Last night
I was visiting my friend Dina and her son Roberto and Dina started showing me
Mayan artifacts that she found here in Santa Maria. Then I started thinking “How the hell did I
get here?” No matter what happens in
Peace Corps, whether I am at a down point or a high point in my service, I am
so lucky to be in Guatemala. Last week I
went to a training and stayed at a hotel with a t.v.(!!) and on the National
Geographic station was a special on the Mayans and they showed a Mayan ceremony
in the mountains of Lago Atitlan. It was
so weird! Life is so unpredictably
wonderful- I never, in my whole life, imagined I would have the opportunity to
live in a place and experience a culture that is in a National Geographic
special!
Anyways,
things have happened since I last wrote!
Projects, I moved houses, earth day, more diarrhea, reforestations,
lots! It’s been so long I almost forgot
what my blog was called. One thing that
I really enjoy is working with one of the women’s groups in town. The president is an older lady named Dona
Lucia and who is missing a lot of teeth and has a leaky house. We have craft time a lot because we learned
how to make bags, earrings, purses, and even baskets out of chip bags together,
and her group is learning as well. They
have improved a lot on earrings and are now experimenting with colors and
beads. The baskets are a mix of the pine
baskets they already make with chains of chip bags woven together. It’s all very exciting! The ladies, however, are very eager to sell
even though a lot of their things aren’t high quality yet. Poco a poco!
They did get a very large order for pine baskets so they have a lot of
work cut out for them! Lucia has a lot
of experience working with Peace Corps volunteers and works extremely hard,
always.
In other
news, it’s rainy season again. Which means
more drying my underwear in the toaster oven!
But, I have to say, rainy season is MILLIONS of times better in my new
house. I don’t have a leaky kitchen, or
mold on my walls to fight, and I have a huge patio where I can hang out and
there are no horses outside- the air is much fresher! I don’t have to be inside in the dark ALL THE
TIME now. I actually spend most of my
time on the patio now. I don’t have a
shower, though, so I take bucket baths and wash my hair in the pila. I’ve gotten used to that though! I also have a much better relationship with
my old host family- my host mom still washes my clothes sometimes, and she
comes over to visit as well. She saw my
tampons in the bathroom and was curious so I even had the pleasure of
explaining how tampons work to her. She
was very perplexed! They do kind of
sound scary when explained in gringa Spanish.
I am also
announcing here that I am training for a half marathon! That way, I have to keep up with the training
schedule so as to not disappoint everyone!
I am still on week one, but it’s exciting because I actually get up early
in the morning (gasp!) to run, which is a really good way to start the
day. Yesterday, however, I made the
mistake of running before the reforestation we did. So I went for the run, came back, bathed, and
then went to the reforestation. Which
meant hiking two hours down to the river and then up the mountain on the other
side, and then hiking back. I was so
tired and sweaty, I could barely move. But
I couldn’t bathe either because there was no water in the pila and water doesn’t
come to the house until 7 at night/7 in the morning for about an hour each
time, so I just drank three cups of water and lay down on my exercise mat to
sleep. I woke up STARVING and had
nothing in the kitchen except an egg and some bread, so I ate that, and then
went and bought some more food and ate that.
Last
Saturday as well, my friend Dina and Roberto came over to give me a German Shepard
puppy. The gesture was really, really
sweet because Dina had actually bought the dog for her son, Roberto, but
Roberto wanted to give her to me because he was worried about me being all by
myself (he’s 6 years old). The cat
however, did not like him and wouldn’t let the dog come near the house which was a
relief, because I am not ready to have a puppy!
Part of the reason Roberto wanted me to have the puppy was that I had a
seizure in March in one of my classes. Ever
since then, all the teachers and students have been super supportive and helped
me explain epilepsy to the other students who didn’t know what happened. It was really weird though- in February, I
went to a Mayan ceremony to celebrate the new year and the priest at the very
end said that someone there was suffering from epilepsy and that they should
talk to him afterwards. I assumed it was
one of the students there at the ceremony, but now I’m not so sure! Definitely gonna listen to any more advice he
gives from now on.
I can’t
believe it’s June. My mind just won’t
let me believe it, and I’m behind on all this work because I keep on thinking I
have more time. But it’s June 5th! I miss June in the States! It always meant summer, no school,
watermelon, hiding out and eating cherry tomatoes in the garden, birthdays, and
vacations. Here June means deadlines,
freakouts about Peace Corps going by too fast (what am I gonna do
afterward?!?!?!?!), flooding, roads getting worse and worse, and preparations
for feria. Speaking of what I’m gonna do
after Peace Corps, any suggestions? I
thought that Peace Corps might help me figure that out, but it’s only made me
more confused. It’s made me realize that
I love living abroad, and that I can do it, but that I really miss family and
friends back home. It’s also made me
realize that I love dancing, the beach, Spanish, Central American food, and
teaching kids outside but NOT in a formal setting.
Okay, well
I guess I should get back to work, but I love and miss everyone at home and
Santa Maria is still waiting in case anyone else wants to come visit!
