projects like cleaning up garbage in the community and reforestation. Although we now work in a different primary school, there are students who continue to receive scholarships for study.
The Manuel Ortega school is just a 3 minute walk from I.C.A. and provides volunteers with an experience in the educational field. The school has approximately 400 girls and the majority of families are from the lower class. The ICAmigos projects are organized in such a way so that one project can lend support to others. For example the girls receive the following help from other ICAmigos projects: medical and dental care, theatres and group activities in addition to participating in sporting events. During vacation in November and December the students who graduate from primary school receive an English course to help them in high school.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
We have had contact with an organization in Holland that sends volunteers every year to help in this project.
We have detected and treated a series of health problems with some of the students.
In a series of health campaigns volunteers taught students about caring for their teeth and in general in additional to regular medical visits.
We have had contact with an organization in Holland that sends volunteers every year to help in this project.
We have detected and treated a series of health problems with some of the students.
In a series of health campaigns volunteers taught students about caring for their teeth and in general in additional to regular medical visits.
If you like kids then this is a great project to volunteer with!
so there you have it. let's hope i remember how to speak spanish once i get there. let's hope i get better at understanding spoken spanish. let's hope i don't get robbed/murdered. let's hope i have a lot a lot of fun. i bet all of my hopes will come true. let's hope.
Monday, June 12, 2006
t minus 6 days
wow, i'm really going to guatemala on sunday. this is pretty exciting. just so that everyone knows, i'm planning on being pretty frank about what/how i'm doing, so i thought i'd begin by discussing what sorts of medicine i'll be taking with me.
to prevent pinkeye: eye drops.
to prevent bug bites: vitamin b-1, which i started today.
to deter bugs in my bedding/clothes: eucalyptus oil.
to deter bugs on my body: two kinds of bug spray, one all natural, one 100% DEET.
to treat the bug bites i will inevitably get anyhow: tee tree oil and neosporin.
to kill bacteria on fruit and veggies: grapefruitseed extract spray.
to kill bacteria in my intestines: cipro (a prescription antibiotic).
to treat diarrhea: pepto bismol and huang lian su (some sort of chinese herb).
i'm also packing sunscreen, an umbrella (my mom looked at a weather forecast for quetzaltenango, and it's supposed to rain my first three days there), a pillow, a sleeping bag (if it will fit), video camera, clothes, shoes, toiletries, lots of plastic garbage bags to pack up wet/bug infested stuff, a swimsuit, stickers and candy for the kids at the school at which i'll be volunteering and my family, and my high tech passport/money belt and streamlined handbag.
can anyone else think of anything i should bring that i haven't mentioned?
bye now!
Thursday, June 01, 2006
First Post
Hi everybody!I'm just writing a little something to see if this works... hopefully it will, and then i'll tell everybody about it, and then I won't have to send individual emails from Guatemala, I can just write stuff here and then you can read it! At least that's the plan.