So I´ve been in Santiago Atitlan for a little over a week now and it´s been quite interesting. For one, right now the annual Santiago fair is going on which means the town is pretty much hoppin all the time. EVERYTHING is celebrated with fireworks here in Guatemala, and people set them off what seems every ten minutes. Everytime I am forced to fight my innate instinct to duck and cover. There is a giant ferris wheel in the church square that makes me cringe everytime I see the people rocking back and forth on it. Apart from bringing rides and activities, the fair as also brought out a certain type of rather drunk people. Our previous rule of never turning down someone to dance does NOT apply anymore. But the fair has been pretty cool to experience and the crowning ceremony for the Mayan queen of the town was really cool.
For service Melissa and I spend the mornings at a school for children with disabilities which is fun to hang out with the kids but also hard because in addition to a language barrier there´s also a physical or emotional one too. There are about 30 kids and only 4 professors so it can get a little hectic and the disabilities range from a kid with no hands, down syndrome, a little girl whose left side of her body doesnt function properly, and a girl with ¨emotional problems.¨ Whatever that means. So the profs have their hands full. It´s been difficult to get to know the children but we made huge headway when we gave the girls drawings to color. And there is a little boy named Samuelito with down syndrome who always greets me with a hug and a huge smile. If only everyone greeted me this way!
Our daily tasks thus far have included tracing drawings out of a book to make photocopying easier and making sure the boys don´t beat each other up, which is a very realistic possibility. Our first day one kid got full on punched in the ear and responded by kicking the culprit in the leg. The result was two screaming kids and two dumbstruck gringas trying. We finally were able to deduce that no one appeared seriously injured as there was no blood. We also figured out that first day that kid with no hands can be surprisingly mischeavous.
In the afternoons then we work at ADISA, an organization run by adults with varying physical disabilities, almost all in wheelchairs. They make beautiful crafts out of recycled newspaper and they sell online so you should go check it out. They make all sorts of things from bags, to coasters, and jewlery. The workers are great and we basically get to sit in the shade, do crafts, and joke around with them. No so shabby.
And another plus of the fair that I forgot to mention is that we´ve had time off work so we´ve traveled around the lake to San Pedro, La Casa Del Mundo (a famous hotel built into a cliff), and Panajachel. And Friday we almost had a heat stroke after walking in a parade for 4 hours in traditional Mayan clothing - very gorgeous but very hot. Then we went to play soccer with some guys from ADISA. That was a lot of fun because we finally played a competitive game after watching so much of it on tv. We had to work Saturday but that just meant helping give out wheelchairs to kids and elderly people who otherwise wouldn´t be able to get around at all. It was so great to see their faces after getting fitted into their chair. I did manage to shock the mission workers and wheel chair shop owner with my liberalness. The owner was commenting on how the Presbyterian church is now letting homosexuals become pastors and I replied ¨good.¨ Flipped him out. I enjoyed it.
However, the highlight of the week is the reason for the title of the blog, in case you were wondering about that. Melissa and I happened to watch maybe 20 minutes of a Law and Order episode when we heard that line - ¨this isn´t Guatemela, people don´t just go missing.¨ We looked at each other stunned and just laughed for about ten minutes. I wonder if the writer merely picked a small Central American country or if he/she chose Guatemala specifically. Either way the irony is quite something. It reminds me what many people think of smaller, less developed countries such as Guatemala. And the sad truth that there are 50,000 people still missing from the civil war. In any case it was a strange and odd comment for us to hear on tv.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The beautiful Lake Atitlan followed by U.S. Politics
This past weekend we took our last group trip to Lake Atitlan and visited the towns of Santiago, Panajachel, and Panabaj. We spent most of Friday traveling on relatively straight roads and stopped at the CCDA, an organization the helps defend and keep land in the hands of local farmers. They specialize in coffee and have worked really hard to be able to sell their coffee with an organic label. They served us not only the best coffee I´ve ever had, but also hot chocolate (and I mean pure hot chocolate not like Nestle) and banana muffins. So good. We spent the evening in Santiago playing soccer with some little boys (girls vs boys....of course the girls won), and sitting on the top of our hostel watching a lightning storm come in over the volcanoes surrounding the lake. It was absolutely beautiful. I´m going to be spending my service time, starting on Monday, in Santiago and I can´t wait to go back. We also ate great food courtesy of a nice restaurant owner named Pedro or Juan, his name depends on if you ask him or Andrea. Here´s the view from our hostel.
Saturday we had a tour from the organization ANADESA, who took us to the neighboring village of Panabaj and showed us the different places people were martyred in the civil war and where hundreds of people died in the mudslide caused by hurricane Stan and Agitha. It was a very sad to see the vast areas of land where about 400 houses used to be but also great to see the work that ANADESA is doing to help rebuild and support the community. Plus it was a beautiful day, clean fresh air, no rain, and we were surrounded by mountains and volcanoes.
Sunday we took a boat over to Panajachel, which is a bigger, more touristy town. We shopped (I bought more DVDs) but unfortunately it started to downpour so we didn´t spend a whole lot of time in Panajachel. A very long, nauseating as always bus ride and we were back in the city. It was a fun weekend and we got a chance to get to know other Semilla workers Andrea and Alex (whom Andrea loved to call ¨such an idiot¨) who for all given purposes were our wonderful leaders in the absence of Vicki whom we sorely missed =(.
This is our last week for study and it´s been very bittersweet. I´m ready for classes to be over but I don´t want to leave my family or our great CASAS leaders. We had our final exam for Spanish class today and all we have left are presentations which mostly involve cooking food so it´ll be a lot of fun. We had our last ¨visit¨ yesterday and it´s very fitting that it was the U.S. Embassy. First of all it took us 30 minutes for them to even let us into the marble floored, ugly grey block building. Then we were given passes in exchange for our passports and lead into a conference room with skushy (that´s for you Heidi) black chairs. This was a stark contrast to the rooms were were in to listen to the organizations this weekend. Interesting cultural side note - the U.S. Embassy was the first organization that did not offer us coffee or refreshments of any kind. Anyway I´m not sure which part of the presentation was my favorite. Here´s what we learned.....
1. The U.S. single-handedly saved kids in the Middle East from becoming terrorists by teaching them English in a U.S. sponsored program named ¨Yes.¨ Now I´m sure it was just a poor choice of wording, but I quote ¨if they hadn´t been in the Yes program they could have been the terrorist who flew the planes in 9/11¨ We spent a lot of time laughing at the ridiculousness of this statement. Great lets teach them English and bring them to the U.S. to keep them from becoming terrorists......or wait now they can speak English and they know what to do to get into the country...no!!!!!
2. Tax payer dollars are being spent to teach State Department workers languages for 8 months that they don´t even need. At least in Singapore. Of course they speak Spanish! Everyday! They just brought in someone who looked suspiciously like a translator who looked at us and said, ¨well I don´t think you need me for this group.¨
3. The Cultural Affairs office is in charge of bringing U.S. culture to Guatemala, but they couldn´t give us an example of what that is. Unless Gospel Choirs and a Navy Band clarify that for you.
4. It is in fact ILLEGAL for them to bring Guatemalan culture back to the U.S.
5. State Department officers are positioned at any given place for 2-4 years because any longer than that and the person might start actually caring about the country they are living in (heaven forbid) and worse case scenario, maybe even more so than the U.S. (because that would be absolutely terrible). And I´m not exaggerating she honestly said that was the reason for the short tours. That you can see the world on shorter tours.
So take your pick on the best part. For our part it provided us a lot of laughs while we were waiting in the lobby afterwards. So I´m pretty sure we wouldn´t allowed back in even if we wanted to. Ah well. Sorry, I couldn´t take any pictures of the U.S. Embassy. It´s not allowed.
Saturday we had a tour from the organization ANADESA, who took us to the neighboring village of Panabaj and showed us the different places people were martyred in the civil war and where hundreds of people died in the mudslide caused by hurricane Stan and Agitha. It was a very sad to see the vast areas of land where about 400 houses used to be but also great to see the work that ANADESA is doing to help rebuild and support the community. Plus it was a beautiful day, clean fresh air, no rain, and we were surrounded by mountains and volcanoes.
Sunday we took a boat over to Panajachel, which is a bigger, more touristy town. We shopped (I bought more DVDs) but unfortunately it started to downpour so we didn´t spend a whole lot of time in Panajachel. A very long, nauseating as always bus ride and we were back in the city. It was a fun weekend and we got a chance to get to know other Semilla workers Andrea and Alex (whom Andrea loved to call ¨such an idiot¨) who for all given purposes were our wonderful leaders in the absence of Vicki whom we sorely missed =(.
This is our last week for study and it´s been very bittersweet. I´m ready for classes to be over but I don´t want to leave my family or our great CASAS leaders. We had our final exam for Spanish class today and all we have left are presentations which mostly involve cooking food so it´ll be a lot of fun. We had our last ¨visit¨ yesterday and it´s very fitting that it was the U.S. Embassy. First of all it took us 30 minutes for them to even let us into the marble floored, ugly grey block building. Then we were given passes in exchange for our passports and lead into a conference room with skushy (that´s for you Heidi) black chairs. This was a stark contrast to the rooms were were in to listen to the organizations this weekend. Interesting cultural side note - the U.S. Embassy was the first organization that did not offer us coffee or refreshments of any kind. Anyway I´m not sure which part of the presentation was my favorite. Here´s what we learned.....
1. The U.S. single-handedly saved kids in the Middle East from becoming terrorists by teaching them English in a U.S. sponsored program named ¨Yes.¨ Now I´m sure it was just a poor choice of wording, but I quote ¨if they hadn´t been in the Yes program they could have been the terrorist who flew the planes in 9/11¨ We spent a lot of time laughing at the ridiculousness of this statement. Great lets teach them English and bring them to the U.S. to keep them from becoming terrorists......or wait now they can speak English and they know what to do to get into the country...no!!!!!
2. Tax payer dollars are being spent to teach State Department workers languages for 8 months that they don´t even need. At least in Singapore. Of course they speak Spanish! Everyday! They just brought in someone who looked suspiciously like a translator who looked at us and said, ¨well I don´t think you need me for this group.¨
3. The Cultural Affairs office is in charge of bringing U.S. culture to Guatemala, but they couldn´t give us an example of what that is. Unless Gospel Choirs and a Navy Band clarify that for you.
4. It is in fact ILLEGAL for them to bring Guatemalan culture back to the U.S.
5. State Department officers are positioned at any given place for 2-4 years because any longer than that and the person might start actually caring about the country they are living in (heaven forbid) and worse case scenario, maybe even more so than the U.S. (because that would be absolutely terrible). And I´m not exaggerating she honestly said that was the reason for the short tours. That you can see the world on shorter tours.
So take your pick on the best part. For our part it provided us a lot of laughs while we were waiting in the lobby afterwards. So I´m pretty sure we wouldn´t allowed back in even if we wanted to. Ah well. Sorry, I couldn´t take any pictures of the U.S. Embassy. It´s not allowed.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Salvadorian Adventures
This past week CASAS finally let us loose on Central America. We had about five days to travel around raising all sorts of havock as we go. Needless to say we were stoked. No leaders, no rules (they´re more like guidelines anyway), the possibilities were endless! After much discussion (that went sort of like this - so what do you guys want to go? oh I don´t know, somewhere with a beach.- Because that really narrows down the places to go in Central America). We finally decided in a relatively cheap, all-inclusive hotel. I know not very adventurous but we were smart/ scared enough to realize that no leaders also meant no translator to tell us what important information the check in lady is trying to tell me......and it was just easier on, at least my mind.
DIGRESSION
I find it very ironic that most of the waiters responded to us in English, no matter who many times we spoke to them in Spanish. However, it took us a long time to find someone to go through the check in process with me in English and check on was solo espanol. For crying out loud, ordering food is sort of like the one thing we are fantastic at with Spanish, not dealing with how/when/where to check in or out.
And the whole no rules thing, while being a great rule for us, also seems to apply to a lot of drivers here. Honestly the driving here makes me look tame and downright cautious. Our hotel driver almost drove someone off the road, and I´m not using that as a figure of speech, I mean the other car had to swerve off the road, scaring the shit out of Seth and I. However, this extra cost transportation turned out to be a much better option for us, even if it was less adventurous. I am not ashamed and I can honestly say I was 100% okay with driving past a public bus stop where a group of men were sitting with machetes, while I sipped my complimentary apple juice and munched on my flavorless galleto.
So anyway we spent four days in El Salvadorian paradise. The days were packed with swimming, reading, hanging out, falling alseep on the beach, and playing soccer with little kids (the oldest was maybe 10 years old but they cheated by keeping the score wrong and we actually won. just to clarify). The evenings included slightly racist and very permiscuous resort shows that usually involved dancing, and discotecas where we danced with some friendly gentlemen who in no way weirded us out. At all. There was gold tooth guy, Columbian drug lord (suspected) aka Clara´s sugardaddy, and Jaime - Clara´s coulda-woulda-shoulda been latin lover. You might be noticing that Clara´s name pops up here a lot, at least in association with two of these fine fellows. We were all quite popular and there´s nothing like being a gringa in a discoteca to boost your self-esteem. Guys ask you to dance, shower you with compliments (you´re so pretty! you speak spanish really well! etc), and it´s not until they tell you that you´re a fantastic dancer that you start to really question their honesty. Clara on the other hand was extremely popular. Now some superficial people might say it´s her blond hair, blue eyes, and downright dashing good looks, but I´m telling you it´s really just her charming personality.
One of the aforementioned guys, Jaime, took a particular interest in Clara. He spent two hours whooing her and artfully dodged our ¨I´m tired I need a nap¨ by smoothly suggesting that I did in fact look tired and I should probably go take a nap, but Clara really didn´t look tired at all. Long story short Clara played the ¨Seth¨ card and told Jaime that Seth was her boyfriend. Sitting next to her I found this extremely funny as Seth was on the other side of the pool, completely oblivious/not caring at all that some guy was clearly hitting on his ¨girlfriend.¨ However, Clara was quick to explain that the reason they weren´t really talking, didn´t dance at all together last night, Seth clearly didn´t care Jaime was talking to her, was because they had a huge fight. Of course I varified this story, but as Jaime said ¨sometimes love just isn´t right¨ or something elequent like that. As soon as Seth was informed of his role he played it quite convincingly, acting pissed at Clara. I suggested that Clara should slap him, you know just for emphasis, but she didn´t go for it. Eventually Seth distracted him enough with booze and he ended up jumping into the pool, probably not the best idea, and he left the next morning, no harm done.
However, I should mention that we met lots of extremely nice people. Some more gringos, some nice guys from El Salvador who have their own production company. They were at the hotel because they needed to take time to think and ¨refresh their minds.¨
All in all it was great week with a perfect amount of having fun and simply relaxing. Here´s a short list of the highlights that I didn´t mention above.....
- attempting to dig up a ¨small¨ crab that jumped out as all 6 of us were leaning over it. Consequently we screamed, drawing even more attention to ourselves, and a young kid ran past us yelling ¨puchica!¨
- I got pooped on by a bird while we were biking. I mean seriously what are the chances of that happening? There´s a great picture of Elizabeth laughing at me but karma almost got her back when she slipped and barreled into the wallin her attempt to outrun the rain.
- Seth´s jokes. Him and Elizabeth spent several hours on the way back making up diarrhea songs and dead baby jokes. In closing here are the best ones.....
What´s the difference between a dead baby and a trampoline?
- you take your shoes off the jump on a trampoline
What´s the difference between a Corvette and a pile of dead babies?
- Seth doesn´t have a Corvette in his garage.
¨If you´ve eaten Pollo Campero and it´s coming out in barrels....¨
¨If you´ve dranken lots of Gallo and it´s coming out in piles.....¨
DIGRESSION
I find it very ironic that most of the waiters responded to us in English, no matter who many times we spoke to them in Spanish. However, it took us a long time to find someone to go through the check in process with me in English and check on was solo espanol. For crying out loud, ordering food is sort of like the one thing we are fantastic at with Spanish, not dealing with how/when/where to check in or out.
And the whole no rules thing, while being a great rule for us, also seems to apply to a lot of drivers here. Honestly the driving here makes me look tame and downright cautious. Our hotel driver almost drove someone off the road, and I´m not using that as a figure of speech, I mean the other car had to swerve off the road, scaring the shit out of Seth and I. However, this extra cost transportation turned out to be a much better option for us, even if it was less adventurous. I am not ashamed and I can honestly say I was 100% okay with driving past a public bus stop where a group of men were sitting with machetes, while I sipped my complimentary apple juice and munched on my flavorless galleto.
So anyway we spent four days in El Salvadorian paradise. The days were packed with swimming, reading, hanging out, falling alseep on the beach, and playing soccer with little kids (the oldest was maybe 10 years old but they cheated by keeping the score wrong and we actually won. just to clarify). The evenings included slightly racist and very permiscuous resort shows that usually involved dancing, and discotecas where we danced with some friendly gentlemen who in no way weirded us out. At all. There was gold tooth guy, Columbian drug lord (suspected) aka Clara´s sugardaddy, and Jaime - Clara´s coulda-woulda-shoulda been latin lover. You might be noticing that Clara´s name pops up here a lot, at least in association with two of these fine fellows. We were all quite popular and there´s nothing like being a gringa in a discoteca to boost your self-esteem. Guys ask you to dance, shower you with compliments (you´re so pretty! you speak spanish really well! etc), and it´s not until they tell you that you´re a fantastic dancer that you start to really question their honesty. Clara on the other hand was extremely popular. Now some superficial people might say it´s her blond hair, blue eyes, and downright dashing good looks, but I´m telling you it´s really just her charming personality.
One of the aforementioned guys, Jaime, took a particular interest in Clara. He spent two hours whooing her and artfully dodged our ¨I´m tired I need a nap¨ by smoothly suggesting that I did in fact look tired and I should probably go take a nap, but Clara really didn´t look tired at all. Long story short Clara played the ¨Seth¨ card and told Jaime that Seth was her boyfriend. Sitting next to her I found this extremely funny as Seth was on the other side of the pool, completely oblivious/not caring at all that some guy was clearly hitting on his ¨girlfriend.¨ However, Clara was quick to explain that the reason they weren´t really talking, didn´t dance at all together last night, Seth clearly didn´t care Jaime was talking to her, was because they had a huge fight. Of course I varified this story, but as Jaime said ¨sometimes love just isn´t right¨ or something elequent like that. As soon as Seth was informed of his role he played it quite convincingly, acting pissed at Clara. I suggested that Clara should slap him, you know just for emphasis, but she didn´t go for it. Eventually Seth distracted him enough with booze and he ended up jumping into the pool, probably not the best idea, and he left the next morning, no harm done.
However, I should mention that we met lots of extremely nice people. Some more gringos, some nice guys from El Salvador who have their own production company. They were at the hotel because they needed to take time to think and ¨refresh their minds.¨
All in all it was great week with a perfect amount of having fun and simply relaxing. Here´s a short list of the highlights that I didn´t mention above.....
- attempting to dig up a ¨small¨ crab that jumped out as all 6 of us were leaning over it. Consequently we screamed, drawing even more attention to ourselves, and a young kid ran past us yelling ¨puchica!¨
- I got pooped on by a bird while we were biking. I mean seriously what are the chances of that happening? There´s a great picture of Elizabeth laughing at me but karma almost got her back when she slipped and barreled into the wallin her attempt to outrun the rain.
- Seth´s jokes. Him and Elizabeth spent several hours on the way back making up diarrhea songs and dead baby jokes. In closing here are the best ones.....
What´s the difference between a dead baby and a trampoline?
- you take your shoes off the jump on a trampoline
What´s the difference between a Corvette and a pile of dead babies?
- Seth doesn´t have a Corvette in his garage.
¨If you´ve eaten Pollo Campero and it´s coming out in barrels....¨
¨If you´ve dranken lots of Gallo and it´s coming out in piles.....¨
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