Some Photos Finally!

Thanks for your patience everyone! Finally some pics! These took like :30 min. to upload so I am not going to add more tonight - but this is an idea of what we have here. The first pic is of the kids - this is the day the first ground was dug for the new school we are getting. The last 3 pics are of the hotel we have here adn this is where I live. I have 1 room in the hotel and the pics are of the common areas. I will try to get some volcano and sunset pics up here and also some tarantula pics.

Tarantulas, reggaeton, mud, coffee, and soccer

These 5 words sum up a lot of what has been going on in my life lately. I am happy to say that my outlook on life has been looking up lately and I have had a good couple of days. Firstly, I have to give a big shout out to Sara's family here in the community. Sara is our cook and basically unofficially in charge in teh eco tourism hotel. Slowly but surely I have become good friends with her. We eat breakfast together in the mornings and enjoy some coffee before starting the day. She is my first good friend here in the community and things really start getting better once you have some real friends, not just acquaintances. Her nieces come over at night and I bring up my radio and we rock out to reggaeton while Sara cooks for the guests. It is such a fun atmosphere! I found out that the town calls this family the "parranderos" - meaning 'party animals' because everyone in this family loves music, loves to dance, play futbol and have a good time. They have been so welcoming to me and I thank them so much for this.

Today I went down to Reu and did some shopping for food in the afternoon. In the morning, I was invited to go watch my students play a futbol championship. I am happy to say that they won the entire thing. We have the best futbol teams in this whole region - the little kids, youth, and adults! They all are increible players! The football game was held in another community and we walked over, carrying tubs of plastic bags filled with fresco for the other players. The field was pretty muddy and the players were slipping and sliding all over and I got pretty dirty as well trying to walk around and find a place to sit but it was all worth it. I hung out with Sara's nieces and had fun watching the game. The hottest fashion trend here are these clips of bright pink, blue, and purple fake hair pieces and I was given one by one of the girls, so of course I sported my new look at the game...and yes, I have regressed to basically a teenager here since everyone my age is married and really doesn't leave the house, so I hang out with the youth - it keeps me young :) I still can't believe how dressed up everyone gets for these games. I met all the kids in the school at 8 a.m. to find them all dressed to the nines with heels, ready to walk a mile on cobblestones to the other community. They are all putting on heavy makeup, lipstick, and doing their hair. I have my big black sunglasses with and immediately those are borrowed by the girls. They are all obsessed with the latest fashions.

After the game, I head down to catch the midday bus (Fridays there are 2 buses a day - YEAH) and head down to Reu to do some shopping. I get down at 2:30 p.m. and still haven't had lunch so I make a beeline for McDonald's (LOVE this here) and then head over to the supermarket. Then I make it back to the terminal and find our bus and ask the driver what time he is going to leave today (yes - no schedule - you have to ask) and realize I still have plenty of time to hit up the fresh produce section in the mercado. I buy my customary tomatoes, onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, and bananas and head back. I have the luck to sit next to one of Sara's brothers for the ride home and enjoy talking with him on the ride back to the community. I bought some ham and cheese and bread and plan on sharing this luxury with Sara and her nieces for dinner. We don't have refrigeration here, so ham and cheese is one of those maybe once a week treats. I get back and bring up some eggs, ham, cheese, avocados, and tostadas to the kitchen and Sara whips up some amazing omelettes for us and we all enjoy these followed by some chocolates from the US. It is these evenings that I really enjoy here in the community. It is amazing how food and music can quickly form friendships. I think this will have to become a tradition.

Other notes:

1. Tarantulas - at this point I have found 3 in my new room and luckily every one of them have been killed. Oh I hope there aren't any more. They are big and hairy and give me nightmares. Thank God for mosquito nets.

2. Coffee - I recently got an in depth tour of the coffee beneficiary and it is so interesting. I LOVE coffee so much and Don Oswaldo, Elfido's dad, who is in charge of the entire deal here showed me around. He is so passionate about coffee and knows so much - it is great working with him. What a breath of fresh air after dealing with Javier. It is such an interesting and exhaustive process getting coffee from plant to cup - and I love it. I see a possible future in coffee :)

That's about it for now. It was a good day and little by little I feel like I am making some headway in this community and gaining the oh so elusive confianza - the real stuff - no just the common courtesies.

Rollercoaster

So not every day is roses and butterflies here. I knew that going in. You often hear volunteers comparing this experience to that of a rollercoaster. Some days are amazing and other days you feel like you just got run over by a camioneta...what they call a bus here. Well, that was my Saturday. My counterpart is not the most upstanding citizen here in Guate. He is rather corrupt, irresponsable, machista, and a whole other list of words that I won't use here. Anyway, was had a tourism fair in Xela this weekend and he left me to plan the whole thing and every time I tried to talk to him about it, he would walk out of the room while I was in mid sentence. So, I show up at the fair on time and call him to ask where he is. Oh, he hasn't left the community yet with all of our display stuff...great! It takes about 2 hours to get there and finally he shows up 3 hours late after everything is under way with the organizers asking me where he is and where our stuff is...how embarassing. Finally he calls me, tells me he is at some intersection and I go over and he just hands me the stuff and drives off...no help at all. So, I proceed to work the whole day alone. Everyone else has tons of people from their community at their booth, me, no one, the lone gringa. Luckily my friends Amber and Steph were there and they hung out with me and were there to offer emotional support. Surprisingly my counterpart shows up at 5, right at the end, drops his 3 kids off in the booth for me to watch, don't worry about it, he didn't even ask, just drops his kids and leaves. So, I am about to freak out, but luckily my friend Amber sees this and we go for a little walk for me to calm down a bit. I am eternally grateful for my friends here in Guate. They are the key to my sanity. So, Sunday passes much the same way. My counterpart comes to "help" for a few hours, shows up at midday, orders me around a bit and rolls his eyes at me and then leaves, leaving me with his child again. Oh it is sooooo hard to work with someone that you have absolutely no respect for whatsoever. However, the good thing is it is teaching me to stand up for what I believe it and I am not letting him boss me around. I have forced myself to gather my strength and speak for what I believe in and not back down. I used to be afraid to do this but I am learning how to hold my ground in difficult situations and this is a skill that will be good to have. I am never one for conflict but at least this is teaching me the skills to stand firm and get better at dealing with this stuff everyday, but man is it exhausting.

So, after this bit of a downer blog, I try to think of at least 3 good things that happened to me each day to remind myself that life really isn't so bad...so here are my 3 things....

1. The ride in the back of the pick up back to the community. I really love riding in the fresh air and not being enclosed in a car.

2. Got to sleep in today until 7:45 a.m. which is a big deal in my world!

3. I have a computer now here at site and love being connected to the world again.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your support!

A big long update!

Ok, it has been awhile since I have written. The time has completely gotten away from me. I was in Antigua for almost 2 weeks with 3 days of training with one of my colleagues and then I spent the weekend there since it was too far to go back to site and turn around and come right back for Reconnect. Reconnect was a great time to get together with everyone from my training group and learn what everyone was up to after 4 months or so in site. It was nice to be able to get back and share frusterations and some success stories as well. The best thing about all of this is realizing that you aren’t alone in most situations. One of the most frusterating situations for me right now is the feeling that I can never be alone. I am a person that really values my alone time. It gives me time to recharge and step back out into the world and work again. Even right now as I type this one of the people from my community is sitting here staring at me wondering when I am going to be done, not talking, just sitting here. I told him that I had some work to do and that I should be done in a half an hour or so, hoping that he would take the hint and leave, but to no avail. This is typical. I could be happily in my bed, peacefully enjoying a Sunday morning, my ONLY day to sleep in past 6 a.m. and my counterpart will be yelling for me below my window at 7 a.m. Geez!! I mean, if my door is closed, that means I am not available. One of the issues is that I live in the hotel in the community since there is no other housing option available that meets PC guidelines. Hence, I feel like I am on duty 24.7. There is absolutely NO separation between work and my private life. It is like every time I do something, there is an interruption. I just pick up the phone to make a call and someone is yelling at me outside my window or knocking on my door. I decide to go use the restroom and someone comes looking for me wanting to have a conservation with me while I use the restroom. I have had full conservations with people while I am showering. They aren’t in the shower, haha, but yelling at me over the shower stall. I mean I have gone from privacy in the US to absolutely NONE here. I might as well be living in a glass box on display for all to see. So, that is my little vent session….
On a brighter note…here are some of the other things that have been happening in my life…
I am now teaching 2 English classes, one in basico and one with the 12 to 15 year olds. If some of my other work is frusteratingly slow, I do enjoy teaching because I can actually see some quicker results as the kids learn.
I will be getting a computer in about a week! I cant wait to be able to use Skype to communicate with everyone. One of the biggest regrets I had was not bringing my computer. It is going to change my life here. If there are any of you PC invitees reading this…bring your computer!!!!
I have the BEST family ever! I recently received the best box of goodies a girl could ever ask for…loads of high quality chocolate, the next vampire book Eclipse, magazines, MAKE UP, snacks, great smelling lotion, ohhh I was so excited to open up this package of goodies! Thank you to everyone. It truly makes a difference reading all of your notes and realizing that everyone is still thinking of me back home. Also, the beef jerky was a great addition! Not having refrigeration really makes one appreciate jerky. The lack of refrigeration has made me a 6 day a week vegetarian, but not by choice! I get one precious day a week with meat.

Random note, so I was shutting off all the lights in the hotel one night, taking advantage of the rare night when no one was here and walking up the steps come 2 guys in black, carrying rifles. Geez, it scared me! I was like, well, this is it! Then, I realized they were my 2 friends from the community and they were on nightly patrol. Turns out 2 guys from the community take turns and stay up all night guarding the community with rifles. Luckily these guys are my friends so I sat and chatted with them about arts and crafts for awhile, making earrings out of seeds and we hunted giant frogs for awhile around the hotel, but geez, I mean that is the kind of weird stuff that goes on in my life just about daily.
Another earthquake struck last Sunday. Again, lying in bed trying to sleep in, the ground starts shaking and I am like, ok, do I get up and run out of the hotel or wait it out and see if it gets worse. I made the call to stay in bed and luckily it quickly subsided. I am learning to hate these earthquakes though, you just never know and they really get the heart pounding and adrenaline going. There is no way to avoid it. It is like your body knows that it is fight or flight time and it is ready to move if necessary and fast.
People ask me what I miss the most and that answer is salad. I know this is weird coming from a forced vegetarian in the middle of a tropical jungle, but the weird thing about Guatemalan diet is that it doesn’t really include fresh fruits and vegetables. Sure, I can buy them in town and bring them up the 45 min trek to the community but in the heat, I have to eat them fast or they go bad, but there is NO PLACE in the community to buy or collect fresh fruit or vegetables. I have started a garden, but geez it is so weird that in the middle of this jungle while anything grows, they don’t grow fruit trees. I mean we have some fruit every now and then but I was expecting loads and there really isn’t any quantity. My diet, for those that want to know consists of eggs, potatoes, tortillas (that I make myself, by hand), pasta, oatmeal, and anything that can be mixed with tomatoes, onion, and garlic…oh yeah and pancakes. That is pretty much what I live on…and beans.
So that is my life in short lately. I must admit it was kind of rough getting back from Reconnect, living in a hotel for a week in Antigua with hot water, a washing machine, a television with CABLE, restaurants, and tons of friends to speak in English. The first few days back it was tough to get out of bed, but now it has been 2 weeks and I am settled in again. But oh some days I wish for the Easy Button. There is no Easy Button here, ever. But every day I get up, try to get at least 1 thing accomplished and if I can do that, I consider it a pretty good day.