Lots of updates

Okay, folks. This was a long time coming. Apologies all around. I'll pull a CNN.com for those of you busy people and everyone who has a short attention span:

Story Highlights:
-Officially an "early return for medical reasons", i.e. my post was terminated in Guatemala.
-Currently getting massages for tension in my head, shoulders and neck that cause a lot of pain but, I think, are working.
-Was taking painkillers for 3 weeks but have stopped yesterday due to side effects.
-Still have constant headaches but they are less severe. More dizzy, having trouble speaking clearly, and had a weird episode of mixing up words. I'm hoping those were just due to the painkillers.

Alrighty, so on Nov 18, I got an email from CUSO that my post was going to be terminated because after 3 months of medical leave, your contract ends. We considered just postponing my return, but when we found out my next neurologist appointment is Feb 17, it was decided that was too late. Cecilia originally proposed a January return date, which obviously cannot happen.

All of my things, essentially, are still there. Carola is incredible and has packed up my stuff to ship back here next week. Hopefully the bank is able to transfer my funds to my account in Canada.

I'm currently volunteering at the Red Cross. I went in the last two Wednesdays to do research for different projects. It's hard with the massages to try to schedule things during the week since the day after my massages tend to be pretty terrible in terms of pain in my head and shoulders.

I've been getting massages twice a week. We're going to try reducing that to once a week. They're painful during and after. Last Thursday, my massage was very intense and I spent the next 4 days in a lot of pain. However, my headaches have lessened and I think the massages are responsible for that. I've managed to find time to work out most days, so I'm feeling healthier because of that, as well.

I got an apartment downtown. I'll be moving on January 1. Very excited. I'll be playing intramural volleyball at the University of Ottawa, right by my new place, which should be lots of fun!

I have no concrete updates on work or anything. I'm hoping to get a job with a development organization in Ottawa once I'm feeling better. I have no clue when that will be. Right now, I'm just booking a few short modeling shoots to get some extra cash while I wait for my Guatemala money!

In random personal news, I've been knitting up a storm. I have a lot of projects on the go. I ordered in beautiful needles for my birthday (thanks Lolo and Lola!). I'm also making [tomato, celery, carrot, meat, food colouring-free] soups and [wheat-free] breads. Now that it's freezing outside, I'm craving Guatemalan food less, which is helping my quest to eat more local food. And I get to take Mom's breadmaker with me to the new apartment. Score!

Jessica and I went to the rally for a coalition government yesterday, which was wonderful. It's a wild time in Canadian politics. Never thought I'd say that. Here are some of my favourite quotations from non-Canadians that were published in the Globe and Mail today:

"Only in Canada could they replace the least charismatic Prime Minister in their history with the least charismatic man in the universe. A coup in which whatsisface overthrows whatsisname."
- Babel69, Guardian.co.uk

"I'm loving this! This is the best news since our own election ... Go, Canada! Go, Canuckians! Holy Jumping Poutine!"
- mattman, DailyKos.com

"If this parliament was a dog it would be brought out behind the shed and shot. Rabid dogs aren't reformed, given second chances or trusted ever again."
- Rick Mercer, Rickmercer.com

The winner in my eyes (of course):
"It seems that Canadians are experiencing what we Americans experienced under 8 years of Bush. We are extremely relieved that there is now a change of guard. Keep knitting, it alleviates the stress."
- Monique, yarnharlot.com

21 years on this earth and counting

Well, I can't say I ever expected to be at my parent's house with a raging headache for my 21st birthday. At midnight, I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep through the pain of this stupid headache that has plagued me for nearly 3 whole months. While lying in bed this morning, awake since about 9:30am but lying in bed because of the pain, test messages flowed in, mostly from Toronto. Jeffrey finally got me to get out of bed after noon, after getting Brendan (who has a PD day from school today) to give me the phone.

I was surprised by a super phone call via Skype from Tiana! It's so cool to talk to someone live who is in Burkina Faso. The quality wasn't great, but it was cool to hear her little sick voice nonetheless. (Everyone spare some of your "healthy thoughts" for T so she can be nice and healthy to hang out with some other Canadians this weekend!)

My evil formerly-twin cousin Shawna (for some reason we look less like each other and more like our mothers every year) bought me "This is Spinal Tap". She thinks she's funny. I laughed, anyway. So every time I look at the cover, I can remember the worst 5 minutes or so of my life!

Last night, Dad, Mom, Bren, Jeffrey and I went to Mongolian (my favourite restaurant) and then to watch Madagascar 2. It wasn't as great as Madagascar 1; however, the first was about animals that escape the cushy NYC Central Park zoo to end up in the wilderness, so it was much more relevant to my life at the time! (I watched it with the kiddies in Guatey.) Tonight, I'll be watching Bren's hockey game all the way out in Orleans with the same crew. Obviously I wore earplugs to the movie and will do the same for the hockey game! Best invention ever. Earplugs have gotten me through living in residence, getting through Greyhound rides back and forth between Ottawa and Toronto, sleeping in the rainforest and surviving this stupid headache!

Anyway, onto the health stuff that people ask about. I saw a neurologist bright and early on Thursday morning. Mom and I were extremely early for once and nothing was open, so I knitted while sweating buckets in the waiting room. Our house is freezing cold so I'm really warm when I'm anywhere else (except maybe outside...stupid Ottawa!). If I do end up going back to Guatemala, I'm going to MELT. Okay, back on track. So she was awesome, asking me tons of questions and doing a lot of reflex and mobility-type tests. It was lovely to be with a doctor who took her time and was generally very nice. I think it's also a great sign that she took out her little supplies from an extremely well-loved little leather case. Makes her seem really experienced, haha.

Diagnosis? Well, she's going to get some radiologists to check out my MRI. She kept my MRI and CT scans and photocopied the results of tests and the list of drugs I was on in Guatemala. If anything interesting pops up, I'll get a call. In the meantime, her current theory is a tension problem in the right back of my neck. Most of the pain is concentrated in the back right part of my head. When she put pressure on my neck with her hands, I could feel the pressure much more on my right side than the left side. I thought she was just pushing harder there.

The current treatment plan is new drugs (Mom has the name...) for my pain and prescribed massages for my neck.

Mom thinks our trip to Belize might have done it. It's probably the first time in my whole life where I was really relaxed. My theory is, after getting totally relaxed for the first time, we experienced this:





We're both mostly kidding, especially since we don't know if she's actually right.

So now I wait 6 weeks to see her again. In the meantime, I'm supposed to take these pain pills daily, bumping up my dose once a week if they aren't working. This means Christmas is going to be spent in Canada, which is definitely not what I expected. The best laid plans 'eh.

No update on what is happening with my work/co-op situation at the moment. I promise I'll post on here if anything comes up on that front.

Carola is the best and put a bunch of stuff in my bedroom that was in the dining room area (i.e. the area with 3 walls) and saved it from almost certain destruction from wind, rain and rats. Yay! Let's hope my journal survived. I think it'll be great to read back on everything that happened. My goal for my 21st year is to start writing something, anything, in a daily journal. Maybe it'll keep me from rambling so much in my blog!

Still stuck in limbo

Well, more tests came back negative and the hospital lost some stool samples. I went to the travel doctor again last week and he made a referral for me to see a neurologist. The appointment hasn't been made yet. I'm really hoping she can squeeze me in soon! According to my travel doctor, the causes are most likely my malaria pills, a virus or a neurological problem, in that order.

It's pretty frustrating at this point because I don't know what's going to happen with my year, my placement and my thesis. I haven't been at work for nearly two months now. Aye aye aye.

It's been nice spending time with the family, Jeffrey and friends. Unfortunately, most of my friends are in Toronto or on other continents. I still have my Toronto cell, however, so texting has been pretty sweet. 416-280-1842 -I'm textable! Unless you're Francis or Tiana. Boo.

I'm still knitting up a storm. I actually managed to knit a toque and 1 1/2 mittens. Almost a pair!

links to check out

Nothing new to report. I'm just waiting on some more results to see if it's some parasite thing. We shall see. Bored as heck sitting around at home all day, knitting and watching TV with the volume down. It's annoying because the only going out that I do is to doctor's offices and occasionally grocery stores/pharmacies. It's too loud basically everywhere. I watched an intramural volleyball game at UofOttawa (Jeffrey and Jessica's team) and my head was really killing me afterwards. So I'm stuck in the house, doing a whole lot of nothing.

Last weekend, Jeffrey and I drove up to the cottage and hung out with Grandmaman and Poppa for an afternoon and dinner, which was really nice. Hopefully I have time to go up and visit again before I go back (?) to Guatemala. Unfortunately, after dinner, I was pretty sick so we had to speed to the depan

Update email from Carola informed me that my little puppy has gone missing. Audelio likely has Coquette, someone told her this week, which is a relief. He's a sweetheart so hopefully she'll be nice and healthy when (?) I return. And hopefully he'll be so attached he'll want to be her new dueño (owner) when (?) I leave.

Anyway, just a few things that I thought were cool to share with you all:

Google making an official statement against Proposition 8 to constitutionally ban gay marriage in California: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/our-position-on-californias-no-on-8.html

Palinisms: the Sarah Palin Random Quote Generator (don't forget, the VP debates are Thursday at 9pm EST!) -Facebook blocked me from posting this or putting it in my status.
http://palinquotes.awardspace.com/

my Tita Gina's travel blog about her trip to Italy! Warning: it made me very hungry
http://ginahall.blogspot.com/

It's a neat time to be in Canada, getting to watch all of the election coverage on both sides of the border. Makes it less boring than it would be, anyway.

Hope everyone else is doing well and having fun wherever you are. If anyone would like a scarf, let me know :)

back in Otown

Continuation…

So that Wednesday, I went back to the doctor who told me that it most definitely was dengue and I just needed to wait a couple of days and then it would go away. Thursday, I was still feeling the same, headachy and tired. After dinner, all of a sudden, the world started to look different. I got this dizzy feeling like things were moving slower than my eyes were moving. Freaking out, I called Carola and Katie. Carola called around to get me a car and we were off to the Hospital Privado in Santa Elena, the best private hospital in the area.

Well, they checked all my vitals and I was looking normal except for the dizziness and headache. Scared to go back to the Cooperative, 40 minutes away from the hospital, they admitted me to stay overnight. After talking to CUSO, we determined that I would take the first plane of the day on the Friday to Guatemala City to seek treatment there. Carola went back to the Coop to pack some of our stuff to take with us to Guatey.

So they hook me up to an IV, wheel me to a room and plop me into bed. When they hooked me up to the IV, the nurse said “now, take a deep breath”. By the time I translated that in my head, the needle was already in. But one of the students who was observing had taking a gulping breath watching the whole thing happen and it took a lot for me to not laugh outloud. Twice during the night, my IV started leaking fluid and blood. To get their attention, I had to wheel myself (remembering I’m really dizzy) down 2-3 hallways. I had an argument about insurance with their secretary when she came in at like 3 in the morning to discuss it. The bathroom had a dripping shower and reeked of mould. The dripping kept me up basically all night. There wasn’t any soap in the bathroom. The AC was broken so it was either full blast or off.

In the morning, after ripping me off totally for the room ($300 for the night), they started arguing that I should pay in cash. Um, I don’t carry $300 worth of Quetzales around with me! The insurance told us they’d call them but after waiting over 40 minutes for a Spanish speaking person at the insurance company to call, I was going to miss my flight. They refused to take the IV out of my hand until 8am when my plane (which I didn’t have a ticket for) was scheduled to take off at 8:30. Fortunately, around 7:45am, the IV started leaking on its own so they really didn’t have much of a choice but to take it out anyway. I stormed out of the hospital as soon as I could while Carola waited what felt like an eternity for a doctor to show up to sign the forms. If I had a medical emergency, there wasn’t a doctor around to deal with it anyway!

He took forever, filling out this long explanation of everything they’d done…in Spanish on the insurance form that says “Must be completed in ENGLISH or FRENCH”. Which is stupid on the part of CUSO for having insurance that can’t be done in Spanish. The nurses had told me at the night that the doctor spoke English. By “speak English”, they meant he could say “Good morning”. Literally. Way to get my hopes up.

Anyway, Carola and I managed to just catch the flight. Despite attitude from the airline (the guy looks at his watch, squints at us, “hm, this is pretty late”. They hadn’t boarded yet and it’s a tiny airport where most people show up like 20 minutes before the plane leaves anyway) and difficulties paying by credit card (What? You don’t have $200 in cash?), we got on the flight. We were met by Dina, an awesome Guatemalan CUSO cooperant, at the airport.

Dina was invaluable throughout my experience in Guatemala City. It’s so confusing and figuring out things like cabs, which have a fixed price in Santa Elena, and where to eat would have been another stress on top of being sick. Dina rocks and I plan on visiting her again in Guatemala. Also, she’s very demanding and speaks her mind, which was EXTREMELY useful in the hospital.

I went to Centro Medico to get checked out. Right away, they did a tomography and some blood tests. We had a lot of problems with insurance (hospital’s fault) which meant I was in Emergency for over 9 hours. Not so bad for me, except I had to pee every 10 minutes because of the IV and I had to unhook my IV and walk across Emergency every single time. But poor Dina and Carola had to stand! There were no chairs except one really uncomfortable stool that they rotated. And, trust me, we asked. Some of the nurses were kind enough to get me dinner even though my insurance wasn’t figured out yet.

In the end, CUSO ended up Western Union-ing over thousands of dollars to put up as a guarantee at the hospital because they wouldn’t accept our insurance company. (Props to Tina from MEDEX for trying like crazy, though!) Without CUSO’s help, I would have had to try to pool all of my cash and credit cards to cover it, which barely would have done it. I already spent $600 of my own money on treatment and plane tickets (which will be reimbursed) and the $3000 guarantee needed by the hospital would have cleaned me out. (In the end, my treatment ended up costing MORE than that!)

The hospital was very nice. Great facilities, most of the nurses were great. The doctors frustrated me immensely. My main doctor lied to my face about what was wrong with me, I think to get me to stay in the hospital so he could keep making money off me. He told me that I had a cerebral edema and needed to stay in the hospital for treatment. Well, I now have a copy of that test which is totally normal, including a statement by the radiologists who say my brain is totally normal looking. He also told the insurance over the phone that he had done all of the tests he could do, when I had just gotten a second opinion from another neurologist who listed a number of tests that hadn’t been done and asked me why they hadn’t been done. And after that doctor told the insurance he’d done all the tests he could do, (within MINUTES) he ordered a battery of other tests. Uh…okay.

On the 7th or 8th, my headaches were really painful and none of the medication they were giving me was working. So to relieve pressure in my head and check for other evil things in my body, they did a spinal tap. HELL. Imagine having a needle in your spine and then having a doctor calling out instructions to you in Spanish when you’re only at a conversational level. It was awful. I was bawling and they finally got Carola back in the room to show me, on the floor, and describe in more simple words how he wanted me to move. MOVING WITH A NEEDLE IN MY SPINE. And because I was too tense (ya think?) they had a brutal time getting the needle out of my spine. It was a drill to get it out. The sound and feeling of a drill. Today, a week later, the most pain that I have is just recovering from that spinal tap. My headache did get better afterwards, but I think the brutal pain of my back just made the headache not seem so bad, haha. Nothing was abnormal in the spinal tap.

In the end, both of the doctors at the hospital determined that my headaches and dizziness were caused by depression. Their reasoning? I am a young woman who doesn’t live with her parents or husband and I eat a lot. Without telling me, they put me on a pill for manic depression. Fortunately, I got Mom to look it up (they never directly answered the question about what it was for, saying to take it before bed, implying it was a sleeping pill) so I didn’t take it on my own. Culturally, to them, they couldn’t understand how a young woman would actually want to go to a foreign country by herself. And the food thing is just weird –I’m an active person, so I eat a lot! Considering I’m on the lower end of average weight for my height, I don’t see how this is an argument at all. Plus, I’m very content with my life and one of the happiest people I know. Not so much on the depression.

After hearing that, the insurance company was adamant that I get back to Canada for testing and treatment. On Sept 9, I left the hospital and went to a hotel. I spent a day and a half bumming around with Carola. On Sept 11, with a nurse from Flying Nurses International (such a cool idea!), I came back to Ottawa. Kathy, a nurse from Philly, met me in the hotel the night before and we took off bright and early. She stayed with me to check my blood pressure and pulse a couple of times a flight and make sure I got a wheelchair to get me through the airports. Mostly, she kept me company. She would like to apologize on behalf of her country for George Bush. She said at least half a dozen times “I didn’t vote for him”. Haha. Cool lady.

On the 12th, saw Mom’s doctor. Did some tests which all came back normal.

Got very sick on Saturday and went to the hospital Sunday morning. Had some more tests done there. Results will be back today or tomorrow. I’m now feeling better, just with the headache and dizziness still.

It is almost certainly some sort of virus that, unless my conditions deteriorates to the point where they think I’m dying, will never be identified. I just have to wait it out. What this means for my placement, I have no idea. I want to go back to Guatemala, I intend on going back to Guatemala.

It’s been 3 weeks of this headache and it’s been incredibly frustrating. Glad to be home now with people to take care of me. A washing machine, big blankets and no bugs…ah. And a flush toilet! You knew I was going to bring that one up.

It’s very emotional being back. When we walked in the door from the airport, poor Jeffrey and Mom had to watch while I broke down. With only 2 days to mentally prepare to come back…I can’t describe it. And the reverse culture shock has been tough. I was in awe in the airports at how clean (and cold!) everything is.

Mostly this experience has made me very sad for the average person in the 3rd world. Who can afford what have now been many thousands of dollars for tests, hospital bills and travel expenses? We discovered that my positive dengue result from the lab in Santa Elena was wrong. So people are spending their Q100, which probably means less food on the table, to be tested in a dirty lab where their results are likely not even accurate! Also, a false positive could mean that something else is wrong with them, like malaria, that needs to be treated but they’ll go home just thinking they have dengue and will try to wait it out. A night in the hospital at $300…I don’t think I know anyone in Guatemala who has $300 lying around. I had people at the Cooperative to drive me to the hospital at 9pm. The microbuses that many people rely on stop at 6:30pm. You can’t just call a cab or even if you could, you likely couldn’t afford to have it drive you into town.

They do have a public health care system, which is known to be horrendous. The private health care I got in Santa Elena appalls me. I can’t even imagine what the public one is like. If you don’t have dengue, malaria, parasites or pregnancy, they have no idea what to do with you. At the cooperative, they have a trained “nurse” at the clinic who took my blood pressure incorrectly. All of these things are adding up to a population of people who can’t afford treatment or are getting the wrong treatment based on inaccurate diagnoses.

I am so grateful to be in Canada with our health care system and to have access to health insurance, both for travel and prescriptions.

mini-update from a sickface

So I left work a bit early last Monday because I was feeling really drained and exhausted. Figured I was coming down with a bit of a flu or something. Wasn't feeling better Tuesday, so stayed home. Well, Wednesday the bad morning migraines started. Thursday, went to a clinic to get tested for dengue, tested positive. Went to a doctor, who was very nice and calls me Angela with a hard "g" which I never hear down here, who diagnosed a UTI based on the tests but said I didn't have dengue because I have no fever. Talked to Dr Wise, the program Dr in Canada, who said I probably DO have a bit of dengue because of the pain in my head. This pattern of terrible night and morning headaches continued with constant head pain during the day -just enough that it's hard to read, i.e. WORK. Went back to hard "g" doctor who prescribed migraine stuff and some anti-allergy stuff for a rash I had on my arms on Monday.

Well, this stuff didn't work at all. So Tuesday, back to Santa Elena I went, to a different Dr (after a whole day of figuring out going to Guatemala City with the university, CUSO and insurance, someone mentioned this good doctor!!! ARGH. It was frustrating) who said it could very well be dengue without a fever. Just to be safe, I'm being treated for malaria which sucks hardcore.

Basically, I'm tired, have a constant migraine, can't sleep because of the pain and am bored as heck. My computer power cable broke so now I can't even watch some movies or write blog entries to kill the time. Hoping that it's over soon because I'm eager to get back to work and hanging out with the kids. The sound of them laughing makes me cringe now because of the headaches, which is too bad.

In other news, Coquette brought back one of her stolen puppies last Wednesday. Today, she followed me onto the microbus and refused to stay at the Cooperative. The only option I had was to leave her on the highway where she inevitably would have been run over by a truck. So she is currently at my feet after a frustrating afternoon lugging her around. Pictures to come soon!!

Missing Canada a lot, especially the medical system, at the moment.

"It's like camping!" - Mom's visit from Ange's perspective

Wow, so Mom’s really gone! My house is so quiet!!! After she left, I talked to Jeffrey for nearly an hour, called Erin and talked her ear off for a while after work and then blabbed away to Jeffrey again for a while. So I’m easing myself back into the routine of not really talking much.

Anyway, here’s an update on our 2 week adventure from my perspective. If you want the short version, just stick with Mom’s. This is a 4 pager! (Quick update on the goat: she still hates me and I have lots of deep cuts on my ankles from her strategic attacks, wrapping the rope she’s tied with around my legs. I’m really hoping to get the fence fixed this week so I can untie her and be forgiven.)

Day 1: Mom’s stupid flight doesn’t come and I find out my dog is probably dead. Bad day. (Update on August 23: she came home! Insanely skinny, tired and starving for attention from me, she’s back!! I have no idea where she went and the kids were just as surprised as I am. We all thought she was dead. No one had seen her in 3 weeks. She freaked out a bit at the giant goat/sheep in the backyard but got over it.)

Day 2: Mom comes in a whole 24 hours late! I spent the day in town with Carola and then we came back to the Coop. Mom is in good spirits despite being in airports for 2 days. I make a very Guatemalan dinner: cucumber salad, guacamole and refried beans with handmade tortillas. We hang out, watching stupid videos on my computer and then crash to try to squeeze in some sleep pre-BIG DAY.

Day 3: We called Dad in the morning and Mom told him, “It’s like camping! But with a stove and a fridge.” No false advertising on that one: there really is a cockroach containing outhouse, buckets for night bathrooms, garbage washing and sometimes difficulty getting pure bottled water.

This was our BIG DAY. Everyone said it couldn’t be done but it went off wonderfully! Waterfalls were lots of fun and being there until 1 was the perfect amount of time. We did all of Yaxha and got to see the sunset, too! It was a lot of driving but it worked out perfectly. Whoohoo. We were told incorrectly that there would be water for sale at the ruins so Mom and I were hiking around for over 2 (nearly 3?) hours, running up pyramids and sweating our buns off after splitting one small water bottle. Fortunately, we didn’t get dehydrated, chugging drinks from the closest open tienda we could find on our way back to the Coop.

Day 4: Belize. I stocked up on delicious fresh roasted cashews in Belize City, we met a cool DJ named Antonio and I got a cute pair of sandals. We enjoyed Belikin, the yummy Belizean beer, and had a great lunch in town. Nikki, owner of Maruba Resort Jungle Spa, picked us up in their truck and we had another hour and half on a sketchy highway. I had a terrible allergic reaction to a tiny ice cream I bought in Belize, making the already painfully bumpy trip even more brutal. But we were greeted with rum punches at the door, so it was all good.

Day 5: We chilled at the pool, got some spa treatments (my first time!), and read a lot. We pretty much had the pool to ourselves all day.

Day 6: We stayed at the pool all day. There were very few people there and we got a lot of reading done! I played in the pool with Chloe, a 5 year old who we kept bumping into, for a while. My handstand impressed her, haha. I’m fated to socialize with people less than half my age while I’m in Central America.

Day 7: We had to head out early in the morning to catch our bus from Belize City. I bought a lot more cashews (which I suspect I shouldn’t have been able to bring over the border). We bought tickets on the Linea Dorada bus, which was more like a Greyhound bus instead of the van we took there. And it cost the same! It was a lot nicer and got to lie across a row to sleep.

Day 8: I worked and Mom spent 2 hours washing our laundry by hand. I was proud. She took pictures of the fruits of her labour.

Day 9: We took our time getting up, having a nice lazy breakfast at the Comedor, the restaurant the Coop. The profits from the restaurant go back to the Coop. It was delicious. Then we made our way to Santa Elena, where we got a bus to Tikal. We dumped our stuff in our room at the Jungle Lodge hotel, took a quick dip in the pool and headed out to Temple IV for the sunset. A guard told us that was the best place to check out the sunset which is apparently part of this big guard scheme. After 6 pm, the time we got to the temple, you’re not supposed to be able to be in the park without a guide. When we bought our tickets at like 5:30, the person at the front desk neglected to mention this. Taking pity, the guard at the bottom said we could go up to the sunset. As Mom said, I held out and we got to see the sunset after bribing the guard only $5 each. Even more beautiful than the sunset was the moonrise on the east side. Mom busted up her ankle on the tour we joined for the way back, so that was the end of her Tikal hiking.

Day 10: I was up at 4:09 am to go out on the sunrise hike. The sunrise was a big disappointment but it was an interesting study of how people cannot SHUT UP! The guides tell everyone (there are over 200 people sitting on top of Temple IV at like 5:30 am) that they need to be silent for half an hour. Um, no. People were shouting at each other, giving instructions on how to climb up to higher sections of the pyramid (Mom would have had a heart attack, so it was good she was still in bed, injured.) until enough people yelled at them to shut up. Then people were eating loudly. And people felt the need to whisper commentary throughout the whole thing. Pathetic. We did a tour after the sunrise, went back for breakfast, and then I went off on my third tour which, as you know, Mom joined for a little bit. I recommend doing tours of Tikal, but sunset and sunrise would have been enough. The third tour was pretty repetitive.

Our bad luck in Tikal wasn’t over! Somehow I managed to lose our ticket for the bus to go back that afternoon. Which may have not been a problem since they had our names down anyway. While I was looking for the ticket, people behind us got into the bus, filling it. Past Mom, who was limping around with a cane. Classy. So the jerk with San Juan Travel (oh yeah, I’m naming names, lol) told us “Well, it’s full anyway” and drove away. I walked back to the hotel to try to get back into our room to search for the ticket and wait for the next bus. I bumped into Antonio, General Manager and awesome tour guide for all three of my tours (not be confused with Antonio the DJ from Belize) who mentioned that one of his drivers was going out to El Remate (which has a lot of buses to Flores going through) so we could tag along. This van only had a few other people and I got a window seat, so we were quite pleased. Well, when dropping us off at El Remate, Mom paid the driver Q100 (although we thought it was going to be a free ride…) because we were just so thankful. The driver then (suddenly inspired by this demonstration of cash, I suspect) offered to drive us all the way back to Horizonte, which was amazing since it meant Mom wouldn’t have to try to walk around and we wouldn’t be cutting it close with the last bus, for Q150. I thought he meant another Q50 but Mom and I agreed that even if he meant an additional Q150, it would be worth it for the lack of trouble. When we got back to the Cooperative, he informed me that it would be another Q200 since it was further than he thought. So it’s usually Q30 one way per person to Tikal. We paid Q150 per person to get back!!! It was totally ridiculous and I was fuming. We just paid it and trudged back to the house after buying a few beers from the front tienda :)

Day 11: I dragged my butt back into work. They fumigated, so Mom had to limp over to the restaurant to drink coffee and read her book. I bought two fresh fish from the tilapia farm project that they keep in a pool at the restaurant for sale. Achala handed me the bag, told me she was impressed that I would be cooking them, and Mom and I started walking home. Turns out the fish were ALIVE in this black shopping bag and started to move a few steps out of the restaurant! I had made a joke about this to Mom while Achala was getting them out of the pool but I was absolutely 100% kidding. So the whole way back, we were laughing our heads off as I jumped every time the fish moved. Their deaths were not the most humane but we don’t need to get into that…We watched the Sex and the City movie with terrible Spanish subtitles that night.

Day 12: Another day at the office. For dinner, I was all ready to cook the poor fish. Mom asked if I knew how to clean them but I explained I didn’t need to: Tono just shoved metal rods in them and put them over the fire when we ate fresh fish at the laguna. Well, of course, I baked them with oil, lime, onion and spices and they smelled AMAZING. I opened the tin foil only to find that they were full of worms and a beautiful, unhealthy emerald green colour. So we ate cashews, steamed broccoli and rice for dinner. I was pretty bummed about it.

Day 13: Turns out there is a bit of dengue epidemic going on. About 8 people had it at this time, including 2 with hemorrhagic dengue who were coughing up blood. So they fumigated a second time and my poor gimpy mother had to walk to the restaurant to wait. They’ve since had people cleaning up garbage and did an extra garbage pick up to try to discourage mosquitoes from hanging out here. By Saturday, when I’m writing this, my house is basically back to normal, being full of mosquitoes again. However, I wear DEET everyday, burn anti-mosquito coils and sleep under a net. Carola is also lending me this liquid stuff that you plug in that keeps mosquitoes away. Most of the people here just aren’t used to wearing repellent (and the stuff sold in the grocery store is only 5%) or using nets. Hopefully things will change soon because there is no dengue vaccine or cure.

On a lighter note, we had a really nice dinner with Carola for Mom’s last night at the Cooperative. I made papaya chicken and salad. We also had Chilean white wine and fair trade chocolate. It was a really nice night. I was able to translate pretty well for Mom and Carola and I don’t think we missed anything because of language. There was a bug incident that you can check out on Facebook.

Day 14: In the afternoon, Mom and I went to Flores. She was a great sport and we did a bit of walking to go to a restaurant with internet, got souvenirs for the fam and then went back to La Luna for another really delicious dinner. They were slow on the bill but when the waiter came by, he was bearing two shot glasses with rum on the house. So that made up for it! The power went out at the Hotel Isla de Flores where we stayed, which was terrible since we were on the 4th floor (which Mom picked without considering the fact that I’d have to carry her 40 lb suitcase up all of those flights of stairs!) and it was over 40°! Everyday for Mom’s last week was over 40°. We were boiling without the fan, AC or running water. Fortunately it was off for only 30 minutes but the cable stopped working so my one night of cable TV (I got to see maybe 3 minutes of Friends!) was not to be.

Day 15: Mom leaves in the morning and then I bus back for a very productive Friday at work. As I write this on Saturday afternoon, Mom should be landing in Ottawa after overnighting in Houston.

It was a great trip with some awesome memories. It was nice to have someone here who knew where I was coming from and could appreciate the difference in culture and lifestyle from what I’m used to. Mom was a great sport, despite being injured and living in conditions that are so much more uncomfortable than what she’s used to! We were woken up in the middle of the night multiple times by fireworks, dog fights, and loud music. There were days where ranchero music was blaring from the house next door (including a whole CD that was like Alvin and the Chipmunks Mexico style or something) and she survived!! Plus, her Spanish definitely improved –she’s got numbers, some food and stuff that sounds like French- and is better at converting Quetzales to dollars than I am.

She brought lots of fun toys and gifts that will keep me occupied for a while yet. Brendan sent me tons of CDs that are going to get me through many more days of cleaning. Jessica got me addicted to Lost (which we were both watching last night! We texted. It was like we were hanging out, haha). I have a lot of colouring books and stickers for the kids from Mom, Dad and Grandmaman that I still haven’t taken out. I need to wait for a day when I have a lot of energy and that hasn’t happened yet! They’re going to freak out. The big hit so far has been this chicken magnet that has magnets on its hands and feet which are on strings so you can pose it on the fridge. Fridge magnets alone will entertain these kids for hours, but this chicken…kids of all ages are loving it, haha (see pictures on Facebook). I’m looking for the perfect spot for my Canadian flag that Mom got on sale. I have oodles of books to read in my hammock (complete with a pig bookmark)! Mom also bought me some candles which have a melted top layer during the day here because it’s so hot, haha. I’m so spoiled. I ate all of the soft pure maple leaves Mom bought me already…not so good on the rationing.

Mamá en Guatey - Mom's side!

Below is the itinerary my travel agent/daughter ent me. A classic case of "the best laid plans ..."

August 8:
Mom books it through the airports and makes it to the Flores airport for 6:20 PM
If she's hungry, dinner is authentic Guatemalan eats prepared by the girl with a Guatemalan name and face but very non-Guatemalan speech patterns.
I get to Cleveland 1/2 hour earlier than scheduled, to discover there's a mechanical problem with the aircraft. The flight to Houston is delayed 3 hours. I only had 1 hour to make my Guatemala connection so that's a bust. I get to Flores at 6:20 pm Aug 9. The decision to "train" for 2 weeks at remaining calm during the trip as I have no control was a good one. Lots of negotiating, sitting, reading, during my 2 day trip to my baby girl.

August 9:
Up bright and early for breakfast, complete with un café de Guatemala.
Off to Santa Elena (Don't forget bathing suits and laptop! If you need to change money, at least one of us should have our passport because the bank with the good rate is stupid like that). First, walk to Flores to reserve the bus to Belize and check out some souvenir places. Walk to Maya Internacional for internet, lunch, our first margaritas and pool, if it's hot. (Figure out where we're going for lunch in Belize, make a reservation and call the hotel with pick up time and location.) Then boot around Santa Elena to get a cooler and food (chicken, cucumber, papaya) for cataratas. Make sure we catch a bus by 3pm back to the Cooperative.
Drop off our stuff, grab flashlights and mosquito repellent, and go to Valentina's before 4 to catch a ride to the fiesta in Santa Rita.
I'm on a plane. Didn't happen.

August 10:
Early breakfast, again. Pre-make tortillas for lunch. Leave a lot of food for Coquette. Leave at 8am for the cataratas with Valentina and Carola. Don't forget hiking boots, toilet paper, Purell, food in the cooler, bathing suits and cameras! Start making lunch by 11.
Leave cataratas by noon to Yaxha.
Wash and hang bathing suits as soon as we get home.
We did this! cataratas are waterfalls BTW. We had a truck and driver from the cooperative (Rony). He was very patient and had great stamina to last through a day that everyone advised Angela was too jam packed. The roads are unbelievable; the truck weaves back and forth trying to find the shallowest pot holes. The scenery is very Canadian, except for the occasional palm tree. Rolling green hills. We had a lovely BBQed chicken lunch, after surviving the swim to behind the waterfalls. One of those experiences that I did because I didn't know any better. Who knew the force of the water coming down would make it so damned hard to get to the rocks -- but the option was that or dying. Much easier swimming back to shore -- once my legs stopped shaking. We ended up leaving at 1 for Yaxha. Yaxha was wonderful. Very quiet; not many other people around, and we had Rony to point out the flora and fauna. Saw my first spider monkeys and howler monkeys. Unbelievable the racket they make; a bit unnerving. I also discovered my extreme fear of heights. We happily clambered up a pyramid and admired the view of the surrounding valley. Then it was time to come down. OH MY LORD! The steps weren't even (not a big priority over a thousand years ago, I guess) and all I could think was one false step and I'm a gonner. (there appears to be a dying theme here) We got a very long walk in, thought we were going to have dehydryation issues (but not deathly), and made it back to the pyramid that apparently has a fabulous view of the sunset at 6ish. We hadn't made plans to be there at 6 so it seemed like the fates were with us that we arrived then. We climbed to the top to discover that the sunset decided not to happen that night.

August 11:
Don't forget passports, books, bathing suits, some DVDs if we want to watch a movie, cellphone and RECEIPT BOOK!
Leave by 6am to Flores. Breakfast in Flores. Bus at 7:30am. At the bus station in Belize, figure out the noon return bus for Thursday.
Relax until August 14.
We wolfed down breakfast in Flores to make it to the bus on time, to have it leave at 8:40. It was overbooked so it was the sardine trip to Belize. The difference between Belize and Guatemala is dramatic. Completely different people, language, attitude; both very nice in their own ways. We loved our stay at the Maruba resort. Indoor plumbing, very few other guests so we mostly had the pool to ourselves, drinks delivered whenever we asked (when we checked out she referred to our "very small bar bill". Hmm. I'm losing my touch :) Ange had her first massage and enjoyed it, I had a pedicure and was glad I did (see further down).

August 14:
Take noon bus back. Get groceries in Santa Elena and book it to the last bus.
Beside the fact that we had to take a 9:30 bus back, this went pretty much according to plan, with bonus action. We did some souvenir shopping and went to La Luna for dinner (a restaurant written about in the guide books as a good choice -- they're right)

August 15:
Ange works, Mom relaxes. Movie with niños after work?
Another day that went according to plan.

August 16:
(If we don't feel like doing laundry, we can bring clothes to the laundromat in Flores to pick up on the 17th.) Do a trip around the lake in Flores in the morning. Lunch in Flores at La Luna or Las Puertas. Bus to Tikal at 2:30pm.
Not so much according to plan. We had breakfast at the comedor, got the local sardine bus into Santa Elena, had lunch at Ange's hotel (Maya Internacional), and caught our bus to Tikal. Stayed at the Jungle Lodge near the entrance to Tikal. Decided to check out the sunset from Temple IV. Did a 35 minute walk in 15 minutes to get there by 6:00. The guard at the bottom of the stairs of the Temple explained that the park closes at 6:00 and we needed to leave. I think our profusely sweating brows made him cut us some slack and let us continue with our physical abuse by running up the stairs to the top of the Temple. We get there to see there's a barricade set up with guards to keep you from watching the sunset unless you're with a tour. The guards offered to let us in for $10. Ange decided to be stubborn and we stayed put. Another guard wandered over later and whispered that he'd let us in for $5 each. We bit. It was worth it. What an amazing experience. As soon as the sun set we scooted back to the other side to watch the full moon rise. We were so fortunate to be there for a full moon on a clear night. It was a once in a lifetime experience. When we got to the bottom of the Temple the tour guide (Antonio) told us we were welcome to join his group for the walk back. Very nice as it was pitch black and our flashlight had run out of batteries (we discovered later). That being said, I sprained my freaking ankle when I stepped into a hole. 500 feet from the end of the trail! They sent a truck back to get me. All very exciting/painful.

August 17:
Tikal. Bus back in the afternoon.
Antonio arranged for a truck to take me to the central square in Tikal to join his tour talk. Very nice. Much better than sitting around waiting for everyone all day.

August 18-21:
Ange works, Mom relaxes. Some meals at the restaurant, do a tour of the rainforest with Tono at some point, get ice cream in Chal, watch some movies with kids, have Carola over for dinner, whatever.
After work on the 21, go to Flores for dinner (Luna/Puertas) and hotel for the night.
Mom sits in casa icing foot every 20 minutes, keeping it elevated, occasionaly putting on the compression bandage that the very nice tourist gave me in Tikal. I managed to read a couple of books, do dishes Cooperativa style, and avoid any close encounters with varmints. We had lunch a couple of times in the comedor, Carola came over for a lovely chicken dinner, we killed a humungous bug, welcomed Mo to the casa, and enjoyed 2 more movie nights with the kids.

August 22:
Hotel shuttle to the airport by 7am :(

Week 1 of Mom's trip (by Ange)

Belize (the resort) was paradise. I thought it would be a good idea to reenergize my batteries and get me going, pumped for the next 3 3/4 months of work, 4 3/4 months of being in the Coop and 5 ½ months until I go back to Canada. If this countdown is any indication, it didn’t really achieve that. Well, I hope it did and it’ll just take a bit of time to sink in but right now I’m in “I wish I was back in Canada” mode.

The luxury of the hotel, Maruba Resort (HIGHLY recommended), and the friendliness of the people in Belize City isn’t why I’m homesick. That was wonderful, but it was the features that are similar to my life in Canada that really made my heart pull to go home. Being able to go pee in a bathroom at 1 in the morning (or 8 at night, for that matter) in a bathroom, in the same building was huge. Not even thinking about bleach. Being able to have juice in my bedroom and not being worried about the cockroaches, flies, etc that would follow. (At the resort there are a fair number of bugs and some evil fly things that don’t care about mosquito repellent and are more or less impossible to kill, but very few actually come inside.) The number one thing, though, was the language. Being able to joke and communicate at such a higher level than I’ve been able to for the last 3 months was such a relief.

Francis asked me the other day if I like speaking Spanish. And I do. Languages are so useful and I’m glad for the openings that having Spanish will give me. But fluency doesn’t come fast (unless you’re Italian learning Spanish, so I’ve heard) and I’m still only at a basic level of communication. Bastante. But enough to get by isn’t enough to live a full life and that’s been rough. I know eventually, I’ll get there, but right now, my brain still hurts and after the 3 day break from Spanish I’m reaching for proper verb usage.

I have only had one good night of sleep in the past week, so that’s not helping either.

Update on Coquette: pretty sure that she was killed by people here who like to put out food covered in poison to kill dogs because they don’t like them. It’s pretty common and quite a few people have lost dogs that way. I found this out on Friday night, the day before Mom came, so I was very happy to leave for Belize with her while I was really bummed. Still bummed and talk about her too much but it’s very hard to live with such a sweet companion and have her gone. I really miss having her and I know that will get a lot worse when Mom leaves. I’ve considered trying to get one of the stolen puppies back but now that I’m potentially only here for another 4 months, I’m just going to leave it. Goats to come soon, hopefully.

Update on the research: Got some great advice from a brilliant prof about my proposal. Ditching the social capital angle and just working the reintegration of guerrillas into society. Going to rework the proposal and work on getting a supervisor before I say more. I’m lucky to know a few professors who are going to help me out but the supervisor role is still open...

Update on work: Almost done my SWOT analysis of the credit program. Going to schedule a time with the board, hopefully this week, to present. Due to an increase in the cost of living, our pay has gone up, which is great. Inflation has been nuts, so it really makes sense. It’s not a huge increase, but nice nonetheless. Even the souvenirs we were buying went up in price since a month ago.

Mom has survived the few days using the outhouse. She washed a ton of clothes by hand and did a great job wringing them out! I'm sure she'll update you soon but wine and luck have kept the bug problems to a minimum :)

We’ll write about the rest of the trip soon! Pictures to come on Facebook. There are a lot. Tikal gave us lots of stories, so stay tuned!

crappy Friday

Just when I thought my research proposal was done, I came upon an article about social capital and poverty in Latin America, which seemed like something I should probably read before I submit the proposal! Anyway, it mentioned that the lowest Human Poverty Index scores in Latin America in 2005 were in Guatemala, Honduras, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti. I.e. where Angela, Ania, Dave and Francis are stationed. So that’s good. And I doubt that any IDSers will be doing a formal placement in Haiti anytime soon...yikes.

Phewf
Kids came over last night to watch Water Horse (“Mi mascota es un monstruo”). 10 kids. Not cool. Next time I have that many kids over, no pop and no popcorn because they went totally nuts. I had to break up kids elbowing each other in the spines (¡!) and Domingo, the youngest one, ripping plants out of the ground and throwing them in the house. He also had a temper tantrum later after he tripped and I eventually was screaming at his older brother to stop yelling at him and leave him alone. UGH. There was also spilled Sprite all over my yoga mat, purposefully (I suspect) spilled popcorn in an effort to get more (unsuccessful as there was none left. HA!) and lots of whining about space and sharing. Good lord. All in all, glad I had it and it was, generally, fun. But the pop and popcorn combined with the movie being pretty boring was too much. I told them the next installment is next Friday so stay tuned...(pictures should be up on FB)

Bad news
So Coquette has been missing for 3 days. No clue where she is and the puppies are gone, too. Asked the kids about it and they haven’t seen her either. Frick. Apparently she has “another owner”, though, which is problematic. I have to asked José Luis (Annie’s fiancé for those who don’t have Sean McCurdy memories) about that...Joanie’s cat got taken away after she’d had her for 9 months when the “original owner” came by to take it. But, as Carola said, you would think that they would let me or someone else know. Meh.

Due to mechnical trouble, of course, my mother is stuck in Cleveland. She can’t get here, apparently, until tomorrow NIGHT. Which means I have to try to find the guy in charge of car rentals to see if I can change the car rental. And that means we’re missing our day in Santa Elena and a party in Santa Rita. Which is fine but a big bummer.

La Casa de Embarazo: Pregnant Annie, cat, dog (x2?) and now...

No, not me. Although immaculate conception would win the “best co-op story” at least for 2008.

BAAAH!! Shawna sent me a kick ass package that I got today (Tuesday). Sorry if this is embarrassing, evil cousin, but I have to share the funky stuff I got. It was a Mom-style care package, i.e. full of awesome random stuff! Okay, first item I pull out: an “environmentally friendly” (¿?) sushi stapler (which is actually handy, too, since I’m lacking in the stapler department). Next? MAPLE SYRUP CANDY. Oh how I missed you!! I used to eat way too many selling maple syrup for the Sullivans. Third item was “Hell Babies” stationary which is sort of hard to explain, but imagine what a 13 year old goth wannabe would design if she were designing purple hell themed stationary (bleeding fruit stickers, an evil looking little monster dude, a curvy girl with flaming boobs, snakes and dripping spider webs...yeah). And the handiest and cutest of all, a three eyed squirrel change purse. I’m saving the card for tonight...made my day! I have the best friends. All of the mail I’ve been getting is so much fun! You’re a creative bunch, people.

Other exciting Tuesday update: Luis found goats! And, against my better judgement, we’re going to go in together on a pregnant one. I know this is going to come back to bite me in the butt (maybe literally...) but I have a ton of really tall grass and he promises they’ll be cute...Haha. He has a farm (see Facebook pictures) so we’re going to split on the goat now and he’ll pay me my half back when I leave and bring the goats back to his farm. I’m sure there will be many a goat story to come, so stay tuned.

Friday night, I watched some cartoons that I bought with a gang of kids who came over then went to Valentina’s to hang out with some other people in their 20’s, half from Santa Rita and half from Horizonte. Not exactly a big boozing night, though –2L of beer were split pretty evenly among the 8 of us, haha.

Saturday, I went into town as per usual for researching, Skyping and Facebooking, then came home to children who were pumped to watch more cartoons! So we did while they chomped on these mini-lemons that grow in my backyard that I’m afraid to try in case I’m allergic. Unfortunately, they are in the habit of dropping the seeds on the floor or tossing them out of the house with inaccurate aim. So my floor is now covered in spit and pits (they did try to remember to put the pits in a bowl but they were pretty entranced by the cartoons) –worth it! Only downside to Saturday was the lack of the garbage people showing up –I have two months worth of (clean!) garbage in bags in my garbage/exercise room that I’m keen on getting rid of!! I’m going to run out of space to do pilates, haha.

It was all too good to be true: Raoulin (I know I ruin the spelling of everyone’s names) came by Saturday night to tell me that he couldn’t get us horses for Sunday because they’re all being used to carry stuff to fumigate the grass. Bummer! Oh well, it’ll give me another activity to look forward to after Mom leaves so I shouldn’t be too depressed.

Sunday was full of research proposal-ing (goal was Tuesday, now modified to Friday since I found a lot of useful, interesting information. Which sounds like a good thing but sucks because it means more work, haha!), washing a ton of laundry (which didn’t dry due to mega thunderstorm-age in the afternoon, bleh) and a break to watch Madagascar with some of my neighbours! It was very sweet. And Audelio, Virgilito and Brenda came by in the afternoon and coloured while I chatted with Mom on the phone. Mom’s bringing stickers (thanks Dad!), colouring books (thanks Grandmaman!), crayons, pencil crayons, and movies (thanks Cruzes!). I can’t wait to see their faces –they’re going to freak out.

On Monday, movie afternoon was cancelled since the power was out for the first half hour and I didn’t have a lot of time since I want to finish this ridiculous research proposal. So Brenda, Virgilito, Braulio and I watched some cartoons for a bit. Brenda brought me an apple! It was the sweetest thing. I haven’t eaten an apple in 3 months (they don’t grow them here). My little apple gift made my day.

And that's the pre-Mom´s visit update!

Mom in 6!

Wednesday:
The rain is so hard that my magnets were blown off my fridge and most of the letters and cards blown all the way into my pila room, where they were covered in rain. The rain blew so hard a bunch of my plastic dishes, nowhere near the front of my house or a window, went flying off the shelves and pieces of my palm roof shot into the house. There’s water on the floor and my usually rain-proof pila room is filling with water. I’m very glad I’m caught up with dishes for the day and already took a shower since now the pila is full of bugs and debris that have flown into it. If your pila gets spoiled with things falling into it...that’s your water until the next morning! Lots of extra cleaning to do now.

Speaking of pila water, I now use it to cook and for tea and coffee. I’ve gotten over being grossed out by the little layer of silt, haha. I only use bottled water for cold drinks and ice mostly because I don’t feel like having dirt and crap in my cold drinks. And I agree with Francisco about the bottled water in Canada –I refuse to even Brita my water although Jeffrey insists on the filter (just to be a brat; I highly doubt he cares about the filtration of his water either way).

Friday: Change your calendars people! New month!

Today’s a bit of a milestone (or I’m making it one in my head). 2.5 months in the cooperative, 1 month since I moved into my house and exactly 6 months until I come back to Canada.

Coquette has been acting like a pregnant dog. Not a good situation. I’m just hoping she’s aging weirdly or having empty nest syndrome (although 3 of the puppies are still hanging out at the house) or something. She’s started making a little bed for herself in my garbage/exercise room, has become really weirdly agressive towards me, has put on weight pretty quickly in the last week or two and keeps wanting to sleep on my bed. I told Carola if she has more puppies, we’re going to have to start giving them away to tourists. She has the pitch ready “Gift of a puppy with a tour! An authentical Guatemalan puppy!” Or my other idea was start giving them away with every loan we give out. Everybody think non-pregnant thoughts.

Now I'm beating Leslie for the blog entries...what's going on here??

Tuesday:
I have decided to rip off el blog de Francisco and go through the 2 months and 3 week review (1/3 of my placement)! I also am not experiencing the culture shock drop that we were warned about at this point in our placement. My lowest points were when I first got here and a month and a half in. So poo on you stupid culture shock curve that I mocked even when we were learning you!

Negatives: The language barrier and the living conditions have been the hardest to deal with. I miss being able to communicate very clearly with people and talk their ears off. I miss not worrying about bugs and not constantly being itchy from bites. I miss not having to be a ridiculous clean freak because of the bugs (WASHING EVERY PIECE OF GARBAGE. IMAGINE THIS!). I miss having a bathroom inside my house. I miss being able to use a toilet at night. I miss weekly garbage and recycling pick up. (Especially since I missed the once a month pick up for July.) I miss being able to turn water on and off whenever I want and not having to worry that I’ll run out partway through the day. I miss my washing machine and dryer. And I hate the sounds of ranchero music, roosters, barking/fighting dogs and howler monkeys (in that order, based on frequency and difficulty blocking out with earplugs. The toads, crickets and other random bugs all tend to make noises that are pretty easy to ignore, even when they’re really loud, which is very considerate of them.)

I really miss coffee shops, my coffee maker and, most of all, my coffee grinder. I went on a mission with Carola to find a bodum with no success despite scouring basically all of Santa Elena. And delicious fair trade Sumatran coffee…mmm. Thai and Indian food, too. Mostly, I miss just hanging out with my friends, watching hockey, going out to a bar at night, lazing around and talking about whatever.

But I feel content to be here in the cooperative for another 5 months and a bit. I know I will have all of those things when I get my ass back to freezing cold Ottawa, so it’s all good.

And the opposite of Francisco, I miss Toronto. I love that city. I love that you can go out late with 24 hour buses, hang out at bars, buy French fries at 2 in the morning, walk around feeling relatively safe. Those nights walking for hours along Bathurst with Jamie last summer back from the bars were classic! I love the subway and street cars. I love Queen Street. There’s any kind of restaurant you could ask for. Streets that are simple to navigate that are clearly labelled! KENSINGTON MARKET and Rice Bar! The Green Room! I know it’s evil and, as a Canadian, I’m supposed to hate it and want to distance myself, but being young and living in Toronto is just too awesome (minus their non-hockey team). The majority of my love for the city, though, is because of the people I’ve met and brought there –doing all of those things alone just isn’t that much fun. Buying French fries at 2am alone is actually kind of sad.

I do agree with Francisco that I would much rather transport people here than take a weekend vacation back to Canada.

Positives: I’m learning what it’s like to not be crazy busy with a million activities to plan and being in charge of a lot of things at once. It’s nice to have these 8.5 months off from studying, working in a hectic environment or being in charge of a club/residence/whatever. Although I do miss it already and know that it’s my nature for how I live my life! I’m learning more about what I appreciate back home. I’ve been talking to my friends a lot via email and text messages, reconnected with some family and realized how important so many people are to me. The random memories that have popped into my head really surprise me. I have so many memories of hanging out with my dad, watching him cut veggies for stir fry and watching movies. I told him we have a date to watch the Sister Act movies when I get back, haha. Since high school, I’ve hardly spent any time at home, just hanging out with my dad watching a movie. Things like that.

I love my hammock, my dog(s), my bench that is suspended from the ceiling that acts as my dining room chairs, and my hanging chair. I love that I can wear halter sun dresses to work that would get me fired in Canada (for the record, the advice I got in training about how to dress was way off base, too. People here have cleavage and shoulders going on all the time and it’s not a big deal at all. Hanging out at the hotel restaurant in a bikini? Not a problem. It’s 44 degrees, for crying out loud! Although, Mom and Nancy, the cleavage only comes out at the pool, don’t you worry). I love that there are puppies and little kids everywhere, despite the economic consquences that come from that. I love that there is cheap Chilean wine at the grocery store (okay, by LCBO consumer standards. Carola is horrified that it’s over $5. Francisco would also likely be unimpressed with his $3 bottles in Canada). I love that you can say “good afternoon” to a total stranger or to a busload of people and it isn’t weird at all. It is totally beautiful here and I can easily hang out in the rainforest, ride horses and go to beaches every weekend. I have space to do pilates in the morning (for the moment we’ll ignore the fact that it’s in the room that’s basically designated for garbage as it has all of my garbage sorted into different bags around the perimeter). I’m sure I’m going to love my goat when I get him/her, too :)

I LOVE the food. Fresh fruits and veggies for really cheap: avocados, papayas, lemons, peppers, garlic, cucumbers, cilantro, zucchini, potatoes…all grown locally and available all the time. Mangoes, too, but I’m sick of those, haha. Homemade tortillas are staple in my diet. At least one meal a day, often two, involves tortillas. Refried beans, grown and packaged in the Petén, are also a daily staple. Homemade guacamole, eggs from the cooperative, oatmeal every morning…it’s heaven. I eat basically the same thing everyday and I LOVE IT.

For some reason, my body loves this environment and my hair and skin look great. Go figure. I’ve had fewer stomach problems than I’ve had in a couple of a years.

Living alone has been an interesting experience, too. This might be the only time for the rest of my life that I live totally alone! Being able to wake up, work out, cook, clean and veg totally on my own is really strange. Although the lack of a front wall and the ability to see into my house from basically every side takes a bit away (can’t walk around in my underwear, unfortunately and sound proofing wasn’t part of the design plan), it’s nice to have this experience. But I’m still really pumped to be getting a place with my Jeffrey in 2009 and then having incredible roommates, whoever you may be, for my 5th year!

Obviously it is great to get this first hand experience working with people who have been through a terrible genocide and have managed to build up this great community and run an office. It has been tough on my patience, at times, because I’ve worked in an office environment literally since I was 12 (yay for fast typing skills) and am used to working with highly educated, computer literate people who have strict systems of running an office. So not only has it been an incredible experience in that it’s a grassroots Third World experience, but it is also great to see how former guerrillas have made what will hopefully be seen to be a sustainable successful cooperative. Which takes me to my research which, unlike Francisco, I’m very excited about. Once my research proposal has been approved and I confirm my research supervisor, I’m going to give a full big ass boring explanation!

There you go, T, my positives section is bigger than my negatives! Proud?

Wednesday: We finally have internet! Nearly 6 months of waiting, and we’ve got it!!! Okay, so it’s painfully, painfully slow. Takes me back to the 90’s, haha. It’s a lot quicker on my computer than the computers in the office, which is nice. I didn’t miss it that much but at the same time I’m extremely excited to have it back.

In other news, I have a mosquito bite on my face and it sucks.

Brutal Heat Returns

Sunday: It’s around 40 degrees at the moment. Probably hotter. Good news is my clothes are drying really quickly and I managed to haul myself out of bed before 8 to work out, clean the bathroom and wash clothes pre-deadly heat. Bad news is I have yet to buy a fan (waiting on a truck to bring it back here) so I’m melting. Speaking of melting, I filled a glass with ice cubes and within 20 minutes, they were all completely liquid and not that cold. I’m doing my best to work on my research proposal while lying in my hammock and moving as little as possible. Someone want to ExpressPost me any kind of iced coffee beverage? I won’t even be picky about it.

So working on my proposal has made me realize something: research costs money! Since Guatemala is such a small country with less than 3000 guerrillas at the end of the war, to have a thorough study (i.e. talk to someone other than the people at Nuevo Horizonte!), I really don’t think I can just stick to Petén. So the expenses...ay ay ay. Plus, unless we get internet access in the next few months, I’m going to have to keep shelling out for buses and internet time :p Working out basically how much I think things will cost, a full month’s worth of pay is probably going to be need to saved to pay for travel, internet, hostels and printing. Unfortunately the bus to Guatemala City isn’t really something you should skimp on because the cheap buses are super sketchy. But I’m pumped to get working and it should all be worth it in the end!

Had a couple of brainwaves on people I should talk to about former guerrilla organizations. Hopefully those will come through. I’m going to write up a letter in Spanish to try to help me explain. Bleh language barrier!!! Although, doing interviews for my SWOT analysis has so far been just fine with understanding. Woot.

So my date ended up being a lot of fun! I had a pretty terrible intolerance reaction to popcorn afterwards, which SUCKED (no idea why popcorn bothers my stomach but I eat corn flour tortillas everyday...), but otherwise it was great. I started off with Audelio, Brenda and their little brother whose name I thought was Miguelito but is actually something that sounds like Miguelito when mumbled. I’ll get back to you on that one...then three of the boys in the house to the left came by and another little boy. So it was a full house! Yes, I know I suck with names but I’m working it. We watched Chicken Little with popcorn and Sprite :) Going to have an open invitation for Madagascar this week. It’s much more fun watching with the kids than by myself! Maybe they won’t want to steal my movies if they can watch ‘em here with free popcorn and pop, haha.

Monday: 40-ish again today. Unfortunately did not wear one of my halter dresses that you would be fired for wearing in Canada but are my basic uniform here. My polo that I sported all the time at the City of Toronto last summer is not plus 40 degree office wear. Worked out in the morning, showered, worked, came home at lunch, dumped a bucket of water on myself, came back to work, went home and showered again. Fortunately pila showers take very little water. My poor keyboard is getting its fair share of sweat. I had some errands I wanted to run within the cooperative after work (running low on my bottled water, shockingly...) but it’s just too brutal to walk anywhere and lift anything with the sun and then the bug/snake situation at night is undesireable to say the least. One of the downsides of having a pila that you can only fill in the morning is that, when you have a dog that’s drinking water like it’s her job and you have 3 showers you run out of water pretty quickly. Oh well, dishes and washing Coquette will get done tomorrow!

Tuesday: My stomach has decided to be difficult and I had another painful allergic reaction last night. Bummer. I have to go back to being super careful about everything I eat –no fun!!

Shoutouts to Brian and Tiana for being wonderful friends :) Canada Post Welland beat Canada Post Kingston by 1 week, haha. Thanks so much for the letters (and new Coldplay CD! Tiana is my HERO)!!! They’re definitely helping the time pass by while I wait (1.5 weeks!) for Mom and (2 weeks!) Belize! I bought cute animal magnets (I know, I want to tempt these kids to steal things from me) last weekend, so now all of the cards and letters that have been sent to me are displayed with horses and bears on my fridge. No pigs, unfortunately.

I heard whispers about peliway (sp?), i.e. the tropical goat I want, in the office today, so I’m hoping that means he/she is on his/her way! Mo, I need you!!! My grass is completely out of control.

Less than 2 weeks til Belize!

Spent Tuesday afternoon in Santa Elena and Flores with Carola. It was good times. We scouted out prices on things to renovate her house. We need to go back with a truck to bring it all back and I'll be investing in a fan, kettle, hopefully a French press if I can find one, and rocks for the path. Investing, as in asking CUSO to invest in. The prospect of a fan is very exciting to keep the bugs away. Bought some tongs. Feel like I'm living the life now. Except I looked at Veronica's pictures and saw her bathroom and living room...Que bueno! We found a restaurant in Flores where you can use wireless and they also have computers hooked up. It was nice but the food was expensive for what it is and they charge you to use the Wi-Fi. And the security level of the Wi-Fi was too low to let me search for articles on the UofT website for my research :p Although Carola did point out that they have mojitos, so we'll probably be going back! (I was telling her and Mirko that it's so sad that no one I've talked to knows what a mojito is even though they have great rum, fresh limes and mint here all year round! Yes, I do say this jokingly as obviously people who barely make ends meet are not going to be making fancy cocktails with their natural resources. I get it!!!!) The women who work there were cool, too. This guy came in and made one of the rude noises that a lot of the men here make, kind of like a half whistle, half grumble. One of the women came out and said "How many *noise* do you want?" Put him in his place!

A VERY SHORT ENGAGEMENT

On that note, the "engagement" ring has made 0 difference in the way men look at me and talk to me in Santa Elena. They're too busy staring my face, boobs and legs and making noises to even notice my hand. I've managed to contain myself to just roll my eyes and groan. I'm very tempted to start a fight when they start making noises because they're the same noises they make to get the attention of dogs and horses. Maybe when my Spanish is better, I'll argue. I've seen some of the younger women respond verbally to the treatment, so I wouldn't be totally out of line.

Not only that, but as soon as the restaurant meals with Mirko stopped, my fingers magically shrunk in size so the ring is too big for my ring finger. I initially took this as a sign that I shouldn't pretend to be engaged but Shawna explained to me very wisely that this is actually a sign that I need to buy more jewelry. Of course! She's a smart one, that cousin of mine. I think the ring may have more success with the tourists and when I travel around...not sure.
So no longer engaged, I have a date! Okay, he's 7, but Audelio and I are watching Madagascar, Chicken Little or Bambi II (?? Did anyone else know there was a Bambi II?) on Sunday :) I'm excited to make popcorn and drink Sprite. I watched Chicken Little last night and the parents, in the Spanish version anyway, are named Linda and Melvin! (Which, for the uninformed, are my parents names.) I found it very exciting. My life is kind of boring.

NO VACACIONES

So at our CUSO training, Dave and I were told that, because we're working 2/3 of a year, we get 2/3 of the vacation of a regular cooperant. This was incorrect information and we, in fact, get no vacation. And working an extra hour for 6 weeks also does not merit any time off either, so vacay with the madre isn't going to be quite as planned. Oh well. Turns out my visa renewal needs to be done during the week, so I'm off for 4 days for that, anyway. August 11-14, baby!! Figured out there are national holidays on Sept 15 and Oct 20 so I'm hoping to use those days to see people and travel, or at least go to Guatey City to watch a movie and do something "cultural" (museum, gallery, ballet, play, etc).

AH GOT SKIIIILLS

So the most useful skills I bring here are definitely my computer skills and experience with working in an office, not what I've learned about microfinance or community development in university. On Thursday, I made Luis and Maritza's days, first by fixing some problems Luis had with tables on Word and then by retrieving some major documents that Maritza deleted. Most of my job is making Excel spreadsheets to organize data and fancy forms. I think the biggest "legacy" I could have here would be to make a decent database that is organized and, I hope hope hope, they maintain.

UPDATES

Still waiting on the goat...My grass is getting a little out of control so I'm hoping Tono can find one ASAP! Have the name all picked out and everything. Mo. As in lawnMOwer. As in saves me MO time trying to find someone to cut the damn grass. As in I hope he won't be too MObile and leave the house. As in I hope Coquette doesn't get too eMOtional when he/she gets here. Okay, I'm done. I like the name anyway. Good thing about not having other goats in the community is I won't have to deal with kids. As in the baby goat kind. I think I'd lose it if I ended up with another pregnant animal.

Of course when I brought my phone in to the Claro store, it worked perfectly fine and has worked perfectly fine ever since. Go figure.

quite the week!

ON MY GUARD
So, as some of you may know, I've had quite the problem with people invading my home. My first night at my "new house", I had people come into my home and go through my kitchen. I yelled out and they, surprised someone was home (I suspect they thought that I was moving in later), left the house giggling. I was too sick with the flu at the time to deal get out of bed and, frankly, wouldn't have had a clue what to do if I had. Since then, I've had movies, a lighter, a flashlight, keys and 3 puppies taken from my home. The lighter and flashlight were taken while I was home but in my pila room, showering or washing dishes. I told Tanya, the president of the board, and word spread quickly. So now we've figured out where everything except the lighter and keys (easier to hide, obviously) are. I already had a little boy return the flashlight sheepishly. I now lock my gate and bedroom door all the time, which sucks. There's also an opening in my backyard to the backyard behind it where the nest of the puppies is. As soon as they're all gone, I'm filling that hole under the fence to try to reduce access to my house. Sucky but necessary.
GONE TO THE DOGS
The puppies have been causing me a huge headache. I was woken up on Sunday morning by a gaggle of children who had burst into my home (one of the only nights I didn't lock my gate. Bad luck!) yelling my name. I crawled out of bed, sad that I was missing my one day to sleep in, to children speaking extremely rapidly about dogs, a guy at the community, Annie and chickens. There were over a half a dozen of them all jumping around, some of them yelling at me, some of them begging me for puppies. After nearly an hour of trying to wake up and figure out what was going on, here's the gist of it:
1) Annie said they could take the puppies on July 20. I thought it was too early, but they fought with me enough that one was taken and the rest were going to be taken this week.
2) Coquette lost her mind and ate two chickens and some eggs on Saturday night so now I need to tie her up in the backyard. (Update: she's decided to sleep in my room at night now, which solves that problem)
3) One of the men in the community bought a dog in El Chal on Saturday and aren't I just the most evil person in the world for not approaching him to give him a dog. Huh? I had no idea what they were talking about since he never came to me to ASK for a dog. But I'm just extremely evil for not giving him a dog. Whatever.
4) "You still don't know very many words in Spanish, do you?" Uh huh. Sorry my vocabulary about accusing people of being bad dog distributors wasn't perfected in Spanish school. That comment, at 7 in the morning on a Sunday after staying up late, was really not appreciated, haha. Very glad I do not know my Spanish swearwords because I suspect I would have gotten myself in trouble.
5) "But I want a male dog!" "Then why did you help your friends to tie on the ribbons onto the only two male dogs?" "But I want one and it's not fair!!"

This ended with me calling my mother and swearing more in a conversation than I have in a conversation in a long time.

Later Sunday afternoon, 3 puppies were taken by two children in the community. After telling some of the kids they were missing, they went on a mission to find them and reported back that the boys took them and weren't interested in loving the puppies or making them fat, just annoying them. Since so many people in the community know now, they'll work it out on their own. I'm trying to avoid getting involved and avoid going to people's homes to retrieve things since it can cause more friction between me and the community. I'm just hoping all of these problems don't discourage people from taking the dogs!

CUSO EXCITEMENT
My CUSO supervisors came last Thursday. Cecilia from Honduras was here for a two days and Mirko was here until Tuesday morning. Carola, from Chile, is the new CUSO cooperant! There's a new pilot project going on with a CUSO-type organization in Chile sending cooperants through CUSO. She's 34, living in Joanie's old house and taking over basically what Joanie and Annie were doing. She has a lot of experience with tourism, so it should be great for the community! She's great to talk to and her understanding of English is pretty good, so we can communicate decently. She's holding out on buying skirts and shorts, but I think I'll have her white legs bared by the end of the week!

The weekdays have been filled with meetings, mostly talking about Carola and the tourism project, which is funded by CUSO. My brain is killing me from all of the Spanish, but it's good. Hard to sleep at night because my brain just doesn't stop translating things back and forth, but hopefully that will subside soon. Having Carola here has helped, too, because she's getting introduced to everything in Spanish. I'VE BEEN WORKING ONE EXTRA HOUR PER DAY THE WHOLE TIME I'VE BEEN WORKING HERE!!!! Annie told me we worked 8-12 and 2-5. Apparently, according to my boss, we finish at 4! So I thought everyone else was skipping out early. For crying out loud. Great news, though! I'm going to see if I can tack on an extra hour and work some weekends so I can get some time off when Mom's here. Not sure why no one told Annie and had her working until 5...And I can't believe no one tried to tell me that we're done at 4. Most days, I get kicked out of the office around 4:45 or I'm the last one to leave at 5. Psssh. Go figure. Something else I've found out is that I'm supposed to be organizing a conference about microcredit in the whole province in November. Good to know.

The best news I got, though, was from Cecilia who is really encouraging us to use our settling in allowances. Turns out I can fix the big holes in the overhang over the front of my house, put a screen on the upper wall of my room that is now totally open for bugs, big and small, to enter my room, and put screens up on my windows. So instead of being a free for all for bugs, my room should be more bug proofed soon!! I need to get quotes and submit them, hopefully getting them approved. Carola and I are also both going to stock up on rocks for our paths to the letrinas and the road. I was so excited to be able to apply for these funds and I told Cecilia "¡Primera, piedras!" I think she thinks I'm nuts for being excited about rocks, but it'll make it a lot nicer.
In our time checking out Carola's house with Tono and Tanya, we heard that Ulysses, the cooperant before Joanie, had a goat that kept his grass short. I LOVE the idea, so now I'm investing in a tropical goat. Stay tuned...It should be around Q300, according to Luis, so it pays for itself since getting someone to cut the grass is like Q80-100. Tono is now on a mission to find me a goat since they don't really have them at the cooperative.

The weekend was a great time. Saturday, Tono took Mirko, Carola and I on a tour of the rainforest. We were attacked hardcore by mosquitoes since it was rainy and Mirko and I both had fire ants fill our shoes and bite our legs (okay, 90% of my bites are somehow on my bum). For a good 10 minutes, we would randomly yell out "OWW!" every few seconds as a new ant chomped on our skin. Not cool. But the walk in general was very good and I could understand 70-80% of what was said. So I'm confident I can translate for Mom when we go on our tour. Mirko paddled us out on a boat once we reached the lagoon and Tono cooked us delicious tilapia from the fish farm. We ate them off palm leaves. It was classy. At night, the three of us ventured into Santa Elena for the internet and to buy some groceries. We had some issues with Spanish vocabulary from Chilean and Bolivian to Guatemalan, but it was all good.

Sunday, the three of us went to Flores to shop and tour the island. And I got engaged! Not quite, but I did buy a pretty jade ring to wear on my ring finger to try to keep people from hitting on me as much. Probably won't make that much of a difference but I like the ring and it can't hurt! So Jeffrey looks like a cheapface with my $15 ring ;) We hung out at the Maya Internacional Hotel to use the internet and hang out. I booked the hotel for Bolivia, even snagging a deal that saves us $110!! Go me. I forgot my bathing suit, so I jumped into the pool fully clothed. Of course, unlike every single other day in this freaking place, the sun didn't come back out after that so I was left shivering in my wet skirt and tank top, haha.

We've been eating most of our meals at restaurants and a few at my place. I taught Mirko how to make tortillas! But all of the food has caused me, in only a few days, to put on a whack of weight. As soon as I saw Luis on Monday, the first thing he said was "Wow, you've put on weight!" That'll make Mom happy when she gets here!

YOUR CALL CANNOT BE COMPLETED
My cell phone is being weird so if you try to call me, it might take a few tries so leave a message if you can since my caller ID doesn't always work for Canadian calls! Texts still seem to work, though. Still the very easy number of (502) 4222-7890.

SPANISH UPDATES
Did you know you can change the language on your keyboard in the Control Panel? Having a Latin American keyboard now has made my life so much better for typing in accents and having the "upside down" question mark and exclamation mark. Very exciting. Just thought I'd share that thought with the world. [Appropriate] Technology rocks.
The language is coming along really well. Now that Carola is here, it should be going even faster. I've been reading the newspaper a lot, talking to people more and more and having an easier and easier time of it. I'm still not close to being fluent, but I understand the majority of what I hear and can communicate pretty well as long as I'm talking to patient people who don't mind terrible grammar. Getting there!

This sounds whiny but, really, I'm doing fine

The puppies are starting to run around and are too cute for words. 5 have been claimed, and I imagine there are going to be a lot of annoyed and disappointed people when they find out. I'm definitely working the "I don't speak Spanish, I have no idea what's going on" angle on that one. I have no interest in making the process anything more than the people who put ribbons on the ones they want first get first dibs. They've all still got another month or so to go living here anyway. Had my first argument in Spanish with a boy today (probably 11 years old-ish) who is determined to get one of the male dogs which have already been claimed. We just went back and forth and he was really pissing me off. I don't have a lot of patience in general and he just kept on me about how he wants them. I tried to explain patiently that other people want them too and they came first so, there's life. He kept pouting and complaining that he wants a male one. Frick. I was really close to asking him to leave but have managed to hold it together. If he attempts to switch the collars around their necks, though, he's out. I'm too tired in general to deal with this crap, especially since I'm giving the frigging things out for free. Having these puppies has been great in terms of meeting the kids here, but it's also been a bit of a headache.

To add to the headache of my day, I was getting grabbed and poked by a guy beside me on the bus. A glare, a slap and then a hard punch in the chest later, he left me alone. But after we got off the bus, he started following me till I ran to a cab, so that sucked. I am confident that people would help me so I'm not really scared but it's unfortunate that I have to feel violated and uncomfortable in this beautiful country.

Today the power is out so I worked at home. Nothing much can happen at the office when the power is out since we have all of these desktop computers that we need for basically everything. Plus it's an excuse to work while lying on my hammock drinking lukewarm limeade and listening to Janis Joplin :)

Starting to go a bit crazy from the bug bites. I haven't slept a full night in a long time because I keep waking up because I'm scratching my legs and feet in my sleep. Ugh. Dave, wanna trade placements for a couple of months? I bathe in Deet, burn mosquito coils and only sleep with my net but they still manage to get me all the time. It's just too awful and hot to wear pants and socks 99% of the time here, so that's not even an option. Bleh.

Mom comes down in 3.5 weeks! I'm so excited. At least one Honduras trip (Ania comes down in less than 2 weeks!!) and a stop in Nicaragua to renew my visa, plus travelling with Shawna at the end...Time has already gone by so quickly -today is my 2 month anniversary of leaving Ottawa!-, I can't imagine how fast it's going to go once I start travelling and getting into my research!

In the process of doing my research proposal right now. It's looking like social capital in former guerrilla fighters is going to be the topic. I think it'll be the perfect balance: a job that focuses on economics and research that focuses on political science. For those of you who aren't familiar, I'm currently working on a specialist degree in International Development Studies. However, that's extremely general as "development" can be about the environment, education, economics, politics, culture, etc etc etc. So I'm also doing a major in political science. I've also been taking economics courses for the equivalent of a minor along the way. So basically, political economy of development is my thing :)

Mirko and Cecilia, two people from CUSO Latin America-Caribbean, are coming down tomorrow morning. I'm excited to meet them after just encountering them via email and telephone. Carola, the new CUSO cooperant, is coming on Thursday. She's not an Anglophone but she did understand an email I sent to her in English, so hopefully between our English, French and Spanish, we should get to know each other! All I know about her is that she's lived in Chile but that's it. So much excitement, haha! I just brought her the rest of the furniture and linens I needed to drop off.

waiting out the rain at the hotel

I'm worried the market and stores will be closed by the time it stops pouring. Normally, rain wouldn't stop me but with my laptop and cheap non-MEC bag...not worth the risk.

Yesterday was Alessandro's last day. He wanted to spend it at a beach in San Miguel, across the lake from Flores, and invited me to come with him. On the bus ride to Santa Elena, he bumped into a little girl that was in his class at the Nuevo Horizonte elementary school two years ago. She had dropped out because her mother felt school was not important for a girl, she needed to learn how to take care of a house. A group from the Cooperative went out to her house in Santa Ana (she was the only non-Horizonte student at the time, now there are several who come to the school) and the mother would not change her mind. She has not returned to the school since. Alessandro, very politely, talked to the girl about how those were great times in school and how she should go to the cooperative to visit the library to borrow books for free. It was obvious he was trying to persuade her to go back but did so without a lot of pressure. Unfortunately the girl is sick and was on the way to the city to go to a doctor. 15 days with a fever, which is obviously very dangerous but her family is extremely poor so until it gets really bad, they don't see doctors. All in all, a very sad situation.

The beach was beautiful. I swam a bit but spent most of the day reading the paper. Despite my best efforts with my sunscreen, I ended up with a burned chest and knees which are driving me nuts at the moment. My first, and hopefully last, Guatemala burn.

After going home, doing some cleaning and reading, and showing the puppies to more child visitors who are now tying ribbons on the ones they're going to take, I went to the house where Alessandro is staying for his good-bye fiesta. We had tilapia from the fish farm, mashed potatoes and tons of tortillas. Oh I love tortillas. Before dinner, I watched the second halves of the Mummy and the Batman with Alicia Silverstone ("Batichica" haha) that were on TV with the family. Chris O'Donnell is so hot. Anyway, after finding out that I love horses, I got an offer from Raoul's son who I'm pretty sure is also Raoul (ack I need to get better with names) to take me horseback riding any weekend I want! Sweet.

Being the big party animal I am, I left at 9pm and was up bright and early today to cram in my cleaning and my internet. Unfortunately it has been pouring rain for the last hour and, of course, I have a lot of laundry hanging in my backyard. Sigh.

Angela gets a life

Mom and I have changed our plans to go to Belize instead of Mexico, which makes a lot more sense. It’s safer and more touristy which is exactly what we’re going for with this trip! (Good food, a pool, margaritas and sightseeing were the basic criteria.) Plus, it’s English, so that’ll make it a even bigger break for me and that way I don’t have to [attempt to] translate everything.

So, I got a life! Thanks to Alesandro, an Italian with a masters in International Human Rights. The Italian government hired him to work here two years ago and he came back to visit and do some research for a week. (Apparently there is almost no information on the genocide/civil war in Italy.) We met at the office, he invited me out for beer and, voila, Angela has a life. Wednesday, he talked to me about his experience here, mostly in English. He didn’t speak any Spanish before coming here and had some really low times missing home, so it was nice to hear from someone who semi-understands what I’m going through now.

Talking to him also confirmed what will probably be my research topic. IDS-ers, be prepared to laugh, I’m prepared to be mocked...Social Capital. Uh huh. La capital social. After complaining about it for two years, I’m seriously considering investing two years of my life to researching and writing about it. I’ll go more into what I’m thinking about doing later on in an entry that people who are easily bored can skip, haha. Fingers crossed I can convince a certain prof to be my supervisor...

He invited me to meet the family that has basically adopted him as their own, so on Thursday I went by for lunch. Jennifer, an Italian who lives at a sister cooperative who I met a few weeks ago through Valentina, her boyfriend, Paolo, and Claudia, a friend who came with Alesandro, were all there as well. It was really nice to hang out with other people in their twenties, drinking beer and eating tortillas, french fries (SO GOOD), guacamole, broccoli and chicken. We hung out with the family and the children (whose names I’ve forgotten because I’m a bad person) who were extremely sweet. They’re very friendly, welcoming people and I plan on going back to talk to them more.

We went to the comedor (small restaurant) for coffee and met up with a couple from Spain who Alesandro randomly met in his travels and invited to the Cooperativa. Then Valentina joined up. It’s a great mix because most of them have a decent grasp of English, so we talk in Spanish but when I lose them or can’t find the right Spanish words, I can switch into English without much of a problem. They’ve been great at not speaking much Italian, although that threw me off for a while at some point because it sounded so similar (to me) to Spanish. (Although now that I’m used to their Spanish accents, I’ve got it down! Ish.) I was so bummed I didn’t understand a whole conversation until I realized they were speaking Italian! Never having been to Europe and having a generally shitty grasp of geography leaves me out of the loop a bit, but all in all, I’m having to contain my excitement at having some semblance of a life.

Right now, I can’t sleep at all –it’s almost 5 am and I’ve given up and decided to pull an all-nighter. We got back around 1:30. We went to a restaurant in Flores where Alesandro played guitar to the waitresses on the balcony, getting us free chicken soup (slightly random) and their attention all night. After dinner, he pulled out the guitar again and the Italians played a show! For hours they sang Italian and Spanish songs and I swear, in all of my former-singer snobbery, it was all amazing. There was a table of Guatemalans and a Filipina (we had a momentary bond) beside us who sang along when they could and danced and clapped through the whole thing. It was a really amazing experience and I had a blast, even though I only managed to join in on one chorus that wasn’t even real words, haha.

So this night was the best I’ve had in Guatemala. Except...after we closed down the restaurant, we went for a walk to the lake. Alesandro and the Spanish guy (the only one whose name I don’t know! Maria’s man??) went swimming in the lake. I sat down on the dock and my phone popped out of my pocket right away! And, of course, it didn’t land in the water where they were swimming but in a nice bed of weeds. And it didn’t float. Thus the early blog update since I had to come back into town to buy a new phone this morning. 3 times this week in Santa Elena...too much! Fortunately phones are cheap here and I only had about $20 of credit on the phone. Meh. Worth it for the night! Plus the Europeans were all very generous and wouldn’t let me pay more than Q20 ($2.60) for my beer. It semi-evens out, haha.

And now, at 5am, lying on my sweet hammock (I’m waiting for a good time to get a picture of my set up. I think I’m going to wait until I have the whole thing complete –I need to buy a fan to aim at the hammock and then I’m ready!), I’m reading an undergrad paper about Nuevo Horizonte. Research is much more fun from a pink hammock :) And now at 5:15, I’ve seen my first Guatemalan sunrise.