Summer 2006

Friday, July 07, 2006

some last day photos

you have to watch where you walk in the street, or you might fall through.

she´s hard to see, but the sample driver´s license woman looks like jennifer aniston.

bake shop. yum.

yami, pati, liza, and i don´t remember her name

alanis, i don´t remember, and sarita

alanis, i don´t remember, dulce, and varicelli (or something like that)

i don`t remember this girl´s name either. but she´s cute, huh?

playing "campanita de oro", guatemalan "london bridge". i finally learned all the words to the song and i´m going to record them here for posterity:

campanita de oro, déjanos pasar

con todos mis hijitos, menos el de atrás

será sandía, será melon

será tu tata, ¡que está pelón!

doris and heidi, doris is eating the giant fried thing with ketchup i talked about earlier

alanis

sarita drinking atol

alanis again. isn´t she cute?

me, josta, sonja, and molly at dinner

amelia, hugo, dulce, and kirsten

my "family": dulce, sonja, argentina, me, kirsten, and juan

Posted by Sarah @ 4:13 PM :: (0) comments

last day in xela

well, this is my last day in xela, and it hasn´t been great. i had a good time with the girls this morning, even though ¨heads up seven up¨was a complete disaster, but i was sad to leave them. also, basically everyone i´ve been hanging out with has gone on the big school trip to copan, so i´m pretty lonely. kirsten, sonja, josta, and amelia all went, and i would have gone except for that my flight is sunday morning at 8:30 and at that point the group will still be in copan, which is a sort of long bus ride from the capital. had i known sooner, i could have changed my flight to monday, but i didn't, so now i'm just sort of hanging around here by myself.

i'm also feeling a little miffed at ica because every friday they give diplomas to the students who will not be returning for another week. i sort of expected to get one after last week, because i took classes and was not going to be taking another week of them, but i didn't, so then i thought maybe i'd get something today, since it's actually the end of my time here, but they just gave out diplomas and i did not get one. it really doesn't make that much difference, it's just a piece of paper and there are way more important things in the world to worry about, but i like to have closure in things and i feel like i've worked a lot and maybe deserve a little piece of paper, even if it just said "you volunteered". ok, well, now that i've got that out of my system, i can move on to something else.

last night several of us went out to celebrate our last night all together. kirsten and i chose a restaurant out of the lonely planet book called "restaurante las calas", and we got a group together to go to dinner. an hour after we ordered, our food finally arrived, and it really wasn't that good. i ordered spaghetti pomodoro, which claimed to have spinach and basil and tomato sauce and something else i can't remember, but it did not. it was just spaghetti and regular sauce. it tasted fine, but it wasn't anything to write home about (even though i just did). no one was terribly satisfied with the meal, and it took way longer than it should have. partway through, amelia and her cousin's friend hugo met up with us, and the two of them, kirsten, dulce, and i decided to go out dancing. sonja, josta, and molly (who used to be a resident minister at usf) went to go sleep, but kirsten and amelia decided that since they had to leave for copan at 4 am, they might as well stay up. we went to kokoloko's until 1, when it closed, and then we went to another discoteca, hektisch, for like 45 minutes and then it closed, and then we went to an "after party" that was someone's house that had been set up like a bar and hung out there eating spicy peanuts with lime (which i actually liked a lot) until 3 or so. it was fun, and kirsten and hugo really hit it off and are going to dinner together on monday night, but now i'm really tired because i only slept for 4 hours. all in all, it was a good last hurrah.

now i'm going to xela pages to upload some photos, but not until it stops raining. also, i want a baked potato with sour cream and cheese and butter but i don't think they have that here.

Posted by Sarah @ 3:15 PM :: (0) comments

last day in xela

Posted by Sarah @ 3:15 PM :: (0) comments

Thursday, July 06, 2006

pushing up daisies... and other graves

i meant to post this yesterday, but the internet died, so i couldn't.

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so, this afternoon sonja and i went to the local cemetary to have a look around, and it was really interesting.

playground equipment, guatemala-style

cemetary, guatemala-style (which is where i think most people would end up after playing on that play structure). this is the section for the not as rich people.

everyone has their own little cubby, and they don't appear to be arranged in any sort of order... also, notice how some of them have professional looking "headstones", while others are just written on.

this is one of the higher class family plots. however, sonja told me that her spanish teacher told her that a favorite gang pastime is to break the heads off of statues in the graveyard, hence the headless angel thing. it's all very spooky to me.

a mid price family plot, still cubby style but not in the giant lineup with all the others... however, this one has been tagged by ms13 (see it on the side?), and either there are still spaces or the bodies have been taken from two of the cubbies... since it's tagged, i have a feeling it's the latter option.

there were also a couple like this, which freaked me out a lot- they're like wine cellars, but for your great grandmother. some of them were unlocked, but sonja and i opted not to give ourselves the self-guided tour.

and then there was this one... this family had way too much money, if you ask me. i mean, really, a pyramid?

now for something different, this is liza, the real smart one.

this is pati, the smallest in the class... she's literally like up to my hip, and she's really cute.

here's me and part of liza... i gave my camera to ana again, she really likes taking photos, especially of me.

another one of me taken by ana... today we learned emotions, and i was demonstrating sad.

the yarn i bought yesterday, with my water bottle for size comparison.

another yarn shot... i really should be a professional yarn photographer, don't you think?

the armed guard outside the yarn store... see, i told you!

so, aside from all that... today was josta's last day with the kids, she and everyone else i know are going with the school to copan at 4:00 tomorrow morning. we brought bite sized chocolates, like snickers and twix and milky ways (the variety pack from costco) for the kids, which was a big hit, except for that i brought enough with me for everyone to have two, but i ended up 3 short. ana volunteered to get her second one tomorrow, but the other two girls who didn't get another chocolated didn't really volunteer, and one of them was whiny michelle. i explained to her that i would bring another for her tomorrow, but that didn't stop her from sobbing hysterically into my shoulder for a good 8 minutes. that child is so dramatic. also, ana is a really big help, because although she is a student in the class, the rest of the kids look up to her and do what she says, because she's a good 5 years older than the majority of them. she helped me pass out the second round of chocolates, which was a really big help because she knows everyone a lot better than i do and remembers who's had one and who hasn't. she's also really smart, like liza, and i feel bad for her that she's only in first grade - dulce explained to me that a lot of kids don't start school when they should, and that's why there's such a range of ages in the classroom, but i feel bad for ana that she got started so late.

here's another thing. i want to know how people decide whether or not to wear traditional mayan dress. i have a feeling that it has to do with their ancestry and how mayan they are, but like for example dulce's mom, argentina, wears the traditional mayan getup, but she and her dad don't. also, i've noticed that a lot of the moms of the kids at the school wear the traditional outfits, and i want to know if the girls do too, when they're not wearing their school uniforms. there are a lot of people around here who wear the mayan clothing, i'd say it's probably about 50/50, although i've seen maybe 3 men in tradtional garb, it's definitely way more prevalent for women, and older women at that. so, really what i mean is that about 50% of the women wear traditional clothing. maybe i should be an anthropologist and determine the scientific formula about who wears what down here.

today i discovered xela pan, which is a bakery chain in town. i've seen them frequently, but never went in. however, now that i have a day and a half left in xela, i have seen the light. everything is so inexpensive and delicious there! i bought two sweet rolls for .4 q total, which is a whopping 3 cents each, and something that looks like a downtowner with sugar but without the cinnamon (they're from gayle's bakery in capitola) for .8 q, which comes out to about 12 cents. as sonja would say, "woaw". it's probably better that i've discoverd the magic that is xela pan so late, or i'd be coming home 25 pounds heavier than i started.

tonight a group of us are going out to dinner to celebrate a lot of people's last night together in xela (tear). i'm going to miss everyone a lot, and i wish i could stay longer so that i could hang out with everyone more, but i do miss my family and friends from the u.s. and i'll be glad to see them too. really, i'd like to go home for like a week and then come back. but i can't. oh well, at least now i have friends to stay with in holland, germany, new york, and chicago.

Posted by Sarah @ 2:05 PM :: (0) comments

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me

so, #1, everywhere i go, whenever the address for something here is written down, it always ends with "guatemala, central america", or just "guatemala, c.a." why? is there another guatemala somewhere? i understand like with georgia, which is a state and also a country in africa, but i didn't think there were any more guatemala's anywhere. anyone have any input on this one?

#2, i found two yarn stores today and went wild, because this stuff costs less than a dollar per skein, and sometimes a lot less, and there was also an armed guard outside one of the yarn stores. why? the yarn is not very expensive, i just said that, and although there is a lot of it, it's all behind the counter and you have to ask for what you want, so it's not like theft should be a really big problem. maybe last year a woman who was on a bus but didn't get pulled off and patted down smuggled a gun into the yarn store and demanded $25 worth of it, pronto. who knows, man. this place doesn't make that much sense most of the time.

#3, for anyone traveling to guatemala ever, if you want cheap, reliable ice cream, pollo campero is the place to go. pollo campero is really popular here and it's like guatemalan kfc. probably it's owned by the same people, but the locals here don't really know about kentucky, so they changed the name. anyway, remember how a vanilla cone at mcdonald's was 3 quetzales? well, the cones at pollo campero are also 3 quetzales, but you can get it with chocolate, caramel, strawberry, or pina colada sauce, at no extra charge. i had a caramel one today and i really liked it a lot, it was well worth my 40 cents.

#4, i went and hung out with the niñas again today, and i had an epiphany: these children don't have worksheets. how weird is that? everything they do, they copy off the board into one of two or three notebooks that they have. i think they would have time to learn a lot more if they didn't have to spend their day copying math problems off the board, and instead could just write the answer on a worksheet. also, that would ensure that everyone was doing the same work, because only about 2/3 of the girls copied the homework, correctly and in it's entirety, off of the board, which means that only 2/3 of them will do it tonight. not terribly efficient, in my opinion. but, i also understand that worksheets for 30 kids every day is a lot more expensive than telling them to buy a notebook.

#4 and a half, i wanted to spend some time talking about three of the girls in the class. first we have heidi, who, as i discovered yesterday, cannot read at even close to the level as the rest of her class. she's socially well adjusted, and not a dumb kid, but i figured out that she doesn't copy stuff off the board, like, ever. today i sat myself down next to her and kept bugging her until she started to copy the sentences off the board that she was supposed to, and she does know how to write, she just has no idea what the letters mean. well, i shouldn't say no idea, she has a pretty good handle on s and the vowels, but with a word like "la cama", she's almost completely lost. i think her biggest problem is that she just never developed good classroom skills, and spends most of the class time talking to her friends instead of trying to learn stuff.

the next kid is liza. she's the exact opposite of heidi - she's always done copying stuff way before the rest of the class, her handwriting is impeccable (better than mine) and she's a really good reader. actually, she reminds me a lot of myself as a kid, one of those who religiously does all the work, and does her very best, which is really good and several grade levels higher than the one she's in. i've also noticed on the "playground", which is a fancy word for enclosed cement area with some plants, that she's well liked by the other girls, which can be difficult sometimes when a kid is so far ahead of her class, academically. she's respectful and honest, and a very easy kid to work with. now i understand why teachers always want the smart kids in their class - they're easy.

finally, we have lorenza. she's easily as smart as liza, and is very good at reading and writing, but is really easily distracted and tends to steal stuff from her classmates, several times a day, at least. doris wasn't in class today, and she's lorenza's main partner in crime, and the change in lorenza was amazing. she was still taking stuff from her classmates, but was much more focused on the classwork than when doris is around. she's like heidi and liza's bipolar love child; smart, but only applies herself to schoolwork selectively. maybe i should be a child psychologist or something, i find this stuff fascinating.

#5, i went to the natural sauna thing yesterday, and i almost had cardiac arrest because we had to walk for an hour and a half up this giant mountain, but sitting in a room full of heat from lava was really neat, and really hot and i felt refreshed and renewed afterwards, it was lovely. look at the pictures i took of it.

that's all for now, i'll be back in the country in 4 days!

Posted by Sarah @ 4:35 PM :: (0) comments

i can't think of anything to put here...

here's a better picture of sonja and i that you can actually see. see, i told you she was pretty. also, sunburned.

from left to right this is amelia, who i've gotten to be pretty good friends with, josta, and molly, who's a resident minister at usf and saw me wearing my sweatshirt and introduced herself. she's also attending ica.

this one is kind of dark, but it's josta and the kids singing "head, shoulders, knees and toes", which is a big hit, by the way. also, they're holding puppets that josta brought with her from holland specifically for them.

from left to right, this is doris, who's a big troublemaker, i can't remember the next girl's name, but she's really little and cute, and michelle, who whines all the time. they're all nice kids, though.

the choas of the classroom. see how literally half the students are out of their seats?

a cute little hut thing by the natural sauna

the door on the left leads to the sauna room

a pretty (although sort of dark) view from the trail to the sauna

part of xela from above

more of xela from above

ian, dulce, me, and kirsten. did you know kirsten and i have the same camera? it's exactly the same, isn't that weird?

a sampling of some of my shopping. the green thing i paid way too much for, but i love it and it's mine, so don't any of you go getting any ideas about it.

Posted by Sarah @ 1:05 PM :: (0) comments

Monday, July 03, 2006

oh yeah...

here's some more stuff i forgot to write. number one, now my voice doesn't sound like a man (i previously sounded like a man both during and after puberty) but i still have a pretty persistant cough. argentina (that's dulce's mom's name) has been very concerned about my cough and on saturday night we were all sitting and watching tv and she brought me a blanket and a cup of hot water with honey melted in it. it didn't change my cough that much, but it did make me feel like there was a mother who was taking care of me, even if it's not my own mother.

also... oh, i had ice cream in mcdonald's yesterday, because i was in the mood for it and mcdonald's seemed the least likely to make me die a slow and horrible death of intestinal parisites from bad milk. a regular vanilla soft serve cone was a grand total of 3 quetzales, which comes out to like 40 cents. also, the mcdonald's had an armed guard outside, but i think that might be because it was a cyber mcdonald's. yes indeed, with every happy meal or cheeseburger, you get 30 minutes of internet free. this place proves to be weirder and weirder every time i do something new.

dogs. i didn't see any for the first week and a half, but now i see them everywhere, sometimes in mean-looking snarly packs. some of them are really cute, and i saw one who reminded me of my dog gent, who's a cocker spaniel, and i really wanted to give it some food or something, it looked miserable and dirty and hungry. but i didn't, because i didn't have any food and i also didn't want the word to get out to the dog population of xela that i'm a softie, because then they'd never leave me alone. also, these dogs really can do some damage, some of them, i know because for the last two days there have been dead cat bits on the corner by my house. apparently tail and feet aren't good eating...

i also found out last night that i don't really like indian food. kirsten and some other students and i went out for dinner, to what is apparently a really good indian restaurant, but it was all too spicy for my liking. i had fun anyhow, though.

i really am having a pretty good time, no matter how complainy i sound about all the stuff i miss. i think i'm going to a natural sauna thing tomorrow to celebrate the fourth of july (not) so i don't know if i'll post or not. hasta luego!

Posted by Sarah @ 2:21 PM :: (0) comments

some more photos, etc.

just to let everybody know, along with laundromats, veggie burgers, and easy to use banks, i also miss san francisco busses. weird, huh, the things you think you´ll never miss and then you do. why i miss busses is that i had occasion to go on a xela bus for about 15 minutes, and it was horrible. firs of all, it stunk. really bad. second of all, about 3 minutes into the trip the bus was pulled over by several armed police people and all the men were made to get off. then, they were asked for their id and patted down, apparently there were armed criminals on the loose. on one hand, i was glad that none of the men on my bus had weapons, but on the other hand i was not happy that someone, somewhere did. also, i was still nervous that some of the women might have weapons that no one knew about. luckily, none of them pulled a knife on me and i survived.

sunset