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 :)