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.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
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.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
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!
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!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, July 11, 2008
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
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
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
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.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
check out http://summercamp08.wordpress.com!
Blog I highly recommend checking out: Summer Camp 2008. My friend Andrea, who works for GuluWalk, and her friend Laura are living in an internally displaced persons camp in northern Uganda for the month of July to raise awareness about IDPs around the world. They rock! And it's nice to hear other cockroach-in-bathroom stories...http://summercamp08.wordpress.com
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So Sunday mornings begin here by dragging myself out of bed earlier than I want to clean the letrina (outhouse). Then, breakfast and LAUNDRY. I try to get laundry done during the week but with reading for research and having the flu, I got a bit behind. Laundry, especially washing sheets, is no easy task in Guatemala. Tons of water is involved in soaking and rinsing. And this week, I stupidly decided to try out a sample of fabric softener (which I don't even use in Canada) on my big ass blanket. Okay, so washing a big ass blanket by hand is a brutal task within itself. Working with fabric softener basically means washing it twice. Very stupid idea. Then, I broke the clothes line that had my whites on it by trying to hang my very heavy blanket on it. Sigh. How people here can do laundry for an entire family is beyond me.
Then, I wash the floors of the house. The kitchen floor was so dirty, I ended up rinsing it down with bleach and water 4 times before I was satisfied. And I'm not a clean freak. Next comes garbage burning. By this point, my eyes are cloudy with sweat and my clothes are drenched. I made the mistake of wearing glasses last week and they were covered in sweat and kept sliding off my face. Not doing that again. This week, I had to empty the freezer at Joanie's that finally almost totally defrosted after two days of being unplugged. It managed to leak all over the house, so I ended up mopping that house, too, and burning all of my garbage that I had left there.
Was visited by LouLou, a 13 year old boy, while eating my lunch and recruited him to cut down the grass/plants at Joanie's place. Some places are literally taller than I am and it's extremely embarassing. I would feel way to guilty letting the new person move in with 6 feet of grass (when grass here is typically the same length as in Canada...) and it'll help my reputation because I know people have been whispering about the grass. I went by to visit my old neighbour Miguel Angel who explained that you can spray this fumigation stuff on the grass so it won't grow for another 5 months, which seemed a bit sketchy...Considering investing in a machete to try to cut my own grass, just so I have something else to complain about with my Sunday routine :D Although I'll probably end up chopping off a limb in the process. I think the kids would get a kick out of watching the Canadian girl trying to cut her grass.
When I got home, three boys from next door who are usually playing Annie's old Uno game outside of my gate, came by. They fully enjoyed my Canada stickers and they watched me put up pictures on my bedroom door. I told them who people were and they made the rounds of my house checking out my Ottawa postcards. The idea of the canal is just too much. I bought a postcard of the canal frozen and one of it in the fall where you can see boats on it, so I tried to explain how half of the year (well, maybe before global warming...) it's frozen and the other half it's just like a regular lake. Blew them away. Brenda, another girl, came by later in the day and was really fascinated at the idea of having snow everywhere. She was really thrown off about how we would walk anywhere. I don't think she believes me that we move the snow out of the way to make paths. She checked out my pictures and commented that Ania is just so beautiful and Brendan (my brother) looks like a handsome guy on one of the popular soap operas here. So there you go. I'd guess she's around 12 and was really great to talk to. She was patient, repeated things and asked me questions. The boys (except for Audelio, who visits me daily and is the sweetest 7 year old ever. He taught me how to play futbol on my cellphone and likes playing pinball on my computer) have all been pretty reserved or talk among themselves. They don't really try to talk to me much or figure out what I'm talking about if they don't understand me the first time. (I'm not really popular because they like nerdy Canadian girls who don't speak Spanish well. They're just coming because they want to know if the puppies are ready to be given away. I'm giving them another week because they're still feeding off of Coquette. But don't tell anyone because I enjoy all of these visits.)
Very glad I brought my stickers and postcards to show of my city! Highly recommend it to the other IDS-ers who have yet to leave. Also having a postcard of the canal and pictures of me with my friends on it was pretty neat for them, too. I didn't bring many pictures with me, so I'm going to get a bunch more printed next weekend.
Reread my CUSO policies and procedures...and of course I just realized that I'm not entitled to any vacation until I've been here for 6 months! So now I get to send an email to my boss and CUSO to beg for 4 days off while my mom's here. I've managed to schedule almost everything for the weekends, but I don't want to leave her sitting at home by herself everyday! My plan is to work 3 of the days she's here, take 4 days off and two of the days I have to be gone for my visa anyway.
Tuesday: Bought a sweet hammock from a sweet man and it was only Q100 without bartering! It´s softer material than I´ve been used to seeing, which I´m hoping is a good thing (as I discovered with my second pair of broken cute flipflops: sometimes there´s a reason that people are using an uglier version). Can´t wait to put it up!
Also, my bartering skills suck and I bought some postcards that I probably could have knocked a few Q off of. After I paid the whole thing in shame, I translated bartering for some British girls who can´t roll their ¨r¨s. Seriously -I can´t barter myself but I can translate for other people?? At least now I know I can get some nice wooden earrings for Q10 cheaper than they normally charge...if I can work myself up to it, haha.
More pictures on Facebook tomorrow because I forgot to put them on my USB! More puppy pictures and pictures of my house during the day :)
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So Sunday mornings begin here by dragging myself out of bed earlier than I want to clean the letrina (outhouse). Then, breakfast and LAUNDRY. I try to get laundry done during the week but with reading for research and having the flu, I got a bit behind. Laundry, especially washing sheets, is no easy task in Guatemala. Tons of water is involved in soaking and rinsing. And this week, I stupidly decided to try out a sample of fabric softener (which I don't even use in Canada) on my big ass blanket. Okay, so washing a big ass blanket by hand is a brutal task within itself. Working with fabric softener basically means washing it twice. Very stupid idea. Then, I broke the clothes line that had my whites on it by trying to hang my very heavy blanket on it. Sigh. How people here can do laundry for an entire family is beyond me.
Then, I wash the floors of the house. The kitchen floor was so dirty, I ended up rinsing it down with bleach and water 4 times before I was satisfied. And I'm not a clean freak. Next comes garbage burning. By this point, my eyes are cloudy with sweat and my clothes are drenched. I made the mistake of wearing glasses last week and they were covered in sweat and kept sliding off my face. Not doing that again. This week, I had to empty the freezer at Joanie's that finally almost totally defrosted after two days of being unplugged. It managed to leak all over the house, so I ended up mopping that house, too, and burning all of my garbage that I had left there.
Was visited by LouLou, a 13 year old boy, while eating my lunch and recruited him to cut down the grass/plants at Joanie's place. Some places are literally taller than I am and it's extremely embarassing. I would feel way to guilty letting the new person move in with 6 feet of grass (when grass here is typically the same length as in Canada...) and it'll help my reputation because I know people have been whispering about the grass. I went by to visit my old neighbour Miguel Angel who explained that you can spray this fumigation stuff on the grass so it won't grow for another 5 months, which seemed a bit sketchy...Considering investing in a machete to try to cut my own grass, just so I have something else to complain about with my Sunday routine :D Although I'll probably end up chopping off a limb in the process. I think the kids would get a kick out of watching the Canadian girl trying to cut her grass.
When I got home, three boys from next door who are usually playing Annie's old Uno game outside of my gate, came by. They fully enjoyed my Canada stickers and they watched me put up pictures on my bedroom door. I told them who people were and they made the rounds of my house checking out my Ottawa postcards. The idea of the canal is just too much. I bought a postcard of the canal frozen and one of it in the fall where you can see boats on it, so I tried to explain how half of the year (well, maybe before global warming...) it's frozen and the other half it's just like a regular lake. Blew them away. Brenda, another girl, came by later in the day and was really fascinated at the idea of having snow everywhere. She was really thrown off about how we would walk anywhere. I don't think she believes me that we move the snow out of the way to make paths. She checked out my pictures and commented that Ania is just so beautiful and Brendan (my brother) looks like a handsome guy on one of the popular soap operas here. So there you go. I'd guess she's around 12 and was really great to talk to. She was patient, repeated things and asked me questions. The boys (except for Audelio, who visits me daily and is the sweetest 7 year old ever. He taught me how to play futbol on my cellphone and likes playing pinball on my computer) have all been pretty reserved or talk among themselves. They don't really try to talk to me much or figure out what I'm talking about if they don't understand me the first time. (I'm not really popular because they like nerdy Canadian girls who don't speak Spanish well. They're just coming because they want to know if the puppies are ready to be given away. I'm giving them another week because they're still feeding off of Coquette. But don't tell anyone because I enjoy all of these visits.)
Very glad I brought my stickers and postcards to show of my city! Highly recommend it to the other IDS-ers who have yet to leave. Also having a postcard of the canal and pictures of me with my friends on it was pretty neat for them, too. I didn't bring many pictures with me, so I'm going to get a bunch more printed next weekend.
Reread my CUSO policies and procedures...and of course I just realized that I'm not entitled to any vacation until I've been here for 6 months! So now I get to send an email to my boss and CUSO to beg for 4 days off while my mom's here. I've managed to schedule almost everything for the weekends, but I don't want to leave her sitting at home by herself everyday! My plan is to work 3 of the days she's here, take 4 days off and two of the days I have to be gone for my visa anyway.
Tuesday: Bought a sweet hammock from a sweet man and it was only Q100 without bartering! It´s softer material than I´ve been used to seeing, which I´m hoping is a good thing (as I discovered with my second pair of broken cute flipflops: sometimes there´s a reason that people are using an uglier version). Can´t wait to put it up!
Also, my bartering skills suck and I bought some postcards that I probably could have knocked a few Q off of. After I paid the whole thing in shame, I translated bartering for some British girls who can´t roll their ¨r¨s. Seriously -I can´t barter myself but I can translate for other people?? At least now I know I can get some nice wooden earrings for Q10 cheaper than they normally charge...if I can work myself up to it, haha.
More pictures on Facebook tomorrow because I forgot to put them on my USB! More puppy pictures and pictures of my house during the day :)
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Long and depressing one -you're warned! (But I feel better now, don't worry!)
Canada Day. I knew it would be a rough day, months ago when I accepted a placement that would have me here for the Stanley Cup finals, Canada Day, the first chunk of Sens and Leafs games, Christmas and New Years. But I didn’t know it would also be the day that Annie, my only fellow Canadian and the only other person who can speak English in the cooperative, would return to Quebec. I didn’t know that it would be the 3rd day in a row where my clothes didn’t dry because it’s been so wet. So instead of my big red and white outfit, as suggested by Shawna, I’m wearing this ridiculous dress that looks like it was made for a child that is still dripping wet.
After my first 4 days here, this is definitely the lowest I’ve felt. I had a migraine yesterday from 1pm until 9, Annie thinks from all of the MSG that was in our work lunch, and had to fight through the pain of that and get the scoop on her house and how it all works for when I move in. (In hindsight, I think it was probably because it was malaria-pill day.) She was mentioning tons of names, tons of people and places I need to know. It was so overwhelming because I really don’t know that many people in the community, I don’t know where people live and even if I did know both of these things, my communication skills are so crappy that it’s a ton of work to get everything organized. I need to move but I don’t know if it’s one of those things I can not be at work for or not. I need to get someone with a truck to help me, but I feel terrible asking people to help me that I don’t even talk to.
Right now, the only thing keeping me from running to the airport and pulling out my credit card (beyond the extreme shame I would feel and the regret I know I would have) is knowing that I got through feeling this low a month and a week ago. And after that low, I couldn’t even remember how bad it felt until yesterday. Knowing that there are days ahead when I won’t be on the verge of tears all the time, will actually forget how shitty I feel right now, and won’t be this desperate to go home is a comfort. And being in this program and knowing that dozens of people before me have felt this way and made it through, went home and learned from the whole thing is also comforting.
I have already learned that I am really not a grassroots type of gal. I figured that before, anyway, but now I’m really starting to understand that I do not belong out here, on the ground, capacity building. I do not have the patience and dealing with the discomfort of living in the South is not for me. Which I also figured before, but a month and a half is really confirming things. I belong in an office with flush toilets, air conditioning and high speed internet, haha.
Having this blog makes things better. The cards and letters (Tiana, Ania, Mom, Grandmaman and Jenna: you women are the BEST) make me smile. I opened a letter this morning from Ania for days like today and she actually told me to stop crying in the letter because she figured I was being a big crybaby as usual. I’m pretty predictable that way.
6 hours later: Well, I got help moving from Luis and some guy from the office whose name I should probably learn. Tono, Arnulfo’s father, came by to tell us that I had to bring the bed and kitchen table (the main stuff we’d moved) back because there’s another CUSO cooperant coming on the 15th! I would probably have been a lot more annoyed than I was if I wasn’t so excited to see another Canadian. Fingers crossed that the person speaks English and is cool. We left everything for the moment and we’re going to move it all when the person gets here. I’m going to put my foot down on the table, though –first dibs! Annie had two plastic tables that he/she can have –I’m laying claim on the nice wooden kitchen table! Haha. I initially was going to take Annie’s room, which is about twice the size of Jean Claude’s room, but changed my mind since Jean Claude’s is MUCH MUCH brighter than Annie’s. And with this state of mind, I’m better off with a small, cheery (they left me very cute, flowery sheets, too!) looking room than a big, dark room. Unfortunately, I decided all of this after making a complicated rope contraption to put up my mosquito net and unpacked most of my things. Oh well.
My plan was to go to Flores as I usually do on Tuesdays to run errands and, today, to seek out people to party with. But a combination of rain and deciding that I would probably really bring down a party or be tempted to drink too much and stay out too late if I DID find anyone (or be even more depressed if I didn’t find anybody) made me stay in the Cooperative. And training (for non-IDS-ers: before going on placement we do a TON of training within our organizations, the government’s Centre for Intercultural Learning, as well as with the school) really did come in handy, making me haul my butt out of my house and come to work. All I want to do is curl up in bed, cry and write all kinds of things in my journal about how sorry I feel for myself. But I grabbed my bag and Canada stickers, and trudged off to work. I think it was the right thing to do.
Feeling a lot better now, though, doing work and counting down the days (39) until Mom gets here. It seems a lot sooner now that I’ve been here more days (46) than I have to wait for her!
July 2 update: Well, part of my exhaustion and being so emotional probably comes from the fever that was coming on. Spent the day at home, in bed mostly, after dealing with chills at work and cancelling my Spanish lesson, with Coquette to keep me company. (She took me out of a big crying meltdown this morning when it hit me that the last time I had a fever was in rez and Jeffrey was taking care of me –smoothies, cold cloths and everything! It was sweet; she walked in and started licking my face and getting me to pet her. Love this dog!) Just watched “Good Luck Chuck” which was as illogical, sexist and offensive as anticipated. Entertaining enough to keep me distracted from being bummed out, though. I just loved the, “I go to Guatemala to help poor families” bit. Nice touch. Then, bored and waiting for phone service to come back on, I just watched “Barbie: Swan Lake” which was even more illogical, sexist and offensive but in Spanish. Watching people that look like the Sims doing ballet is a little odd. (For the record, I only own it because Cinderella and Bambi were on the same, super cheap DVD…) I’m actually glad I watched it since I understood pretty much the whole thing!
Still feeling a bit feverish, but not too bad. Luis came by to check on me today, so it’s been nice to not feel totally alone now that I feel like crap. Good news: not dengue –no pain in the bones! Just a flu :p I keep getting dorky Canadian illnesses!!
July 3: Fed the cockroaches a liquid diet this morning. Now I’m all slowed down with Imodium (woot) but feeling extremely nauseated. No fever, which is great (doing the “it’s not malaria” dance), but still have the chills. Phone service has been out for almost 24 hours now, which really sucks –lucky Jeffrey and Mom don’t get to listen to me whine about how sick and lonely I am and how badly I want to be taken care of. I check nearly every 5 minutes and “Sin servicio” keeps popping up to taunt me. Feeling more at home in this house and so thankful that I moved when I did to the nearly-cockroach free house (although the fire ants are giving me a run for my money). Put up a few postcards of Ottawa (Tulip Festival for Mom’s door!) and decorated my journal, so I’m feeling more settled. Tono came by to see how I was and make sure I’m eating, drinking and taking pills. It was a pleasant encounter and a nice boost that my Spanish got me through, haha.
July 4: And now she feels better. My stomach was still a bit off this morning but boredom drove me to come to work. Lunch was productive –I finally emptied Joanie’s fridge, unplugged the thing, and took her sweet hammock-chair down. It was a bit of a struggle (standing on chairs and dressers bearing my Swiss Army knife –Safety Abroad would not approve, lol) and I was covered in dirt from the beams, but it’s up in my room! It’s pretty sweet. Now I have my little reading chair in my room. Which means my room is super cramped, but I think it’s cool anyway. The rope I used was a bit shorter than is probably recommended so my feet are about a foot off the floor. And the beams over my room are not particularly thick so anyone whose feet can’t touch the floor and is over 110lbs…not a recommended seating area. Maybe I’ll care enough to get a longer rope at some point but probably not.
Next step to really feeling at home: hammock! I haven’t had a hammock since the first week I was at Joanie’s because she packed hers up early to take home. When I texted Tiana while sick yesterday, her response was “hope you’re lying in a hammock!” And I realized that now I have my own place, priority #1 should be hammock shopping! Mom, I promise I will put it up on thick beams. We’ll see how my bartering skills go. The Western people got theirs for Q100 but they bought a few. If I can keep it under Q150 ($18.75), I will not feel like a pathetic Canadian.
After my first 4 days here, this is definitely the lowest I’ve felt. I had a migraine yesterday from 1pm until 9, Annie thinks from all of the MSG that was in our work lunch, and had to fight through the pain of that and get the scoop on her house and how it all works for when I move in. (In hindsight, I think it was probably because it was malaria-pill day.) She was mentioning tons of names, tons of people and places I need to know. It was so overwhelming because I really don’t know that many people in the community, I don’t know where people live and even if I did know both of these things, my communication skills are so crappy that it’s a ton of work to get everything organized. I need to move but I don’t know if it’s one of those things I can not be at work for or not. I need to get someone with a truck to help me, but I feel terrible asking people to help me that I don’t even talk to.
Right now, the only thing keeping me from running to the airport and pulling out my credit card (beyond the extreme shame I would feel and the regret I know I would have) is knowing that I got through feeling this low a month and a week ago. And after that low, I couldn’t even remember how bad it felt until yesterday. Knowing that there are days ahead when I won’t be on the verge of tears all the time, will actually forget how shitty I feel right now, and won’t be this desperate to go home is a comfort. And being in this program and knowing that dozens of people before me have felt this way and made it through, went home and learned from the whole thing is also comforting.
I have already learned that I am really not a grassroots type of gal. I figured that before, anyway, but now I’m really starting to understand that I do not belong out here, on the ground, capacity building. I do not have the patience and dealing with the discomfort of living in the South is not for me. Which I also figured before, but a month and a half is really confirming things. I belong in an office with flush toilets, air conditioning and high speed internet, haha.
Having this blog makes things better. The cards and letters (Tiana, Ania, Mom, Grandmaman and Jenna: you women are the BEST) make me smile. I opened a letter this morning from Ania for days like today and she actually told me to stop crying in the letter because she figured I was being a big crybaby as usual. I’m pretty predictable that way.
6 hours later: Well, I got help moving from Luis and some guy from the office whose name I should probably learn. Tono, Arnulfo’s father, came by to tell us that I had to bring the bed and kitchen table (the main stuff we’d moved) back because there’s another CUSO cooperant coming on the 15th! I would probably have been a lot more annoyed than I was if I wasn’t so excited to see another Canadian. Fingers crossed that the person speaks English and is cool. We left everything for the moment and we’re going to move it all when the person gets here. I’m going to put my foot down on the table, though –first dibs! Annie had two plastic tables that he/she can have –I’m laying claim on the nice wooden kitchen table! Haha. I initially was going to take Annie’s room, which is about twice the size of Jean Claude’s room, but changed my mind since Jean Claude’s is MUCH MUCH brighter than Annie’s. And with this state of mind, I’m better off with a small, cheery (they left me very cute, flowery sheets, too!) looking room than a big, dark room. Unfortunately, I decided all of this after making a complicated rope contraption to put up my mosquito net and unpacked most of my things. Oh well.
My plan was to go to Flores as I usually do on Tuesdays to run errands and, today, to seek out people to party with. But a combination of rain and deciding that I would probably really bring down a party or be tempted to drink too much and stay out too late if I DID find anyone (or be even more depressed if I didn’t find anybody) made me stay in the Cooperative. And training (for non-IDS-ers: before going on placement we do a TON of training within our organizations, the government’s Centre for Intercultural Learning, as well as with the school) really did come in handy, making me haul my butt out of my house and come to work. All I want to do is curl up in bed, cry and write all kinds of things in my journal about how sorry I feel for myself. But I grabbed my bag and Canada stickers, and trudged off to work. I think it was the right thing to do.
Feeling a lot better now, though, doing work and counting down the days (39) until Mom gets here. It seems a lot sooner now that I’ve been here more days (46) than I have to wait for her!
July 2 update: Well, part of my exhaustion and being so emotional probably comes from the fever that was coming on. Spent the day at home, in bed mostly, after dealing with chills at work and cancelling my Spanish lesson, with Coquette to keep me company. (She took me out of a big crying meltdown this morning when it hit me that the last time I had a fever was in rez and Jeffrey was taking care of me –smoothies, cold cloths and everything! It was sweet; she walked in and started licking my face and getting me to pet her. Love this dog!) Just watched “Good Luck Chuck” which was as illogical, sexist and offensive as anticipated. Entertaining enough to keep me distracted from being bummed out, though. I just loved the, “I go to Guatemala to help poor families” bit. Nice touch. Then, bored and waiting for phone service to come back on, I just watched “Barbie: Swan Lake” which was even more illogical, sexist and offensive but in Spanish. Watching people that look like the Sims doing ballet is a little odd. (For the record, I only own it because Cinderella and Bambi were on the same, super cheap DVD…) I’m actually glad I watched it since I understood pretty much the whole thing!
Still feeling a bit feverish, but not too bad. Luis came by to check on me today, so it’s been nice to not feel totally alone now that I feel like crap. Good news: not dengue –no pain in the bones! Just a flu :p I keep getting dorky Canadian illnesses!!
July 3: Fed the cockroaches a liquid diet this morning. Now I’m all slowed down with Imodium (woot) but feeling extremely nauseated. No fever, which is great (doing the “it’s not malaria” dance), but still have the chills. Phone service has been out for almost 24 hours now, which really sucks –lucky Jeffrey and Mom don’t get to listen to me whine about how sick and lonely I am and how badly I want to be taken care of. I check nearly every 5 minutes and “Sin servicio” keeps popping up to taunt me. Feeling more at home in this house and so thankful that I moved when I did to the nearly-cockroach free house (although the fire ants are giving me a run for my money). Put up a few postcards of Ottawa (Tulip Festival for Mom’s door!) and decorated my journal, so I’m feeling more settled. Tono came by to see how I was and make sure I’m eating, drinking and taking pills. It was a pleasant encounter and a nice boost that my Spanish got me through, haha.
July 4: And now she feels better. My stomach was still a bit off this morning but boredom drove me to come to work. Lunch was productive –I finally emptied Joanie’s fridge, unplugged the thing, and took her sweet hammock-chair down. It was a bit of a struggle (standing on chairs and dressers bearing my Swiss Army knife –Safety Abroad would not approve, lol) and I was covered in dirt from the beams, but it’s up in my room! It’s pretty sweet. Now I have my little reading chair in my room. Which means my room is super cramped, but I think it’s cool anyway. The rope I used was a bit shorter than is probably recommended so my feet are about a foot off the floor. And the beams over my room are not particularly thick so anyone whose feet can’t touch the floor and is over 110lbs…not a recommended seating area. Maybe I’ll care enough to get a longer rope at some point but probably not.
Next step to really feeling at home: hammock! I haven’t had a hammock since the first week I was at Joanie’s because she packed hers up early to take home. When I texted Tiana while sick yesterday, her response was “hope you’re lying in a hammock!” And I realized that now I have my own place, priority #1 should be hammock shopping! Mom, I promise I will put it up on thick beams. We’ll see how my bartering skills go. The Western people got theirs for Q100 but they bought a few. If I can keep it under Q150 ($18.75), I will not feel like a pathetic Canadian.
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