Happy Canada Day!

New euphemism:

Instead of saying "#2" (ala Francisco) or any other term for pooping, we're going to call it "feeding the cockroaches". Yup. That's what I've decided. The cockroaches in my outhouse now seem to be awake and active 24/7 (or taking shifts -I wouldn't be surprised either way), hiding when I come into the letrina during the day but running out of their little hiding spots to crawl all over the inside of the toilet as soon as I sit down. Lovely 'eh? Annie moves out on Canada Day and I probably won't have all of my stuff moved until the end of the week, but I'm going to start using her toilet as soon as Tuesday hits because I'm going nuts at my place. UGH. So yeah, "feeding the cockroaches" from now on.

So this week I started getting into the nitty-gritty of my job. I got all of the spreadsheets of data about the loans program since 2005. It's a disaster to say the least. I have at least a month ahead of me of trying to decifer it and calculate basic indicators. It's a little awkward because I'm worried about stepping on the toes of the woman who has been inputting and "keeping track" of the data...but it has to be completely overhauled and I'm going to have to run a training on data organization. Things like making sure account number and names are spelled the same way and that you should use the same name for the same person everytime you record data on them. Here, a lot of people have two first names and two last names. I have discovered that any combination of these four names can be used for the same person. Not to mention that people have guerrilla names that are 100% different from the names they legally have and people use both. Ay ay ay! I'm happy to be busy with the work, though, and it's mostly numbers, names and Excel, so my lack of Spanish isn't holding me back at all except to ask about why certain things are listed the way they are.

Monday was my Canada Day. Tom, one of the students from Western, came back to visit on Sunday night. We had dinner and I invited him and his friend T[h]eresa to to come by for pre-Canada Day dinner and drinks on Monday. The power was out so we ate a veggie omelette and drank Brava by headlamp light. (Headlamp = key) Then we swung by Valentina's and played Uno with some Italians for a few hours. Not really a traditional Canada Day, but I'm really glad I got to have it! My actual Canada Day will likely consist of handing out Canada stickers to kids during the day, and, at night, drinking a beer, listening to Metric and the Barenaked Ladies and reading articles for my research. I party hard.

My boss's birthday was on Tuesday. We aren't particularly close since he doesn't know a word in English but I was walking down the street on my way to Annie's and Luis drove by. He told me to come along to the party, very insistant that I let him buy me a beer. So I hopped in and we drove less than half a metre (no joke) to the tienda right in front of my house. I was the only woman and the only person who was not middle aged, so I was basically ignored. I drank beer and ate chicken sausage, talking to Luis (in English) about his time in the States and about what needs to be done in the cooperative. A little awkward but I timed myself well, I think, and scampered back across the street after two beers and left the men to get drunk with each other.

Bought a bunch of tourist-y stuff! I love the headbands they sell here -now I have 3- and I got a necklace and bracelet on Wednesday made of seeds and wood from the Petén rainforest. Here's a picture that doesn't really show my full tanned-ness but you get the idea and you can check out my new purchases (kind of awkward to show the bracelet in the self portrait)! I don't remember ever having been this tanned in my life, actually. My lips look too light for my face, haha.

Trying to hold out on most my shopping for when Mom gets here...August 8! Her ticket is booked booked booked! Now I just need to figure out our plans in Mexico. On Tuesday or Wednesday I'll head over to Flores. There was a Mexico guidebook up for exchange in CoolBeans which I really should have taken when I was there -hopefully it's still there! I'm going to go through a travel agency to get our bus tickets and hotel, probably. So excited for the visit! It'll be my first opportunity to actually travel. I've only been in this very, boring bubble and I'm eager to get out and see Chiapas, Tikal and maybe Yaxha, if we have time and energy.

If I really want to get rumours started...Gave this child a piece of duct tape which proceeded to tape his mouth up with after playing with Jeffrey's calculator for like 20 minutes. Then he won't onward through the community, selling corn with his duct taped mouth. Oh my...I could hear his muffled voice down the street while people were asking him why he had tape on his mouth "MMMhmmmrrrmmm". Haha. He's 7. I swear I didn't suggest it! I just had duct tape (KEY: people who have not left on placement yet, BUY A BIG ASS ROLL! I've used mine for a million things) on the table because I was fixing a mirror that Joanie had (no, I didn't break the mirror, haha).

Getting into research mode. My lunch times and after work have been filled with reading this week about cooperatives in Guatemala. And that's what I'm going to do now after I get my lunch!

Today, the hotel must have been packed for breakfast before I got here because every single table was dirty. Fortunately, I am now on a first-name basis with waiter Juan who cleared a sweet table with wicker chairs for me on the patio. Woot. Pretty happy because we had a little chat about how busy it was and how I'm living here but I'm from Canada and I completely understood his end of the conversation and he understood my Spanish. Very promising!

I've been reading a few newspapers a week and watched Horton Hears a Who dubbed in Spanish (no subtitles!) this week. I also have Kung Fu Panda which I haven't watched but loaned to Arnulfo and I want to buy a couple more children's movies today. I still have a lot of work to do, especially with the future and subjunctive tenses, but I'm doing pretty well!

More pictures on Facebook!

June 19:

The day started with a headache and ended (well, at 5pm) without ice cream. It was a tragedy, really. Haha. No I'm a little bummed out because Joanie left this morning. And I missed her leaving because I was lying in bed, holding my head and trying to get some more sleep (unsuccessfully) and didn't realize she was going to leave so early! But her flight got cancelled so she had a worse day than I did, lol. Anyway, so she's gone and the house is super quiet. My clothes got drenched in a thunderstorm that came out of nowhere and the tiendas are closed because of it. So that means I'm out of bottled water and, more importantly, the ice cream I was going to reward myself with for getting through the day.

But I actually feel pretty good about the day. Work was frustrating, trying to work with the loans officer, Maritza (the woman I will be bugging for the next month or two to get lots of information about the outstanding loans and records from the past), in Spanish to get application forms written and designed relatively nicely. But once I got them finished at the end of the day, I think they look pretty good. I did most of it after Maritza left so I'll have to show it to her tomorrow...fingers crossed that she thinks they're as nice as I do! It was frustrating but that much more rewarding when I would format something and she would nod enthusiastically that I either understood her or got the point of that section. Woot. I still haven't gone through the entire microcredit manual/regulations document. My translating has not been the quickest. I'll likely be doing that again all day tomorrow and then tackle some more of it on the weekend. I don't mind that it's taking so long, really, because it's giving me time to really learn the vocabulary, spend time around people in the office while working with Arnulfo everyday on my Spanish. I wouldn't be ready to get hardcore into the researching stuff that I'm going to be doing because I just don't have the vocabulary and ability to communicate quickly enough yet.

Anyway, Spanish lesson was great today. Instead of reading out of a storybook that we've been using, Joanie picked up a newspaper for me yesterday, so we read that instead. Much more interesting to read about Latin American Idol (the winner last year was Guatemalan and apparently he's really good) and Obama being 6 percent points ahead of McCain.

Yesterday night was nice. I got to see the puppies (they are ridiculously adorable in a rat-like kind of way...). Oh, and now there are 8! Apparently there are a lot of people who want the puppies, so Annie should be able to get rid of them all. Woot! Played one round of Uno with a couple of boys, Jean Claude and Annie. Then I came home and, after Arnulfo cancelled our English studying session, watched V for Vendetta with Spanish subtitles (um, yeah, very educational...). Pumped to watch the Good Shepherd, which Joanie left with me! Love that movie.

The weekend's looking promising, assuming the electricity is working in Santa Elena on Saturday. I'm planning on being on the internet all day, buying lots of groceries and hopefully getting some new movies. Maybe scoping out the scene in Flores to see if it looks like there are Canadian tourists who are partying next weekend... Sunday is Spanish day! Now that the sound works on my computer, I'm planning on doing a lot of the instructional DVD stuff. I'm hoping I can finally sleep and rest this weekend so my studying is effective.

Have a week and a half until I start the moving process. Joanie decorated a lot so I have a bunch of cool stuff I can bring with me. I have a mirror now, which was strange. I have a lot of freckles, haha. I also have like 4 mosquito nets or something, so if you come to visit, you don't have to bring one! I'm so lucky Joanie and Annie were both here already and are both leaving me stuff. They had to have a lot of work done on their houses and buy lots of stuff for their houses when they got here. The hardest thing I have to do is move furniture from Joanie's to Annie's and maybe get a fan.


June 21
Actually, the day (June 19) actually ended with a cockroach attack. I went into the kitchen around 10 to get water to allergy pills (stupid rainforest plants!!) while on the phone with Jeffrey. Well, there was a cockroach about the size of my middle finger (appropriately enough) on my counter! So I grabbed the Raid Cockroach and sprayed it. Well, instead of killing it as advertised on the container, it jumped at me! If I didn't jump backwards, it would have freaking landed on me. Poor Jeffrey had to listen to me shriek into the phone. Then it ran away.

I went back into bed, finished talking to Jeffrey and then started hearing a buzzing noise. I assumed it was a beetle and shone my flashlight in the direction of the noise. The freaking cockroach had come into my room and was trying to get into the mosquito net! It was flying all over it for about 20 minutes while I followed it with my flashlight (which didn't seem to bother it at all). This was particularly disturbing because it wouldn't have taken much for it to find the flap when it could crawl into my net. Needless to say, it took me hours to fall asleep after that. I managed to go through all of my text messages, rereading and deleting and texting people I figured would be awake.

So, needless to say, yesterday was cleaning day! I swept my house probably 4 times, dumped bleach-filled water on nearly every surface multiple times and mopped the kitchen. This morning, I swept twice more, bleached every surface in the kitchen and dining room and mopped the rest of the main area of the house.

Now I'm sitting on a beautiful covered patio at Maya Internacional Hotel in Santa Elena. It was totally empty from 10:15 until 12:45. Now it's completely full! There's wireless internet that's fast, a pool, a view of (and breeze from!) the lake, clean water and food! And clean, bug-free bathrooms with flush toilets. The luxury! There are also pretty sweet patio chairs out in the sun.

I've gotten through a lot of emails, posted my pictures and talked to Jeffrey on Skype. Now, lunch and then I'll be doing some research for my thesis!

oh and

Coquette had her puppies this morning! 4 of them! So I don´t have to deal with it because Annie´s still here! Wooooot!!

Facebook isn´t working and blogger won´t let me add pictures, so you´ll just have to wait on that one...

Long time no post...

so I forgot to post the last few updates of the blog when I was in town woops! So this is a long one...




June 6 2008

So moving plans changed! I've determined that nothing is definite with CUSO or Nuevo Horizonte so I'm just going with the flow. Now I'm living in Joanie's spare room with a bed from the hotel (my double bed that I've had for the last 3 weeks -woot!). We'll be roomies for the next two weeks. Then she's going back to Canada -9 months early! Yay drama...aaaaanyway. Then Annie leaves on July 1 and I'll move into her place for the last 6.5 months of my placement. Confusing? Yeah, I know. The Western people leave in one week. So in 3 weeks, it's just me and Guatemalans :)

BUT! Arnulfo, one of the guys in the community, got a scholarship from a US university. The first part of it is him going to BC to learn English from January-May then writing his SATs. So he proposed to me on Wednesday that we do a language exchange type thing where he helps me with my Spanish and I help him with his English. AWESOME! I have two Spanish classes left because I missed yesterday and today due to having a stupid cold from hell that has made me lose a lot of sleep. I'll be making those up this week whichever days Luis, the guy in charge of the microfinance/business policy stuff, isn't in. And then Monday night and probably a few more nights this week, I'll be doing my Spanish-English exchange! It's also nice because he's 21 and most of the people our age are married with multiple children. So hanging out and having friends is going to be tough. Having these nightly lessons will at least help me to get to know someone my own age and will give me an excuse to ask lots of questions about the community. His father, Tono, is one of the founding members of the community and extremely respected for his role as a leader of the guerilla movement during the civil war.

Spent today in El Chal where I went with some Western people and Joanie. I tagged along while they went to the internet, gas station to wash the car and get ice cream. I didn't do anything except wait in the car and drink an instant coffee at the gas station, waiting for our trip to the bookstore. Well, needless to say, we all forgot so I didn't end up stocking up on Spanish children's books as planned. Basically a waste of an entire morning.

In the afternoon, the Western girls, Tom, Selvin, Joanie and I all went to Flores. We had lunch in Santa Elena. I had yummy wings, salad and French fries (and 3 delicious Brahvas...mmm). Then the Western girls and I walked to Flores. They bought a bunch of bracelets along the way and then we headed into the hardcore tourist shops along the strip in Flores. I scoped out some purses and I think I found "the one" for me when I get that long awaited first pay cheque -he was easily talked down to 80Q for it, or $10. And it's a sturdy BIG purse, just the way I like 'em! We went into a bunch of shops. These girls are much better barterers than I am, so now I know what prices people are willing to go down to without a big fight so next time I won't be as timid myself. Dini managed to barter some headbands down to 10Q each, so I bought a sweet cream one. It'll be nice to soak up all the sweat on my hairline. SEXY! According to Joanie, the biggest market in Guatemala that's near Guatemala City has way better deals on similar stuff, so I really should hold out to go check that out sometime.

In the end, I wasn't as productive as I wanted to be. I wanted to buy a fan for my room and some groceries but I am happy with my headband, window shopping and eating the end of Amanda's delicious chocolate ice cream cone.

I'm exhausted from being sick --I cough through the night-- and doing a hardcore one-on-one yoga session with Amanda yesterday. She claims she was taking it easy on me. I thought I was going to die. Although I apparently do a killer downward facing dog and have very flexible hamstings. Not much consolation today when my arms, shoulders and bum have been screaming in pain all day!! I do feel great, honestly, and am very glad I brought my yoga mat with me.

This weekend is a huge youth festival that's run annually at the co-operative. Communities from all around the Peten come out to participate and watch youth play soccer. There are dances Saturday and Sunday nights and activities for kids (and beer) throughout the day. Should be interesting! Everything is coming together super last minute. Fortunately, my only involvement is going to be running around doing random tasks that people need through the weekend. I'm really not formally involved in any way, I just offered to come out. So it should be minimally stressful if I can keep myself in the mindset that I'm not responsible for anything!! The #1 thing that I'm not looking forward to is the bathroom situation. As in, there aren't any. For hundreds of people. With dozens of them pounding back Gallos. According to Joanie, this means that the entire community smells like a bathroom during and after the festival. Yum.

June 8 2008

Well, turns out the anticipated beer guzzling didn't actually happen! There were a few drunk people, but it wasn't ridiculous. Most people were just chugging bottled water. Weather was super hot and sunny yesterday. I can't believe how much energy the soccer players had! I was melting while sitting down. I'm not a soccer fan by any means but the people here were SICK!! They were really good. I almost started like the sport. Nuevo Horizonte won their game. They just got into the final against a really amazing team from some other community. I'll be going to watch that momentarily!

The macho culture magically appeared in full force. Some really sketchy guys came out from other communities. They yelled extremely inappropriate things at every woman under 30 that they saw. It was gross. Unfortunately, there were like 15 young women and 200 young men, so the ratios weren't really in our favour.

The kids offset this, though, and were really sweet and fun to play with. I had my first tickle war in years. Spencer and I were trading off because we're old and get tired much more quickly than the little girls who are amused by us.

Yesterday night was what you're really going to want to hear about, though. First, after a sweet dinner (big veggie omelette. mmm) with Joanie and Alba (sp?), a cool woman who works at Santa Rita [a sister cooperative] and La Otra Cooperativa [the fair trade coffee shop/printing place in Flores], a rat ran across the ceiling boards. Then, 15 minutes later, walking to watch a cultural show, I saw my first tarantula. He wasn't too big, about the size of my palm when standing. If you flattened him out (as I'm sure many of you would have), he would be the size of my palm stretched out. Then, dozens of big ass beetles fell out of the sky while were standing around talking to Valentina (Italian woman who teaches at the school). It was like a horror movie. 20 minutes later when Joanie and I came home (they postponed the show until 9 and I was tired from being sick), I went to the outhouse. 20-30 cockroaches, the size of my pinkies, were covering the toilet seat. Most of them slowly walked into the toilet when I flashed light on them but two of them would not move from the edge of the seat. Needless to say, I didn't go. According to Annie, since her outhouse has a light and is only around 8 months old, she doesn't have cockroaches. She's seen one in 8 months. So if anyone wants to come visit me, you're welcome to (please please do!), but you might want to wait until July when I get the cockroach-free bathroom.

So going to the bathroom today was a real treat. Thanks to Jeffrey I now have vivid visuals of cockroaches crawling up my butt. So far, it hasn't happened. They do a good job of being invisible during the day. BLEH. (correction 6 days later: they do not do a great job of being invisible during the day. But if I talk really loud, they run back inside the toilet and I can go as quickly as humanly possible without having them crawl on me. So I talk to freaking cockroaches while I do my business. Lovely 'eh? So far I've been doing it in English, which I think might be a bit more intimidating.)

Had two pila showers with buckets so far. And so far so good! I don't mind it at all. The water's actually a bit warmer than the water that comes out of the showers here, so I prefer it.

Anyway, off to go watch the game. Hasta luego!




June 9 2008

At work. Can't really do anything. I'm trying to remind myself that things move slower here and I have to be patient (Annie's been good at reminding me, too) but it's tough, especially reading about all the cool stuff that my peers are doing in their countries! Guys, I'm jealous!! I have to wait for Luis to come in to figure out where he is on the business plan for the microcredit project. I really can't do anything without him unless someone here feels like spending forever trying to explain how things work to me as I frantically look up words in a dictionary. Unfortunately, people here actually have jobs and work to do, so I wait. The Guatemalan way of not telling anyone where you're going or when you're coming is rough on my Canadian type-A personality. Now in my fourth week, I'm really itching to start showing these people how hard I work!!

Honestly, I'm just getting kind of bored. My sound randomly came on my computer when I turned it on today but won't play music. I'm hoping my computer is fixing itself so I can start watching movies and listening to music. I'm going to be super bored when the Western people, Joanie and Annie leave!! Less than 3 weeks left. I have a feeling I'll need to be visiting Ania pretty soon after she gets here for the sake of my sanity. (Addition 6 days later: I'm so glad my mother is coming in August. She sent me a picture of herself after she did a 1/2 marathon -because she is awesome- and I've put it up to remind myself that it's just two months until I have her to hang out with!! Mexico won't know what hit it! I love having the excuse of needing to renew my visa. It's not a vacation, it's just following the law! Woot.)

Really hoping I get paid this week. My boarding passes and contract finally got in to CUSO last Friday. I feel like such a bum in my clothes. The worst dressed in the cooperative award goes to...yeah. Not representing the modelling industry very well here in my cotton scarves and Old Navy t-shirts that are stretched beyond belief. Although I still proudly strut around in my spandex MEC shorts and Sens t-shirt, even though it means I'm dressed like a 10 year old boy.

(Fútbol update: Nuevo Horizonte lost to this amazing team of jerks. They were soooooo good. I don't think I've ever seen people run so fast in person. But they kicked a ball at us on the sidelines, swearing and yelling crap about gringos. 4 yellow cards got pulled out pretty quickly on that one...No one actually fought, though. The way they cry when they knock into each other or almost knock into each other, I imagine there would be quite the production of faked agony if anyone even nudged anyone else in a brawl. Spencer suggested we throw them into a rugby game. I added that we should make them listen to bagpipes while playing because that's the only music that might sort of compare to the AWFUL ranchero/polka crap that was blaring all weekend. I have yet to meet a non-Guatemalan who thinks it's remotely pleasing to the ears.)

My English has come in handy a little bit here. Being the only native English speaker has been a bit helpful. I helped Jose Luis, Annie's fiance, write out some sample answers for a phone interview he has with a company in Australia. I fixed a lot of mistakes in the Spanish textbook they use at my Spanish school (they have English translations on the side which are TERRIBLE. Some words were entirely made up, sentences were extremely grammatically incorrect and some translations were waaaay off.). I fixed some wording for signs in the hotel. And people just like practicing their English in general. Hopefully I can keep milking that to get people to talk to me, haha. (Addition 6 days later: I now know there's a need for teaching Spanish to the children, at the very least, and possibly some adults as well. I edited Jose Luis's resume and checked over the wording for the English garbage can labels --remember, public garbage cans are not a given in the rest of the world! Annie's got a basura project going now with brightly decorated garbage cans that are going to be put up around the community. I'm the only native English speaker that has been here for an extended period of time in a while and I know I need to use that to help the community as much as possible. I really don't have a ton of skills in terms of microfinance and business but I would say that I do have a lot of expertise on reading, writing and speaking English! Teaching on the other hand...I need to get some resources on that because it's a complicated and often illogical language that we speak!!)

Some of the most exciting news of the weekend: Edward, a professor from Chicago, comes here regularly. We talked for a while yesterday morning. He's a Spanish and Economics prof. He had some great information and I'm hoping I can get some help from him once I narrow down my thesis. He's a really cool guy and I'm so glad I met him! He was asking me about my stomach and how that's doing. I told him I was in week 4 and have yet to be sick. He was surprised for a moment until he remembered I was Canadian. "You took that Dukoral stuff, didn't you?" Apparently they can't get it in the States (and Annie had never heard of it, so maybe it's an English-Canada thing) and he finds that it makes a huge difference. He brought 10 students down last year and all but one got sick. Go Dukoral!

I probably have a parasite or something by now but it's not bothering me yet!





June 13

I HAVE STUFF
The students from Western are now gone. Hola, if you're reading this! I got to raid their stuff last night, scoring a stack of yoga magazines, a book (Amanda is awesome both because she is from Ottawa/Carp and she gives me reading material) and a nearly full stick of AfterBite. Jackpot! As bummed as I am about them leaving (I have no idea when I'll next hear a Canadian English accent in person! *cough* Francisco or Ania come visit me *cough*), it's fun to raid. Joanie's leaving this sweet chair that hangs from the ceiling. It's kind of like a hammock...but a chair. It's in one of the pictures I posted a while ago, anyway. It's awesome. I'll also be pulling a Francisco and raiding her furniture and dishes (which is mostly CUSO's property anyway so technically I'm supposed to be taking it). In Canada, I have tons of dishes and kitchen stuff (as the plethora of people who helped me move things can attest to...thanks guys!) so even with the dishes of Joanie and Annie (who has 3 people living at her house), I'll probably be buying more things. A pitcher to make fresh limeade is one of the first things on the list.

But I won't be needing to buy a vegetable peeler, if they even make them here, because I got my care package from mi madre! Y mi abuela/Grandmaman. I was pretty bummed out on Wednesday. I just had one of those mornings where I wake up and really miss Jeffrey and this trip seems like it's going to stretch on forever. It was taking me forever to translate this document into English. (After 2 extra Spanish classes this week, I think I will be much quicker next week.) But the weather was PERFECT, as in ridiculous sun (I got a mega tan [and freckles!] despite my SPF 30 so I absolutely 100% blend in as long as I don't dress like a tourist --hat, sunglasses, hiking boots, camera and/or khaki [especially cargo] shorts) but not a lot of humidity. Tiana texted me in Spanish, suggesting I eat hot dogs for lunch. And then I got my box! A stack of much needed tank tops, vegetable peeler, USB on a lanyard with a hockey player and puck pattern, more rechargeable batteries (I now have no excuse to not take pictures), PJs from Grandmaman and cards from my mother and her mother :) The USB key means that I can update this blog a lot more easily, save other people's blog entries and copy bunches of news and work info! (Today, I ended up with 42 pages. Awesome. Go Ovechkin 'eh! And I want opinions on the new Sens coach, people!!) It was like Christmas. Just hot and sunny. And with more bugs. And no other people at home. I also busted open a letter from Tiana that she wrote for me for those days when I feel crappy (she gave me a whole box!) which was lovely.

ALL IS NOT PERFECT IN THE JUNGLE
Feeling much better now despite being nervous about my work situation. Not particularly eager to blog about it at the moment, but if you would like to know more about it, feel free to email me personally. I'm going to be trying very hard to be productive while I'm here and accommodate the culture of the community but it could be hard to keep the socialist ideals of the cooperative in mind when there are other forces at play in how the office will operate from now on. That's basically all I have to say about that for the moment. Even if things don't work out the way I want, I want to be helpful and teach some English classes, which the people of the community are really eager to do, finish up a bit of what Joanie needs done to spruce up the "hotels", and do a kick ass research assignment. I haven't narrowed down a topic yet, but the idea of cooperative models is an obvious one since there are so many cooperatives that have been attempted in Guatemala and so few "successes". It would be an opportunity to use my political science background while work will give me opportunities to experience first-hand the economics/business side of things.

BUT I CAN DEAL
Ken MacDonald at UofT suggested we get our thesis proposals in by the second week in July. That's looking pretty doable. Assuming I get paid this week (1 month and counting...), going to spend some time next weekend (after Joanie is gone, tear*) hanging out at this hotel, Maya International, that has a pool and wireless internet in their restaurant. As long as you buy a meal, they don't care if you stay there all day. And they have a flush toilet that doesn't have cockroaches all over it. I'd like to go straight after breakfast and spend some time on my laptop (fingers crossed the humidity hasn't killed my wireless card -I haven't used the internet on this since I've been in the country!) looking up as many articles as possible about cooperatives, cooperatives in Latin America and cooperatives in Guatemala. I don't want to end up doing something that's already been done! That way I have lots of time to start looking for other options (I have a huge list of ideas in my journal) if I figure out that it's a topic that's been overdone. Edward (the prof from Chicago) will be a great resource for that, too! Sounds like Leslie and I are in the same boat on the one.

Done with the Spanish classes! My teacher this week (for two days) was really awesome. He was happy because he didn't have to go through a lot of stuff, just refine some things, correct my word choices and incorrect tenses. We always understood each other, even if it took a bit of rewording. He knows direct translations of a lot of words into English, too, so that came in handy a few times (although he can't speak it at all really in terms of forming sentences and having a conversation). I'm still having nightly lessons with Arnulfo which are going really well. We read stories that are in English on one side of the page and Spanish on the other outloud, then we talk about the words we don't recognize or understand and how things are pronounced. And, being me, I start random conversations about things that are pretty boring just for the sake of talking. I imagine I'll be talking a lot more for a lot longer after Joanie goes just to have company!!

TRAGEDY STRIKES AGAIN
So the book exchange was wonderful except I got "The Pilot's Wife" which I could not put down. What's wrong with that? you ask. Well, it's MISSING THE MIDDLE 30 PAGES!! And the book looks totally normal. 30 pages! I was so sad. I was so into it, reading late into the night and then early this morning on the microbus when I realized the sentence I had just started wasn't ending properly. If you've read it, you'd know it's very intriguing with lots of suspense. Especially around page 184. Where I am. Grrrrr. So now I'm going to bug Alonzo (reading this??) to see if he gets it online with his online book subscription...Sigh. I know I have a hard life 'eh?

AT LEAST I'M NOT SICK
Still haven't been sick, really, although I was extremely nauseous yesterday. Almost barfed in a restaurant. As in, head between my knees, sweating and breathing heavily while trying (HA!) to not make a scene. The waitress was so nice and I felt so bad for making her worry. Bought a bucket with a lid so I can have it beside my bed in case I start puking (also doubles as the night time pee bucket, like you wanted to know). When I got home, I found out that Joanie had been super nauseous all day and a bunch of the people of Western had been puking a couple of days before. Lovely. Joanie's been dizzy all day. She's been lying in bed since like 6pm. I hope that 20-30 minutes of being on the verge of being sick in the restaurant is all I'll get of this virus thing. I didn't help things by eating some wheat crackers during a break at school and having fried (because I was too lazy to explain that I hate fried chicken unlike everyone else in this city and the only options for instructions for food are really chicken or beef) chicken. So it might have just been that and not even a virus. Amazing how being in a different country makes you overanalyse your health 'eh? Right Francisco?

I'm really pumped to hit the one month mark on Monday so I can really celebrate having one month without being sick (sick = diarrhea). Maybe I'll have a glass of pila (outdoor clothes washing/dish washing/body washing/miscellaneous washing sink) water to celebrate ;) Haha, or not. More than likely, I will just eat delicious guacamole like I do almost every day. Mmm. (Best tomato free guacamole in the world: avocado, onion, lime juice, curry powder. No joke. Don't be stingey on the lime juice. Ideally, the lime will have come from a tree in your backyard, but I suppose a grocery store lime could suffice.)



June 17

Not looking forward to moving in two weeks (I think I'm going to do it in increments) but looking forward to living in Annie's house that has her "pila room" (not really sure if it can be called a bathroom since the outhouse is somewhere else) attached to the building, a light in the outhouse and a fridge that doesn't freeze everything. What luxury! Haha. Plus I'll have dogs to keep me company. Although the boy tried to bite me the other day, so I might have to work on him. (All of the dogs in the coop get their shots so I'm not too stressed.)

Yesterday, the sound randomly started working on my computer! So I've been listening to music non-stop and checked the DVD player. Woot! So it's kind of a good thing that I haven't been paid yet because I would have bought a portable DVD player already. Can't wait to stock up on movies. I copied all of Joanie's music (3G worth -glad Mom sent me a 4G USB!) onto my computer since I hardly had any after my external hard drive died. Fortunately, she has good taste -think Jeffrey road trip music (well, Ania, Erin, T and Jeffrey know what that is anyway). Email me music! angelafcruz@gmail.com (T: Across the Universe soundtrack? For some reason it's not on my computer anymore -I guess I just put it on the external hard drive :( )

We had a pizza party at Annie's house on Sunday. She bought these little pizza kits (pretty much exactly like the lunchables pizza things minus the cheese) and José Luis made me dough out of Maseca, maiz flour that I use to make tortillas. They were pretty interesting considering we had almost no cheese and my pizza was cheeseless. Good, though. I got shrimp for the first time in a month! Yum.

Sunday was actually a pretty fun day. Joanie and I spent the morning painting and washing paint off the floor from previous painters (okay that wasn't fun. We used bleach which requires a LOT of scrubbing to get paint off cement. I have scrapes on my hands and my back is still sore). BUT Toni (I think...She's from Barcelona and was here to work two years ago. Then she fell in love with a guy from the cooperative and now she lives here), her man (I'm so bad with names...) and Valentina (the Italian woman who teaches at the school) interrupted our painting to offer us a ride to this sweet river. It was awesome. The water was perfect, the rapids were really great and there were protruding rocks, so I lay down on a rock, drying out in the sun, and then swam back. There were thousands of snails all over the rocks everywhere. I think they would have bothered me when I first got here, but I was indifferent, trying not to cut my feet on them.

31 new pictures up on Facebook!

Moving Time!

In an internet café in Flores that is waaaay faster than in Santa Elena. And I can write onto my CD so tonight I´ll finally get to read everyone else´s blogs! Woot. Sorry to the people who tried to call me --ran out of credit last night.

Day 19 – June 3

Moving time! I'm going to be moving on Saturday into Annie's house. She's going to move into her extra room (they're adding a door) and I'm going to take over the “master bedroom” that was hers. The cooperative has so many tourists coming that they need my room ASAP and since I'll be moving into that house at the end of the month, we figured I might as well ease myself into it. They have quite the system for keeping things really clean and neat so I'll have time to get used to that. The house is so wonderful and the outhouse is actually not bad as far as outhouses go. Annie, Jean Claude and Annie's fiancé (whose name I forgot the moment he told me and repeated it) are all super nice and sweet so it should be nice to live with them.

When I was walking to an ATM yesterday in Santa Elena in between my two buses, I bumped into Annie's fiancé who I hadn't formally met yet. I didn't recognize him immediately but he called out my name a couple of times and I went over to talk to him. He's a 6'3” guy and most of the Guatemalan men are around my height so I figured out who is was pretty quickly. He walked me to the ATM which I appreciated since I took out the equivalent of the average monthly wage here to last me a few weeks. I haven't been to Flores, the nice town nearby, so he suggested I go with him to get a tour. I'm sure I won't remember where anything is but I tagged along for the 20 minute walk there, ate some good chicken tacos and scoped out “Cool Beans”, the gringo hot spot for coffee and book exchanges! I'm going to go back tomorrow to hang out there; we only peeked in the door.

He was picking up laundry that they brought to the laundromat since it was so wet that nothing would dry here. 30Q for one load (washing and drying)! His hiking bag full of clothes took 3 machines (although I think we both suspect that it was probably 2). So it costs the same as doing laundry at UTSC. Doing it by hand and having clothes that smell like dampness (and are a bit damp sometimes...) is worth it to not pay UTSC prices for freaking laundry. I'm sure I'll cave and get it done soon, especially when I'm wearing jeans and sweaters which take forever to wash and dry, but that price is unbelievable.

But they can do it in Flores because it's the “land of gringos”. Few Guatemalans could afford to spend 90Q on a week's worth of laundry! In a month, that's nearly half of their total incomes. I saw more white people than I've seen in 3 weeks! Literally almost every single customer everywhere was white. So yeah, it is a lot nicer and cleaner than Santa Elena but it's all tourists! A lot of shop signs were only in English. Very weird. It's nice because it also has postcards (yeah, yeah, I'll get on sending those -send me your addresses so I can mail them to you!), local crafts/jewellery (beautiful beautiful beautiful and most of it isn't flashy –I would look more local, actually) and apparently fast internet (We'll see when I try to post this.) but it creeps me out at the same time. It's like this fake little town for white people. The thought that some people will only really stay there and think they've been to Guatemala is sad to me. It's like thinking Disney World is what the States is like. Strange.

The rain finally stopped today. 11 families were evacuated from Santa Ana on the weekend and the papers on Monday said that 50 more were getting ready to go if the rains continued. It was ridiculous! People who have dirt floors really got it bad. At least an inch of water in their houses. In the hotel and in Joanie and Annie's houses there are cement floors that were poured probably two inches thick and the water never got that high, thank goodness.

Doing my best to update more frequently at the request of mi madre! Text me! No clue how but Tiana, Jessica and Jeffrey have managed it, so bug them for how. I have like no one's phone numbers because they're all saved in my phone that's at Jeffrey's, so send me your numbers or text me first! As Jessica said the other day, “It doesn't feel like you are that far away, just a text message!” Technology rocks.

Except for my computer which no longer has sound and was being really crazy last night, telling me that I had nothing to boot up. I think the humidity is really screwing with it. It was so humid on the weekend that the pages of my journal, which was on my desk in my room, were soggy. Poor computer. Everyone cross your fingers that she makes it through the year. Cross your toes that she makes it through my fifth year, too!

I'll try to update again soon, Mom!

(P.S. From now on I'm going to post my pictures on Facebook because that seems to go a lot faster than Blogger. I'll toss the odd one up here, but try my Facebook first! I put some up of the waterfalls yesterday. I keep forgetting to take pictures –the only reason I remembered to take some of the waterfalls is because I was talking to Lynn Hodgins on the phone and she told me I should! Jeffrey keeps nagging me, though, so I should get better...)

I can´t believe it´s June already!

DON'T FORGET TO CHANGE YOUR CALENDARS TO JUNIO! AND THOSE OF YOU AT UTSC, PLEASE CHANGE ANY ACCESSIBLE CALENDARS FOR ME SINCE I CAN'T DO IT MYSELF. >end OCD rant<

Day 16 – May 31

It's been a week since I've updated and the week flew by so quickly I can't believe it.

Venturing into Santa Elena, Solo
Last Saturday was my adventure to Santa Elena by myself. I wanted to get to know the city a bit better on my own so I can know where things are. Just following people around doesn't help me at all (random fact: when I first learned how to drive, I'd been dating James for two years. I had no idea how to drive to his house because I just sat in cars being driven there and back, not paying attention!) and the lack of street signs mean that the map in my guide book is essentially useless.

The bus was surprisingly empty for once (i.e. People weren't sitting on each other or standing in the van). Good start to the day. I walked around for a while, finding the post office, store that has school supplies/envelopes, local grocery store and the internet cafe. I spent some time in the cafe but the internet wasn't really cooperating that day, so I left after 40 minutes of having it freeze over and over again while trying to get pictures off my CD. I made my way over to the market. There are a lot of stalls with fruits and veggies. I went back to the largest one where I had been with Joanie that week. I bought a week's worth of veggies (i.e. A big ass bagful) for 17Q ($2!!). Very exciting.

Then there was a dust storm. I'm sure I was quite a sight with my skirt flying everywhere, trying desperately to hold it down. Most people were running to shelter, while I pathetically stood on the side of the street, covered from head to toe in dirt (which stuck wonderfully to all of the sweat that I'd been covered in 24/7 for the first week I was here), hoping for a bus to come by. Mercifully, one pulled up and I yelled out “Nuevo Horizonte?” and the driver nodded, pulling me into the front seat. I was grateful for the front seat because then I have a seatbelt (to make it really obvious that I'm a foreigner). The driver was really nice and patient, dealing with my broken Spanish and asking me about Canada. After a while, I realized we were back exactly where he'd picked me up. He had been picking people up and dropping them off in this circle.

It was totally sketch -the front windshield was so cracked I couldn't believe it didn't cave in and he had to pull over at one point because he ran out of gas and filled the tank with gas from an Orange Crush bottle that had been rolling around the floor at my feet. While the van was running. Yeah. After like 15 minutes, he pulled over and asked where Nuevo Horizonte was. I had no idea what he meant since it's a common place on the route from Poptun to Santa Elena. No one had asked in my 4 other trips on buses where it is. I wrote down the address and explained that it was in Santa Ana. He looked at me quizzically. I tried calling Annie a few times but her phone was off. He started driving around again, picking up more people and dropping them off within Santa Elena.

Finally, I got a hold of Annie who talked to him. Apparently, beyond the tuk tuk little taxis, there are also vans (one row of seats smaller than the mini-buses but otherwise looking exactly the same) which are taxis, NOT minibuses. He offered to drive me to the cooperative for 160Q (vs the 10 that it costs to take the bus) and Annie emphasized to me on the phone to be assertive and not let him take me anywhere except the terminal and to not be pushed around about how much to pay him. He wanted to debate with me but, now over half an hour into this ridiculous trip, I just kept saying “terminal, terminal, terminal, terminal” and he took me straight there. I paid him 10Q, double what the trip would have cost if he just taxied me there. I didn't really lose him any money on the trip since he was picking people up along the way but I didn't feel right giving him 5Q after being in his van for 40 minutes. Joanie confirmed when I vented to her that night that she thought 10Q was the perfect amount to keep him happy but not be ripped off. He seemed happy with the whole arrangement, anyway.

We crossed paths with the microbus as we pulled in. The guy working on the bus (there's a driver and a guy/boy that leans out the window yelling the bus route, opens and closes the side door and collects fares) helped me out of the van-taxi and into the bus. Maybe thirty seconds later, I realized I'd left all of my groceries on the floor of the van-taxi.

So what did I achieve last Saturday? Buying a Super Lime-Lemon (cheap Sprite) was basically the only thing that I did that was “productive” and it cost more than it would have at the cooperative. No regrets, of course, since it provided entertainment to the group from Western, Jeffrey (well maybe not entertainment to him because I called him from the bus on my way back when I was all bummed about it and not finding it funny yet), and now hopefully you.

Las Catteratas
Sunday was my favourite day here so far. The Western group was taking youth from the community to las catteratas (waterfalls) that are a little over an hour away so I tagged along. It was exactly what I needed in a number of ways. Mainly, the relief from the heat was great. I even jumped off a crude diving board that I normally would be too scared to jump off of. I didn't attempt jumping off the top of the waterfall. (Tom mentioned to me later that there was big rock a foot away from where he landed when he jumped -i.e. He could have broken his legs if he didn't push off enough- so I'm happy with my decision.) The water was the exact perfect temperature for me, although the Guatemalans were finding it too chilly for their liking.

After swimming, I helped prepare lunch for a bit, having really basic conversations with some of the people in Spanish, translating a few things for a couple of the Western people. I actually had cucumbers taken away from me since my peeling skills with knives have not improved since I was in the Dominican 4 years ago...The woman was sweet about it, asking me to chop them instead, but it was pretty obvious she was trying to get me to stop butchering our salad. Dane, one of the Western guys, has worked at a lot of restaurants, so she was enjoying his knife skills and I was relegated to his assistant. Worked for me! Eventually, it was obvious that my help wasn't needed anymore, so I went with some of the other girls to hang out with some of the Guatemalan guys at a table. By end of the week, my Spanish had improved a lot and I got to use my new skills doing a bit of translating and trying to figure out this card game called “Ears” that they were trying to teach us. We sort of figured it out except the part about how you win, which is probably pretty important. I still managed to win, even though based on our logic we were pretty sure Monique had won...It was fun anyway and I got to practice a bunch of my Spanish.

I got the hockey update from Ron Hodgins, trash talked the Penguins fans for a while and had a Gallo (Guatemalan beer that I think tastes like water but most of the Canadians and Americans I've met like it). Lunch was delicious BBQed chicken, salad and tortillas. It started to pour rain during lunch so instead of staying for another few hours, we headed back. We had rented a van and a truck, so most people piled into the van. I wanted fresh air for my lungs (asthma + rainforest = uncomfortable to say the least) so I sat on the bed of the truck with Tom, Spencer (Western guys) and half a dozen youth. It was pretty chilly but Spencer and I were digging the change in temperature. Tom and the Guatemalans were shivering like crazy. I did have goosebumps but I definitely wasn't shivering, basking in finally feeling cold! It was awesome. I busted out my sweater for the first time and got to wear my jeans again.

Week 2
This past week has been great. I've been doing the hour and 45 minute commute to San Andres every day for Spanish lessons, which is a bit of a ride but I don't mind it. San Andres isn't as hot because it's on the lake and I'm really enjoying that. Plus, there are no mosquitoes! I like coming home to Santa Ana, especially since San Andres has so many volunteers that are the stereotypical American volunteers that think they're being just so helpful by constructing a school. Okay, I'm being cynical –they do bring in a lot of money to help the economy and having schools is better than not having schools. But the ones that I've spoken to, generally, are very self involved and pleased with themselves for sacrificing so much to be here for two weeks moving bricks. One volunteer that I met on Monday actually had the audacity to say, “It's like they're not even TRYING to speak out language” only a breath after saying that she knew no Spanish and hadn't learned any before she came. Fortunately my microbus pulled up right after she said that and I escaped to Santa Elena.

Development Tourists
Being in San Andres and Nuevo Horizonte has given me an opportunity to witness a lot of the “development tourist” behaviour that we (IDS-ers) hear so much about. A lot of the volunteers walk around in their bikinis with towels wrapped around their waists in town, which the locals find totally disrespectful. I'm torn myself about whether the economic benefits they get from them (yeah, I know I'm not really exempt from this...humour me) is really worth it. Beer drinking, for instance, makes the tienda (convenience store) owners happy since they make a lot of money off it. But I don't know how I feel about spending as much as people make in a week every couple of days on beer. When people are here to “live like locals” and learn from them about their reality, getting drunk all the time, wearing mini shorts, listening to your iPod and spending a lot of money...I don't know. Just something that's been on my mind lately. At the same time, I do have my digital camera, laptop and a headlamp (the children find it very entertaining). I buy meat and fruit. My Canadian passport and salary obviously set me apart, just trying to draw lines for my comfort zone at the moment. I won't be supporting the community with my beer drinking habits, anyway! Annie told me about the disapproval in the community when a group from the States came and the girls were known to get drunk all the time. I'll have the odd Gallo but really trying to avoid the borracha reputation...

Blending In
Okay, a couple more updates to end this now 3 page long entry! (I think I'm beating Leslie for blog entry length!) I've become a little skinny-mini in just two weeks. I checked out of curiosity and my hips and waist are both an inch smaller than when I left. I walk so much my calves bulge and hurt (it's awesome), was sweating like crazy and haven't eaten cheese or peppermint patties since I got here, which I think explains that. The sweating has pretty much stopped altogether this week, though. I've been hot maybe twice this past week and it was only really because I was speed walking. Because of the rains, it's cooled down a lot. I've been sporting my sweater and jeans for the past few days! Thursday was funny because I was the only person in a sweater and the only woman in long pants that I saw -and I'm the Canadian!!

I've been mistaken for a Guatemalan pretty frequently this past week. I'm more tanned but more importantly (I think), I walk with the confidence that comes from commuting everyday, I've managed to get my serious “I'm-ignoring-all-of-you” face down when I walk through the bustling market with aggressive vendors everyday in Santa Elena and I'm not sweating! Strangely enough, foreigners can tell I'm a foreigner but Guatemalans (at least in Santa Elena and Santa Ana where there aren't many tourists/volunteers) assume that I'm one of them. My features, being half Filipino and European/Canadian, are very similar to those of the ladino population (mixed indigenous and European descent who make up around half of the population) so I blend in quite nicely. I usually see a few ladinos everyday that are actually whiter than I am! One of the girls at the coop that has some European ancestry has blond streaks that just naturally grow in her hair. It's pretty cool. As long as I don't talk, I blend! Although it isn't a guarantee of security, it does make me feel safer.

Poor Me
My external harddrive was killed by the TSA after they moved things in my luggage so I have no movies except the V for Vendetta Jeffrey talked me into throwing into my bag. Joanie had a bunch of movies she didn't want anymore, so I got a few, some in English, some in Spanish. (She also gave me all of her English books since I've motored through almost all of mine. She rocks!!) If you care to illegally copy some of your DVDs/burn downloads, please mail them to me marked “for educational purposes”. (P.S. For people that want to send me mail, and I hope there are some of you, don't bother paying for faster mailing or whatever since, I've been told, it doesn't make a difference.) I also lost the vast majority of my music, but Salvan (TA with Western) gave me his MP3 player to charge so I'm stealing lots that way :)

Now that I've hit page 4, I should probably wrap it up. It's been raining for the last 48 straight, basically. Most of the time it's been pouring like crazy. This sucks because I haven't been able to do laundry since it's been raining in the evenings when I get back from school. Everything is damp because of the humidity –my towel from last night is still wet, even though it's been hanging inside for almost 24 hours. I'm hoping the rain lets up soon mostly so I can just have clean clothes! Jeffrey suggested I put things in the dryer. Thanks, baybah.

Graduation Party Complete with Frogs
Stayed in San Andres Thursday night for the “graduation party” for the people finishing Spanish classes this week. The people at the school are really cool. There's a guy who did relief work in Sudan for the last couple of years but now wants to switch to doing development work in Latin America, a woman who is going to work with migrant workers in Belize, Americans who want to become “bilingual” (I love how bilingual to them is English and Spanish) and a guy from St Catharines (who hasn't been to Welland, sorry T) who I hung out with most of the week. Everyone except Kate, a teacher from Wisconsin, Amanda, who is going to Belize and is a PhD student at the University of South Florida and I were leaving.

Everyone else was having dinner with their host families before the party, so I walked to San Jose, 20 minutes there and about 40 minutes back because the path was so steep, to get cash. It started to downpour on my way back, so I thought the party might be cancelled. I waited at the corner where you have to go to get to the restaurant, my clothing completely soaked with sweat and rain, my backpack with my Spanish notes and clothing getting rained on and cheap rubber flipflops full of mud. I waited for maybe 15 minutes and when no one walked by, I walked down the very steep path 20 minutes to get to the house where I was supposed to be staying. No one was home. So I walked up the almost vertical hill in my soaked flipflops with hundreds, no exaggeration, of frogs everywhere. I had to watch that I didn't step on them because they were everywhere. It was like something out of the Bible.

When I made it to the bar, it turned out two of the guys were early and then everyone else got there just after me, so I barely missed everyone. One of the guys got me a towel since I was completely drenched. Fortunately, my MEC daybag that came attached to my big ass backpack didn't let in any water! I couldn't believe it since the material on the outside was totally saturated. Woot! Thanks Mom!

The party was nice, just hanging out and talking with the other students. I know it's probably not the best situation for my Spanish but speaking to other people about what I'm doing here has been really therapeutic. I was just hanging out with Steph, one of the girls from Western, talking for over 3 hours. I'm fortunate to have people here I can compare experiences with and discuss different parts of development and culture shock with. Talking to Steph about the community, which she's been much more familiar with than me since the group has been here a lot more than I have and have been eating with families here for most of the their meals, has given me a different perspective and opened my eyes to things I haven't been aware of. Hopefully once my Spanish improves I can make friends in the community but with girls here having children in their early teens and people who know that I'm just another temporary worker, it could be rough. We'll see! Annie and Joanie are less social than I am, I think, so I'm hoping with my personality I'll be able to hang out with people here :)

Congratulations if you made it to the end of these 4 long pages! It's hard to update now that I feel like this is my life and I'm just kind of living it. I've sucked at keeping my journal because now I'm keeping myself busy studying and reading. But once I get started, I guess I can't stop! Thanks so much to everyone who's keeping up on my adventure. It really means a lot that people care enough to read about what I'm doing. Love, Ange.