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!