El Mercado and Suprise Japanese Food

Since I have been living by myself for a week, I have started cooking for myself (which I love… since this is what I do at home as well) and that means I have started shopping for myself.  As the second biggest city in Guatemala, Xela has two general grocery stores.  However, the best place to get your food ( and the cheapest way) is to go to the market. Xela has four markets, and on certain days the entire city seems to turn into a market as Guatemalan women dressed in blinged out and brilliant colored traditional huipiles sit on every corner with their piles of vegetables, or walk around the plaza shouting manzanas! Frutas! Tres quetzals! with  large baskets full of fruit balanced on top of their heads.

I love going to the market, because not only is it dirt cheap but you can also find any item you could possibly need. Radishes, spices, chicken feet, cow testicles, stools, coffee makers, clothing, electronics, dvds, sweets, lychee, cowboy boots,  and even satin underwear displayed in neat piles next to fresh eggs.

My problem with the market is because I look so blatantly gringa, I am constantly getting ripped off, but since even getting ripped off is super cheap I can never tell when I am getting ripped off. Also, some items are ridiculously cheap – for instance tres quetzales for a pound of tomatoes ( 45 cents) and some items are comparable to US prices ( 6 bucks for a used backpack). I always try to bargain when the price is already fair, and this 12 year old mayan girl in traditional dress just stares at me and shakes her head. And then sometimes I don’t bargain and then later realize that 10 q for a pile of tortillas is twice the normal price.

On the subject of food, I have been treated to a Japanese feast this week because one of  my housemates ( who is Japanese) is leaving and she and all of her Japanese friends have been having dinner and making gigantic amounts of Japanese food. I then proceeded to buy sushi from one of the women, so for dinner yesterday I had miso soup and sushi. Talk about things I wasn’t expecting to eat in Guatemala. 

Laguna Chicabal... more photos

Laguna Chicabal

         Today Kat and I decided to do some hiking, starting with something easier than one of the volcanos – Laguna Chicabal, a crater lake at the top of an extinct volcano which glows green when the sun is on it. We took the bus through San Martin Chile Verde ( there are like four different san martins, why this one’s nickname is chile verde I have no idea) out to a tiny pueblo nestled under the mountains. The driver let us out at the stop for la laguna and we set off.  It is possible to grab a ride with a truck up to the entrance to the hike but we decided to walk.

            After two hours of steep uphill ascent, the landscape had changed from small houses and farms under the sun to clouds so thick at times we could barely see 15 feet ahead.

     Small boys carrying gargantuan loads of wood with their heads, or leading various animals, would emerge out of the mist and gawk at the sweating gringas. One car passed us, but the road was so bad that about 15 minutes later we passed the car and its owners, now attempting to walk to the laguna (the woman in heels). At one point we passed a small boy and his father with their loads of wood and their machetes, and the father stopped and spoke to us. He was definitely not speaking Spanish, so I just said, no hablo Mam (the local mayan tribe) and then he turned to my friend Kat and said in Spanish, What country are you guys from? She does not speak Spanish? As out of the two of us, I am the one who speaks more Spanish, Kat just gestured at me. We had a short conversation with him, but I couldn’t understand much because he kept speaking in mam. Who knows.

            We paid the entrance fee and continued our steep ascent, the air becoming both thinner and cleaner, and the forest more and more thick along with the clouds. I kept expecting to get hit with a blow dart or something for trespassing - Laguna Chicabal is sacred for the local tribes and different rituals are performed there. When we finally got to the lake, we could barely see it for the clouds but they move so quickly that the lake soon cleared off. It is amazingly beautiful and peaceful and I could see why the lake is sacred. Clouds move and transform across the lake, coming down from over the trees and spreading across the water. In the sun it is supposed to be a brilliant blue green but the clouds have another enchantment all their own.

There’s not much else to say for today! We took the bus back. While waiting I saw this.

Now I’m exhausted, and since I can’t charge my computer at the apartment, I’m at Baviera ( a local coffee shop that reminds me of caffe vita in seattle) I hope you all had a wonderful day! 

In a Funk

So I have had a bit of a weird week. I decided that I wanted to move out of the host family’s house after two weeks, mainly because I didn’t really feel like a part of the family and the food was making me a bit sick (unfortunately too much sugar and white carbs makes me sick…. And I have been eating a lot of white rice and sugary coffee).  The mom and the kids were super sweet, but I felt more like I was at a hotel than that I was part of the family. 

            I also started real volunteering this week! Basically I am a volunteer English teacher for fifth and sixth graders in rural schools in the area. I teach at four different schools – La cuchilla (the painful walk school) Llano de Pinal (the 45 minute bus ride on a pot holey country road school) Pacaja (the close school, but I am teaching sixteen year olds) and San Jose, which I missed this week because I spontaneously woke up with an ear ache on Thursday and spent all day wanting to pull a Van Gogh. Proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I also self-medicated with garlic oil, so not only was I in blinding pain, but I smelled. Double whammy.

            I actually like the teaching, and I have learnt that it is best to arrive with a bang and take control… or you have no control. Also in order to maintain confidence, I just pretend that I am not a bare year older than most of the students, and in some cases I suspect much younger ( lets just say most sixth graders don’t have full beards!) The educational system here, especially the public schools, is definitely lacking. A lot of kids start school very late, and not many make it past sixth grade – especially the girls. Hence the seventeen year olds in the sixth grade class. Less than one percent of Guatemalans have the chance to go to university, and less than half of those actually go. Who knows if me arriving at these schools and teaching kids the English word for maiz will make any difference, but at least I am learning something. If not about Guatemala, about how lucky we are in the US to have our dysfunctional underfunded educational system.

            Anyway, so I have had kind of an intense week. I was just thrown into teaching English to forty sixth graders at a time, I was house hunting, and I was super sick. Everyone kept telling me that there was a ton of housing available, but this was not true. Either the hostel didn’t rent per month, or the kitchen was nonexistent, or the place was super expensive and had weird rules (no guests, and if you do have guests, you have to pay) – so I ended up settling for this place that is kind of substandard. The pros are that I have the place to myself, and its slightly cheaper. The cons are that I have the pace to myself, it’s basically outside, the bed is rock-hard, and the light barely works.  I’m not sure how it’s going to go – I only paid for a week so if it ends up being miserable I will resume the househunt next week. Most likely I will go to the weird rules expensive place.

I moved in today and was in a bit of a funk all day because I had a traumatic experience getting to the place. I packed up all my stuff in the way people pack stuff when you know you’re about to unpack it again – ie half my clothes were in a garbage bag. I got a taxi to take me to the residence at the prescribed time. What I hadn’t though about  was that even though I knew the block the residence was on, I had literally no idea which door it was.

I stole this photo off the web, and its Antigua, but just imagine a bunch more doors,more trash, horrible traffic, and people staring at me and its pretty accurate. 

 There were twelve different identical doors on the block, and after the taxi driver dropped me off in all my gringa glory with my garbage bag, suitcase, purse, and backpacking pack – I realized that I was out of minutes on my cell phone. Dragging my suitcase to the three places within walking distance that sold minutes proved that no one had any available. At this point it had been thirty minutes, and I was almost to nervous breakdown. I had started knocking on doors, but after a drunk guy answered one and asked me how old I was ( while muttering rude comments I can unfortunately understand) I gave up on that. Finally I found a pay phone – which only took 25 cent coins. I didn’t have any 25 cent coins. Finally a grandma on the street took pity on me and gave me some, and I finally reached the landlord. When I got in I discovered that the bed was rock hard.

            Let’s just say it was the kind of day to put someone in a funk.

            

I'll leave you with another stolen and accurate photo. I went to the market today and got horribly ripped off, which means paying fifteen bucks for enough food for a week.

My Aching Feet and Pan Therapy

I decided I could eat all the pan I wanted today. “Why?” you may wonder. Did she have a gluten craving? Did she go to a pan festival? Did she throw belly fat caution to the wind? Although these are all valid reasons to eat a bunch of pan, they are not correct. No – today I was tricked into almost walking ten miles in a pair of toms. Uphill ( yes, both ways. You may not think that is feasible but by carefully manipulating the route taken, anything is possible.)

            Let me start at the beginning of this surprise trek. Today Jill ( my coordinator, a distance underestimating Canadian apparently with legs of steel) took me to la cuchilla, which is a school in Zona 9 of Xela. (This was my first clue – I live in zona 1.) She said it was a bit of a walk, but I’m ok with that. I'm working off my pan.  We passed El Nahual ( The community center I’m volunteering with – they also send volunteers to teach English in local middle and elementary schools, which is why I was going to la cuchilla) and I’m like, Ok, not too far now. We keep going. And going. And then we finally turn off the highway, and in the distance on top of a hill I can see a huge Mormon church. Just past the church, says Jill.  She means way past the church.

This is what the mormon temple looks like from the highway.

            I make it through three hours of sixth graders making fun of my accent ( another story) and then I start to head home for lunch. I get a text from Jill – can you go back and teach at la cuchilla again at three? Guess who decided to prove she’s tough and agrees.

            Long story short, I almost fell asleep in the directors office at la cuchilla at 3:30, and on the way home I decided that I didn’t care how long the bus ride was going to be, or how expensive it was. I caught the bus, but it still dropped me a mile from my house. And I just ate four pieces of pan.

            So, almost two round trips to la cuchilla? Turns out, according to Googlemaps, that is 7.8 miles. If I hadn’t taken the bus, it would have been ten. I think Jill is sending me a message about exercise habits. 

p.s. Speaking of long distances, I just bought my tickets for Burma in February! Yay!

pan: too many
new words: too tired to learn things

Las Fuentes Georginas

Hey Guys! Today was a lazy Sunday, so my friend Kat ( A girl I met through the coordinator at El Nahual who is volunteering as a nurse in a local hospital) and I decided to do a little exploring and headed off to a nearby hot springs called Fuentes Georginas. So named because Jorge Ubico and his wife Georgina used to come vacation at the hot springs.

            We were going to take a shuttle from Xela – but when we arrived at the shuttle office at the prescribed time there was no shuttle, and a couple phone calls confirmed that the shuttle was not coming due to a vague problem… ie the driver was probably hungover from the 15^th. So we roughed it and took a local bus, which was  what we should have done in the first place but honestly I’m still a bit nervous about transportation around here. When we arrived at the town of Zunil ( about a 45 minute bus ride from Xela) we paid around six bucks to ride in the back of a truck up the mountain to the hot springs. The ride was gorgeous, passing through farmland up into the jungle – with a view through clouds to the river below.

            The hot springs were a bit crowded because of the holiday weekend, but one of the baths was suspiciously empty. After I had gone in up to my waist I realized this was because it was scalding. I think I lost a layer of skin on my legs. Kat and I found a different pool that was in between boiling and lukewarm, and it was amazing to finally be able to relax in some hot water! On our way out we saw a sign for an ecological trail down to a mayan altar and another “banera” and after asking around a girl in traditional dress told us it was a beautiful three to five minute walk. It was beautiful, but it was no three to five minute walk, and the mayan altar turned out to be a cave. Full of trash. There was also no natural hot spring. The altitude made the climb back up quite a trip! At least I’m exercising off some pan.

            On our way back we explored Zunil, and walked through the local market. We were both exhausted from our spontaneous hike and the hot water and Kat fell asleep on the bus back. This was probably a good thing because about halfway home the bus driver decided to stop the bus and disappear for twenty minutes. My best bet is he went and got lunch.

p.s. I will add photos later! 

new word:  "de alto grado" meaning steep. Something I wish I had understood when asking the mayan girl about the hike. 

Independence Day and Beauty Queens

     Happy Independence Day everyone! I’m sitting in an internet café drinking a surprisingly decent cappucino (usually they just taste like cinnamon milk, but this one has a tinge of coffee to it!) Today is Guatemalan Independence Day, but most of the celebration took place yesterday in the night. There are more free concerts and parades today, but the main craziness was yesterday. Independence day here is not like 4^th of July – here it is a weeklong celebration  involving a travelling carnival, parades full of dressed up school children and bands ( every day!) and free concerts everywhere. There are also the traditional fireworks at midnight on the 14^th. They are set off right in front of the municipal building, less than 15 yards away from a huge throng of people. I have a small burn on my hand from a piece of falling firework.

     Last night ( the 14^th) I went out with the girls from the place I’m volunteering at, and met a bunch of other foreigners who are living in Xela. I’ve been speaking a lot of English… I need to find some Guatemalan friends pronto or my Spanish is going down the drain! We went to one of the concerts and then at midnight returned the parque central in order to see “el grito de independencia”. I was under the impression that the mayor gave a toast and then everyone started screaming. Not exactly… the mayor does give a speech but I couldn’t hear it, and there is no screaming! Apparently everyone who could see the mayor sings the national anthem or something like that but I was nowhere near close enough. The crowds were insane. One thing I did get to see ( though at the time I had no idea what it was) was the carrying of the liberty torch – relay runners carry live torches across Central America to celebrate freedom from the rule of Spain. They ran across the park, and at the time all I thought was “that cannot be safe” and only realized what it was when I researched Guatemalan Independence today!

            Today was pretty tranquilo, I just went to see some more of the parades with one of the girls from work. The parades are pretty entertaining – one of the funniest things is I think they had around 15 different beauty queens, ant that was just in today’s parade. Xela is obsessed with beauty pageants – not only are there the normal beauty pageants, such a “Senorita de Quetzaltenango” and the Maya traditional equivalent (Instead of a sparkly dress and a crown she wears traditional dress and braided hair with ribbons) but there’s also Senorita Deportes, Senorita Deportes del Liceo, Ms. Municipal Company’s Girlfriend, etc. They all walk in the parade – in sky high heels I might add. 

 Both the Guatemalan flag and Quetzaltenango flage being raised in the parque central.

The parque all decorated for the festival!

A view of the big church with the mountains in the background

The parade, with food stalls in the background. 

new word: espeso = strong ( as in coffee or tea)

pan: 1! What self control... although I am about to have dinner

Spanish Class Rants and Invented Words

            I started Spanish classes and volunteering this Monday. This is actually a kind of weird week (or the best week?) to have arrived, because this Saturday is Guatemalan independence day, and the entire week is a feria week – the kids get off school, most everyone has a three day weekend, and there are parades and free concerts every day. Just outside town is the feria, which is basically a huge carnival. I haven’t gone yet, but I should be going this Friday so I’ll report back.

            Every day I go to El Nahual, which is a little community center with classrooms, a garden, and an office, to take Spanish classes in the morning and teach kids English in the afternoon. The Spanish classes are one on one and when I signed up for them I didn’t really think about the fact that they were going to be actual classes, as in there would be worksheets and homework. So basically, since I have now been taking Spanish classes for 12 years and I thought I was finally done with that ( last years Spanish was just goofing off and reading short stories in Spanish) the spansih classes are not especially enjoyable. In fact, I am harboring a great deal of both resentment and sympathy towards the poor woman who keep trying to make me give examples with the verb querer.

On one hand, I am not a particularly willing student… and I straight up refused to do some of the worksheets.. and I haven’t done any of the homework…and on the other hand I am paying her and she has ignored my suggestion to teach me local customs and sayings. Also, about every five minutes she asks me if I am tired ( I don’t know, are you tired?). And asks me rude questions to try and make conversation. No joke, today she straight up asked me – Are your friends gossipy and full of themselves? And then she asked me if people in the US believe in God. Can we please find some kind of middle ground here?

At least they are done on Friday. Thank god. My Spanish isn’t perfect, but I am definitely beyond worksheets.

The volunteering I actually love – the kids are adorable, and super willing to learn. I’m sure later on I will get frustrated with teaching the same things over and over again but for now I’m still in the honeymoon stage.

And for now, I’ll leave you with a photo of a test I gave a little girl about family members. Keep in mind, she was supposed to put the corresponding translation next to the first word ( which I wrote). Then, after her first try ( when she copied all of them except mother) I told her to go study some more and try again. The third word is her second try. Sisro, toto,toyo, and fori, don’t mean anything in spanish at all.

Pieces of pan today: 4

New words: Chompipe = Turkey

Travel Hiccups on the Road to Xela

I arrived in Guatemala from Dallas/Ft Worth – it was pouring and dark when I arrived and I wished I had gotten a flight that arrived earlier! When I got out of the airport it was hectic, with hawkers and men advertising different hotels all yelling. I was supposed to be met by a person from Quetzalroo, but when I looked around no one was there to meet me. I had a moment of freakout, but soon enough a guy with a Quetzalroo sign came and asked if I had a reservation (he was just there advertising)– turned out they had forgotten to pick me up! No harm done someone came and picked me up pronto. At the hostel, I paid for a dorm room but since it was so empty that just meant a larger private room for me with several beds in it!

The next day I was dropped off at the bus terminal, and caught the bus to Xela. However, about an hour into our 4 hour journey the bus started to smell suspiciously of burning rubber, and about twenty minutes after that two old ladies in the back started screaming stop the bus! There was a large amount of smoke coming out of their seats from the back wheel. (At first I thought there was a fire, so bad brakes was a large improvement)We stopped for a couple minutes, then the driver decided to try again despite loud protests from several passengers. Someone was in denial. My four hour journey turned into a six hour journey, and everyone had to get off the bus and wait to flag down various buses on the side of the highway. Several people just decided to flag down camionetas or chicken buses ( local buses – which are just  old, intensely polluting and insanely decorated school buses) but I waited till a pullman or greyhound came along and got on that. As luck would have it the only available seat was next to an older guy who talked my ear off (despite loud music coming from my headphones!) and gave me a monologue about which countries have the most beautiful women. When I finally got to Xela, I took a taxi to my host family’s house ( the taxi driver overcharged me and had no idea where the house was – I had to give him the telephone number so he could call and ask for directions). By the time I got there I was exhausted and extremely happy to be over the most stressful part of my trip.

 So far despite my travel hiccups Guatemalans in general seem friendly and helpful. I start volunteering and Spanish classes (which apparently I need super bad! I forgot how to say fries while ordering at MacDonald’s) on Monday. My host family is super sweet and has two young kids – Diego ( 7) and Fatima (4). I haven’t seen much of much besides from the bus so far, but when I have a chance I’ll explore Xela and give some updates.