Varied Miscellania

My dad asked recently what kind of food I'm eating. I would imagine that's a common enough thing to wonder about, and maybe others of you have been curious. As would be expected, I'm eating a lot of eggs, beans, rice, and tortillas. I have never been a huge fan of corn tortillas, but I can't get enough of them now. We have them at every meal, and I am already thinking about how much I'm going to miss freshly made tortillas when I get back to the States. We don't eat a lot of fruit, which I miss, but it's easy enough to get in the market. It's mango season now, and they are everywhere for so cheap, and really sweet and juicier than any mango I've had in the States. Avacadoes are also everywhere for almost nothing. We made guacamole last week for the school dinner, and we bought 18 avacadoes for 3 US dollars. I'm a big fan of how abundant, cheap, and incredible tasting the produce here is. I did, however, decide to start eating meat a few weeks ago. Not eating meat is a lot easier in the States where there are more alternative sources of protein, and once I started not feeling well, I decided at least while I'm here, I'll suspend vegetarianism. Starting out a vegetarian had its advantages, though, because now my family gives me the best cuts, I think because they're not sure what I'll eat (much to the disappointment and frustration of Anneke, the German girl living with me).

This week marks the halfway point in my time at the school, so I'll be here for five more weeks through the end of March. My Spanish is coming along well. I have noticed my English skills deteriorating, which is supposed to be a good sign in learning a new language, but it means that I'm beginning to have a difficult time communicating in either language. I've been enjoying the people here a lot, but the turnover is getting to be difficult for me. The transience of community, while interesting because it means lots of new and different people are constantly passing through, makes creating and maintaining relationships difficult since nobody ends up staying very long. Most people are not able to spend as much time here as I am, so it may be that I will have several different communities while I'm here.

This week was Carnaval, a Mardi Gras equivalent in Latin America. It is much bigger in Brazil, but is also celbrated here before Lent starts. They set up a fair near my house, and for days before, I could hear some of the worst pop music of the last 25 years from the States blaring a few blocks down. There was a giant ferris wheel that would not even come close to meeting American safety standards that I don't think any of the students were brave enough to try. The big thing here is to to throw flour at each other and break eggs filled with confetti called cascarones (made me think of you, D!) on people's heads. I walked through it for maybe ten minutes and left covered in flour and confetti. I think we stood out as gringas, and all the kids swarmed us through these narrow pathways between the stalls. There was no escaping them. It was also the 67th anniversary of the Xela soccer team, the SuperChivos, and there was a big party in the central park. Chivo literally means goat, but it's also what people from Xela call themselves. The team was there, there were families, people selling all kinds of glowing accessories like you can find at fireworks on the Fourth of July, and then a great fireworks show. People here love their fireworks! They shoot them off at any hour of the day or night for nearly every special occasion (special being loosely understood as anything from passing an important exam, getting a promotion, to having nicer weather today than the day before). I thought it was rapid gunfire or explosions near to me in the city when I first got here, but I don't even notice them anymore. Carnaval was fun, but the much bigger deal here is Semana Santa, or Holy Week, and I am really looking forward to those festivities.

Muñecas, Familia, y Juegos

Last week, the school took two trips, one to a doll-making workshop, and one to a women's weaving cooperative. I only have pictures of the first, and I'll do my best to describe the other.

The first trip was to Utzil Muñeca workshop (muñeca is a Spanish word for doll). The dolls are all made of recycled material to represent the traditional dress of people from different regions of Guatemala. The picture below is of the entire workshop. There were shelves with finished dolls for sale to the left, but this is their whole work space.

The picture below is the first stage. The base of the body is an old glass bottle, around which they mold the body and clothes from recycled cotton. The woman here was using cotton and some kind of paste from the metal pan to form strips out of which they would make headresses or other accessories.

The woman below is painting the skin color onto the head, hands, and feet.

Here are some dolls in the middle of the process, drying. They still need accessories like headresses or bags, and some of the women will get a baby strapped to their back.

The man here paints the details on the dolls' clothes. Some of the patterns are really intricate, and it was neat to watch him paint so carefully and delicately.

They had sample pictures of dress from many of the regions that he used as a reference when painting the dolls. There are some 120 unique patterns and styles represented in Guatemala, but they have picked out the most famous and most beautiful (though how they make such a subjective determination, I don't know) to make into dolls.

Here are three dolls from Quetzaltenango, the area I'm living in, wearing their day-to-day dress. Utzil also makes dolls wearing ceremonial or ritual dress. I see women wearing clothes like this everday all over the city.

Our second trip was to Trama Textiles (go to http://www.xelapages.com/asotrama for pictures and more information if you're interested). They are a group of about 400 indigenous women, and a few men, who weave textiles on a traditional backstrap loom. They were all affected by the 36-year civil war in Guatemala, either having lost a family member or been displaced from their homes. When we were there, they showed us the entire process, from processing the thread, to weaving on the loom. They also offer weaving classes, which I'm thinking about taking while I am here. If you go on the website and see something you particularly like, I can try to find it and bring it home with me. I think they're a great organization to support.

This is a picture of Secia (SAY-see-ah), the four-year-old at my house. My hosparents are her mom's parents. Right now, there are four generations in my house. My hostparents' son, daughter, and daughter's family have always been in the house, but this week, my hostdad's parents moved in with us. They must be in their 80's or 90's, and she at least, is expected to die in the relatively near future. People have been in and out of the house to see them, and because they're unable to leave the house, people from their church came to the house on Saturday and were singing and praying together in the courtyard. It is really beautiful to see communal living in the family and to see the church community be so supportive.

Every week I've been at the school, a group of students and teachers have gone to an enclosed soccer (sorry, futbol) field to play for about an hour and a half. It's about the size of an indoor soccer field, and it's fun to play up against the fence. We have a wide range of abilities, but it's always a good time.



This sign is posted outside the entrance to the field. It reads: "Pee happy, pee content, but please don't pee inside." I think it's pretty great.

Things are otherwise pretty much the same with me. My family bought a new water heater for the shower last week, and it felt so good to take a hot shower for the first time in weeks. The shower is heated in a way I have never seen before, but is apparently fairly common around Latin America, and perhaps in other parts of the world as well. People here don't have hot water heaters like we're used to in the States. The only hot water is found in the shower, heated electrically just before it comes out of the faucet. It is a little unsettling to have a fuse box in the shower leading to the showerhead, and the old heater used to spark when it turned on. The new one is much better, and I'm not afraid of getting electrocuted when I use it, which is always a good feeling.

My last week of classes was a little frustrating for me. I've heard the third week of class is difficult because you've learned enough Spanish to begin feeling comfortable, but haven't learned enough to be fully able to express yourself. I definitely felt that. I also learned three new verb tenses, one of which does not exist in English, and a lot of new vocabulary, all of which was great, but I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the end. I'm hoping to better integrate that information this week.

Yesterday I went to mass at the big Catholic church in the central park. It was great and really interesting because the Catholic mass is similar enough to what I'm used to in an Episcopal service that I could follow along for the most part, but because it was in Spanish, I also felt lost at times. I could understand a lot of the homily, which was pretty exciting and very encouraging. I think I'll go back, and I may see about getting a prayer book in Spanish so I can at least follow along with the Creed and some of the prayers.

I hope you all are well. I think of you often.

Following The Leader

In my last post, I said I would be going to some hot springs and then a soccer match over the weekend. I had a spur of the moment change of plans, though, and ended up going on an overnight backpacking trek (my first one ever!) to Santiaguito, the most active volcano in Central America. We passed it on the way to the beach a week ago, and I posted a couple pictures of it. The big mountain I wasn't sure about is Santa Maria. It blew for the first time in 1902 and took out several of the surrounding communities and the whole backside of the mountain, which is why it is so desolate. Twenty years later, it blew again, and formed Santiaguito. People think that Santa Maria won't ever blow again, but Santiaguito keeps going, and I've heard that it is actually getting more active. The eruptions themselves aren't that dangerous, though three volcanologists died in the late 80's while at the rim. The more dangerous effects are what are called lahars, which happen during the rainy season when whole chunks of the mountain peel away and devastate the surrounding area.

I went on the trek with two other students from my school through a group here called Quetzaltrekkers, a non-profit, all-volunteer organization that donates all its proceeds to a local school for street children, a home for runaways and orphans, and a clinic. There were also three Israeli couples who didn't know each other before coming to Guatemala, but had been hanging out together here. They had recently gotten out of the army (men have three years, women have two), and they said it's pretty common for people to travel when they get out. I wanted to ask them what they thought about the current events in Israel, but they didn't speak very much English and kept pretty much to themselves. When I finally got the nerve to ask one of them, it was pretty clear he didn't want to talk about it, and since we were all on vacation, I decided not to press it. It was fascinating to be with them nonetheless.

Here I am with the two other students from my school who went with me, Elly on the right, a fourth year medical student at Emory, and Lori on the left, a child life specialist who works at a hospital affiliated with Emory in Atlanta. It's fascinating all the connections that have been made between people thousands of miles from home.

We met at the Quetzaltrekkers office at 7:30 Saturday morning for a hearty breakfast and to load up our gear. They have a huge gear room where you can rent packs, sleeping bags, and even clothes, which is great for someone like me who didn't bring any of that gear with me. We took a microbus (basically a van with a few extra seats crammed in) all the way to the drop off site.

The trek began with an hour hike through a savannah-like terrain. It was late morning and the sun was pretty strong, but the walk was flat, so it wasn't too bad. Santiaguito goes off every forty minutes or so, shooting up a huge plume of smoke and sending huge lava rocks rolling down the sides. It was awesome to walk along and look up every once and a while and see a volcano go off.

Once we reached the end of the savannah, we entered the jungle at the base of the mountain. It felt so good to get out of the sun, and it was quite a bit cooler in the shade. We started going uphill, though, so it began to be a lot more work. I think I was carrying nearly half my body weight on my back, and it was pretty difficult.

This bridge is at the first lahar, a ravine left after the lava rushed through the terrain. I'm crossing it in this picture. This isn't the best vantage to see how high it is, but it was about fifty feet above the bed of the ravine, and was the most rickety bridge I've ever been on. Quetzaltrekkers donated the cement supports at the ends of the bridge. Before it was built, the locals would hike down the lahar and back up, and every year, some would die. We took the bridge one at a time and very slowly, but our guides said the locals just run across it. We saw a number of men carrying wood or their harvest coming down the mountain. It occurred to me that this is work for them, coming up and down the mountain, and in their leisure time, I would imagine they enjoy resting. We were doing the opposite, leading pretty sedentary lives, and paying to hike up this mountain in our free time. It's a luxury to choose to do this if we want, whereas for them it is their livelihood. They must think we're crazy.

The nice part about taking the bridge one at a time was that it offered a break once you got across to wait for the others. We each packed four of the 1.5 liter bottles I'm holding. One of them was for cooking once we got to camp. Our packs felt much lighter once we got rid of a bottle or two.


The jungle was so lush!

Once we got closer to the volcano, all the vegetation was covered in ash. We could feel it gritty in our mouths.

We hiked up a dried waterfall. I hope you can see how huge those leaves are!

Here's another lahar closer to the volcano. It's incredible how powerful the lava flow must have been to take out all that land. At this point, we were in the middle of a bamboo forest (that sounds like the setting for a fantasy or adventure story, which I guess in a way it was). I thought I had pictures of it, but I don't, which is too bad. Quetzaltrekkers are the only people who come up here, and they have to clear the path fresh every year. This picture is from their camp.

Here's the view of the voclano from our campsite. I don't have a picture of it going off this close, which I'm pretty bummed about. It was an incredible night to watch it! The moon was full and bright, and the sky was so clear, and the volcano put on a great show. Our guides said it was the best night they had ever seen. Once it got dark, we could see lava bubbling at the top, and the lava rocks glowed red as they rolled down the side. Even when it wasn't going off, we could hear it rumbling. It was amazing to be so close to such raw uncontrolled power.

Here we are resting in the jungle on the way down. It took maybe half as long to get down as it took to get up; we just flew down. The woman in the middle of the picture was our lead guide. I talked to her for about two hours on the way down. She lives in Eureka, California in a motor home on her boyfriend's land, working odd jobs and saving all her money to go backpacking. She was really great and pretty intense.

About twenty minutes from the end of the trek, we stopped for lunch at this river. It is warmed by the volcano, so it wasn't shocking to get into, but it was cool enough to be wonderfully refreshing after hiking through the hot, sunny savannah. There were local people swimming, bathing, and doing their laundry while we were there.
Here is the place where we got picked up at the end of our trek. This is Viejo Palmar, and was destroyed in the late 80's when a lahar rushed through the middle of it. This picture isn't great, but if you look closely, you can see the remnants of buildings on either side of the lahar. All the people moved to Nuevo Palmar, a couple miles further away.

We hitched a ride out of Viejo Palmar on the back of a pickup truck for about twenty minutes. We were crammed in, standing up holding on to the frame. They dropped us off at a little spot on the main highway, and we took a chicken bus the rest of the way. A chicken bus is essentially an old school bus whose apparent goal is to cram in as many people as possible. By the time we got in, there were three people in each seat, and we stood up in the aisle. For awhile, I was standing right over the driver, and some students were standing on the stairs leading to the door. It was quite an experience, but I think it was essential to do at least once while I'm in Guatemala, as it's one of the most common ways people get around here.

Today, I feel pretty good. I'm sore in my shoulders and on my hips where the pack rested. The most discomfort is in my feet, which are really blistered. I'll take the pain, though. The views and the experience were definitely worth it.

Muchas Fotos y Aventuras

It's been a bit since I last posted, and I have lots of pictures and adventures to share. First, I want to show you a bit more of the city and the places where I spend most of my time.

This picture is in the courtyard of my house. I'm standing between my hostparents, Juan and Marianna (I feel so tall here!). The door on the right is the kitchen/dining room where we eat our meals. The door on the left is where their daughter and her family eat/cook. We hardly spend any time in there. Juan sells gas in the tanks you can see behind him. I can hear them banging in the courtyard, and it took me a couple of days to figure out what the sound was. People come to the door and ring the bell all day. Secia, the little girl, says ¨Ding Dong!¨ every time it rings.


These pictures are of my room. I've been using my scarf as a makeshift curtain to cover the very thin curtains they provided.

This is the street where I live (My Fair Lady, anyone?). You can't see my door; it's maybe thirty feet past the door you can see on the left. This view is from the intersection with the main street where my school is.


This is the busy street near my house. My school is across from the Mercado Las Flores, the big pink building. There are street vendors here everyday, selling mostly produce, but also cereal and toilet paper, etc. The produce here is amazing! It is so fresh, and it sometimes even has the dirt still on it. It is incredible to look the vendor in the eye and know they were intimately involved in the growing/harvesting process, rather than going to a gleaming, sanitized grocery store completely removed from any of that. That being said, unless it has a peel, it's generally not safe to eat if you're not used to the water here. There are also a couple butcher shops along the way to my school. It's quite a bit different buying meat here than in the States where you buy meat on conveniently wrapped styrofoam trays that looks nothing like the animal it came from, making it easier to forget the animal altogether. Not so here. The meat hangs on hooks and sometimes looks uncomfortably close to the original animal. You can't forget that the meat you're eating was once a living, breathing being. While I very much appreciate that more direct, honest system of buying and consuming meat, I have to confess that I am glad to be a vegetarian here.

Here is my school, Miguel Angel Asturias. It takes up the entire second story of this building, and on the lower level are various stores. Asturias was a Guatemalan Nobel laureate in literature and also an activist in the 1960's and 70's against the dictatorships here. I would give you the link to the school's website, but it never works, so if you're curious, just Google the name, and you should find it.

This is a picture inside the main room of the school. At the end of every week, the students and teachers get together for dinner and a small graduation ceremony for students leaving that weekend. Everyone brings something to share and it's a great community-building time.

This is the central park (el parque central). Every town or city of a reasonable size in Latin America has one, and if it's big enough, like Xela, there are multiple. This is the one closest to my house. The picture below is of a church in the park. There was an earthquake here (I don't know when, sorry), that was apparently pretty forceful, and it destroyed the whole church except for this facade. They rebuilt the church around it, and while I haven't been inside, the outside is stunning.

The first Sunday of every month, there is a big market in the central park. It's mostly textiles and jewelry, much of which is handmade and gorgeous, but you can also find woodwork, toys, music, etc.

A group of other students and I went to the market together, and afterwards went to a cafe above the park. The picture above is the view from the cafe looking down on the park. You can see the blue tops of the booths at the market. Below is a picture of us at the cafe. The girl sitting next to me and the girl on the other end both live in Atlanta and have connections with Emory health care. The other girl is a fourth-year student at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Last Saturday, the school took a trip to the Pacific coast (la costa), and the rest of the pictures are from that trip. The first two are of a volcano we saw on the way. One side was incredibly lush, and the other was completely desolate. I'm not sure if that's from the volcano erupting or if it's from strip mining, which is pretty common here. It doesn't sound very intelligent to me to blast explosives on the side of a volcano, so it's perhaps more likely that the desolation is from lava or other volcanic effects. The pictures don't do it justice. It was absolutely awe inspiring in person.

Here is the beach (la playa). It's a black sand beach, which I had never seen before. It was sweltering hot, and the sand just absorbed the heat. I ran up from my towel to a restaurant at the top of the beach without my shoes on, and by the time I got there, I felt like I had lost a layer of skin. Needless to say, I kept my sandals on after that. The water was also really warm, which was nice at first, but after being in such incredible heat out of the water, I began to want it to be a bit cooler and more refreshing.

I have never experienced such strong undertow! It was great fun to body surf and get tossed around in the waves, but it was quite a struggle to get back up and stay up. After we had been in for a while, three waves came one right after the other with no time to recover between, and I began to get that panicky feeling like I was starting to drown, so I decided I had had enough for the day.

After we were done in the water and had some lunch, a few of us went out on the pier where people were fishing, mending nets, and tending to their boats. I got a shot of the waves crashing under the supports, and I don't know how the pier stays up against all that force, let alone how it was even built in the first place.

There was a flock of pelicans hanging out next to the pier. The picture doesn't give you a sense of their size, but they were huge.

This last picture is looking back on the beach from the pier. It was really cool to see the waves form out in the ocean and crash onto the shore from the other direction. Its power was both beautiful and terrifying.

Things continue to be good here. I'm getting to know the city better, and it feels really good to know where I am, where I'm going, and how to get there. The students at my school are all very nice, and I'm finding it difficult to strike a balance between forming relationships, which for the most part requires speaking English, and practicing my Spanish. If I weren't going to be here fro so long, I might be more concernced. I'm feeling good, though, about my overall progress. I've been learning irregular verbs, and I told my teacher that while I know there are irregular verbs in English, since I speak English, it doesn't bother me, but I don't like them in Spanish. He just laughed.

Later this afternoon, the students and teachers are going to play soccer (futbol here), and on Saturday morning, we'll go to the volcanic hot springs up in the mountains. Also on Saturday, the Xela soccer team is playing against Guatemala City. I've heard that Xela wins nearly all its home games because the team is used to playing at such a high altitude and in cooler weather. Guatemala City is like the Yankees, though, and they can give Xela a run for their money, so it should be a good game.

I hope you are all doing well. I'm off to the central park to study some irregular verbs.