The past two weeks were packed full of lots of different things. Yesterday we visited the Foundation of Forensic Anthropology of Guatemala where they are working on exhumation and identification of the over 50,000 people missing from the civil war. It was a very intense experience, packed with a lot of emotion. We saw some remains and while it was extremely hard to see, it is very important to see as well. It´s important to know what happened here. What made the experience even more real is that we had heard the stories of the women from Chichicastenango whose husbands had gone missing. It was a very emotional experience to say the least, that words can´t describe.
However, I had many new and much lighter experiences the past two weeks as well.
Doctors appointment
I went to the doctor on Monday with Vicky and Christy, and it was interesting to say the least. I realized I am not a fan of having doctors appointments translated even though I did have two excellent translaters. for anyone who wants to know¨baso¨ is spleen in spanish. Howver, the highlight of the doctors appointment was the the waiting room watching Animal Planet. It was really touching to watch that young girl conquer her fear of seals at Sea World. Powerful stuff. And then they took it a step further as she attempted to touch seals in the wild. I have to admit I was slightly disappointment that the seals didnt get fed up with the crazy human trying to touch them and attack her...again. Sadly they did not. The moral of this story is really we should be afraid of seals and not sharks in the water. Especially in Guatemala.
Movie night!
Clara and I went with my sister and younger brother to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4. It was actually pretty good. We got McDonalds for dinner and it was the first time for Clara in Guatemala. So naturally she decided to go big instead of go home and get the ¨grande¨ meal. Now when I say she decided to get it, I really mean she said ¨yes¨ to a question she didn´t understand. I, on the other hand, was at the register next to her staring blankly at the worker and eventually saying aqui to the same question. So much better.
The best part of the night by far was when Clara and I realized that some jokes simply don´t translate into Spanish well. In case anyone wanted to know, the joke was ¨I support the missionary´s position.¨ What happened was that Clara and I both laughed pretty hard, but no one else in the theater laughed at all. So either it really didn´t translate or no one thought it was funny. I´m going with the translation issue, but it could go either way really.
San Lucas
On Sunday night my family took me to San Lucas, a smalll town on the way to Antigua. We walked through the market and ate amazing food. When I saw a sign for gringos, naturally I asked my sister what it meant. She promptly pretended to cut off a part of my arm and eat it. This is only one of the several lies she has told me in the brief time I have been here. I´m getting much better at separating the lies from the truth - I wasn´t fooled at all with her gringo comment, north american´s are much too bitter to eat anyway as my brother informed me later - but I did hesistate for a little bit when she told me that it was going to cost me $50 a person to cross the border into El Salvador. But only $20 for Guatemaltecos, of course, because they are just better. That´s when I knew she was joking.
After dinner we went to an overlook where we could see all of Guatemala City, complete with lightning over the mountains in the background. It was nighttime so all I could see was beautiful twinkling lights. Our group has talked a lot about having moments when it really hits you that you´re in a different country and this was one of those for me. It was breathtakingly beautiful - please excuse the cliche - I took pictures but really failed at capturing the awesomeness.
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