Pictures from the past

Destiny Day

Pues…this Wednesday we found out where we would be living for the next two years. We were all damn excited and nervous, sitting around in a circle smiling like big dopes. Our APCD dragged it out as much as he can before actually telling us. I won’t say the actual name of my site here in case the unthinkable happens and someone reads this blog and tries to stalk me but I will say that my site is an aldea, equal to a village in the US let’s say, in the department of Huehuetenango. I am only a few kilometers from the cabezera (department capital) and am located near the Interamerican Highway. Roadtrip anyone? Bear? The aldea, according to my APCD is semi rural and a mix of ladino and indigenous, mainly ladino, with about 8,000 people. The climate is cold and I’ll be surrounded by mountains. However, Guatemala cold is not cold, at least I think not. Other PCTs were freaking out about having cold climates but I’m thinking, “Bring it on. I’m from the Chicago area. I love the snow. But not so much driving in it.” Since I’m not allowed to drive nor does it snow here, I will be just fine. Other tid bits about my aldea include the fact that the economy is agriculture-based and the main crop is corn. So…I am back in Illinois. Woohoo! There’s also a luxury hotel and a few NGOs in the area. I’m not going to lie, at first, I didn’t like the idea of being so far out, with a department boarding Mexico, but after looking over my information more thoroughly, I am pretty happy. In a few weeks, I will be visiting my site for the first time and I will have to look for housing. Then in less than a month I will be swearing in as a volunteer and I’m off to my site for…2 years! I will definitely miss my training town though. Today I celebrated with a delicious American meal of a hamburger and fries with Carmen while watching Germany beat Turkey in the EuroCup. It was so good but made me so sleepy for some reason. A couple of trainees went to grab some drinks and I had to back out within 15 minutes of getting there because I couldn’t stop yawning.

happenings

One more month until two more years

I admit that I’ve been pretty bad about updating this and for this I apologize. So much has gone on and at the same time I haven’t felt moved to write. If I could, if I had enough saldo (calling minutes) then I would call every single one of you and let you know what I am up to. But I’ll try to be a good daughter/sister/friend and update you as well as I can. I’ll start today and work my way back. Today I received a birthday box from Roy which floored me because of its sheer size, but then I opened it and saw all the goodies that were in it…dove dark chocolate, Swedish fish, my favorite gum, Sabritones, 1820 coffee, a journal, Neruda book, DaveChappelle, great music, etc. Basically, Roy, I was very touched. I felt very special and don’t deserve it but thank you immensely for thinking so highly of me to send me so many sweet things. I got home and I saw a DVD that said Texas Roadtrip. I thought, “No way…” Thanks, Roy, you made me cry. First time since I’ve been in Guatemala. It was so nice to see you guys if only on videotape for about 20 minutes. You guys are still as hilarious as ever. Jeiger bombs! Jeiger bombs! Thank you for everyone that wished me a happy birthday. Much appreciated. I was thinking about all of you guys on my birthday, and every day before then and to follow. Ok, now that I have gotten that out of the way, I’d like to talk about how this country has made me extremely accident prone. Today Carmen and I opted to not go up the pasarela (overpass) and just run across the busy highway because we were feeling daring. Turns out it was much more difficult than I thought. We made it across the first two lanes ok, waited at the median, then attempted to cross the next two. After a lot of jerky, hesitant moves, we ran back to median, with me heading straight for a huge green traffic sign, busting my dome and started bleeding. It’s not a big deal but it hurt and my audience was kind of large, so there goes my ego. Today the pain in my left ankle also returned. I think it may have been the 2 hour hike through the hills yesterday. Probably shouldn’t have done that. My ankle originally started hurting a few weeks back when I rolled it playing an intense game of basketball. It became swollen and like a fool, I decided to not take much medicine for it, barely ice it, play soccer the next day, go to Tikal where I did tons of walking, then went on field-based training where I had to walk even more. Yeah, I’m not the brightest in that sense. But I am getting better. The health care we are getting here at the Peace Corps Medical Office is fantabulous. I can go ask pretty much any question about my health and they take care of me. Also while in Tikal, I fell off the bus (not while it was moving) because of wet steps and bruised up my arm pretty badly. There have been other smaller incidents. I just need to be more mindful of surrounding conditions like weather, terrain, and giant signs. Aside from getting injured or sick here and there, I have been good, missing everyone but keeping busy which helps me keep my mind off of being without everyone I love. I try to go out around the town as much as possible because I have a hard time being in the house doing nothing. It’s a lot more difficult to do that since my curfew is basically 8pm here. Going out means walking a mile down the road to a coffee shop to get a smoothie or watching Carmen or local friends play soccer games, or going to Antigua where it’s so easy to blow all my Quetzales or going on walks around town. Last night was my friend’s birthday so went up into the hills where there is a basketball court and soccer field and talked and played Uno against a beautiful backdrop. I’m starting to get a little sad though because I basically only have two more weeks in my training site and then I am off to a different part of Guatemala. I’m going to miss my town, my family even though there have been some tensions, and my new friends. We’ll see how I handle it.

Other things that I’ve been up to:

the US Ambassador to Guatemala came to have a Q and A with us at the PC Office

visited a volunteer in another department for a mentoring activity for a few days; did a funny crocodile dinamica, played soccer and basketball, went to an English class, went to a parent-teacher meeting, crossed a river via rocks to get to the school, went to a kermes (school fundraiser), played volleyball and dominated

saw the Happening movie for my birthday (horrible); ate pepian and delicious manjar cake

ate sushi and watched some EuroCup games

participated in a Mayan religious ceremony in Iximche

started reading A Thousand Splendid Suns while putting off The Long Night of White Chickens

witnessed hail fall in my town (didn’t think I’d see that)

had a baby with Carmen named Concepcion Divino (mechanical baby from an agency called APROFAM); got hit on by more men with the baby than without

have become much more tan

have lost some weight (8 pounds to be exact)

ate sompopos (fried or sautéed flying ants)

have given some charlas and done many dinamicas

Happy Belated Father's Day~!

Father's Day is actually tomorrow (Tuesday) here in Guatemala but I just wanted to say that I love you very much, papa, and thank you for everything you do for me. Jelly belly, jelly belly. Bitter butter, bitter butter, bitter butter.

http://www.anabelly.com/

For good stories and pictures go to my friend Carmen's website (thecarmster.com)

Tikal and FBT soon to come

Top pic: doing my charla on being passive, agressive and finally assertive; in Ojo de Agua near El Chol, Baja Verapaz

Middle pic: Grant and I as munchkins for an intercultural show with a private high school; good times

Bottom pic: lying down on the grass in Mixco Viejo, site of Mayan ruins

A lot has happened in the past two weeks so hopefully I will be able to write about it soon without boring you to death... but I don´t think it will happen because these past two weeks have been pretty damn exciting. Love you guys. PS, my birthday is in a week, folks. Start sending the birthday cards.

Granted

Things I will never again take for granted…

Water: and not just hot water with good pressure (although I miss that so much too), but drinking water, brushing my teeth water, washing your hands water, flushing the toilet so that everything goes down water (if it doesn’t, you have to take a bowl called a guacal, fill it with water and use the increased water pressure to make it all go away); the thing with the water here is that it is pretty dirty, infested with all kinds of parasites so the tap water also known as agua de chorro is no good. You can get quite ill as many of us already have. Mainly takes the form of diarrhea. We can’t drink it and we can’t brush our teeth with it. So what I have to do is go to the back patio and fill up my water bottle whenever I need water. It’s called Agua Salva Vidas or life-saving water. If my family isn’t able to purchase it, they boil water. Or we could use the chlorine tablets or simply a little bit of bleach. I miss going into the bathroom putting my face under the faucet and just letting the water run into my mouth until my cheeks exploded.

Washer and drier: clothes are washed in a pila which is a basin where people brush their teeth, wash the dishes, gather water to boil, among other things. Yesterday I saw a little old man use the water to wash the mud of his feet. Some girls use the pila to wash their hair. So all the washing is done by hand and the clothes are stretched out. You begin to think that you are losing weight because all your clothes are beginning to fit you big but then you realize that you’ve either maintained your weight or gained some because of all the tortillas and bread that you have been eating. The sun is our drier and since we entered rainy season a couple of weeks ago, the drier is out of order. It can be days before I get my clothes back. Wouldn’t be as big of a deal if it wasn’t either super hot some days, leaving you sweaty and stinky, or wet and muddy other days, leaving your clothes dirty or musty from the humidity.

Toilet paper: you have to carry it around everywhere because you may have to use the bathroom while you’re out and about. Most public places don’t have toilet paper so it is vital to have the stuff in your backpack. For example, today we stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom, and the bathroom was pretty sick, as most public bathrooms tend to be, there was no toilet paper and you have to hover.

Coffee: I’m not a coffee freak but I do appreciate a good cup of coffee. How I miss you, Caribou Coffee… Guatemala is known for its delicious coffee…in the US or other foreign countries because they export the best stuff and leave the country with some pretty gross stuff. Not complaining, I’m just saying. Also coffee is generally really watered down and sweetened with about 5 to 10 teaspoons of sugar. However, there is a coffee place about a mile away from my town that my site mates and I walk to at least once a week to drink a good cup of café con leche. It’s about 10Q which is about $1.25. When we are too lazy to walk, we will have coffee at Café Margarita’s (my site mate’s house; she makes some good strong coffee with her host family’s coffee maker).

Music: Enrique Iglesias is definitely starting to sound good. Yea, I had a little thing for him my freshmen year of high school or was it 8^th grade? He had a concert in Guatemala this past Thursday and Carmen (sitemate/friend) and I really wanted to go but we were doing field-based training all this week. Anyway, every morning, I wake up and put on Alicia Keys. Specifically, the song Superwoman because right now, it is my Eye of the Tiger. Sometimes I’ll mix in a little Kanye or Nujabes. I’m on hip-hop kick and there really isn’t any here. Only reggaeton, bachata, and grupera.